Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's look at Matthew, chapter two.
[00:00:09] Matthew, chapter two.
[00:00:30] If you would look at verse number one of Matthew, chapter two.
[00:00:36] The Bible says, now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him.
[00:01:01] When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
[00:01:08] And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
[00:01:18] And they said unto him, in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophet, and thou, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah. For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.
[00:01:35] Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
[00:01:43] And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the young child. And when ye have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship him also.
[00:01:58] When they had heard the king, they departed. And, lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was.
[00:02:11] And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
[00:02:17] And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him.
[00:02:27] And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
[00:02:43] Let's pray together.
[00:02:47] Our father, thank you first of all for sending your son to be our savior.
[00:02:54] Thank you for loving us that much.
[00:02:56] Lord, we acknowledge and confess that we don't fully understand the incarnation of Christ, the great mystery of godliness, as one Timothy says.
[00:03:10] But, lord, we are thankful that you sent your son. Lord, we're thankful that you came and you took our sins upon yourself. That you bled and died in our place. You rose again from the dead. We thank you for that.
[00:03:23] We thank you that you're a great God who is worthy of great honor.
[00:03:29] Lord, let us give you that honor. Help us, Lord, to see you as you truly are and respond appropriately.
[00:03:39] Lord, would you please bless our times? We look at your word about these wise men from the east. Lord, give us understanding. I pray especially that your spirit would work in our hearts, would prick our hearts in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:59] So these wise men notice in verse number one, they come to visit, not in verse one, but in this chapter, they come to visit the Lord.
[00:04:08] And chapter two begins. If you compare Matthew and Luke, you'll see that chapter two begins after most of Luke is finished, like all the things about the manger and the inn and all that stuff that is commonly understood to be part of the story. And it is, is all done, is all passed. So we get to chapter two, verse one. And here Jesus has already been born, and Joseph and Mary and Jesus are still in Bethlehem. We assume actually, that Joseph is there, although Joseph is not actually named. If you notice in verse number, verse number eleven, it just mentions how that Jesus is there and Mary, his mother, Joseph is not mentioned, but we assume he's there.
[00:04:52] So all of those things have already happened and some time has already passed. And we know that because in verse one, the Bible says that these wise men came from the east to Jerusalem. Now, we don't know where they're from. We just know it's east from the rising of the sun. So it could be somewhere in Arabia. It could be as far away as somewhere in Iraq where Babylon was, or one of the cities of Babylon, or it could be even further than that, going to even the country of what we now call Iran. Because, remember, before the Grecians, or rather the Greeks and before the Romans was the Persians, and that's where Iran is now. So they might have come from between 800 to 1200 miles, depending on where they're from.
[00:05:44] And it took a long time for them to come. And at that time, you would likely follow the Euphrates river through Iraq, up kind of northwest, and then once you got above Syria, you'd go south from there, down through what they call the fertile crescent. You would follow it down because you don't want to know. Hundreds and hundreds of miles through a bare desert, if you can avoid it. So they probably walked up through the fertile crescent and came down from Syria, down through Damascus, down into Israel that way. It was a long journey, hundreds of miles. If you ride a camel, which you assume they did, especially because camels have that, the capacity to go a long period without water.
[00:06:28] If you rode camels, you're talking 20 or 25 miles in a day, and if they're not walking at night, which I don't honestly even know if it's possible to walk at night. So you're talking a minimum of a full month one way. And if you go even further. If you go back. If they're in Persia, you're talking two months, at least two, maybe even three months of traveling just to get here. Okay, so that just gives you an idea of what we're talking about here.
[00:06:58] They're not coming from Spartanburg here. They're coming from a lot longer, a lot further away. And they don't have cars, obviously.
[00:07:07] So they came to Jerusalem. Verse number two says, where is he that is born king of the Jews? When I read that, it kind of struck me. They obviously had seen the star in verse number. Well, they say, we have seen his star in the east. So in verse two, they say that's why they were alerted.
[00:07:24] Being wise men, these would have been the people like we read of Daniel, right? These are wise men. In fact, the same word is used, the magicians. It's the same word, the wise men. Daniel was one of them. So not all of the magicians were worshiping the devil. Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, or Hannah and I, Azarai and Michael, for those that want to use the other words, they were wise men of Babylon, but they were not devil worshippers. They were not people who were involved in wicked astrology and things like that. And this is no doubt the case with these men, but they see, after having studied the stars, they see this star appear. And so we assume that the star appeared about the time that Jesus was born, and they see it from where they lived in the east.
