Amen, and please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter two, as we continue in the Christmas season, and having actually at the end of the book of Ruth a few weeks ago, turned to Matthew one, and seen the chronology of Jesus go all the way back to the days of Ruth and beyond. And then as we, a couple weeks ago, looked at chapter one in the incarnation, now we turn to chapter two, verses one through 12. And we see, Matthew show us how people responded to the birth of the baby, and how we have to ask, are we responding?
For those who track the church calendar and care about days, this is sometimes called a Piphany Sunday, or the day that celebrates the visit of the Magi, sometimes called Three Kings Day. But whatever church history or the church calendar might say about these things, certainly scripture records for us the visit of these wise men from the East come to worship Jesus as God and King. And so in chapter one, we learn that the baby is the Messiah, Christ, the Son of David, and the rightful heir to the throne of Israel. He's also the Son of Abraham, through whom God will bless all the nations.
And in chapter one, we saw his virgin birth, and displayed in it is his divinity, and his perfect humanity in union. He's the God man, God with us, Emmanuel, and his name means the Lord saves. And so let's think then about how these wise men responded to him and the others and ourselves. Let me invite you to hear the word of God for Matthew chapter two verses one through 12.
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 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 the 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, are 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, go and search diligently for the child.
And when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star 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, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Amen.
This is God's word, may he write it on our hearts. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would lift Jesus before our eyes glorify him and grant by your grace, by the work of the Spirit, through the power of your word, grant us hearts to adore him. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Amen, well, we haven't sung it ourselves, but you've probably heard it, maybe sung it yourself. We three kings of Orient are. And well, it might be kind of cruel at Christmas for me to make a couple comments about that hymn as we begin. But since this is the story upon which it is based, it might be well to remember that.
Our hymn writers take a bit of latitude with their poetic words. And it is not always bad. Sometimes, poetry is made for song, and poetry is well. It's not always the literal truth, so I get it.
But just remember as we come to the story, that the song has three kings of the Orient. And well, we're not told that there were three kings. We're not told that there were three. Oh, yes, they brought three gifts.
And so it's inferred that there were three kings, but it doesn't actually say there were three kings and that each one brought a separate gift. And it doesn't say that they exactly where they're from. It does say from the east. And we might also add that there's no evidence that they came to the stable.
It says they entered the house where Mary was. And you'll remember as well that because Herod wanted to kill all the boys under the age of two, that this story doesn't take place immediately upon the birth of the Lord Jesus. But it's sometime after, and they have traveled to see the baby. And that's why Herod sought to kill all the babies to and under to be sure he got Jesus at whatever age he was.
But they don't enter a house here. I mean, they do enter a house here, and not the stable where he was born. And so, well, I hate to say it, but our nativity scenes that show the shepherds and the wise men together around a baby in a stable are not exactly accurate. But I mentioned these things just to make this point.
Here at Redeemer, we have a very high view of the Bible. And what we want to do is read, mark, and inwardly digest what the Bible actually says about the birth of the Lord Jesus and not just what history and poetry and sentiment have brought to us. And what is it that Matthew actually says here in this gospel? Well, let's learn from this at least these three things that are certainly true.
The wise men looked for Jesus. And the wise men worshiped Jesus, and the wise men gave gifts to Jesus. And I want you to think about those three things, even as we think about ourselves and how we respond to the baby Jesus. In the first place, the wise men sought out Jesus.
And I want you to see it's because God had sought them out first. In verses one and two, we find this. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of Herod the King, a whole wise man 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 rose and have come to worship him.
And so it's amazing, isn't it? Gentiles from the east come seeking the king, but in Israel, neither the king Herod, nor the religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, nor evidently most of the people have the slightest idea that God's king has actually come. But God uses a star to draw gentiles from afar to the Savior, who are these wise men, or magi, as they're sometimes called. And what is this star?
Well, the magi were foreigners. They were historically speaking. The word comes from the median tribe. You remember the Persians and the Medes.
Well, the area of the Meo-Persian Empire, what we would now call roughly Iran and Iraq, that area. These magi, historically, were astrologer priests. That is, they were fascinated by the stars of the night sky, and they functioned on behalf of the people in a priestly manner towards their gods. The Greeks called them magi.
