Wise Men Still Seek Him

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. He's using all kinds of things to draw you this weekend.

Maybe you just got a general sense that things aren't right in your life. Something is missing. I don't know what it is, but I am bold enough to believe that God has been drawing a bunch of you for some time and you sitting here is the culmination of that process. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and apologist, J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today we're sharing with you a brand new sermon never before aired from Matthew chapter two. It's our first Christmas message as we count down the days to December 25th. Pastor J.D. walks us through one of the most recognizable iconic stories of the season, the coming of the Magi or the wise men to see Jesus. Through the story of these mysterious men, we see several responses to Jesus, curiosity, hostility, indifference, and joy. In fact, these are the same four responses to Jesus that we find today. So are you ready to start focusing our eyes on the manger?

Grab your Bible and let's jump in. We are going to take a quick peek tonight at one of the most recognizable, most iconic stories of Christmas, and that is the coming of the Magi, the wise men. We often refer to them to see Jesus. Honestly, this might be my favorite part of the Christmas story. I always think of it as the seeker's moment in the story. It is for all those of you who simultaneously you feel drawn to the Christmas story, but you also find yourself with a lot of questions like, is it actually true?

And if it is true, then what difference does it make? The story of the wise men begins in Matthew chapter two, verse one. So if you have your Bible, I would invite you to take it out or turn it on and look at Matthew two and you can read along with me. Matthew two, verse one. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who was born the king of the Jews?

For we saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all of Jerusalem with him. Now we don't know much about these wise men. We don't know what their names were and we don't know how many there were. I know most people assume that it was three wise men and that's probably because these wise men gave three gifts and so they assume it was one per person, but the story never says that there were three. In fact, I would say there's plenty of reasons to believe that the group was much larger than three. For one, bands of Magi in those days typically traveled in schools of at least a dozen or more, plus they would have had their families and their servants with them, which would make this a group of 50 people or more. Furthermore, it says in verse three, you might have seen this, Matthew tells us that the presence of these wise men troubled the whole city of Jerusalem. Three guys moseying in on camels are not going to get the attention of an entire city, but a band of 50 traveling foreigners certainly would have. So it is probably safe for us to assume that this was a pretty large group. And I know, I know that messes up your nativity scene because you don't have room for 50 wise men.

So let me go ahead and mess it up a little further while we're at it. Y'all, there is no way the wise men could even have been present at the manger scene. I say that because Matthew tells us that they started their journey from afar when Jesus was born.

And that journey would have taken several months, which means if you want to be accurate, you should put them, you know, not at the manger, put them across the room somewhere to indicate to your children that on the night Jesus was born, they started traveling, then bring them over to the manger scene sometime in June, I guess. You're like, I'm not doing that with my manger scene. That's fine. That's fine. I will not judge you. I promise if I come into your home, I will not say snarky things.

It is just my job to tell you, okay? I heard about some parents at our church who were really concerned about their little, you know, third grade boy who was always getting in trouble at school. And 2021 had been a particularly difficult year. Well, every year he wrote a letter to Santa telling Santa what gifts he wanted and why he deserved to get them. So the parents saw this as an opportunity to make the boy reflect on his behavior.

And so this year they're like, we're going to raise the stakes on him. And so they told him that instead of writing a letter to Santa, they wanted him to write a letter to Jesus, telling Jesus what he wanted and why he deserved it. So the little boy sits down at the kitchen table to write the letter and he writes, dear Jesus, I've been good now for six months. Kind of pondered for a minute and thought, and then he crossed out the word six and wrote three months. I've been good for three months. He reflected again for another second.

He crossed out three months and wrote two weeks. And the parents are like, oh, it's working. It's working. But then the little boy stood up unexpectedly, walked over to the little nativity scene, picked up the image of Mary, came back to the table and wrote, dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again, and continued from there. So some of you are like, look, I got enough problems in my house without you telling me there's too many wise men in my manger scene. Again, that's fine. I'm not judging you.

