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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's. Words you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 A.m.. If you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find [email protected]. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: I believe it was five years ago that I saw on a post on Sunday Birch's Facebook page a picture, a screenshot of Life 360. And if you have a teen or if you have kids and they've got cell phones, live 360 is a great way to just sort of know where they are, what they're up to, what location. If they lose their phone, it's a good way to find it. If you just trying to find them, they're usually attached to that phone and so you can look them up. And I'll never forget, as I saw that post that Sonny put out there, that it was a screenshot of Mimi coming back from Harding. And I think maybe she was 15 or 20 minutes out or something like that. And Sonny posted it, just the picture, and said, this makes me so happy, and I know exactly what you're talking about. And I remember it touching me then. And then about a year later, Kenzie went off to college to Freed Hardman. And I remember that first time that she was coming home and we anticipated her arrival, and we were excited. We had not seen her for a while because of COVID going on. They kind of kept everybody isolated and didn't really want them to come back home too much because they didn't want them to pick up something and bring it back. And so we just hadn't seen her very much. And she was on her way home. And, man, I pulled up Life 360 and saw it. She was about 15 or 20 minutes out, and I thought, oh, this is great. So I go and I'm out in the driveway waiting for her to come home. And if you haven't had a child come home from college yet, you don't know what that's like. But just seeing them, you miss them, you just want to be with them so badly. She shows up, she drives into the driveway, and I'm out there going, hey. And she jumps out of her car, starts running, and she says, Bathroom first. And she runs right past me.
And I hate to call her out for that, but that has happened literally every single time she's come home. So ruined that big homecoming every single time. So that's great. When they come back home. But sometimes you get a chance to go see them in their environment and that's really fun. When you show up at Fried Hardman or Harding or go to Alabama or some other schools and you just see them in their environment, doing the things that they're doing in their surroundings with their friends, it's kind of a blessing to just get to know those things and to see them. And so this past week, I got an opportunity to go and see Gage at Faulkner, and that was awesome.
Andrew and myself and Jason were offered an opportunity to come and speak to the Bible majors there at Faulkner about how to work together on a team of ministers. How we work together and how we support each other, but also what roles we play and those kinds of things and how we stay in our own lanes. All that. And it's good. So I was excited about that. And I just remembered that during Thanksgiving, gage had mentioned that he was playing intramurals and that he was playing volleyball, and that the Wednesday night of the next week, they were going to have like the semifinals and then the finals, the championship game of this intramural volleyball. And I was like, you play volleyball? That was news to me. But he did, he said, yeah, actually I'm not bad. So I thought, well, it would be awesome if I could just take a half a day and go up a little bit early, get a place to stay, and then go and surprise him. I'll go to church, I'll catch him at church and then we'll go over to multiplex and I'll watch him play some volleyball. Well, so I get there and I'm excited, y'all, that journey was just short. I was so excited about getting there. The anticipation of seeing him face to face and just surprising him and that reaction, I just couldn't wait for all those things. And I get there and I go to church and I'm looking around and that sucker wasn't at church. Now, you're not supposed to call out your kids, right? Well, it turns out he wasn't at that church. He was at Dalreda because university's campus group and Dalradis had gotten together to do emerged Bible class at Dalrada that night. So I missed on that one. But it was interesting that I got news from everybody that that's where he was and that I would see him over there. I said, don't tell him that the people that I talked to, don't let him know that you saw me. So I lingered around, I visited with some people at university, hadn't seen them in a long time. And so I find my way about 815, because in college they don't start intramural sports till like 10:00 at night or something like that. And so I wander over to the multiplex and sure enough, I walk in there. He's got on his little club jersey. He's over there bumping set and spiking. He's doing all these things and I look over and I just stand there and I'm just like I'm just kind of eyeballing him. And finally he catches a glimpse of me and he's like, dad. He drops everything and runs over to me and gives me this greatest hug. And y'all, Gage is a good hugger, so he gave me a good one. He's like, oh, man, I didn't expect to see you tonight. I said, yeah, man, I wanted to come and support you, watch your game, and just to see you, it was just so exciting to I'm like, you know, I really want to take a picture of this moment because it was so good. I got all the reaction, all the joy that I wanted out of, and I'm like, let's take a picture, man. So I grabbed my phone and what this is, is what happens to every one of us who are older, who have teens that are familiar with their phones, right? I turn it around and I'm about to snap the picture. He's like, dad, if you'll just push so that's his finger over the top, if you can see it, where he's trying to show me what I need to be doing instead of just letting me do it, I actually did get the picture without his help, thank you very much. But man, look what you did. And I made him take another one. So there it is. I don't know that's any better. I mean, I feel like a big weirdo after that, but I don't know what that grin is.
