Worship the King!

Have you come to worship the King?

Matthew 2:1-12

Introduction: The story of the Magi is one of the best known and most loved stories surrounding the incarnation. We’ve all seen the phrase, “Wise Men still seek Him!”  Every nativity scene includes them. But we’ll see that some of the ideas associated with their visit are more traditional than Biblical.  Although these men are actually call “Magi” in the Bible, it is reasonable to call them “wise men” since Proverbs says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.” True wisdom is associated with knowing and reverencing the God who is. 

     In today’s passage Matthew shows that even if the Jews would not recognize Jesus as their King, God had a remnant from the nations who would come to Him and worship Him.   The fact is, Jesus is Lord. The question for us is how will we respond to his sovereign rule in our lives?

The Big Idea today is in the form of a question: “Is knowing and worshipping Jesus at the heart of your life?”

I. People respond in different ways to the rule of God (2:1-3).

First we see the Wise Men who came seeking the King that they might worship Him (vv.1-2). “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,  ² saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him." 

   Notice first of all the setting: It was after Jesus was born…  Some people conclude from this that this calls in question our traditional “manger scenes” with wise men showing up alongside the shepherds on the night of His birth.  It was “after” his birth, but we don’t know how long after. The word that is translated “young child,” [paidion] can mean anything from an infant to a toddler.  We know that after inquiring as to when the Star announcing his coming appeared, Herod ordered all the male children two and under to be slaughtered.  Apparently the Magi told Herod that the star had appeared two years earlier. Of course God could have arranged the appearance of the star before the birth, so that the Magi would arrive while Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were still in Bethlehem.  We don’t know for certain!

      Secondly, what do we know about these gentile wise men who came seeking Jesus?  They weren’t kings! (My apologies if “We Three Kings” is your favorite Christmas Carol!).  They are called “magi”, which was used to describe a priestly cast of wise men who served as advisors to kings. According to some sources they had an interest in astrology and spent time studying the stars. 

        And guess what, we have no idea how many of them there were! Only because there were three kinds of gifts mentioned, gold, frankincence, and myrrh, the assumption was made by some that there must have been three. The text doesn’t say – there were certainly more than one, but safety came in traveling in numbers, so more likely there was a small caravan.

       They apparently didn’t arrive at the Manger – they came to the house where they were. This could have been days after his birth, or weeks, or even months.

      Most importantly, their intentions are clear: they are seeking the new born king of the Jews, and had come to worship Him.   Their intention was to worship Him. Only God should be worshipped. How they knew so much we are not told. Could it be that some Hebrew prophets in the east during the captivity like Daniel taught pagan wise men about the promise of a coming deliverer and that hope was handed down?  It may well be.

       It is interesting to consider how God providentially works to carry out His purpose. Last week we saw how He worked through a pagan emperor, Cesar Augustus, and a new tax, to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus.  He could have just told them to go, but He arranged circumstance to get them there.  He could have sent an angel to tell these Magi to seek out the newborn King of the Jews, but instead He arranged a star, and used that to get them to where He wanted them to be. He is the Lord of all Creation! We can trust the fact that God is sovereign, and that as we are obedient to His Word and seeking His will, He will make our paths straight!

        By the way, we should notice that these were gentile wise men. In this very Jewish gospel, we see an emphasis on the fact that Jesus came to be the Savior of the entire world, He would save a remnant from every nation. From the first chapter where Rahab and Ruth are mentioned in the genealogy of Joseph, to the last words where the disciples are told to “go and made disciples of every nation” its clear that the whole world is God’s world – and the whole world needs to know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, the only way to the Father.  We take seriously missions in our church – world missions as we partner with workers that God has called to other parts of the world, and Home missions as we seek to support ministries locally and to ourselves be the lighthouse He wants us to be right here.