Like I said, it's just my job to tell you. Okay, let's get back to Matthew chapter two, verse four. Matthew two, verse four, and assembling all the chief priests inscribed to the people. Herod inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And so they told Herod, oh, it's in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by Micah the prophet, Micah chapter five, and you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you're by no means least among the rulers of Judah, even though you're a little tiny backwoods town. You're not going to be least because from you is going to become a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

I want you to notice, right, real quick. I want you to notice that the star that these wise men saw did not get them all the way to Jesus. It got them as far as Jerusalem, but from there they had to consult the scriptures in order to find the rest of the way to Jesus. Verse seven, then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.

Now, kids, I know we got a handful of kids here in here tonight. Does Herod really want to go and worship Jesus? No, no, he does not. He is pretending worship while he is intending murder. You see, historians tell us that Herod, who was the puppet king of Israel at the time, a puppet for Rome, was paranoid about losing his power, like, psychotically paranoid. For example, when Herod was first inaugurated as the king of Israel, he invited all of his family's enemies, all the people he had a grudge against, he invited them to come to a big party as a show of peace. But then when they all got there, he surprised ambushed them and had them all killed in one fell swoop. A few years into Herod's reign, Herod had his wife killed because he thought she was conspiring against him. And then shortly after that, he had all three of his sons killed for the same reason, thought that they were conspiring against him. The Roman Emperor Augustus, Caesar Augustus, said it would be better to be one of Herod's sows than one of his sons, better to be one of his pigs than one of his children.

It's safer. Y'all, listen, when a Roman Caesar is like, dude, you're cruel, right, then you have reached a whole nother level. Herod was known to dress up like a commoner. People couldn't recognize him and go out into the city to see what people were saying about him. And if he found people talking negatively about him, he'd make a note of it. And then later he would send out from his palace, Bruno and his goon squads to go and murder them. Herod was paranoid about losing power. And now you've got the birth of someone who potentially has a legitimate claim to his throne.

So Herod wants this kid killed. Verse nine, after listening to the king, the wise men went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And then going into the house, by the way, see that the wise man went into the house, not a shepherd's stall or a manger. By this point, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are in a little house. They saw there a little child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped at the feet of this child.

They worshiped that child. Then opening their treasure, they offered him gold and frank, offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Gold was a symbol of royalty.

It was the metal of kings. Myrrh was an expensive ointment used for burial. Some of you are like, what is frankincense? I mean, is that like an essential oil or something?

Maybe, I don't know. But in fact, you probably heard about the, it's a weird word. I mean, it's just kind of like frankincense. You've heard about the three kids that were playing the three wise men in the church play. So the first child comes out to the baby Jesus, and he has his gift, and he's like, I bring you gold. And he puts the gift down at Jesus' feet, and the second child sets his gift down and says, I bring you myrrh. And the third little kid comes up sort of with a confused look on his face, and he's like, frank sent this, frank sent this, and puts that down at the feet of Jesus. You're like, is that? No, no, no.

Okay. Frankincense was an incense, frankincense, that was used in ritual sacrifice. Whenever you made an offering, they would use frankincense as a kind of a way to sweeten up the offering.

They gave all three of these gifts to Jesus, verse 12, and then being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. For more information or to give a generous year-end gift, visit us online at jdgreer.com. I think you know by now that we like to provide you with practical resources each month to engage and encourage you in your walk with God.

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Or you can give online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back for the conclusion of today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Now I told you that I like to think of this moment in the Christmas story as the seeker's moment. And here's what it shows you about seeking and finding Jesus.

Two primary things. First, letter A, if you're taking notes, God uses all kinds of things, all kinds of things to draw people to himself. Now, listen, stars are not typically the way that God reveals himself to people.

You understand that, right? In fact, astrology, trying to read signs in the stars, is specifically condemned in the Bible. So why then would God lead these professional astrologers by means of a special star?

Well, there's a fascinating detail in this story that is easy for us to overlook. Remember we saw that it said that the wise men came from the east? That was from the direction, when you say the east, to an Israelite, that meant from the direction of Persia.