Magi is Latin for the Greek magus, from which we get the word, actually, magic or magician. Yet they aren't magicians as we tend to think of them. Maybe you have a favorite magician. I got the pleasure of watching one of the most accomplished magicians who has ever lived, Andre Cole.
He put on a show at my university, on my undergraduate days. He walked on water, on stage, not 20 yards from me. And I was absolutely befuddled about how he did it. The entire audience was fooled by it.
Andre Cole was the magician who sold the trick to David Copperfield, which he performed, in which he made the Statue of Liberty seemingly disappear. That was actually Andre Cole, created illusion. He himself investigated the miracles of Jesus as a magician, curious to know what it would actually take to pull off some of the things that Jesus did. He concluded this, if Jesus had been a magician, then you would have to visualize, 2000 years ago, Jesus and his disciples walking through desert streets of Galilee and long robes and sandals with three diesel trucks following along behind them to carry all of the equipment necessary for him to be a magician.
Cole was convinced that Jesus didn't fake any of it and couldn't have, including the resurrection. And he came to believe in Jesus. And he was actually at my university to put on a great show and then to tell the folks about the true miracle worker, Jesus himself. And I also have a friend named Scott Davis, pastor of Hope Church in Silent Springs, and Hot Springs, not Silent Springs, Hot Springs.
He's bivocational. His vocation, besides preaching, is as a magician. If you're a kid here today and you've ever seen, perhaps at school, a power company sponsored a magic show with comedy, well that's Scott Davis. And so I say all that to say, you know, magicians do, some magicians do believe in Jesus and they don't believe he was a magician.
And we shouldn't see these wise men from the east, though they're called magi, as magicians. They weren't so much magicians as students of the stars who drew inferences from what they saw, probably some kind of combination of both astronomer and astrologer, at least in their background, who also read ancient books and prophecies, who were scholars who sometimes advised kings. Like you remember the prophet Daniel, the teenage boy, who was exiled into the empire of Nebuchadnezzar and its descendants. And he's described in Daniel too with this word, a magi, or a wise man.
Of course, he interpreted the dream of Nebuchadnezzar by God who gave him special insight. He interpreted the dream that a coming stone would crush all the kingdoms previous for the God of heaven. Will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, says Daniel, and it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end. And it, this kingdom shall stand forever.
That's what Daniel prophesied. And it is perhaps, those back you live, it is perhaps through the prophet Daniel and his residence in exile that even these wise men or those that preceded them certainly, of course, had heard the scriptures and the promises and had come to the conclusion that now is the time for the fulfillment and the coming of the promised Messiah in Israel. They saw his star rise, whatever that means. They saw star in verse two.
And again, in verse nine, it seems to move and then stand in place. And well, there's a lot of speculation about what that is. It's, I think, probably impossible for us to be definitive. I mean, Kepler, the father of Martin Astronomy, suggested the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces in the year seven BC.
But he himself preferred the idea that it was a supernova. A faint star that had violently exploded and gave off the enormous light for a few weeks or months and then faded. Others have suggested this star was something like a comet. Halley's comet, after all, passed overhead there.
But in 12 BC, which seems impossibly early to be identified with this, more likely, it was some kind of miraculous phenomenon. There are other explanations that are more natural, of course. But it does seem with the second star, if it either is not one but two, that it moved again and then stopped again right over the place where he was, it seems miraculous. Now, whatever it is, I think we should say this.
We can believe it because the Bible teaches it without having to know everything about it. God certainly knows and we can ask him one day. But the Bible teaches it and we should believe it. And the Bible also we should know forbids astrology.
Isaiah Mox, stargazers who make predictions month by month but cannot save themselves, Isaiah 47. And of course, astrology is easy to ridicule. You know, I'm an Aries, which is an astrological sign because I was born in April. But I don't believe in that stuff, which they say is typical of an Aries.
But that's my favorite astrology joke, sorry about that folks. But if you can tell the future, truly by the stars, we might ask us another point. Why are you working in circuses and in rundown parts of town? I mean, just play the stock market and get rich, OK?