[00:08:09] And so you think about how long that takes. There's no way to know for sure, but there was probably a discussion about what the star represents.
[00:08:19] They might have been looking at the book of Daniel, where it actually describes to the year when Christ would be born. It actually says so. They might have been looking at that. There's a lot of assumptions and ideas that go into this that may or may not be true, but what is true is that they saw the star. There was a process where they came to understand what it represented and made the decision to begin this journey. So how long has mean? I think it's very reasonable to say six months or even a year had passed before they arrived here. And, of course, we know that Jesus is not a baby anymore. They're not in the stable.
[00:09:03] Jesus is not sleeping in a feeding trough of an animal at this point. They got a house and those kinds of things.
[00:09:10] But in verse two, having seen the star and knowing that it was over, I assume, over Israel. They have made this journey to Israel now, but they don't know where.
[00:09:25] You know, in our Christmas stories, Christmas, the nativity of Christ, the incarnation of Christ, is something that's just fraught with tradition. It's hard to distinguish what's tradition and what's not know. The wise men three, we sing songs about that. We don't know a lot of those things, but they come and we imagine that they saw the star and they just went straight into Bethlehem and the star just kind of sat right over the manger. And that's not what happened. They arrived in Israel and didn't know where Jesus was.
[00:09:56] They go to Jerusalem because obviously it's the capital. And they start asking around, where is he that is born king of the Jews? Assuming that everybody's going to know this and they don't, one more reminder of how the greatest birth that could ever have taken place was unknown.
[00:10:17] It was announced not to kings but to shepherds. And what it demonstrates and represents to us is the just total humiliation of the greatest of all. How that he humbled himself and condescended every little thing from the fact that they were poor. He was laid in a manger.
[00:10:43] They had to have gifts from the wise men just to apparently live and go down to Egypt with those gifts. They didn't have money. The offering Mary gave was the offering of a poor person. The two turtle doves.
[00:10:57] That's in Luke.
[00:10:59] I mean, in every aspect of this story, you see that the one who is the greatest humbled himself the most.
[00:11:07] This is what our Lord did for us. This is what he did for you to save you.
[00:11:15] So they get to Jerusalem and they start asking around because they see the star. Apparently, it was lost on everyone in Israel, which is not totally surprising, knowing what the Lord was being born into. Right?
[00:11:29] And verse three says, when Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him. So he gathered the chief priests and scribes together and.
[00:11:38] Listen, Herod's trying to answer this question. Herod doesn't know.
[00:11:43] He's asking the scribes. And so the king of the Jews. All right, you tell me. He demands. You better tell me or I'm going to cut your head off.
[00:11:52] And so they say. What they say. Well, the Bible says in Micah that he would be born of in the tribe of Judah in the city of Bethlehem.
[00:12:03] Now look at verse number seven.
[00:12:07] Then Herod, when he had privily called, the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the start appeared. Now we know why he's doing that.
[00:12:15] And he sent them to Bethlehem. Notice that. And he, Herod, sent the wise men to Bethlehem. So Herod, they say, where is the one born king of the Jews? Because they don't know.
[00:12:27] They came to the country and they're looking, they're searching.
[00:12:32] They finally get to Herod. Herod calls the scribes, who know the scripture. They say, well, the scripture says Bethlehem. So here it says, okay. He goes back to the wise men and he says, go to Bethlehem.
[00:12:46] And when you found him, bring me word again that I may come worship him also. You know, it struck me, I've never seen this before. I was studying for this. Is this. The wise men didn't know where Jesus was, had been born.
[00:13:00] But they needed the word of God to find that out, just like everybody else did. But look at how it came to them. The way they determined, the way the wise men came to know and understand where Jesus would be born so they could go and worship him.
[00:13:14] They came to that from the Bible. The Bible told them that. Now, it didn't come directly to them from the Bible. It came by means of the scribes via Herod. So God even used Herod. Listen to that. God used a wicked man, Herod the great, one of the most wicked kings. One thing I read said he was one of the most wicked kings that had ever lived. In the estimation of the author, God used a wicked king to get the scripture to the wise men so they could find Jesus, because they didn't know. And of course, we see, verse nine says, and when they had heard the king, they departed. And lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them. And it came and stood over where the young child was. And thus they found Jesus.
