The Three Wisemen: Worshiping Christ

Part of our design, the design God worked into all people, is the propensity to worship.

They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time! They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Matthew 2:10-11

We all worship something. The only right response to God is to worship Him.

Their worship was physical. The Bible talks often of falling on your knees, raising up your hands, falling prostrate on the ground before God. Our bodies become expressions of what’s going on in our hearts. Even Jesus prayed on His knees before His Father in heaven.

Their worship was emotional. In spite of their worldly dignity and high standing, they humbled themselves before this tiny king. They delighted in Him and adored Him -- we just read how they were filled with “exceeding great joy.”

Their worship was spiritual, based on truth, They came expectantly into the home that Joseph had now found for his family. But it wasn’t until they saw God’s literal fulfillment of His promise, a young girl, a virgin, holding the little baby boy, begotten of God, right there in Bethlehem, the birthplace of kings, that they fell down on their knees.

Their worship was generous, They didn’t come empty handed.

In meditating on this chapter it struck me what you and I are saying to the Lord when we come empty handed to Him in worship. Essentially we’re saying that God has been a stingy Father. We’re saying, “Well Lord, looks like You didn’t provide very well for me, since I have nothing left to give you.” And we’re also saying, even in hard times when the money’s pretty scarce, “Lord, this time the sacrifice is simply too big. You aren’t worth it this time.”

The Lord says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this...if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” (Malachi 3:10) “Jesus says, “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure--pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." (Luke 6:38)

The wise men’s gifts were also prophetic, and an expression of their faith. The gold spoke of Jesus’ purity and His royalty. The frankincense spoke of Jesus’ priestly duty, receiving the prayers of believers, and offering up intercession for all those who come to Him. And the myrrh spoke of Jesus’ sacrificial death to save His people from their sins.

The right response to God is to worship and obey His Son

You hear people say they’re seeking, but what are they really seeking? God says, through the prophet Jeremiah, “When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." (Jeremiah 29:13) If a person is really seeking God, they will always find Jesus.

Having, in faith, followed God’s guidance and having accepted and worshiped the Messiah, they gained a deeper sensitivity for God’s voice. God took them into His protection and guided them more directly,

In a dream, they were warned not to report back to Herod. So they worked out another route, left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own country.Matthew 2:12

Without questioning, even though it meant having to map out a new, and unknown, route, finding new and unknown oases and connections for their large company on the long trek home, they obeyed and continued to follow God’s guidance.

Worship that does not continue with obedience is not true worship.

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The Three Wisemen: Response To God's Sign

So let’s stop a minute and think about all the responses Matthew has recorded so far to God’s proclamation that His Son has been born.

The people: Were bothered, vaguely worried, instead of excited and eager for their promised Messiah.

Their ruler was a cruel and capricious king. They didn’t want anything to disturb him because that meant he would, in turn, take it out on them, people would get hurt, there would be upheaval and crackdowns.

Maybe you’re there. You like when the Bible talks about things that already are a part of your life, things that agree with how you view life already. But when you get to a part that doesn’t agree with your views you feel bothered. You feel vaguely worried, sensing this is going to mean upheaval in your life, and it might hurt.

How prepared are you to receive God's guidance and how willing are you to follow it?

Herod: Was insanely suspicious, always worried that someone was going to try and take away his power and wealth.

For all his good qualities as a ruler, this one trait ruined every good thing he did. Instead of him controlling his life, and ruling his realm, this one trait controlled him and made him a tyrant of his realm.

Is there some trait in your personality that is driving everything else, overshadowing your other good qualities because you are not reigning in the excesses of this one trait?
* Maybe it’s your short temper.

* Maybe you are a critical person, always pointing out what’s wrong with other people.

* Maybe it’s your love of shopping, or your love of gossip.

* Maybe it’s your fear of people, or fear of anything new.

* Maybe it’s your self-consciousness.

* Maybe you are overly sensitive and see insults and slights in just about everything people say to you.

Herod believed God’s word, but instead of rejoicing that God had brought the wise men right to his door with this incredible good news, he felt threatened, slighted, insulted by God.

He wanted to destroy the fulfillment of God’s promise. When do I resent God’s word and see it as a threat to my happiness?

Scribes and chief priest: Religion was their work.