But anyway, I wanted to capture that moment. And it was interesting to me how excited I got about that journey, about the face to face with him, getting to see him, getting to experience that relationship, the joy of it, the hug, the embrace, the reciprocal nature of it. And that just helped me think about what we're studying. Andrew mentioned that we're starting a new sermon series today, and it's called We Bring Our Gifts. And this is a time of year where a lot of people are talking about Jesus and his birth. And I think that's wonderful, actually. I think it's great that people are talking about it. And while we know the Bible doesn't tell us to celebrate Jesus'birthday anywhere that I'm aware of, and it doesn't tell us to honor that as some kind of way to really honor it in the way that we see the world doing. But I still think it's an open door and an opportunity for us to talk to other people about Jesus. And I think when we have these windows and these opportunities, we need to step through them and engage people and talk to them about what Jesus means to us. And so we're not going to start with his birth. We're actually going to move a little bit further than that.
We're going to go to Matthew chapter two. So if you want to turn your Bibles there, we're going to go to Matthew chapter two. If you want to look for the birth, you go to Luke chapter two, and it'll tell you everything about those shepherds out in the field, how they were told by the angel to go and they found Jesus. And you remember the manger scene. And I think we've kind of gotten used to these nativity scenes where it piles not only the shepherds who were out there in the area, but also the wise men who came.
And so we see that scene where they're all gathered together, but that's not in reality how that would have happened. In fact, if you'll notice when we get into this, there's not really a timestamp, it doesn't tell us how long, but there are a couple of clues that give us an indication that this may have been anywhere from six months to maybe even a year and a half or two years away from Jesus'birth. When we see these wise men coming and presenting their gifts, and of course, we know the gifts are gold, frankincense and myrrh, and we're going to spend a week apiece on each of those gifts to talk about their significance. And we're going to spend some time digging into that, not just what they were, but what they represented and the spiritual connection that each of those gifts has to present. And so we're going to talk about those things. But you'll notice here we're kind of fast forwarding a little bit. So in Matthew chapter two, it says this 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 has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it arose and have come to worship him. Now, if you just stay in the text and by the way, I think most of the time the Bible, if we'll stay in the text and we'll kind of dig a little deeper, we'll begin to find some context clues to help us know a little bit more about this situation. But if you just look at this and casually read it, you're going to see first these men that came from the east, somewhere off into the east, doesn't really specify where.
You know, when you look in biblical times and it talks about the east, it's really kind of talking about the Mesopotamia area and we kind of know that.
But they were wise men. And what does that mean? The word is magi. We'll get into that in just a few moments about what that really means. But it's one word that means two things here a wise person, okay, a wise man, someone who is articulate and educated and trained and those kinds of things. But we look at this, they're wise, and it says they saw his star. So these are people that we can assume were watching the skies for different things. We can assume that maybe they studied the stars and saw patterns and those kinds of things, and then we have come to worship him. So the idea that they're out far in the far east, that they would come give some indication that they had something inside of them that trusted, believed that there was a reason for them to move to this place, that's something for us to grab ahold of right away, isn't it? That they were so moved by whatever they saw in the sky that it compelled them to come this direction. Okay, so that's the scene that we find ourselves in. So who are these magi? Well, wise men from the east. The term magi itself is vague, and it usually describes astronomers or wise men or enchanters. And they could be in multiple locations. There's lots of places that it could be. The gifts that they brought really give us a hint that it could have been in the Arabian area, like that Arabian peninsula, maybe all the way from Egypt, all the way up into Mesopotamia. There were these trade routes by Napateeans, and we'll talk a little bit about them in just a moment as well that would bring these specific things who were they were very localized in this peninsula, the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh. So those gifts alone give us a little bit of clue about where this could have been. And then their interest in stars really points to Persia because they kind of had that study kind of developing and growing. And so we can look at that and see a few things that might help us a little bit.