[00:14:05] Now, notice what it says in verse eleven. Or you see, in verse ten, they rejoiced. In verse eleven, it says, and when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him.
[00:14:20] Worshipped Jesus.
[00:14:23] That's what I'll look at.
[00:14:27] If you compare the book of Luke, the nativity story in the book of Luke, you'll find there's a difference here. In Matthew, the word worship in this section we read occurs three times. If you look at Luke, chapter two, in the section there, you don't see the word worship at all.
[00:14:47] Instead of the word worship in Luke, you see the word praise and glorify the Lord. And in Matthew, you don't see praise at all. So in Matthew, you have worship. In Luke, you have praise.
[00:15:00] So I got kind of keyed in on this thing of worship.
[00:15:04] Of course, I looked it up. That's what I always do.
[00:15:09] And it just means to honor or to revere as a supernatural being or power.
[00:15:15] It's the idea of giving the highest honor, right? When you're talking about in the context of the Lord Jesus, is to give the highest honor and reverence. So I ask myself, well, what does that mean, though? What does it mean to revere somebody?
[00:15:29] It means to feel deep respect and admiration.
[00:15:34] So when we talk about worship, it's not just talking about what we do, but it really goes down. There's an aspect of worship that's not about what we do, but it's about our estimation of the object of our worship, the way we view the person or the thing that we are worshiping. That's why we worship it. You know, there are people that worship Taylor Swift. You know why?
[00:16:02] Because they esteem her so highly that they believe she is worthy of that kind of honor, that kind of reverence. So really, worship is more about the way we view the object than anything else.
[00:16:19] Now, if you look at the word worship in the scripture, it kind of goes. And it has kind of two prongs. All right?
[00:16:27] The first prong is what we find in the first mention of worship in the Bible. Does anybody know the first mention of worship in the Bible?
[00:16:39] It's kind of an unlikely place, but it's in Genesis, chapter 22, when Abraham takes Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac. And he says, I'm paraphrasing, stay by the. He tells his servant, stay by the stuff. Me and the lad are going to go yonder and worship.
[00:16:58] And he intended to sacrifice Isaac. That's the first mention of the word worship in the Bible. But what I want you to see with that is, and that's not the only time it's mentioned in that way. But many times throughout the Old Testament, the word worship is a reference to the service of the temple. All the sacrifices and the holidays and the different things that the Lord told the people of Israel to do.
[00:17:20] They called that all that was the worship of Israel. This is where they did their service to God.
[00:17:27] It was worship.
[00:17:29] But there's another aspect of worship as well, and that's also found in Genesis 24. Listen to this. Genesis 24 is speaking of the servant. I guess it's best for me to just read it rather than explain it.
[00:17:47] This is when the servant is sent by Abraham to find a wife for Isaac.
[00:17:55] And of course, we know that the servant of Abraham, he kind of laid out a fleece, if you will. He kind of said, lord, if you've prospered my way. Would you please do this? And verse 25 says, and she said, moreover, under him we have both straw and provender enough and room to lodge in. Which indicated that the Lord had prospered this servant's way to find a wife for Isaac. Verse 26 says, and the man bowed his head and worshipped the Lord.
[00:18:24] There's no service involved in this, is there? When this servant, God, has answered his prayer, God has led him all the way back to where Abraham's hometown was and led him directly to this family to find a wife for Isaac. And in response to the Lord answering the servant's prayer, he stops. He bows his head and he worships. There's no service. There's no activity. There's no holiday. There's no sacrifice. It's all done in his heart. We don't even read that he said anything, but yet he worshiped the Lord.
[00:19:07] He worshiped the Lord. Now, real quick, before we come back to Matthew and see a few things from that, look at John, chapter four.
[00:19:27] John four, verse number 19.
[00:19:44] The Bible says, of course, the Lord is speaking to the samaritan woman.
[00:19:50] Verse 19 picks up and says, the woman saith unto him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Verse 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain. And ye say that in Jerusalem is the place, notice place where men ought to worship. So this lady brings up the subject of worship. Jesus doesn't. This lady brings up the subject of worship in relation to the place where it is to be done. All right. Verse number 21. Jesus saith unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. Worship the Father.
[00:20:22] Ye worship. Ye know not what. In other words, the Samaritans were idolaters.
