We Three Kings

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris and Merry Christmas. We pray God's richest blessings over you as you celebrate the greatest gift of all, which is Jesus. Today we're listening to a Christmas message titled We Three Kings, where Pastor Robert tells us about three different kinds of kings. The Joyous Kings, the Jealous King, and the Just King.

Pastor Robert has so much to share with us, so let's tune in with him now. Matthew 2, 1 says, Now after Jesus, can I just get a little Amen from you that that's the king, the real king, the true king of Christmas? After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, we're going to talk about that king as well, behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. So we're going to talk about the wise men, we're going to talk about Herod, and we're going to talk about Jesus.

So if you're taking notes, here's point number one. Point number one, the joyous kings, the joyous kings. Now these are the wise men, they came from Jerusalem, verse one says. Now let's pick it up with verse two, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Notice this phrase, king of the Jews, because Herod picked up on that, by the way. For we've seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him. And then they get the scrolls and they say, well, it's in Bethlehem, and so they leave to go to Bethlehem. Verse nine says, When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star, which they had seen in the east, went before them. I want you to remember this word, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. Let's remember the phrase young child also. I'm going to point out several phrases to you that we'll come back to. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.

We're going to talk about that. And when they'd come into the house, notice it says the house, not the stable, the house. They saw the young child, notice young child, not baby, with Mary his mother, and fell down. Now these two words in English, fell down, or one Greek word we want to talk about later, and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, we're going to talk about that phrase. They presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, then being divinely warned, we're going to talk about this, divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod.

They departed for their own country another way. Now many of us have seen the Nativity or have pictures of it, and it shows, you know, baby Jesus, and Joseph, and Mary, and the sheep, and cattle, and the nice hay, and the shepherds, and the wise men. The only problem is that the wise men weren't there. They were not at the manger scene. Now I'm not saying anything bad about Nativity scenes. I love Nativity scenes. I think they're a great witness.

As a matter of fact, I think we should put them up on all government property, just to let you know my views on that. But the problem is the wise men weren't there. They probably also, they came from about a thousand miles away, a thousand-mile trip from Persia.

It took six to nine months to make the trip. They traveled across the desert. Having been in the Egyptian desert just a few weeks ago, we actually had a sandstorm when we were at the pyramids.

And a sandstorm in Egypt is worse than a sandstorm in Texas or Oklahoma, let me assure you of that. We were covered with sand. It was all in our hair. Debbie pulled out some of the little wet wipes, started wiping her neck, and it was covered on the wet wipe, which at that point she was finished sightseeing and wanted to go to the hotel. So when we got back and got in the shower, it was like you come in from the sand from the beach, and you've got it all over your feet, and you do the little thing where you wash your feet off and all the sand. That's what it was like.

It was all over. So my point is that when they got there, they probably weren't wearing the robes that you saw in the pageant that you went to. They were very dirty, very sandy. They had made this trip, and they were men of science. They studied the stars. They saw an astronomical sign that caused them to prepare for this great journey. They traveled then to witness, to see the King of the Jews. They had probably studied all religions and come to the conclusion that the God of the Jewish people was the true God. And so when they saw this sign, they knew that a Jewish Messiah was going to be born, which would be the Savior of the world.

Otherwise, why would you come then to worship a Jewish Messiah if you didn't have any belief that He might be a Savior of the world? So they travel this long distance, and if you're going to go see the Jewish Messiah, you'd go to the capital city, which would be Jerusalem. So they go to the capital city and say, where is He who's born King of the Jews? Now that phrase, King of the Jews, upset Herod. We'll talk about Herod later, but the Roman Senate in 40 B.C. gave Herod that title. Literally, officially, he became the King of the Jews. So when they said, where is the King of the Jews, the one who's born King of the Jews, that upset him. But they got the Scripture out then, and they said in Bethlehem, we talked about this last week, in Bethlehem of Judea, so they went to Bethlehem.

Now, this is an amazing part of the story we need to focus on for a moment. When they left Jerusalem, it says the star that they had seen in the east went before them until it came and stood over where the child was. Okay, let me just tell you something about stars. Stars don't went. You don't follow a star, and a star doesn't stand over a house.

A star would be much too large and much too far away to do something like that. Here's my personal belief. The first sign that they saw was a natural phenomenon. It was probably, if you go back in science, at the time of Jesus' birth, the planets lined up, and they do that every so many years.

So they lined up, that's probably what they saw. Obviously, God had his hand in that. But the first sign that they saw, the first star was a natural phenomenon. The second was a supernatural phenomenon, and they knew that. As men of science, stars don't move. You don't follow stars, and stars don't stand over a house. It could have been angels.