Persia was where Israel had been sent into exile 500 years before. You remember from our study of the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's king there in Persia, had placed Daniel and several other young Hebrew captives into, remember where he put them? He put them into the school of the wise men.

And at first these guys were like Daniel's mortal enemies, always trying to get him killed, but eventually Daniel won a bunch of them over. Well, undoubtedly Daniel would have shared with these wise men the writings of Moses, which would have then been passed down from generation to generation of wise men. Well, those writings that these wise men would have studied were filled with prophecies about a coming Messiah, a king, a ruler, a deliverer. And one of those prophecies, in fact, reads like this, Numbers 24. A star will come out of Jacob and a scepter, the symbol of a king, will arise out of Israel. Now, almost every Jewish biblical scholar at the time would have said that star was not meant to be read literally. It meant like a leader like a bright shining star.

That would come out of Israel. But the wise men, who have not been to seminary and were not trained in reading the Bible, they read the verse literally. So when they see a strange star appear over Israel, they say that must be it. What you and I can take away from that, listen, is that God is active everywhere among all peoples, including your life, putting signs into their lives to try and point them to him. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and be bold enough to say that for many of you, if you look at your life tonight, you will see that he has been putting signs like this into your life. Maybe it's been through, let me just speculate, maybe it's been through a string of coincidences that are starting not to feel like coincidences at all. Maybe this invitation to come this weekend to this service is a part of those coincidences. It just seems like God might be trying to get your attention.

Maybe it's been through some blessing that God put into your life, something good, something good that makes you find yourself looking upward into heaven, wanting somebody to thank, knowing that something this good could only come from God. Or maybe it's through some difficult chapter that you've walked through this year. Maybe life has completely fallen apart for you.

You got a bad report from the doctor, or a loved one got a bad report from the doctor, or you've lost your job. Maybe your marriage is breaking up. I know of all kinds of men who come into a place like this sometimes for the first time because their marriage fell apart, and that finally got your attention.

C.S. Lewis used to say that God whispers to us in our pleasures, and he screams at us in our pain. For some of you that are in pain right now, for those of you who feel like your life is chaos, I want to tell you, I want to tell you I want to tell you that God is not mad at you. God is trying to get your attention. He is not trying to pay you back for some sin.

He is trying in love to bring you back to himself. Maybe it's been through your study of biology or science or psychology that you've just started to sense something greater, something wondrous, something beyond the physical that's almost like it's calling to you. I was listening to Elon Musk the other day. He is not a Christian. In fact, I'm not even sure he believes in God, but he said this. He said, the universe is the answer. Now we got to figure out what questions it is teaching us to ask it.

And I thought that's a modern day version of a star. The universe itself, he is saying, is calling out to us. Come and look. Come see what's behind all this.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he said that the reason so many of the characters in his stories came from nature, trees, and animals, and rocks, and so forth. It was to show that God commandeers every element of the universe to accomplish his purposes. He's using all kinds of things to draw you this weekend. Maybe you just got a general sense that things aren't right in your life.

Something is missing. I don't know what it is, but I am bold enough to believe that God has been drawing a bunch of you for some time, and you sitting here is the culmination of that process. I'm not starting a conversation with you.

I'm just the next installment in that conversation. That invitation you got to come tonight, that was not random at all. God has been seeking you. By the way, if you're a Christian here tonight, I would ask you right now just to pray for people around you, that they would listen to the God who is seeking them and is tugging at their heart.

Because I'm telling you, it is happening right now all around you. So first, what you see is that God uses all kinds of things to draw people to himself. Second, you see that the stars by themselves, like I pointed out, are never enough. Like I showed you in that story, the star got them looking in the right direction, but the scriptures had to complete the journey. The stars, so to speak, in your life can point you in the direction of God, but only the scriptures can bring you to Jesus. Y'all, this book, friend, this book, this book, this is the gateway to God, which leads me to an invitation.