[00:20:28] We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
[00:20:32] But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[00:20:43] God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
[00:20:53] Here's what I want you to understand about this.
[00:20:58] In our worship, even though the Bible has kind of a two pronged thing, there's worship, outward worship, which we might describe as acts of worship. And that's a biblical way to look at it. But then there's also inward worship, which we saw that as well.
[00:21:15] What the Lord is saying here is that God is a spirit, and they that worship God must do it in spirit and in truth.
[00:21:29] That means that worship because it's spiritual. It's not about the activity. It's not about the service. And this is one thing that baptist people misunderstand.
[00:21:42] Worship is not so much about the activity that you do by showing up and coming to church, as good as that is. And really, that is an act of worship. But more important than that.
[00:21:57] More important than the activity. See, we get this idea that, well, I'm going to worship, but we're not paying attention to whether we're doing it in the spirit. In other words, whether it's coming from our inner man, or if it's just the motions, just the form, just the showing up, just the singing. And we sit down and stand up. Sit down and stand up. You know how that goes.
[00:22:19] There's more to it than that.
[00:22:21] The Bible says in chapter four of John here that Jesus said, they that worship God must worship. This is the only kind he accepts. It's not about the form. He don't care about the form.
[00:22:32] The form only matters if the heart and the spirit are involved.
[00:22:37] The inner man, like the servant, the bowing the head and worshiping that part.
[00:22:44] Because if the head is bowed in worship and the heart is right toward God, and the heart is adoring, and the heart esteems God as it should, and the heart is in worship, the acts follow. Why did Abraham take his son up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice? Why did he perform the act of worship? Like we read the first mention in the Bible? You know why he did? Because he was a man who worshipped God in the spirit. He was a man who worshipped God truly.
[00:23:13] And it came out evidenced by his life and what he did in his acts of worship.
[00:23:20] Some people can say, well, I can worship God anywhere. True.
[00:23:25] But see, true worship has outworkings in our lives.
[00:23:31] True worship. If we worship God in truth, in spirit and in truth, it's going to affect our acts of worship as well.
[00:23:39] And so we gather together at church, and it's right, and it's good.
[00:23:44] But it's not the form that is important.
[00:23:47] It's not the motions, the activity.
[00:23:52] If we think that, we are sorely mistaken.
[00:24:00] It says here in John four, they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Speaks of sincerity of heart.
[00:24:11] Sincerity of heart. Not for show. Not with a double heart. Not to be seen.
[00:24:17] You know, here's the thing you have to understand, and we'll see it in a minute. Acts of worship can include a lot of things.
[00:24:25] It could include things like prayer. It can include things like giving and offerings.
[00:24:34] We know the wise men did that right.
[00:24:36] It can include acts of service to others. Many, many other things can be acts of worship to God, but they must be done with a single heart, not a double heart. They must be done with a singular desire, a singular motive of God himself.
[00:25:00] That's what we see in Matthew.
[00:25:05] So the Lord wants. It says here in verse 23, the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[00:25:15] The Lord is looking at the inward, he's looking at the spiritual.
[00:25:22] Now, here's what I came away with when I started thinking about worship. And you can see it here, you could see here that this kind of worship, the kind of worship described in John 423 and 24, is deeply personal.
[00:25:36] It's individual.
[00:25:39] It's not corporate worship. This is one on one worship because Jesus says it's not about the place. The time comes, they won't worship in Jerusalem. Because we all know in acts, we've been studying acts, the christians are kicked out of Jerusalem. I mean, they're not even allowed. They're barred from the temple. Like, they don't allow what they were doing in Jesus day. And shortly after Jesus ascended, meeting in the temple. Forget that. They're not doing that anymore. So it's not about the place the Lord wants to see. Listen now, individuals who, in their heart, in their soul, in the closest part of their life are worshiping God.
[00:26:19] This is individual, personal worship.
[00:26:23] This is the kind of worship that God seeks.
[00:26:27] The other will follow naturally. Right? Acts of worship will follow naturally.
[00:26:34] Now, if you would go back to Matthew, I just want to make a few points here.
[00:26:48] As I was looking at worship and what it means, I already read you the definition. It means to honor or revere somebody or something, to feel deep respect or admiration for. But as I got to thinking about what is the real core and essence to worship, what are these wise men doing?