We don't know. But it is a supernatural phenomenon because they rejoice. They haven't even seen Jesus yet. They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. It is amazing in the Greek language of how phenomenal this rejoicing was.

It was over the top. It could have just said they rejoiced. That would have been enough. But then he goes on to say they rejoiced with joy.

That would have been enough. But they rejoiced with great joy. They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.

It was as if Jason Witten made the winning touchdown. They rejoiced. And what kind of myths me is that we can rejoice today when a touchdown is made or when a 50% off sale comes on. But we can't seem to rejoice at the right moment at the right time, which is in church. It is amazing to me that these guys knew when to rejoice. And it troubles me that at Christmas we don't rejoice more than we do. Or we have to get a little lubricated at the office Christmas party to rejoice and then do something that we regret later on.

The problem is, and if you haven't figured this out by now, let me just let you know the world does not know how to rejoice. Only the church does. And we should let ourselves go for the glory of God sometimes. These were not unintelligent or socially unacceptable men.

These were the wealthy intelligentsia of the day. And yet they let themselves go at the proper time. Would you just do me a favor? Turn to the person beside you and say, for God's sake, let yourself go. For God's sake, let yourself go. And for God's sake, by the way, it's not a cute phrase that I'm employing here.

I'm saying for God's sake, literally for His sake. These men come into the house then, not the stable, but the house where the young child was. And they are overwhelmed. They fell down. They fell down in worship. Now this Greek word for fell down, again, it's one Greek word, but it is very, very rare in the New Testament. The best way to describe it is it's not at all the normal Greek word for bowing. Philippians 2 says, and every knee shall bow. That word simply means bend. Every knee shall bend is what it means. That's not what this means. This word, the best way to describe it to you, it literally means to fall violently and be broken or shattered.

In other words, if I were to go on top of this building and take a very fragile vase and throw it off the building onto the concrete, it would fall violently and it would be broken and it would shatter. That's what happened to these wealthy, brilliant men. When they walked into this house, they were overwhelmed by the glory and the majesty of a young child. They knew they had come into the presence of God. And then it says that they opened their treasures. Now this is different than what they planned to do. It was different than just bringing a gift to a foreign dignitary.

I'm telling you they were overwhelmed in the presence of the king. And they said something like this, go open the treasury. Go get the gold.

And the servant probably said, sir, this is the gift you decided. Shut up. Go get all the gold. Go get the gold. But sir, we will need to be able to go back. God will take care of that. Go get the gold.

Open the treasury. Can I tell you something? When you come into the presence of the king, you'll become an extravagant giver. And if you're not an extravagant giver, you have not had the encounter with Jesus that he wants you to have.

I promise you. Because that's exuberant worship and extravagant giving happens when you come into the presence of the king. And I want to encourage you, if you've never known this joy, it is exceedingly great joy. Think about this. The whole world, the whole world gets a taste of giving at Christmas.

God couldn't have done anything else to get the whole world to do this. And I know that the commercialism that's taken over is horrible. And that's the only thing that people see is making a buck at Christmas.

Obviously, I'm against that. But can you imagine? There's nothing else, nothing else that could have happened that would get the whole world excited about giving. When on Christmas morning, you're not excited about what you're opening. You're excited about what someone else is opening. That you got, that you picked out, that you took the time. You're watching.

You're opening your gift, but you're watching to see what their face is going to do. Let me tell you where that came from. That came from Jesus. It came from Jesus.

It's the miracle of Christmas. So these are the joyous kings. All right, here's number two. All right, if you're taking notes, number two, the jealous king. The jealous king. Now let's read a little about him. Matthew 2 verse 7 says, Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared.

Very important. He determined what time the star appeared. Now let me just go ahead and tell you. He's already planning to take care of this new king. Why else would he want to know what time the star appeared?

Whether it's three months ago or nine months ago. Why does he want to know that? And he sent them to Bethlehem and he said, Go and search carefully for the young child and when you found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. That's a lie.

When you find this child, let me know where he is and then you come back also. Then Herod, when he saw... Look at verse 16. Then Herod, when he saw he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its districts from two years old and under according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Now remember we read a moment ago being divinely warned in a dream.

I said hold on to that because we're going to come back to that. Being divinely warned in a dream, the wise men departed a different way. Let me just tell you a couple of things. Why would the Bible use the word warned?

Here's my personal belief. Herod was not only going to kill Jesus, he was going to kill the witnesses. He said, you make sure you come back to me. But listen very carefully. Once they became givers and worshippers, God protected them.

And he began to direct them. Do you understand? Before they became givers, before they were worshippers and giving is all a part... You can't be a worshiper without being a giver.