There are lots of people who have theories out there. And I read several articles. Andrew actually passed one or two my direction as we were kind of studying this together. And one of the things that I saw was that people keep quoting this guy, this Dwight Longencker. I think that's right, Longencker.
And I'm not promoting this book. So it's only up here to let you know that there are people that are out there that are studying this just maybe even from a scientific perspective. Not that they're anti faith, but that they are looking into these details and trying to find some way to explain exactly what's going on. Whether it be the phenomena of the stars in the sky and planets moving together in sequence, whether it's where these gifts came from, who they were supposedly for. And so one of the things that we hear about is Nabateeans is like this group of people who were merchants, and they would take these things, these very special gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And they were plentyous in this area, and they had this really, I guess, monopoly on this. And so they were bringing these goods back and forth, and they kind of serviced that whole area with these very expensive gifts. But there's also a connection, and you'll see this in the Scriptures where a king Areetus, which is a king of Patrus, he actually had a connection with Herod in that his daughter married Herod's son. And so there's some suspicion this guy at least proposes and suggests that these gifts came directly from Aretus that were pushed over there. And so there's more to explore there. But what I try to do whenever I see these kinds of things is they're really good when we can find some things that kind of coincide and are consistent with Scripture. But there are some things in there that are a little bit of problem. I don't know that if Areetus knew who Herod was, herod being a really paranoid king, a guy who was not very well loved, he was very feared. He was a guy who was called Herod the Great because he did a lot of building, a lot of construction and he helped even build part of the temple.
He was the guy who was very well accomplished. But it came on the backs of the people there with oppressive taxes and those kinds of things. And he was suspicious of anybody who questioned his authority. And so it's said that two of his oldest boys were killed by him because he didn't want anyone to threaten his throne. So the idea that this guy would come and present a gift to the King of the Jews when Herod is the King of the Jews, this would be something that would cause him to go kind of crazy. So if Areitus knew him very well and had a relationship, it might be that while he's presenting these gifts, it would not be received in the same way or may not be received very appreciatively. In fact, we know that it's not appreciated because of what we see inherod immediately following this. So I guess what I'm saying is there's all kinds of theories out there and all kinds of things that we can explore. But one of the things that we want to really do is take the scriptures and pair those up with these things, see how they maybe help and support and maybe provide other thoughts. But ultimately the Bible is its best commentary in helping us kind of see the consistency of the Scriptures and what God is actually doing. So a lot of things out there. Again, that's a book out there if you wanted to explore that.
And I have not read it, I just have read several articles that pointed back to it. But looking further into the word itself, the word is Magoy and it's a Median tribe, one of a sacred caste, originally Median, who seemed to have conformed to the Persian religion. In other words, the idea of the medo Persian way of life. And you've heard this, remember in Daniel you hear at least a couple, maybe three times about the law of the Medes and Persians. The idea of these things coming together, this magi, this group of wise men, were a specific family that were used as kind of a priestly tribe. In fact, this is structured very similarly to what the Jews had. They had the Levites as the priestly tribe. And this was kind of a family, a group of families that had these descendants. And each one of them were trained in all of these different educational disciplines, okay? So it would be astronomy, astrology, it would be agriculture, it would be medicine, alchemy, philosophy and religion, a lot of different things. They were very well balanced. So it'd be like our common day PhDs that have these multiple disciplines, all right? And they would be people that you would think of that are cultured, they're refined, they're educated, they're articulate, able to say a lot of things and have information that would help them be able to explain a lot of things to a lot of people. So as a result, these people were referred to sometimes as kingmakers because at this time, it wasn't necessarily that the kingship was passed down to someone else. The king had to pass through the series of tests of these knowledges and then these magi would be the ones who would recommend the next king. So it's a really interesting setup.
