Speaker 1: 0:06

Good morning West Town. My name is Morgan Lusk, I'm the associate pastor here and I'm way more nervous about singing than I am about preaching so glad we got that behind us. But we're continuing our series for Advent called the God of Wonders, and today we'll come to a very well-known story, the visit of the wise men to Jesus. And we'll go ahead and just read Matthew 2, verses 1 through 12. And so, if you would not mind, standing as we read, if you're able, it's Matthew 2, verses 1 through 12. For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and, assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, o Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people, israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem saying After listening to the king, they 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 going into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated and we're going to play a little game. Audience participation is encouraged.

Speaker 1: 2:35

This is called truth or myth. It's not as risky as truth or dare, so don't be afraid, you just have to shout out do you think this is a truth or a myth? So there were three wise men named Balthazar, melchior and Caspar. Myth, who said myth, that's a myth. We don't know if there were three. We think there are three gifts, so we think three wise men, but really we have no idea. There could have been a hundred, for all we know. And we have no idea what those names. I don't know where they come from. They're not in the Bible, all right. What's the next one? The wise men were kings. Truth or myth? Myth, again, doesn't say they were kings. Says they were magi or wise men, but not kings, all right. Finally, the wise men appeared at Jesus' birth in the manger. Myth, absolutely. If your nativity scene has the wise men throw it out, it's not right. Or at least, like I said, take the wise men and put them somewhere, like to the east somewhere. Yeah Right, so thank the east somewhere. Yeah Right, so thank you for playing. That was fun.

Speaker 1: 3:48

It's important to get the text right and to get the details right. These are not necessarily harmful. I mean, maybe they were named Melchior and Casper and whatever the friendly ghost wise man. But sometimes these legends that are developed can take away from the main point of the text, and the main point of this text is that the news of Jesus's birth is good news for all people, from everywhere, from every tribe, from every people group, from every language, from every nation. And sometimes the people who should be most excited about the birth of Jesus Christ are the least excited. They find Jesus to be troubling. And then, on the other hand, sometimes people that you would never expect in a million years to worship Jesus are doing just that. So we're going to look at these different characters in this story and look at their response to the news of Jesus' birth, and we're going to see how that compares to our response to King Jesus.

Speaker 1: 4:48

So we'll start with the Magi. Who says they come from the East, which maybe is Persia. That's what a lot of people would guess, and they were probably highly educated members of the royal court. In a place like Persia they were movers and shakers schmoozing with the king, and they were really into astrology, as a lot of people were back in those days. Ancient people often looked to the heavens for wisdom and they believed that the movement of the stars and the alignment of the planets, and even events like comets, would often foretell the future, in particular the rise and fall of kings and emperors. Now, why was this important?

Speaker 1: 5:36

Well, there was an old rumor going around the ancient world that at some point a great king who would dominate the world was going to come out of tiny little backwoods, judea. And when the Magi just imagine them one night, they're looking up at the stars with their primitive devices, they're trying to find something, some wisdom up there, and they see, all of a sudden they see this very strange phenomenon and it's in the direction of Judea. And then they think about this rumor they've heard and they're like wait a minute, does this mean what? I think it means that the king, the king of the Jews is coming, we got to go, and that's why they decide to pack up and leave. Now, where would this rumor come from? Well, it's possibly from the Old Testament, I mean in Numbers 24, 17,.

