Worship (Matthew 2:1-12)

Sermon

Key Passage

Matthew 2:1–12 NIV

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Introduction

Merry Christmas!

I want to open our service today by looking at the hand of God that we have seen as we work through this series to this point.

A few weeks ago, Christian opened this series in Matthew by preaching through the lineage of Jesus

This guy was the father of this guy...

That isn’t just boring text to fill pages of the Bible.

This is text that was inspired by the Holy Spirit to reveal the nature of the Father.

I want to share a verse from a text that we read a few weeks ago.

When the angel of God was sent to Mary, the angel told her that she would become pregnant and give birth to a son.

Luke 1:37 NIV

For no word from God will ever fail.”

There were dozens of prophecies in the OT about the arrival of Jesus, including his lineage.

We saw the power of God aligning a family tree for this moment

We saw the power of God causing an elderly woman to become pregnant (Elizabeth)

We saw the power of God in the virgin pregnancy of Mary

Isaiah 7:14 NIV

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

We saw the power of God fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem last week.

Micah 5:2 NIV

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Either it was a massive coincidence, or God maneuvered the entire Roman empire to move Mary and Joseph down to Bethlehem, so the prophecy would be fulfilled.

The word I want us to understand here today is the word “sovereignty”

If we are to say that God is sovereign, what I mean is this:

Imagine I am writing a book. In that book, I can create characters, story lines, points of action and points of tragedy.

I could write about mighty kingdoms and massive armies.

But I could also write how those kingdoms fall and change.

This is a simple metaphor of the idea of sovereignty.

We might think that our life is a book and we are the author.

That is an inspirational thought, but it is not rooted in very much reality.

I am not sovereign over very much in my life.

What we see is and angel saying:

Luke 1:37 NIV

For no word from God will ever fail.”

Then we see God maneuver history

We see God maneuver biology

We see God maneuver the Roman empire

Today, we will see the sovereignty of God exercised in a different way.

He is the Lord of HEAVEN and Earth.

Because we are a part of God’s creation, and He is not a part of our creation we will see that He is worthy of worship.

If we are a part of the story of History that He is writing. It is quite unwise as a character of the Author’s creation to live in rebellion to the Author.

Let’s see this concept lived out in our passage today.

Preachy Time

Matthew 2:1 NIV

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,

Matthew does a very good job of developing context for our passage so we have a point of reference to understand the story.

I know all of us love to build out our nativity sets at home

Also, all of us love to sing our Christmas carols and watch our Christmas movies.

Again, I hate to break up the romanticism of the season, but having a Biblical foundation means that we do not impose our songs and television shows upon the Bible.

Rather we impose the Bible upon our songs and practices.

Matthew tells us that the events in this story happen after the birth of Jesus.

We may ask the question, “How far after?”

There are many who will guess and speculate, but I will tell you what the Bible tells you: It doesn’t say.

The Bible does give us some clues that we can draw:

Verse 11 tells us that the Magi came to the “house”

Matthew 2:11 NIV

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary

If you notice the word “house” is not the same as the word “stable”

Jesus was born in a barn. Now he is in a house

This indicates that the “Later” was not hours after his birth, but possibly a longer time period.

Also you will notice the word, “child”

They had a word for “infant” and they also had a word for “child”

Matthew did not use the word “infant” or “baby” he used the word “child”

Based on this, we can fairly safely assume that it was a period of time after the birth of Jesus that these events took place.

I do this because I want us to paint the picture in our minds of what the Bible says.

Matthew also highlights that this was during the time of King Herod.

This is a significant historical point of reference. We will actually dive deeper into this next week. So, if you are curious about the Herodian Dynasty, we will have fun!

Matthew 2:1 NIV

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem

So after establishing our historical context, Matthew begins to describe a series of events that took place.

Magi came from the east to Jerusalem.

I want to approach this as if we were unfamiliar with the story.

We often hear about these guys being either “Wise men” or “Kings”

The Greek word for “Magi” here is Magos

The best translation comes to us as:

Mage, magician, sorcerer, priest, astrologer, or scientist.

We don’t know where they came from

We don’t know how far they traveled

What we do know is that they were likely not worshipers of God, but rather people who studied the stars and mysticism in some capacity. This was what the Greek word “magos” would most directly apply to in our understanding.