So we're not to do astrology. And these, of course, were given a special, unique, miraculous, I think supernatural sign from God himself. And were impaled by God to seek the one born. Now, how do they know this?
The one born King of the Jews. They don't know it because of the star. The star helps them find their way, maybe oriented them to the time. But they know there's a king in Israel, born, a king, from the line of David, of course.
And it's been 400 years since Israel had a king from the line of David. And God condescended to draw these from the east to his own son, whom they worship as God and honor as king. And this ought to remind us that God must reveal Christ to us ourselves if we are to see him and embrace him as they did. Why do I say that?
Because the very religious Jewish people, with a great heritage and revelation in scripture, with the covenants and the promises, were themselves blind to these very things. Because it doesn't matter how much or how great the light is. If we ourselves don't have eyes to see it. That is, if we're spiritually blind, it doesn't matter how blindingly brilliant the spiritual light is, we won't see it until we're given eyes to see.
Those eyes to see come from God himself and these, well, from the east. They were given it. But in Israel, few, except of course the shepherds who had the miraculous revelation by the angel. And the tiny family of Mary and Joseph and some of their kin, of course, of Elizabeth and her husband, Zachariah and perhaps few others, of course.
Rejoice that they're coming of the Messiah for which they had been waiting since the time of Abraham. And even from the time of Adam. So spiritual blindness is a real possibility, even for those who are very religious and possess God's Word. While sight can be given to those who are far off and they come and believe in the Messiah.
So can we say ourselves with the hymn writer, I sought the Lord. And afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him seeking me. It was not I that found, oh, Savior, true. No, I was found of thee with a good shepherd here, found from afar these wise men.
And he brought them to himself to worship him. And I ask us all, do you recognize the coming of the Messiah, King? And have you, like them, begun to worship him? If we're not, we are in principle no different than Herod or the religious leaders or the people of Jerusalem in that day.
So the wise men sought out Jesus because God sought out them, such as the mystery of God, sovereign grace. And then the second thing is they not only sought him out, but when they found him they did what? Well, we've said it, they worshiped him. They adore Jesus while others in the story are alarmed, anxious or apathetic.
Notice in verses, well, three to 11, pick up verse three. Notice the alarm of Herod. When Herod the King heard this, that is the message of these wise men come seeking the king of the Jews, he was troubled. Herod's reaction was, of course, in keeping with his own character.
His long reign was stained with blood. It was, after all, the Romans who put him on the throne in this part of the Roman Empire. It was the Romans who called him the king of the Jews under Caesar, of course. But he wasn't really the king of the Jews.
He wasn't even a Jew himself. His father had been an Edomite in his mother and Arabian princess. So he had no right to the throne or right to the title king of the Jews. He wasn't a descendant of David.
And in consequence, he lived in terror of all threats to his throne. He lived in terror to all his rivals, such that near the end of his reign, he was so alarmed and fearful he killed his own wife because he feared her. He killed his own mother, Alexandra. He killed his three sons when he saw his threats, erstobulus, Alexander and Antipotter.
And he killed more than half the members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the leading Jewish council, and sundry other uncles and cousins fell to his jealous rivalry. Rivalry says John Stott. So it's not surprising that Josephus, the Jewish historian, called Herod the great piddylus monster and the emperor Augustus, wants to declare that it was safer to be Herod's pig than Herod's son. Such was his paranoia.
And so here are these wise men from the east, and they show up asking, where is the king of the Jews? And it filled him with alarm, and he said to himself, but I'm the king of the Jews. Who is he to rival me? And then notice as well the anxiety of the people.
Verse three when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. They were troubled because he was troubled. He was disturbed, and so the people became disturbed. Undoubtedly because they knew his character, and they knew how unpredictable and how violent he could be.
And they feared him and his cruelty. They didn't want that. And when Herod trembled for himself, the people trembled for themselves. And then thirdly, notice the apathy of the Jewish religious leaders.
Verse four, I mean think how apathetic they were. Herod gathers all the chief priests, the scribes. They're the Bible students of the people, and he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they know the answer.