[00:27:08] And here's what I came up with.
[00:27:10] It all begins with how we esteem the Lord. How do we view God? That's the bottom line. Whether or not we worship is answered by the question of how we view the Lord, whether we view him as worthy of worship. And listen, as we just read John, we're not talking about the words. We say, oh, yeah, the Lord is worthy of worship. If I was to ask people to raise their hands, how many of you think the Lord is worthy of worship? Every hand in this room who can understand what I'm saying is going to raise your hand.
[00:27:46] But here's the thing. It's not about what we say. It's about how we esteem God inside our heart.
[00:27:55] Whether we view him and believe him to be worthy of worship, or whether we don't.
[00:28:03] Because here's the reality. If we do not view God worthy of worship, we will not worship him.
[00:28:09] We will say the words that sound as if we are a worshipper of God, but we will not worship him because our view of God is low. God is a trifle, an insignificant. Christ who was born is insignificant. So let's look at the wise men. How did they view the Lord again? They're coming to visit Christ. Notice in verse one of chapter two.
[00:28:36] Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Behold, there came wise men from the east. The first thing to see is the fact that they came at all. So they saw the star. They somehow came to understand that Christ Jesus had been born. The king of the Jews had been born. And they so esteemed him, they so believed in his glory and his exaltation and the importance of his birth, that they decided, of their own accord, to make this journey.
[00:29:11] And not only did they make this journey, but it was a long and arduous journey. Imagine how this disrupted their life, their business, their trade, whatever they were engaged in in their home country. They had to put everything aside.
[00:29:29] They had to lay it all aside so that they could make this journey. Do you know why they did that? There's only one reason why.
[00:29:39] It's because of their esteem of the one who had been born. No other reason.
[00:29:46] They believed that Jesus was worthy of that effort.
[00:29:55] That's the bottom line. And so their departure from their homeland to make this long, months long journey, not only there, but then back, we read, look, what in the world did they do in Bethlehem, in Israel, as far as we know, they engage in any business.
[00:30:13] No. They came for the sole purpose, to see Jesus and to worship Jesus. Look at what they said by their own mouth. Verse two, saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his sorrow in the east and are come to worship him. Why did they make this journey to worship, you say, well, that's.
[00:30:40] Would I do that just to worship? I mean, I could worship from my home.
[00:30:44] Oh, there's a star. King of Jesus born. Praise the Lord.
[00:30:50] That's what most of us would do.
[00:30:54] They esteemed Jesus greater than that. His worth was higher, and his value was more significant than that.
[00:31:02] It prompted them to make the journey. He was worth the journey.
[00:31:10] He was worth the time spent. Think about how much money it takes to make a journey like that. How many of you have ever done extensive traveling what proverbs says about going poor? What's the verse say? Somebody help me.
[00:31:26] As one, that is. Yeah, something. As one that traveleth. I know y'all probably know the verse. I'm talking about thy want as an armed man. In other words, it's saying it's expensive to travel. Brother Moses, when you went to go visit your family, was that expensive? Oh, yes, it was expensive. I mean, the plane ticket. And then, of course, you got to buy a $17 hamburger in the airport. And then if you arrive, especially for me in Cambodia, you arrive and everybody's trying to fleece me, right? Everybody wants everything that's in my pocket, and they're willing to do anything to get it. So everything's expensive. That's what it's like to travel. That's what these guys did. They went to a foreign country far away. It wasn't even their king. These aren't jewish people. As far as we know, it wasn't even their king. But they esteemed his birth worthy of the effort. That's worship.
[00:32:27] And not only was that worship in their heart, in their estimation and value of the Lord being born just a baby, it was shown and seen outwardly in the fact that they were willing to take the trip. That's the acts of worship I was talking about, the distance they traveled, the money they spent, the disruption of their lives. They said, no problem. Jesus is worth it.
[00:32:58] Jesus is worth it.
[00:33:04] That is the core of worship, whether Jesus is worth it or not.
[00:33:11] It's not about the way you and I look. It's not about the way we dress when we come to church. It's not about making appearances, really. We think about acts of worship, such as giving our money in the offering, which is right and good, but it's not about that. We don't do that. I hope you don't give your offering just to support the church.
[00:33:36] It's about Jesus being worth it.
[00:33:39] He's worth your money and my money.
[00:33:43] Can I get an amen? He is worth it.