These were the seminarians, ivory tower academics, deeply religious traditionalists, who considered themselves as perfectly keeping the law, above reproach, they knew it all and observed all the religious mores. Bethlehem was only five miles away, but they made no move to see if the Messiah had really been born there so they could worship Him.

As the teachers and law keepers, they didn’t feel the need to be taught anymore, the need to grow anymore; they considered themselves above all that, and above the people who still needed that.

You might find yourself there, Bible study has become a little ho-hum, it’s your work, you get it done, that makes you feel good, but it isn’t igniting your heart. You’re looking around at the people you feel still need it, so you’re keeping up with your Bible study for someone else. How closely are you watching for God's guidance in my own life?

Wise men: They were students of ancient and sacred lore. Two hundred years before Christ the entire Old Testament had been translated into Greek, making it available to scholars world wide. They would have had the original writings of the prophet Daniel, who had lived in Chaldea for most of his life.

They would have had some access to at least the books in Hebrew of the Old Testament written up to the time of the great diaspora described at the end of 2nd Kings, since the Jews would have brought their scriptures with them when they went into exile.

They were not Jews, as were the citizens of Jerusalem, and the scribes and chief priests, and Herod. But they believed God and acted on their belief.

They had faith.

Think of all the planning, the cost, the time and the risk that went into this trip. Their plan was to follow this star, for however long it would take, wherever it would take them. They were absolutely committed to seeking God, based on what God had revealed to them, and God brought them to the Messiah.

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The Three Wisemen: Following The Star

This story takes place somewhere between when Jesus was born, and when he was a preschooler.

Matthew 2 begins with quite a stir in the city,

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory— this was during Herod's kingship—a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East. Matthew 2:1

A great company of exotic foreigners had arrived in Jerusalem from the east with all their retinue. The traditional number is three magi, because they presented three gifts to the Christ child. But there were probably many more than just three.

These were important people, most likely Gentiles who had come from Chaldea with a large caravan of camels with their loads, and a full complement of servants and guards. They made their way to the largest Ritz Carlton in town, got checked in, then immediately headed over to the palace to find out where the new king of the Jews had been born,

They asked around, "Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth. We're on pilgrimage to worship him." Matthew 2:2

All of Jerusalem was upset.

Matthew was continuing to show how the Jews had completely missed recognizing Jesus' credentials as the Messiah. God had established His people thousands of years before to cherish and keep His word, to love, worship and obey Him and to wait expectantly for the Messiah Who would free them from bondage. All the rest of the world was also waiting for this big event. About a dozen or so ancient historians recorded this phenomenon.

Even the Roman historian Tacitus in the days of Caesar wrote about the expectation of a ruler being born near the province of Judea. But what actually happened is that when the real king, the one the rest of the world had been waiting for, was born in the one place only a real king could be born in, during the days of the pretend king who was falsely ruling over God's people, wise men, bringing God's wisdom, came from far away to God's holy and royal city where there didn’t seem to be any wise people.

Originally, God had made humankind in His own image, making us to fit Him in a perfect way, filling us with His own breath. God had created humankind to be in eternal fellowship with Himself.

God loves His people deeply, in ways we can hardly imagine, having designed us to be His intimate companion, just as He designed Eve to correspond to Adam. God intends for us to be made one with Him in a profound intimacy. This is a person's greatest purpose and blessing, and it was Messiah Who would provide the way for eternal fellowship with God.

So God's people were supposed to be alert, watch for the signs. In Genesis 1:14 God had said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens...let them be for signs..." Before there were satellites and other sophisticated technologies, the stars and planets were used for navigation, clocking the seasons, measuring large distances on the earth for map-making purposes, and so on.

Then in Numbers 24:17 God said a specific sign would come, "A star shall come out of Jacob..." King David himself had written "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork," (Psalm 19:1)

Ancient people understood this to mean that God would literally reveal signs of what lay in the immediate, and far future in the sky, in the alignment of the stars and planets, so they made a close study of the patterns in the night sky. But only these wise men from the east, astronomers who recorded the movement of stars, comets and planets, and scholars who were familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, had taken God’s word seriously.

There was evidently an unusual phenomenon in the sky that these men recognized as being directly connected with the prophecy concerning Messiah.

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