And they give him the answer. According to Micah, in you Bethlehem, the tiny little tribe of Judah. They know the answer, they give the answer, but they themselves do nothing about it. Herod brought together the competing factions of Israel, the chief priests were Sadducees.
They tended to be progressives and accommodated to Roman power and Greek culture. They were happy to retain their wealth and their power. They don't want to trouble the waters. And the scribes were usually Pharisees, notice the conservative Bible students.
And they answered the question in verses five and six, Appending words from 2 Samuel 5 verse two. In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, From you shall come a ruler who will separate my people Israel. It's a bit of a paraphrase of Micah in 2 Samuel 5, but it refers to the correct text and catches the basic meaning. And the Bethlehem was small and insignificant as we said it, yet it was the birthplace of David.
It was called the city of David. And out of the city of David would come the greater son of David. Great David's, greater king. And yet after delivering their report to Herod, just passed on to the wise men, they don't rejoice themselves.
They don't join these from the east. They don't run to Bethlehem. Or if Jesus has moved on with Mary and Joseph back to Nazareth, we're not sure. They don't go.
They don't seek him. And they don't worship him. As my old pastor put it, and maybe that day they went home and told their families, you know, the king sought my counsel today. And I gave him the right answer.
I was a help to the king. Let's see how this pays out for us. And so it is sometimes those who most know the faith in the mind know at least in the heart. They knew the right answers, but it didn't affect their heart.
So how does Herod respond to the prophecy? He's cagey. Yet he's convinced. So in verse 7 he tells the man to search diligently for the child and when they find him bring back words so that he can come and worship him too.
He has no intention to do so, of course. He doesn't send soldiers with them or supervisors. He sends them off on their own in order that he might win their trust and they would come back and tell them the truth. It's only after the warning given to them the wise man in verse 12 that keeps them from making a report to Herod.
And with that warning they themselves sneak off and disobey Herod's command because Herod really had evil purposes in mind. Even the execution of this baby as we mentioned in later in the chapter, we know that Herod's sent and had all the male children, not only in Bethlehem, but in the region around it killed because he's trying to kill Jesus, the true king. Jesus, however, as Matthew will go on to say, escaped with Mary and Joseph, who themselves were visited with a vision and commanded to flee to Egypt where they would be safe. So Herod is alarmed.
He saw Jesus as a threat and I want us to ask ourselves, what about us? What about us? When we think about Jesus, there are many people who perceive Jesus as a rival or a threat. And that's because he is.
He is a threat to our own independence. And because our own heart bent as it is on ourselves wants to rule ourselves and go our own way, he is a threat because he's the true king whom we ought to obey and submit ourselves to. And what Jesus does is he interferes in our lives and we by nature, sinfully so, want to get rid of him and by only by grace do we want to walk with him in submission. And so we must ask ourselves this day.
Do we see Jesus as who he is, as God with us, the God-man, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and are we determined like the wise men to worship him? But then notice again in thinking about ourselves, the anxiety of the people. They wanted peace with their governing authority, who they knew, right? They didn't want to see the king get his feathers ruffled or feel rivaled because they didn't want to be out from under his good graces.
And there are many people today as well who like those people of old refuse to believe and bow the knee to Jesus, acknowledge that they worship him as their Savior and Lord because they too fear those who are over them. They fear the opinion of those who are above them so to speak. And so they don't acknowledge Christ or follow Christ because the question running through their heart is if I do what harm to me will come. It's a sensible question of course to ask what would be the effect if I announced my fidelity to Jesus?
What would it be that some would mock me, scorn me, defriend me, kick me out of the family, not promote me at work? Isn't it possible I would suffer for Jesus financial loss or relational strife, mockery? Well, it is possible. I'm not here to tell you that if you follow Jesus, you will get heaven on earth.
If you follow Jesus, you will get heaven from Jesus. But it's all too easy to let fear of disapproval, fear of those above us, fear of others and what they will think and what they will say, what they will do to rule our lives. And so may God grant us the courage even to die to the fear of man for the sake of reverence for Jesus. And then as well we spoke of the apathy of the people, the priests and the scribes and maybe this is us.