  Wise men seek Him, while the fool resists and rejects Him (v.3). “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” The term means “to shake up, to throw into turmoil.” Herod almost certainly wasn’t looking for the Messiah. He was however power hungry and paranoid. At one point he had some of his own sons executed because he imagined that they conspired to steal his throne. Herod was “troubled,” he was filled with that uneasy dreadful feeling that something was terribly wrong. What if it were true?  It was like the reaction of King Saul to David when he saw his popularity: he tried to kill him!

     I suspect that most unbelievers, who try so hard to suppress the revelation of God and to ignore it, experience the same feeling of uneasiness from time to time. They resist the truth, withdraw from it, at times even react violently against it.  The question for us is…

***Is Jesus your Lord? Is knowing and worshipping Him at the heart of your life?”

II. People have different attitudes toward the Word of God (2:4-10). Some people know the Word and don’t act on it. Others put on an outward mask of piety for their own reasons (we call that hypocrisy).  Relatively few hear it and unconditionally obey it.

            Vv.4-6 Show that while some people are “Religious” and may know what the Bible says but don’t obey it! The Chief priest and Scribes knew the Scriptures. When Herod inquired of them as to where the Messiah was to be born they were able to quote Micah 5:2 (Mt 2:5,6), probably by heart.  They correctly quoted what the prophet had said, but they didn’t act on it! They didn’t seek Him. Knowing what the Bible says is not the same as “hearing it with faith” and submitting to its authority.  There are “intellectual giants” who study the Biblical documents out of historical interest, but are not interested in submitting to what is says. James tells us to be doers of the Word, not hearers only who deceive themselves.

            Vv. 7-8 reveal that Herod exemplified hypocrisy at its worst.  He asks the Magi to come back and report to him, that he also wanted to go and worship Him also. The Magi might have been fooled, but God knew Herod’s heart. There are no doubt who hear the word, say they believe it and even announce their intention to obey, but all along are planning to do their own thing. Tragically, there are probably those who as so used to the mask they are wearing that they even deceive themselves.

            The Magi received the Word, obeyed it, and were led by it to Christ (see Micah 5:2). They obeyed just this one verse of Scripture, and it brought them to Jesus. I think it was Nate Saint who said that his life was changed when he came to grips with the fact the obedience is not a momentary option. It is a dye-cast decision made beforehand.  

Most of us have Bibles. Question: Do we receive it as the Word of God?  Are we committed to reading it and living it? We started a “Read through the Bible initiative last year, did you join with us?  Will you choose to be in the Word in 2013?  The song says “Trust and Obey, there is no other way….”     Is knowing and worshipping Jesus at the heart of your life?

III. The key question for every person is how they relate to the God who is (2:11-12). “And when they had 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 gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  ¹² Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.”

             Some worship Him and are led by Him as the wise men were (2:11-12a). Being led by God is normal, healthy Christianity (see Rom 8:14). They found Him and offered gifts in an act of worship. They were valuable but also symbolic.

·        Gold: perhaps symbolizing royalty. Matthew presents Jesus as the promised and coming King.

·        Frankincense: Costly incense used in certain offerings in the Temple: emphasizing Jesus’ deity. He is our High Priest as well.

·        Myrrh: A valuable perfume, sometimes used in wine as an anesthetic, but also mixed with spices and used to prepare a body for burial.

Gold his royalty, Frankincense His deity (and perhaps his priestly function), myrrh His humanity and sacrificial death. These gifts were possibly used to finance the family’s flight into Egypt and then helped them get reestablished in Nazareth when they returned.

              The Magi sought Him. Others reject God and His Word as did Herod. Herod’s rejection of the Messiah led Him to try to be rid of Him, by lashing out in anger and having all the male children under two years of age in Bethlehem put to death.  I’ve read this story many times, but the horror of it struck me in a new way last couple of weeks with the tragic events in Connecticut.

What is God saying to me in this passage? Is knowing and worshipping Jesus at the heart of your life?

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? What would you give Him?  In Romans Paul outlines the doctrine of God’s sovereign grace. Then, Rom 12:1 says, “I urge you therefore brothers, in view of God’s mercy, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God…”