[00:33:57] They'd come all that way just to worship.
[00:34:00] We have a hard time coming 5 miles to worship.
[00:34:07] Sometimes, let's just be dead honest, sometimes we have a hard time going 2ft to the foot of our bed to worship, do we not?
[00:34:21] Is the Lord esteemed so little among us that we can't find the time, can't make up enough time and get enough energy to just worship him a little?
[00:34:41] Is he that small and insignificant to us?
[00:34:49] Not only that, these wise men noticed the gifts they gave. The gifts were expensive. Gifts. You can't make a journey like that as a poor person. You can't. You can only make a journey like that if you have means. And they had means. In other words, some people, tradition says that these might have been kings themselves.
[00:35:09] I have no idea. But they definitely had money. They were bringing gifts. Who knows how many. We got this idea when we do the Christmas program, we have the little thing with the gold and the incense and myrrh, and that would have been valuable, but I doubt that they brought just a little bit. I mean, you wouldn't make a journey that far and just bring like a handful of stuff.
[00:35:30] No, you're making a journey. This is important to you. You're making a statement here.
[00:35:38] These were men of status. Listen now, these were men of status, men of knowledge, men of repute.
[00:35:47] That's how they're able to make this journey. And when they got in verse eleven, when they got there, what did they do? They saw Jesus. We're talking a toddler here. He might not even been able to walk. And what do they do? They fall down. That's actually what the hebrew word this is. I know the New Testament, but that's the hebrew word for worship. It actually means to fall, to prostrate oneself.
[00:36:11] They fall down, these men of high esteem and regard, they fall down and prostrate themselves before a child.
[00:36:22] You know what that shows us?
[00:36:24] How they esteemed that little baby to them, he was way up here. He is worthy of a bow despite their status. He is worthy to have their clothes dirtied on the ground. He is worthy of all of that. He's worthy of the trip. He's worthy of the expense. He's worthy of the bow. He's worthy of the prostration. He's worthy of the humiliation.
[00:36:52] Today, Jesus is still worthy of all of that.
[00:37:04] Look at the gifts. Verse eleven.
[00:37:08] And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts. Gold and frankincense and myrrh.
[00:37:25] Expensive gifts.
[00:37:33] You know the value of these gifts indicates how they value Jesus, right? You know how many of you know what shame tipping is?
[00:37:46] That's these new machines they have at all the restaurants. When you pay with your card, they turn the machine around and then they say politely, it's going to ask you a question. And the question that they're not going to ask you is the tip question.
[00:38:03] And you get at that moment to decide in front of everybody your estimation of this restaurant or of this person. It used to be back in the good old days, you could actually give an estimation of your actual server instead of just padding the profits. Anyway, that's one of my hobby horses.
[00:38:24] But that's the idea behind a tip, is you're laying down a piece of money that is an estimation of that person's service. Right?
[00:38:33] You're valuing that person. How many of you have ever been like, wow, this service was fantastic. And you gave a large tip. You gave $20 or whatever, or 100 or whatever. You said, this is just. You laid a value upon that.
[00:38:51] The gifts of these wise men demonstrate how they value the Lord. And what that shows us, though, is that their gifts are an act of worship. By presenting these gifts with this, these gifts are saying, lord, you're worthy of this.
[00:39:10] You deserve this.
[00:39:14] Listen, this is the subject of money, and money is nothing more than an extension of our life. Money can never be, can never be a substitution for ourselves.
[00:39:28] We're supposed to give ourselves first. And the evidence of that is our money being given money. Giving money to God is an act of worship. Listen, as I said before, when we give money to our church, I know we're supporting the ministries of the church, and that's right and good, and that's what we're supposed to do. But at its core, that's not what it's about.
[00:39:57] Any act of worship that you do that is not done unto God because you esteem him worthy of it. You shouldn't be involved in it. It's not acceptable to God. They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. You see that inside has to be right first.
[00:40:19] It is required. God says in John 424.
[00:40:28] So they gave him these gifts as evidence of how they viewed and highly esteemed Christ.
[00:40:35] They got nothing in return from a baby.
[00:40:39] It wasn't about what they got in return.
[00:40:42] It wasn't about the services God would perform to them. It wasn't about getting a pat on the back. It wasn't about any of that. They came all this way to prostrate themselves before a baby. Who doesn't, even at this point, humanly speaking, had no idea what they were there for, had no concept in his humanity, had no concept at all what this was worth or anything. There was no blessing, none of that. The Lord did nothing. He's a child, he's a toddler.