Speaker 1: 6:37

There's a prophecy from a guy named Balaam who says that a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall arise out of Israel. There's also Isaiah 60, one through three, which says arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen by you, and nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. Maybe that's why we think they're kings, because of Isaiah, but anyway, the Magi see this phenomenon in the sky and, by the way, many people scholars believe this actually might've been the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, which occurs every 20 or 25 years or something like that, and that explains why maybe it was moving from place to place. But they see the planets align and they think this is the sign. This is our chance. Let's go and see if we can find this king.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Now, sort of a side thing here. One of the most frequent questions that people have asked me I'm sure many other people in ministry is what do we do with people out there who have no opportunity to hear about Jesus? There's no church anywhere near them, there's no concept of Jesus being God, there's no gospel, there's none of it. This is what people want to know. Does God treat them differently? Do they kind of like, get a pass because they have no opportunity? It's just not fair. We get to hear all about Jesus and they don't. That's a tough question. It has an answer, but it's not an answer that a lot of people want to hear all about Jesus and they don't. That's a tough question. It has an answer, but it's not an answer that a lot of people want to hear. Here's the answer. It's Romans 1.20.

Speaker 1: 8:33

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. In other words, we can look at creation, we can look at a sunset, we can look at the beach, we can look at a mountain and we can think and should think. Someone made that. I don't know who it is, but someone made that. That's general revelation, is what we call it in fancy pants, theology world. So they've been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

Speaker 1: 9:12

So and here's the answer they, those who have never heard of Jesus, are still without excuse. In other words, it doesn't absolve us if we've never heard of him. We still are sinners in need of salvation. But here's the hopeful thing about this text Even if there's no one around, someone who's from a far-off nation, who's never heard of Jesus, even if there's no one around to tell them about Jesus, god can still and will still draw people to himself by all kinds of different means, like the creation, like a star, like the alignments of the planet still draw people to himself by all kinds of different means, like the creation, like a star, like the alignment to the planet, or sometimes people Jesus comes to them in dreams. They still need to go find God's word so they can understand how to be saved in Christ. But this should give us hope that we serve a God who's bigger than our efforts, who can draw people to himself through any means he chooses.

Speaker 1: 10:10

So the Magi they go on their way and notice they don't go to Bethlehem immediately, they go to Judea because they just know, there's a king supposed to come out of Judea, and so they go to Jerusalem, which is the capital city, and they meet King Herod. Now, king Herod was a guy who was put in place as king by the Romans even though he was part Jewish, and he had been put in place in 37 BC, so that means that he'd been king for a really long time I mean like 30 plus years and he was also the type of king that did not tolerate political rivals. So like, if you were, you know, if you had aspirations of taking the throne from him, you would probably suddenly have an accident Like you'd fall off a roof just accidentally, you know that kind of thing and he even killed his own family members because he thought they were a threat to his throne. That's the kind of guy this is. So he sees the Magi and, of course, when he hears the news of a potential other king out there, what do you think he's going to say? I mean, it says he was troubled by this. The text actually could say another translation could be that he was terrified by this news. Okay, so he's not excited.

Speaker 1: 11:28

And then he asks the Jewish religious leaders where is this Messiah supposed to be born, and they say Bethlehem. Of course, that's what the prophet says. So he sends the Magi and he wants them to come back. And why? Well, he wants to know exactly where this king is. He says so he can go worship him. But that's a load of malarkey. He wants to kill him. He's going to send his hit team to Bethlehem.

Speaker 1: 11:51

So Herod is greatly troubled by Jesus. He sees Jesus as a threat, and that's a prompt for us to ask ourselves does the coming of Jesus trouble us? Is it a threat to us? And I would say that it is and it will be if we perceive Jesus to be a threat to our own personal kingdoms. What do I mean by that?

Speaker 1: 12:21

Well, I want you to pay attention about the way we talk about our lives. It's unique compared to the history of the rest of humanity Because we talk about our lives in ways like this we say well, it's my life, it's my day, how's your day going? It's my world, it's my money. What do I want to do with my money, my body, my choice? We use the word my a lot, as if we own everything we have, as if we have control over every aspect of our lives and we've been conditioned to think that way because we live in a world, or at live in a world, or at least in society, where we really don't have a lot of authority over us. Right, we certainly don't have a king. Can you imagine if America got a king? I think this place would fall apart.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Okay, we don't like the idea of having someone ruling over us, telling us what to do, but the reality is is that if we're really looking to Jesus as king, that means that he can summon us at any time to go anywhere he wants us and we ought to be at his disposal. Why? Because he's rightfully the king over us. He's our rightful authority. But when we think about that Sometimes we were like hard pass, not for me. I don't like that. I don't want anyone having authority over me, ruling over me, telling me what to do.