These guys would certainly be an unexpected arrival in Jerusalem, where the temple was being built and the people of Israel practiced a form of religion based on the Old Testament texts that directly refuted what these guys stood for.

Matthew 2:2 NIV

and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

These magi traveled from the east and and show up to town asking a very specific question: “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?”

These magi traveled this distance with knowledge that even the Jewish people did not know.

King Herod was considered the King of Jews, but not THE King of the Jews.

And King Herod was not born king. He had ascended to that throne by political means.

The magi identify how they knew there was a King of the Jews that was born.

There was something about a star. This star was indicative of the birth of a king.

These magi didn’t just come to see the king, but they came to worship him

We will uncover more of this as we walk through the story.

Matthew 2:3–6 NIV

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

King Herod heard these pagan astrologers come to town asking about the birth of a king.

Herod knew this wasn’t his kid, and he knew that his hold of the throne was not legitimate to the Jewish people.

So Herod was disturbed. But it says that all of Jerusalem was disturbed as well.

I had to think about this, why would all of Jerusalem be disturbed?

It would seem that they would be excited about the birth of a king. They had been looking forward to the coming of the Messiah for quite some time.

One possibility is that they were expecting a king with a crown to come with an army and start conquering the world again.

Hearing that the king was a baby had to be massively confusing to them.

Another possibility is understanding who the messenger was.

The messengers were pagan astrologists who watched the stars and didn’t worship at the temple.

What kind of king could these guys be talking about? Certainly not our Messiah. That news would certainly be spread by a more holy and upright method.

Herod was concerned, the Romans would be concerned, the Jews were concerned.

This wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Herod calls together all of the Bible scholars and asks, “Tell me about the prophecies of the Messiah. What do they say?”

The Bible scholars point to the book of Micah and say that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

Matthew 2:7–8 NIV

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

Herod pulls these magi into his office and begins to get information.

Herod has a threat to his throne. He is getting information from the Bible scholars. He is getting information from the magi. He sees the threat and is scheming about how he is going to protect himself.

He sends them to Bethlehem, where the prophecy is supposed to be fulfilled to search for the child.

We see him tell the magi that they should return to him so he could go worship as well.

The magi seem to be very up front about their desire to worship this king.

But we will find out next week that Herod’s motivations were far less honorable.

He intended to kill the baby and secure his throne.

Matthew 2:9–10 NIV

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

I don’t know how you would know exactly where the star stopped over something, but it had to be very clear to these guys.

Now here is a piece of the story that we don’t often think about.

When are the stars out? At night, of course.

And if they had been following the star, they must have been out for a while.

What time do you imagine this was? Midnight? Maybe later?

What are you doing after midnight? I’m sleeping. Especially when we had kids. We got all of the sleep we could!

The Magi follow the star to the place where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were.

Matthew 2:11 NIV

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The magi find a house, and Mary is with Jesus in the house.

The magi bow down and worship the child, Jesus.

Then they opened up treasures and gave Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We are familiar with what gold is. However in this setting, gold was the expected gift to bring to a king. It is a metal of the highest value and it showed the submission of the magi to the authority of this king

Frankincense— was deeply symbolic. It represented Jesus’ divine priestly role and worship. It was burned in the Jewish temple by priests as a symbol of prayers ascending to God and was specifically used in temple worship.

Myrrh— This was an odd one to bring to Jesus. This was used in the embalming and anointing bodies at burial.

They would understand Gold (king) and frankincense (priest), but myrrh? This was a prophetic look ahead to what Jesus would do in dying to pay the penalty for our sin.

Matthew 2:12 NIV

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

People have been having a lot of dreams in this story so far.

Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, and now the magi!

We can presume the dream was given by God as were the other dreams of this account of Jesus’ birth.

They returned to their country, the long distance that they had traveled, they returned.

Main Point

I want to make a simple point today. It is Christmas week and I know we all have a thousand things on our minds. I don’t want to load you up with more to think about, so we will keep it simple this morning.

The magi give us a tremendous example of something we must keep in our minds as we enter the Christmas season.

Last week, we spoke about our loss of awe.