And in the middle of all this, you can start seeing some of the biblical history. What do I mean by this? Well, when we think about this area over in Persia, okay, think about Babylon, and we think of King Nebuchadnezzar. Right? And what do we know about him? Well, we know that he went about and he took over different lands and he would lay siege to them, get all their wealth, and then he would often take their people back to Babylon with him to serve. And so, you know, this happened in 580, 86 BC that they went into. He went into Jerusalem, took the city, and then took a lot of people captive and went back into Babylon. Well, there may be a few names that you would remember. Remember a guy named Daniel, shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Those guys? Well, they were some of the young men that were brought into this discipline. This study, do you remember when it talks about how they were brought in and they were given the best foods and they were given all these different trainings and all these things to help them be more cultured and educated and those kinds of things? Well, that's Nebuchadnezzar pouring into these guys so they can be a part of this magi, the wise men. And that's important to note because Daniel has a lot of emphasis with the magi. Now, over the times, one of some of the things that they did were like sorcery and divination and those kinds of things. And as a result of that, the word magic ended up coming out of this word. But then also the real kind of best way to use this term was to think in terms of how it works with magistrate. Just the idea of how it influenced their community, their laws, the way things were taught and expressed. So when you think about this word magi, I want you to think about people who are very articulate and well earned. So in Daniel, chapter two, what you got is a situation where Nebuchadnezzar has this vision or dream, and it's so disturbing that when he wakes up, he can't remember it. Now, I have dreams all the time, and sometimes I wake up and think, well, that was bizarre. And then if you ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you anything, right? That's just how it goes sometimes. Well, in this case, Nebuchadnezzar couldn't tell you what it was, but he wanted an answer for it because it troubled him. And so he brought in all of his Magi. It says here, the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams, okay? And in the midst of all this, as he's telling them, I want you to give me the answer to this dream, they're saying, well, what is the dream? And he's like, I don't know. I want you to tell me what the dream was, and then I want you to interpret it. And so they're like, well, hey, there's no way we can do this. There's no man on earth that can pull this off. What you're asking for is something that cannot be done. This is only going to be done by something of a divine nature, okay? And I'm paraphrasing all this, but that's kind of what's taking place here. And so ultimately what happens is Nebuchadnezzar says, listen, if you can't tell me the dream, if you can't tell me what it means, then I'm wasting my time with you guys and you're all going to be put to death. So in the middle of all this, Daniel, who is a part of this magistrate or this magi, he gets brought in and he says, hey, let's don't do it. Says he went to Ariok, the guy who was supposed to destroy all the wise men, and he went and said to him, don't destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation. So Daniel is actually stepping forward to kind of bail these people out. They're not going to be able to do it, they're going to be put to death. He steps in as a way to save them and to provide that interpretation. And what he says to the king is, hey, no wise man, enchanters, magicians or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to king Nebuchadnezzar, what will be in the latter days.