Speaker 1: 13:54

We're like have you ever heard of this movie? It's called Lord of the Rings. It's based on a book and in the movie, the first movie, boromir, he hears about this guy, aragorn, who's going to be the rightful king of his country, gondor, and his response is Gondor has no king, gondor needs no king. And that's how we think of our lives. We have no king, we need no king. Think of our lives. We have no king, we need no king. We are accustomed to unprecedented levels of individual freedom and control over our lives. Nowhere else, no time else in the history of the world, have we enjoyed this kind of freedom. It's a good thing. I like it. I'm not moving anywhere.

Speaker 1: 14:39

But there's also a problem with it when it becomes an idol. And you see that it becomes an idol when you look at events in your life that make you feel like you're out of control, like we don't handle that very well. Right, when our day does not go as it was planned, when we all of a sudden have to spend our money on something that we don't really want to spend it on. Those things make us feel out of control and we don't like it, really want to spend it on. Those things make us feel out of control and we don't like it. Because sometimes this individual freedom and control is an idol.

Speaker 1: 15:16

Think about the rich young man, that story in the Bible where this rich young man goes up to Jesus and he says hey, good teacher, I do everything right all the time, but what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus is like well, you lack one thing, go and sell everything you have, give it to the poor and come follow me. What's the rich young man's response? Anybody know Walks away sad. He can't do it. He can't give up his wealth because his wealth, or maybe specifically the prestige or the control that he can gain with his wealth, is his God. That's what he serves, that's what he lives for. In fact, you might argue, that's what he's enslaved to, is his wealth. So he says I can't follow Jesus because I got this idol over here. And that's so. He says I can't follow Jesus because I got this idol over here. And that's why Jesus says you cannot serve two masters. You can't love me and love your money. It's okay to have money, you just can't love it like it's a God.

Speaker 1: 16:27

So we don't handle that well when that sort of choice gets posed to us, because we like to protect these idols. And a lot of times the reason why we like to protect the idol is because the idol is deceiving us. Whatever thing you worship, that's not God. It's deceiving you. It's telling you God is a tyrant. He's a tyrant king like Herod. He just wants to suck the joy out of your life. He just wants you to miss out on all the pleasures of this life. It's the same thing that Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden, which basically was God is holding you back. That's what our idols tell us. But what our idols do to us is they require our lives, and when that's not enough, they require our deaths. Someone once said your idols will not die for your sins. They leave that to you. But yet we fight against King Jesus, not understanding who he really is, not understanding that he is a faithful and righteous and good and loving king. Who catch this? Jesus does not give us what we want all the time, and he never will. What he does is give us what he knows is best for us, which is, quite frankly, not often the thing that I like, right, I don't know if you guys feel the same way, but a great example of that was I was a youth pastor in Tennessee for a while and we went our second year there.

Speaker 1: 18:16

We went on a ski trip, took our kids up to Snowshoe, west Virginia, and sometime on the trip one of those kids got a stomach bug and then another one did, and then some leaders got it, and by the time we were about to leave on our last day, it's like half the group had it, and so we had two vans and we're like all right, well, we're going to make one of these the healthy van and the other one's going to be the quarantine van. And guess who got to drive the quarantine van? I wasn't sick, by the way, I wear that as a badge of honor. I never got sick, somehow. Anyway, yeah, so it took the healthy van the normal eight hours to get home. It took the quarantine van over 12 hours to get home.