And don't tell me you can because I can prove to you you can't. I can show it to you all through Scripture. If you're a worshiper, you're a giver. If you're not a giver, you're not a worshiper. Because it's all through Scripture, worship and giving go together.

Listen, before they gave extravagantly, they had to go to other people to find out what the Bible meant. Where is he? We don't know where he is.

Well, let me get the Bible out and explain to you where he is. They had to have someone else explain the Scriptures to them. After they gave, listen, God spoke directly to them and warned them. Can I tell you something else about God's warnings, God's wisdom? In the wisdom of God, you can outsmart the devil.

By the way, that was better than you thought it was. In the wisdom of God, you can outsmart the devil. You can be one step ahead of him in the wisdom of God. Herod was a bad man. Let me explain some things about Herod in case you're younger here and don't know. Herod is not a fictitious person. History tells us about Herod the Great.

Herod was a bad man. You say, well, why was he called great? Well, I'll tell you why he was called great. He was a great builder. He built things you can see to this day. He built Caesarea, the ancient port city of Caesarea. You can go to the ruins to this day. I've been there.

You can see it. By the way, the reason he named it Caesarea was he named after Caesar because he's trying to manipulate getting good with his boss. He built Caesarea. He built Masada, the finest desert spa ever built. Nothing in Vegas can hold a candle to Masada, nothing, especially for the time that he built it in.

And you can go there to this day, to this day, 2,000 years later, it's still there. And he built, this will surprise you, the third thing he built you can see to this day, he built the western wall or the wailing wall where the Jews pray. He did it as a retaining wall to expand the temple grounds. He did that to try to gain favor with the Jews because he was a manipulator, he was a deceiver, and he was a bad man. He's not a fictitious person. He wasn't like Scrooge or the Grinch. This man lived and this man was violent. He was violent. Five days before he died, he ordered the execution of his son that was the favored son that everyone knew would take his throne. He orders his execution five days before he dies and he knows he's dying.

He knows he's dying. He either exiled or murdered all of his wives, not one. As a matter of fact, in the early part of his lives, he exiled them and the later part of his life, he murdered them. He even murdered his favorite wife. Now, it's amazing to me because all the history even says this, says he murdered his favorite wife. And listen to what it says, although he regretted it later. Oh, that's sweet.

And it's just so sweet. You know, I regretted murdering her. I really liked her. By the way, she was a Jew.

Her name was Miriam. He married her to get favor with the Jews. He expanded the temple grounds, the Western Wall, Wailing Wall, to get favor with Jews. He was always trying to manipulate the people under him and the people over him.

Why? Because he was jealous. Why was he jealous? Can I tell you something? Listen, all jealous people are insecure people.

All jealousy comes from insecurity. He would see servants talking. This is well-known. He saw servants whispering about setting the table he had them killed because he didn't know what they were whispering about.

Now, please hear me. The Herodian spirit is alive and well. The king died, was buried in Palestine. By the way, there are five Herod's in the Bible. So, just so you understand, Herod was a name.

It was passed on. There's Herod the Great, Herod Philip, Herod Antipas, Herod Agrippa I, and Herod Agrippa II. Herod Agrippa II was the one Paul stood before toward the end of his life.

And he said, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. So, Herod Antipas is the one who married Philip's wife. And John the Baptist told him, you know, you're going to go to hell for this because of what you did because he was a murderer to himself. And he's the one that had his wife, Herodias, which was married to Philip.

I'm getting into too much detail, aren't I? That's the one that beheaded John the Baptist. Anyway, there are five Herod's in the Bible. But Herod died. He was a man. But there was a spirit that drove Herod that still drives us today. That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's a Herodian spirit that says, look out for number one. If you don't watch out for number one, no one else will.

I want to contrast that with the spirit of Christ who laid his life down, took up the cross, made himself of no reputation. Listen, there is no, no abundant life without giving up control. As long as you try to maintain control in whatever area you try to maintain control. Let's just go back to giving. You try to maintain control in your finances, you will never experience the blessings of God in your finances.

Never. Whatever area of your life you try to maintain control and don't give it to Jesus, you'll never experience the abundant life in that area. And that's what Herod teaches us. It says when he secretly called the wise men. When he secretly called the wise men.

Let's just for a moment talk about that. Secretly. That's where you know the Herod spirit operates. In the secret areas of our lives. What's the area of your life you don't want anyone to find out about? That's where the Herodian spirit operates.

The secret area of your life. And then let's talk about the third king. Who's the best king, obviously. The just king.