[00:41:15] There's no return. Even though there's no return. Listen to me. Even though there's no return, they did it anyway.
[00:41:23] All that way. Expensive gifts. They got to go all the way back. Verse twelve.
[00:41:31] It was worth it to them. It was worth it.
[00:41:36] They worshiped Christ because he is worth it.
[00:41:41] You contrast Herod, that poor wicked man.
[00:41:47] He lived in the country only a few miles from Jerusalem, Bethlehem. It's not far.
[00:41:58] Even though he lived there, even though he was aware that the king of the Jews had been born, would not even go search, he sent the wise men, you know why?
[00:42:08] Because Jesus wasn't worthy to him. It wasn't worth his time. It wasn't worth even the smallest amount of effort. It wasn't worth it. The Jews, the same way. Here the wise men come informing everybody about the birth of the king of the Jews. They're of course, sitting in the dark. They have no idea, because the spiritual state is so degraded at this time. And finally, they're made aware by these foreigners. And so do you see a bunch of Jews headed to Bethlehem to try to find Jesus? No. You know why? Because he ain't worthy.
[00:42:41] They don't esteem him that way. In fact, the Bible says that the city, the whole city, not only Herod, but the city too, was troubled. You know why? Because Jesus, the birth of Christ, was an imposition on them. He was not welcome, he was unwelcome.
[00:43:01] That's how they esteemed Jesus. That's what they thought of him. He was not worthy of anything, not even of a place. That's what Isaiah, chapter 53 says. We esteemed him not. That's why they put him on the cross.
[00:43:17] They put him on the cross because they did not think he was worthy of anything. He was not esteemed.
[00:43:29] I'm going to ask you a question.
[00:43:33] Could it be that the reason we have such difficulty in our devotion to God, could it be that we have such difficulty in our service to God, we can't find time to live for God. We can't cut out time.
[00:43:53] We can't just bring ourselves to sacrifice it all or to put ourselves out, or to lay our own wills down. We just can't find enough time to walk with God or have devotion. All of these things are worship.
[00:44:07] Could it be that the reason that we can't find any time to do that and can't find the energy and can't find the resources? And could it be that we just don't esteem Jesus highly?
[00:44:20] Could it be that our worship is puny and insignificant because we really do just view Jesus that way?
[00:44:31] Because if we viewed the Lord and esteemed him as he is the creator, the Lord of all, the one who bled on the cross for us to save us from sin and from hell. If we viewed him as the king of kings and the Lord of lords, as our personal provider, if we viewed him as he is the one who holds our very breath, who gives us all good things, like they say in heaven in the book of revelation, over and over, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
[00:45:09] The saints in revelation, chapter, I think it's five. It is the saints, the 24 elders, that are saying, thou art worthy, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. Jesus is worthy because he died for us.
[00:45:24] And listen, we all give lip service to this idea that Jesus is worthy, but we don't live like he's worthy. Our worship shows it.
[00:45:36] Our worship is weak. And I'm not just talking to you. I'm talking to me, too.
[00:45:42] Because we lightly esteem the Lord.
[00:45:46] We're not willing to be put out.
[00:45:49] We're not willing to sacrifice. We're not willing to serve. We look for an exit.
[00:45:56] It all goes back to how we esteem the Lord.
[00:46:03] Because you know what?
[00:46:05] If the Lord is in his place, like, in the proper place in our life, and he is exalted, we'll go across heaven and earth. We would go to another land to tell somebody about Jesus.
[00:46:20] We would give whatever the Lord asked us to give.
[00:46:25] We would be willing to do whatever the Lord wanted us to do. All of those things would be acts of worship because he's worth it. When you went to Bulgaria, why'd you go?
[00:46:38] You'd never been there. You didn't know the people. And when you got there, you realized a bunch of sinners. So why'd you go? An act of worship.
[00:46:47] Because Jesus is worthy. He's worth that effort. He's worth your life. He's worth your time. He's worth our money. He's worth everything that we could give him.
[00:47:05] He's worth it.
[00:47:14] So how's your worship? How is our worship?
[00:47:19] Does it reflect the high and exalted place that the Lord has in our lives?
[00:47:28] Let's pray together.