Speaker 1: 19:01

I'll let you imagine why that is. It was terrible, it was terrible, it was miserable. And the whole way home I'm like God. Why, why would this? What's the point of this? And I didn't ever really know what the point of that was until maybe months, maybe a year later, when someone mentioned something to me about how that had really caused a lot of our parents in the church to trust me and to trust our leadership, whereas maybe before they hadn't.

Speaker 1: 19:38

It was my first job, after all, and I realized, huh, never in a million years is that how I would have planned to earn people's trust. Never in a million years is that how I would have planned to earn people's trust, but it was the king's plan, and the king has different plans than us. Sometimes Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the Lord who plans their steps. Now, that's the truth. And the question is can we understand and believe by faith that the King's plan is better than ours?

Speaker 1: 20:13

And let me tell you, there's probably a lot of you, some of you, who you've trusted God. You've experienced that where he's kind of broken into your life and done something that you're like this is not what I was expecting or planning for, and you still don't know why. You still have no idea why God would do that or allow that to happen. You might not ever until you go to be with him in glory. And that is especially when we have to simply try to trust that what he's doing in our lives is better than what we would have planned. That's a hard thing to do, but all we know is that he is a good and beautiful and righteous king who he doesn't want to enslave us. He came to set us free from our sin, to set us free from our idols, us free from our idols. He actually came to die for us that he might conquer these idols, he might conquer our sin and even conquer death itself. That's what he's done for us, and if you see that, if you believe that, it changes your whole outlook on who Jesus is as king, you know Boromir. Later in the story of the Lord of the Rings, he comes to respect Aragorn, even to love Aragorn, and he actually says to him before he dies I would follow you anywhere, my brother, my captain, my king. And that's what we can say to Jesus, if we understand who he really is that he's a good and righteous and faithful king.

Speaker 1: 21:58

Well, another cast of characters that we need to look at from this story are the Jewish chief priests and scribes, and these were the religious elite of Jerusalem. These were the movers and shakers in the temple. So Herod comes to them when he wants answers, because they know the answers, and they tell him yeah, messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem. It's what Micah 5.2 says, obviously. I mean it says but you, o Bethlehem of Frotha, we are too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose. So they know the Bible, they know the prophecy, they know. Yeah, of course he's coming from Bethlehem. But then here's what's weird After this, they disappear from this story.

Speaker 1: 22:49

You hear nothing about them again, which I think is just odd. Because if you're a part of a religious group that has been waiting for I don't know, at this point, 2,000 years almost, for a Messiah to come, and at this point you hadn't heard a single word from God for over 400 years. And now here's the potential fulfillment of this prophecy of the Messiah. Would you not want to go and investigate that? Like, let's go see. Well, magi, can we come with you? But you don't see any of that. They just disappear like they didn't even care. What does that show us? Well, we know from the text.

Speaker 1: 23:34

In verse 3, it says that it wasn't just Herod that was troubled by the news of Jesus' birth. It was actually all of Jerusalem, that all of Jerusalem were troubled. I believe we can safely assume from this text that the chief priests and scribes were troubled, and that took the form of apathy. They were just apathetic about this. They did not care. Why would that be? Well, the chief priests, they weren't really the kind of priests that you know, you read about in the Old Testament. They weren't really the kind of priests that you read about in the Old Testament. They were more like a corrupt puppet priest that served Herod more than they served God. And they weren't trying to disappoint Herod, because we know what happens when you disappoint Herod. And then the scribes were the experts in the Jewish law and they enjoyed a fair amount of prestige and really kind of over time shifted the way they worked to be really more about their own glory than about God's glory.

Speaker 1: 24:41

Matthew 23, 5,. Jesus says that very thing. He says they, the scribes. Matthew 23, 5, jesus says that very thing. He says they, the scribes, do all their deeds to be seen by others. So really their religion was more about show and about their own kind of goodness and righteousness.