I say just because he's the only one justified to forgive us of all of our sins. Now, Luke chapter 2. Very famous story. I don't know if you know this, but the guy that invented the radio could only send Morse code on it. And he was working on it and working on it. And finally he decided that he might be able to send a voice, transmit a voice. And at that time radio was only used for ships at sea and you could only do the Morse code. And so he decided to test to see if he could send voice over radio.

And it was on Christmas day. And so he turned to Luke chapter 2. And he spoke into the microphone he had invented.

And he read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2. And those were the first words to ever go out in the air over radio. And the ship captains way out in the middle of the sea all of a sudden heard over this box that only would go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep before. All of a sudden they heard a man sharing. And there were shepherds abiding in their fields keeping watch over their flock by night.

It's a pretty cool story, isn't it? Of course if you didn't have been in that ship you might have wondered where the voice was coming from. Luke chapter 2 verse 8, Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in their fields keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you, you will find a babe, I want us to remember this, a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger. And suddenly there is with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.

You will find a babe who is Christ the Lord. And I don't know if you've ever thought about this but this is Christmas. The omnipotent, omniscient God. The creator and sustainer of the universe. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords came to this world as a vulnerable, helpless baby. He had to be nourished to stay alive. He had to be carried everywhere he went to be protected. The creator became dependent upon the creation.

It's amazing. He could have come in splendor. He could have come as lightning. He could have come as thunder.

He could have come as the omniscient, omnipotent, powerful, almighty God that He is. But He comes as a baby. In Matthew chapter 2 there's a phrase that I said remember, the young child, the young child. Not just to note the time that the wise men came but in Matthew 2 those words, young child, are nine times in seven verses.

Nine times in seven verses. Now, I consider myself a grammarian. Most grammarians don't consider me a grammarian but I still like to think I am. But I edit things. I'll help sometimes people say, would you read this article for me? And I'll read it.

And you know Debbie says this all the time, would you read this article for Pink for me? And then she says, and don't correct the grammar. You know, I'll have the editors, you know, correct the grammar.

I'm simply wanting you to read it for content. And, you know, I go a little ways and then I say to her, sugar, I have to correct the grammar. I just, I can't stand it. So my point in saying that is when you read Matthew 2 and you have that type of a mind and the young child, take the young child, for Herod will seek the young child's life and the young child, okay, you say to yourself, okay, this is redundant. You need to change. You need to take the adjective young out because you've said it nine times now in seven verses.

You need to replace the word child with boy. It's just not good writing. The only problem with that is that the Holy Spirit knows better than I do. And if he says something nine times in seven verses, he's trying to emphasize something. You know what he's trying to emphasize? The helplessness that the God of the universe subjected himself to. That the God of the universe became a helpless young child. That's the Christmas story.

And then it says this, and this is the last thing we're going to mention. It says, swaddling cloths. You'll find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths. Isn't that a great word? Swaddling.

You know what? It's kind of like the word manger. Lying in a manger. And we all know what a manger really is. It's a feed trough.

But it just doesn't sound as good, does it? You'll find the young babe lying in a feed trough. Well, the same thing with swaddling. Swaddling is this great Christmas word, but you know what it means? Strips. Strips. You'll find the babe wrapped in strips of cloth. You ever wonder where the strips came from?

Give you a little tradition. Jewish tradition was that when Jewish people travel, they carried strips of clean cloth with them because they weren't supposed to touch a dead body. If they found a dead body and it was a normal thing along the road, they would wrap the dead body in strips of cloth. Let me give you another word for swaddling cloths. Burial cloths. It was very, very common for a woman who was about to give birth to carry burial cloths with her because many of the children were stillborn.

And many times women died in childbirth because they had no medical help. And here they are going to Bethlehem, which is where Rachel died, Jacob's wife. And Rachel's tomb is in Bethlehem.

Every Jewish person knew it. As a matter of fact, you can go to Rachel's tomb to this day. It's still there in Bethlehem. So you have to wonder in the back of Mary's mind, was she thinking, this is my destiny. I'm to birth the Savior of the world, but I won't be around to raise Him.

I'm going to, why else would God choose Bethlehem, where Rachel died during childbirth? So they took strips of cloth, probably as burial cloths. How symbolic that Jesus was wrapped in burial cloths. Because the Bible tells us that He was born to die. Revelation says it this way, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. See, the message of Christmas is not just that He was born, but that He died for our sins.

But here's another good message of Christmas. He didn't stay dead. He didn't stay dead. He rose on the third day and He conquered death and the grave, which means He can conquer any dying place in your life.

If you'll be a joyous king and not a jealous king and give the just king control. We want you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you want to connect with us or check out some of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com. And if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so we can be a part of your community. We're so glad that you joined us today. We hope that you have a beautiful Christmas season.