Catch this. He is diverting all of this away from all that learning and education and turning it more to a faith in God, that God is the one who can reveal those mysteries. So what you see is Daniel grabs Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and he says, hey, let's pray to God. Let's ask him for that wisdom. Let's get from him what we need to know so I can share this with the king, so we can spare the lives of all these people. And so the king, Daniel, comes in and he gives him the vision. God gives it to him in a dream. He comes in and he reveals that to Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar in his appreciation says, truly, your God is the God of Gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery. And so then the king gave Daniel, and this is important, high honors, many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and catch especially where his attention would be. And the chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. Well, what do you think those guys felt about know? We know that some had problems with him, right? We know that there were people who were trying to trap him and those kinds of things. But what we know is he was so well loved and appreciated by most of these people that he'd saved their lives, they owed him their lives to some regard. And now he is over all the wise men of Babylon. That's an amazing thing. So I'm going to fast forward a little bit to Daniel chapter nine. And I don't want to get too into the weeds here, but in Daniel chapter nine, daniel is there in Babylon looking forward to going back home. He just wants to be back in Jerusalem and he's kind of demanding that God give him an answer. He's praying to him earnestly, asking for a little clarity on how this is going to last. And so what happens is Gabriel comes to him in a vision and he talks to him about the thing that he's asking about and it says that he heard the pleas, god heard those pleas, and he has come because he loves him and appreciates Daniel. And he says he's going to reveal to you not only that there's a certain time frame for this captivity that's going to come to an end, but also there are some things that are going to happen over a long period of time. And the term that's used is 770 weeks or 70 times seven. And in this term it's really kind of in the context of years. So we're talking 490 years if you think about it literally. But ultimately when we talk about Daniel and these prophecies, you have to consider the prophetic aspect of it, that it's not necessarily an exact date or time or those kinds of things. But there's a generic period of time that is listed that certain things are going to happen. And what are those things? It says here to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place, the word for place, there is thing or one. So to anoint the holy One.
So Daniel being a part of this magi, being a part of this wise group of people and having his faith, and we know him to be a person of faith, right? We know about him and the lions, then we know about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and their boldness and their courage to stand up. And by the way, Nebuchadnezzar fell pretty quick. Didn't he know this is the God of all gods and all that? And then the very next thing you hear is that he is building a statue to himself for everybody to worship. So it's not like he had his thoughts all in line.
So these guys are in the midst of these people and their influence is being felt, their influence is being heard. And so he says these things are going to happen over a time frame. So Daniel had been thinking about that captivity that's taken place for 70 years. But God is going to reveal to Daniel that there's going to be something else greater happening and more events that are still coming. And those things are this. I forget about the exact dates and the times and those kinds of things. People have tried to finagle that, to work it out to 490 years and you may get a ballpark figure, but the idea here is that God is at work and that he is going to work certain things through what's going to happen in Jesus. And so you can see where all of these things are pointing, right? To finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Wow. All of this is pointing to Jesus, the Messiah, the one to come, the anointed one of God. Well, that's amazing. So now Daniel is in the midst of these people, teaching these things, sharing with them what God is saying to them.
What an amazing thing. And so that influence, you can imagine, would have grown. And even 150 years prior to that, there would have been other prophecies that Daniel would have heard about that he would have listened to the prophet Isaiah, where it says down here at the bottom that Gentiles will come to your light and the kings to the brightness of your rising. In the context of what we're talking about, that star, that brightness, that was the representation of Jesus and God's presence with them says, hey, this is coming, they're going to come. To this. And then going back to numbers, chapter 24, god uses Balaam, who was a wicked prophet, not a good man at all, but God uses him to make these expressions to bring us to this, where it says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near.
A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. These are all prophecies about the coming messiah. So when you think about that and they're thinking about this light, they're thinking about this star and they're studying the stars all the time and they're watching these patterns all the time. And then some kind of anomaly happens, whether it's a star, whether planets align up in a certain way that brighten up the sky, or whether it is God's presence completely taking them where they need to go, they see this and they act on it. Well, where did they come from? If they came from Babylon and in that area, you're talking anywhere from 750 to like 900 miles that these folks would have traveled. Well, let's be reasonable here. If you're carrying animals and everything, all your supplies and you're going on this long journey, then you're talking about maybe making 3 miles an hour. And it said that typically a day's travel was about 8 hours of travel. I don't know if it was all at night so they could see that light, or if the light was so bright that it shined through the day, I don't know. But let's just say that they were able to go for those 8 hours a day. You're talking maybe 35 or 40 day journey that these folks would have gone on.
Now there's a question I feel like maybe we need to ask as we consider this. And they have come, they've seen him start and they come to worship Him. Where does our faith and where does our priority take us?