Speaker 1: 24:55

So for people like that, listen, the news of a potential Messiah is just not really good news. It's not that big of a deal. They're like we don't really need someone to save us, we're just fine, we got it good here, you know. So that's why Jesus said of them you know, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but it's the sick, or really it's not those who think they're healthy who need a doctor, it's those who know they're sick. So hence the apathy.

Speaker 1: 25:28

And so that forces us to ask again do we feel apathetic about Jesus and about his coming? Is it just kind of like meh to us, you know whatever? And if so, why? Well, think about this again, the chief priests. Think about this again, the chief priests. Their hope was in politics, and maybe for us that's where our hope is. Maybe we're just way more excited about the potential of political movement and action giving us a better life now, and that's more exciting to us than the prospects of a future kingdom of God. Maybe that's it. I mean, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with hoping for better things, but I am saying it's a problem if that's all we hope for, better things in this life, because that's not what Jesus has promised us. His promises are far more about the coming kingdom of God, a kingdom where there will be no more issues, problems, political, whatever. Or maybe we're more like the scribes Issues, problems, political whatever or maybe we're more like the scribes. Maybe we think highly of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 26:53

If you talk to people out in the culture, it's kind of a sense that most people believe that all people are basically good and that as long as you're not a murderer, a terrorist or an abuser, you're probably going to heaven. So we kind of think we're fine, we kind of think we don't really need a Savior, and if we do, it's just a Savior that's going to help us, sort of like, give us a nudge to get us over the edge and mostly we can handle our business on our own. Listen, politics is not going to fix everything. Things might get better, they might get worse. It's going to go up and down like that for probably the rest of humanity. There's no system of government that's perfect and there's no system of government that's even close to perfect. And politics can't solve death, politics can't solve cancer, politics can't get rid of sin, it can't get rid of evil, and in fact much of politics is evil. There's still going to be misery, there's still going to be tears, doesn't matter who's in office. It's going to be good for some people, bad for others. Listen, we don't need a better government, we need a new government. I'm talking about a heavenly government, I'm talking about the kingdom of God. That's our hope. Our hope is in things here being more and more like they are in heaven in the future, coming of Jesus, the King, to reign and rule over the entire perfect universe that he will bring with him.

Speaker 1: 28:27

In terms of our status, we might think we're fine, but what does the Bible, what does God's word, say about us, apart from Jesus? Apart from Jesus, it says we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We're not fine, we're dead. Ephesians 2. Romans5 says that we are weak, that we are ungodly, that we are sinners, that we are enemies of God, deserving his wrath. Isaiah 64 says that our righteousness, the things that we try to do to earn God's love, is filthy rags.

Speaker 1: 29:00

1 Corinthians 6 says that, apart from Jesus, we will never inherit the kingdom of God, whether we're a murderer or whether we're a liar. So we have no ability to save ourselves. We have no righteousness. We need a Savior, and there is only one person in the history of everything who can accomplish both of these things, bring the kingdom of God and save us from our sins, and that is Jesus Christ, the God-man. And he's done it.

Speaker 1: 29:31

That is the good news of Christmas, that is the good news of Easter, that is the good news of God's word, that's the good news that we can celebrate every single day is that Jesus is equal with God, but he emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. And he came and he lived a perfect life, which we could never do, and he gave up his life willingly and went to the cross and died that we might be forgiven of our sins. And he rose from the dead and he's going to return one day and bring about his new creation. And so our only response to this should not be apathy, should be Hebrews 12, 28. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. So this brings us back to the Magi, because they offered God acceptable worship.

Speaker 1: 30:29

They, the pagans from the unreached place, from the people who never should have figured out that Jesus is the Messiah, they're the ones who are going and worshiping him. They're not apathetic. The star or the alignment of the planets, whatever it was, guides them to Bethlehem and they go and they rejoice exceedingly. This is their response to Jesus. They rejoice exceedingly over Jesus. They find Jesus in the home of Mary and Joseph and they fall down and they worship him. That word for fall down is also used in Revelation 1.17, where it says that when John saw a vision of Jesus, he fell at his feet as though dead. So when it says they fell down, it was like they were incapacitated in worship, in awe, in reverence of Jesus, who was just awe, and reverence of Jesus, who was just, I don't know one. He was no more than two at this time. And then, after they finally were able to stand up on their feet again and get their bearings, they go back to their camels and they dig through their treasures and they find the best gifts they could possibly give this king.