And I want to say this in a non-snarky, non-judgmental way. Every Christmas and Easter here at the Summit Church for 20 years now, we see a lot of people migrate into church for this weekend and also again on Easter. Sometimes we joke about them, we call them CEO Christians, Christmas and Easter only Christians. They know God ought to be a part of their lives. And some, when they come on these weekends, they have this powerful emotional experience, but that's where it stops.

This ought to be an invitation for you to search the scriptures because it is in the scriptures Jesus said that you find God. That's why every single week at the Summit Church, you want to know what happens here on the weekend? Every single week consists of somebody, me or somebody else, opening this book and talking about what God says.

That's it. People don't gather here to hear story hour or life lessons from Uncle JD. We don't talk much politics. I try to keep most of my opinions out of this pulpit. Sure, I will slip in a few things about who the greatest actor of our generation is, or I will tell you who I think the best sports teams are, but that's about it.

That's about it. We basically just open this book and we let it, we let him speak to us. So my invitation is come and join us. Come and join us.

Come and join us. The star can get you here, but this is the only place that you're going to find Jesus. Let me wrap this story up by giving you four possible responses that you can have to the stars in your life. Four possible responses when you're in one of these four, I promise.

Number one, hostility. That's the first response. That was Herod's response. Herod tries to eliminate Jesus. He wants to kill him.

Why? Because Jesus represents a rival claim to the throne. Now, we tend to write off Herod as some crazed, murderous lunatic.

But on one level, you understand what Herod did made sense. You cannot have two kings on one throne governing the same people. It is impossible. One of them has to be eliminated if both of them insist on being king. Y'all listen, in the same way, you cannot have two kings in one heart ruling the same person. It is impossible.

One of them will have to be eliminated. So the question is, who governs you? When I was growing up, my Sunday school teacher used to always say, in every heart she would say, there is a throne and a cross. In your heart, there is a throne and a cross. She said, if Jesus is on the throne, that means you must be on the cross. But if you are on the throne, then Jesus is going to have to be on the cross.

So which is it for you? Who is in charge of your life? Who is the king in your heart? You see, you have either surrendered to Jesus as Lord and thus crucified any will that you have outside of his will. Everything in your life is submitted to him now. You have died, so to speak, to your own will and agenda. Or you have rejected Jesus' claim to be king, and you have kept yourself on the throne, which means that the only option is to crucify him. He said, no, I feel like that's a little dramatic.

I'm not really sure I'm in either category. Maybe, yes, I haven't fully surrendered myself to him, but Jesus is a big influence on me. I'm not crucifying him. I mean, I believe in him. I come to church.

I'm a pretty good moral person. But y'all see, that is not an option. When Jesus comes into your life, make no mistake, he comes in as king, and Herod understood that. He comes in as absolute Lord. You're either surrendered to him fully or you reject his claim. It's like we often say, he is either Lord of all or not Lord at all. That's a powerful word from Pastor JD here on Summit Life. If you missed any part of today's teaching, or if you'd like to listen to any part of our entire teaching library, remember you can always do that free of charge, thanks to the generosity of our gospel partners. Pastor JD, our world continues to face heartache and hardship, uncertainty, and it may feel like hope is in short supply, but it doesn't have to be.

Yeah, Molly, that's actually very well said. It seems like we're always entering another year, not knowing what the future holds. I mean, just think back about the beginnings of the last several years and how different they were from what you probably expected.

Why would we think 2024 will be any different? The Christmas season reminds us God is not a Christian. He is a God who is not far off and distant. He's not a God that separates himself from chaos.

He enters it. He wants to be with us. This ministry's purpose has never been just to reach a larger audience year by year or try to gain some kind of following. It's not about likes.

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That's it. That's the kind of gospel impact we get to be a part of sharing with people all around the globe, and we'd love to have you join with us to help expand the reach of this ministry. When you give, ask for a copy of the 2024 Summit Life Planner when you give a generous gift of $35 or more. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or give online at jdgrier.com. If you'd rather mail your donation, our address is jdgrierministries, P.O. Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 277-09. I'm Molly Benovitch inviting you to join us next time as we listen to the second part of today's brand new teaching called Wise Men Still Seek Him. Don't miss it right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.