These people, not having been in the Jewish community, but having this influence, recognize enough of what's going on, that this is a promise being fulfilled, of something great, are so moved by that that they act. And I hear people all the time know I am seeking after Jesus, I am living my life for God, I want to follow Him and I'm trying to do the right things. And I want to say, well, where are you getting all your information? How is it that you are seeking Jesus? What can we tell by watching your priorities and watching how your faith moves you to see that you are moving in this direction, that you are growing in your relationship with God? That's an important question for all of us to answer. Where does my faith and my priority take me?
So Herod, when he hears about this and they've dropped, know we're here to see the one who was born King of the Jews, not the one who will become King of the Jews, but the one who was born king of the Jews. It says he was troubled. Now, the word for this is agitated, okay? So think about a washing machine shaking it up.
As you look deeper into this word, there's the idea of, like, there's a battle going on inside, like, literally a restlessness, like an anxiety, a frustration. I can only compare it to what I experienced last night in the Bama game, okay? Like, I'm sitting there, and typically I'm sitting in a chair, and I may slap my arm on my chair and go, oh, come on, man. But for whatever reason, last night, saban was not dialed into my microphone, and he wasn't calling the plays that I asked him to call, clearly. And so I don't know what happened. I normally don't get all worked up, but all of a sudden, man, I'm like, up pacing the floor, like, and come on. And by the way, I don't know what this does. Like, if you do this enough, I don't know that that changes anything in the game. But I was doing that, and you're going, Brandon, why are you getting so exercised about a game? Hey, you all do, too. You know you do it as well. Point I'm making is that kind of agitation inside creates this conflict inside, and he's having a hard time, and he's restless and he's nervous and he's worried, and he's anxious. And so what he does is he brings everybody together. He assembles the chief priests and the scribes, people who are experts in the law. Okay, tell me exactly where this Christ was supposed to be born. Isn't this interesting? Because we've already talked about this could be maybe six months, 18 months, whatever down the road. And he's asking this question now. And so the experts in the law give a great answer. They quote Micah, chapter five, verse two, right away and say, hey, it's out of Bethlehem. I mean, if you look in Micah five, two, o Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. So they quoted it for him. They were like, hey, it's coming out of Bethlehem. You would have thought that if they knew all those prophecies of Daniel and maybe they understood that there was going to be a time where there would be something taking place and they would be needing to look to Bethlehem for where this king would be born. This is all happening. They're almost clueless about it. It's possible to have a knowledge of scripture in your head, but to not have faith in your heart.
And I think that's something maybe for all of us to consider is we may think we know the answers, but there is something much different about being moved in your faith to do something.
So these guys come here and they're looking to these men and saying, hey, we're coming to celebrate with you about your Messiah. But they find themselves at a place where it's curiously uninformed.
Isn't that amazing? They're experts, they know everything. They can quote it exactly like it is, and yet they have no clue what's going on around them. That's so disappointing. But that is a situation that they find themselves. So Herod grabs the wise men, says, okay, when did you see that star? When was it that you located it? He wanted to ascertain from them what time that star had happened because that would give him an idea of when to look for him. So he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go search for this child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. Now, here's the thing. We have the benefit of reading just a few verses later and we know exactly what Herod was doing. Herod was not looking to worship him. Herod was looking to find out where he was so he could go and kill him.
And when I think about this and all those children, those baby boys two years and under who were killed, I just think about those were the first know. We talk about Christian martyrs, we talk about Stephen, we talk about a lot of other people. But think about those babies that ended up giving their lives because of Jesus. Wow. That's something that probably we haven't thought about enough. Says, I'll come and I'll worship them too. So after listening to the King, they went on their way and behold the star. Apparently it had taken them into Jerusalem. And by the way, when they came in, they would have caused quite a stir. These are foreigners, maybe a bunch of them. We tend to think it's three because we see the three gifts, but that's not at all what the Bible says. It could have been a huge caravan of people and wherever they went, they were asking, where's the King? Where's the king? Where's the king? It eventually gets to Herod and that's what troubles him. But everyone in the city is kind of wound up about this.
Well, they leave and they see the star again and it came to rest over the place where the child was.
I don't know. I can't imagine what that was.