They were happy with the reputation as Bible scholars who knew important information. They were content to not let that information shape their commitment to important things. They had no doubt about the prophecies, but they had no heart for the king who fulfilled them. And so as J.C.
Riles says, there may be knowledge of the scripture in the head while there is no grace in the heart. They served Herod, but they failed to serve the Lord and were apathetic to the reality staring them in the face. Is that you? Are you apathetic to Christ?
Are you alarmed? Are you worried and anxious? Or is there grace in your heart? The grace that the wise men had in their hearts who come to adore Jesus, first nine after listening to the king, they went on their way and behold the star 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 were joys exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. These pagan, gentile stargazers embraced the Messiah of Israel. They were forerunners of what we have every good reason to believe are millions and millions, if not billions of other gentiles who have fallen down and worshipped Jesus likewise.
Does their adoration surprise you? If it is surprising that the Messiah comes to Israel and no one seems to know her care, it is even more surprising that God has children in a far off place, far from the Word of God, far from the prophets of old, far from the land of Abraham, far from the land of Canaan, and he brings them to Bethlehem to worship. Because there may be true servants of God in places where we would not expect to find them. Their history on earth may be as little known as that of Melchizedek and Job, but their names are in the book of life.
There are people traveling to heaven at this moment of whom the church and the world know nothing. Not yet anyway. You will meet them in the Grand Reunion. Because God's invisible church is far larger than you and I have eyes to see right now.
And from far off God brings worshiping gentiles to Bethlehem to worship his son, has God also brought you to your knees before this son, to adore him? Oh, my God, do it. Well, notice they look for Jesus and they worship Jesus and finally they gave gifts to Jesus. And in verse 11 opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and mare.
Gold, of course, was rare then as it is now inexpensive and befitting a king. Undoubtedly his parents used a portion of it, poor as they were, on their flight to Egypt for safety to safeguard the child. They brought him gold befitting a king incense they brought which is a glittering, resinous gum taken from trees used in temple worship, used to anoint the priests of Israel. It gave a pleasant odor.
The wise men here either intentionally or not have pointed to Christ as our great high priest whose entire life was pleasing to God. And they brought mare. Mure was a gum that flowed from the mare tree in Arabia and it was highly valued, it was used in embalming the dead. Nicodemus famously used 75 pounds of mare and aloes to prepare the body of Jesus for burial.
And so they brought gold befitting a king incense used for the priest and mare for one who was born to die. Did they know? All? We don't know.
But they believed he was the Messiah. These wise men were mercenaries of course. They weren't traveling all this way, putting out such great expense to do so and enduring all the hassle and even giving their lavish gifts because they thought that by it they would purchase something from the king. They weren't mercenaries.
They did come to give something to him but why? Because they're responding to the greater giver. They know that in this child they've received God's greatest gift. And they do the only reasonable thing.
They don't withhold themselves from him. In that him in the bleak mid winter, Christina Rosetti writes, what can I give him? Poor as I am. If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part yet what I can, I give him, give him, my heart that's what God wants. He wants us to worship him from the heart, from the core of who we are. Not that we remember him once a year at Christmas time or even once a week in corporate public worship but that we remember him and respond to him in love from the heart and serve him with our lives at home and at work, in school and in public life and in the secret places of our hearts with our time, our talent and our treasure. And always remember you can't out give God.
Has his gift of his own beloved son for you? Has it transformed your heart to give your life back to him? Look, if all we do today is listen to Ted explain the meaning or as much as he can figure it out. The meaning of the wise man or the stars or Herod or the gold or the frankincense of the mirror.
But if we, if I don't do anything with this story, then we're no different than the priests and the scribes. The point is to worship him and in worshiping to offer our whole selves to him knowing of course that we give ourselves to him because he first gave himself for us. May the Lord give us the grace to do so. Let's pray.
Father, in heaven, you know, all the ways I and these people, even your own children, have not like Jesus given everything in heart, soul, body, mind and strength to worship you, to love you, to serve you. O forgive us all of it. Thank you for Jesus who is all our righteousness and so grant that we would be more like him in our service of you. In his name we pray.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and sing.