Speaker 1: 31:46

It was very common to bring gifts when you visited a king in those days and they give him the finest Gold and two different essential oils. So gifts, thank you. I like that one. The gifts tell us a lot about what the Magi thought about Jesus. David did a really good job with the call to generosity, explaining that that the gold is associated with royalty and so they believed that he was the king. The frankincense, which really just means pure incense, was used in temple worship and it's almost always in the Bible associated with worship of God. So they say with that gift they're saying we know this is God. So they say, with that gift, they're saying we know this is God, somehow probably would say it's the Holy Spirit who has guided them to that knowledge. And then, finally, they give him myrrh, which could be used for multiple things perfume, anesthesia and also in preparation of the dead. William Hendrickson says that myrrh was used to make man's life more pleasant, his pain less dreadful and his burial less repulsive. So what does that show us? Well, it shows us that somehow, these magi understand that not only is this king God, but he's also a mortal man who one day is going to die for our sins. I have no idea how they knew that, but it seems they did.

Speaker 1: 33:15

Now, next week, we're going to see that Herod really wants this Jesus to die. And we're also going to see, if you read to the end of the Gospels, the only other time that the title King of the Jews is used is when they're putting him on the cross. Who's putting him there? Well, really, it's the chief priests and scribes. They're the ones who are. Their apathy turns to hatred and they're so enraged by Jesus that they turn him over to the Romans to be killed, to be crucified. But what they don't understand, there's a text. I can't remember exactly where it is, but Caiaphas, the chief priest, says you know, I got a vision that I think it would be really good if one man died for all the people. And he didn't mean what really God meant by that, because that's true, but he had a whole different motive in saying that. And the point is, these guys thought they were going to stop Jesus from becoming a king, and really they just played right into God's plan, because the whole plan was for Jesus to die and then rise again three days later, victorious, not over the Romans, but over sin, over Satan and over death itself.

Speaker 1: 34:37

He's not just any king, he's the king of kings, the king over all the universe, and so he is worthy of receiving our best best. He's worthy of receiving all our worship. That's why the magi give him these costly gifts, because in jesus, god has given us the best and the most costly gift he could ever give, which is himself. That's why he's emmanuel, god with us and the salvation that only can be found in him. So when we talk about worship, we're not just talking about singing songs, we're talking about worshiping God with every aspect of our lives, and my encouragement to me and to all of us is to say you know, look, it's really not my life like we talked about before. It's not my money, it's not my time, it's not my day, it's not my calendar, it's not my body, it's not. It's God's. All these things belong to God and he has rightful authority over them. If that's true, then why would we not give him our best? This is why we talk about tithing. This is why we say we want to give to God not our leftovers, but our first fruits, the best of what we have. Same thing with our time, and we're not saying this because we're trying to guilt people. In fact, if you are not giving your time and your money as an act of worship, I don't know that you should, because that's what it is. It's an act of worship.

Speaker 1: 36:11

God loves a cheerful giver. The Magi were cheerful givers. They were willing to give him the best of everything they had and they were the least likely people to do so. But they were a sign that what God promised to Abraham long ago that the nations would be blessed through Abraham's descendant that's happening in this story and it's happening all over the world today, as Christianity spreads to the nations. So the story of the Magi shows us what Christmas is all about. It's not about hokey, santa Claus and just getting together with family. There's really not much hope in that if there's no Jesus. But because there is Jesus, because he's king, because he's God and because he's the man who came to die and rise again, all the nations can rejoice. We can rejoice exceedingly at the coming of Jesus.