But whatever it was, it brought them exactly to the place where Jesus was. And by the way, the word for child here is not child in the swaddling cloth. It's a child who is in training. So it could be anywhere from like age two all the way up to seven or so. So this is a child that's been there a while and he is in training with his mother.
And so it says this, that when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him and then opening their treasures. They offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. It just as I think about this, there's just a lot of questions that come to mind. There they are. They have arrived. I mean, they've been on this long journey. They finally get in there, they ask all the right questions. It's kind of like what I did. I went to University Church to try to find my son. He wasn't there. They said, hey, he's going to be here in a little bit. Okay, I'll go over here and see. And when you finally see him, it's just like you're so excited and all. I was getting a hug and to share that love back and forth, but they were coming to fall down in front of the Messiah and the joy that they had, the excitement, the anticipation was right there in front of them. And so they get there and they worship Him, and then they offer these gifts. So I have questions, and this is for all of us.
What attitude do you bring in anticipation of your worship to the King? I know Sunday mornings are kind of brutal, especially if you got little ones trying to get everybody ready, get your clothes on, get smudges off the faces and all those kinds of things. And you get here and we try to get to the restrooms and we get into our seats and we try to get everybody comfortable and got all of our activity stuff.
And I know we can get really distracted by those things, but what kind of eager, anticipation, joy, excitement are you bringing into the worship? I hear sometimes people say, well, sometimes worship, I just don't get much out of it. And I have to ask you, what are you bringing to it? What if everyone in this room brought their very best every time that we just got so excited about coming together for worship? What would it sound like in here? What would the expression of your heart be if all of us gave our fullness, as we anticipate coming before the King? But then what posture does your heart take as you approach the King in worship? Is there a time where you just recognize in humility who you are in relation to who God is, who the Savior is, who the King is?
It's a great thing for us to ask, am I coming to Him with that idea of worship prosecution, lifting up that worship to God, and then this are the gifts you bring worthy of the King.
Now we can look at this a couple of different ways. In my view, they worshiped Him in a couple of different ways. They came and they fell down before Him. They literally laid their lives down in front of Him in awe, in reverence, and in worship and obedience to the King of Kings.
But then I want you to also notice that they brought their gifts too.
Like on some level, they were bringing their treasures with them. They were actually having the attitude that says, you are my treasure, not these things. They are putting out these things that are very expensive and very noteworthy of a king, and they are surrendering those things to Him. Folks, there's worship taking place, but there's also giving, which is an aspect of our worship.
I want to encourage all of us to ask, are my gifts worthy of the King? Am I doing what I can to demonstrate that loyalty and their obedience to Him and that trust in Him and that surrender to Him?
This is something I think all of us need to be reminded of.
And I don't want to make too much of this verse, but I do think there's a spiritual connection. It says in being warned in a dream, this is talking about the wise men after they left Jesus, it says they were warned not to return to Herod. Okay? They were told Herod's up to no good and they departed to their own country by another way.
Well, I want us to understand something. When we truly encounter the Messiah, when we recognize who he is and we realize that he's the one who came to save me from myself, that he came to die to pay the penalty for my mistakes, that he came and lived an ideal life to show us exactly what God in the flesh looks like. The humanity of it, the love of it, the kindness, the accountability, the mercy that he poured out, the forgiveness that he gave to people who didn't deserve it. When you see that and when you think about it and when you encounter that for yourselves, let me tell you something. You don't go back the same way you came.
There's a change that takes place in your heart this morning.
What gift are you bringing to the Lord? Romans Twelve talks about surrendering our lives as a living sacrifice. We come and we offer our worship before Him. We devote our lives to Him, we give to Him.
But I feel sometimes that we are so afraid of embarrassment or shame that we're not quite ready to surrender and to be freed up from all those things that hold us back.
So whether you talk to someone in the back of the room, one of our shepherds who will be there, whether you come down here and find the support of this church family, I want you to feel good about the gifts that you're offering to the Savior. These men came from 900 miles away with joy, with excitement and with pleasure in putting them selves out there and giving what they could to show their devotion to Him.
How far did they go? How far will you go? If you have a need this morning, please come. Always stand and sing.