The shepherds were in awe. Mary was in awe. The people who heard the stories from the shepherds were in awe.

But we lose our awe, when we lose sight of Jesus.

It is interesting in this story that the people that were seemingly the closest to God, the religious leaders, the priests, the teachers all missed the Messiah.

They had likely set up in their minds the way that all of the Messiah stuff would go.

They knew their prophecy, they had their maps and charts and the pictures in their minds of how the Messiah would come and what he would do.

But when Jesus came, he didn’t meet the pictures they created in their minds, so they missed him.

The people who didn’t have the picture in their minds, the simple shepherds, the magi, Mary. These people saw it.

They experienced awe. And it resulted in worship.

Worship

I want to highlight a few things that we see about the magi that we can bring to the attention of our hearts as we enter this Christmas week.

God had revealed Himself.

His sovereignty was available for anyone to see.

He had changed biology

He had dictated History

He had moved the Roman Empire

He had manipulated the stars for His purpose.

And, He was born in the flesh.

No word from God had failed.

When the magi saw this, they worshiped.

What the magi teach about worship:

We must prepare to worship

The magi traveled from their country for one purpose, to worship.

There was preparation to go and do one thing. Worship.

Part of their preparation was seeing that God was at work at this time and understanding their part in God’s activity.

If they were made aware of the Sovereign God, they knew that their response was to worship.

WORSHIP IS ALWAYS A RESPONSE. WE SEE GOD. WE RESPOND TO HOW HE HAS REVEALED HIMSELF AND WHO HE IS.

As we step into Christmas, but even beyond that, as we step into our time at church, do we take the time to prepare ourselves to worship?

Prepare our hearts? Prepare our minds? Prepare our outlook?

We are coming to acknowledge the holy, almighty, sovereign God of the universe.

What the magi teach about worship:

We must prepare to worship

We must pursue worship

The magi could have just stayed home, said a prayer and been ok with that. But that was not enough.

They sought out God in the flesh and made the journey, just to worship Him.

They looked for the opportunity and made worship the single target of their lives.

This one is convicting to me.

Worship just becomes a thing that is done by others that I join in with.

I don’t feel that I would do what the magi did in this story.

When I see God at work, when I see God change a heart, do I pursue Him and worship Him?

This is what the magi did.

What the magi teach about worship:

We must prepare to worship

We must pursue worship

We recognize that worship is sacrifice

This is a big one to me.

The magi came and they sacrificially gave to Jesus.

Sacrificial giving is an important aspect of worship. It is entrusting our well-being to the one who is a sovereign God.

Also, I ask, what did the magi get out of this.

Worship is not about what we get. Worship is not about how we feel.

Now I am not saying that we won’t have feelings.

But the heart of worship is not what we get or what we feel. It is what we give.

Worship is about what we give Him, not we get or how we feel.

Worship is always sacrificial. It takes the time, the heart and the resources that we recognize God has given us and we respond by giving them back to Him.

When we worship, it brings us joy and peace.

These are good things. But they are not the objective of worship. God is the objective of worship.

We must keep the center-point of worship His heart.

What the magi teach about worship:

We must prepare to worship

We must pursue worship

We recognize that worship is sacrifice

We surrender

The magi bowed down to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Their bowing showed themselves to be surrendered and submitted to the King.

I want you to imagine our lives as a compass.

Let’s say you take a backpacking trip through the woods. That compass will be bumped around, flipped upside down, and turned and moved in every possible direction.

But when you flatten out the compass, it will always point north and will always give you a context for direction.

This is what surrendered worship looks like.

We take the time in our herky-jerky world that is bumping us around in all sorts of directions to stop, get out our compass and orient ourselves to True North.

It is surrendering our direction, our path and our belief of where we are to the unchanging direction of God.

Worship

What the magi teach about worship:

We must prepare to worship

We must pursue worship

We recognize that worship is sacrifice

We surrender

We worship together

I want you to see this out of this journey to worship by the magi

They came with one purpose: to worship.

But they didn’t do it alone. They did it together.

It is important to have the “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” part of your life together.

But without worshiping God together, we drift.

There is a power in relational worship

It is why we come together as a church. It is the opportunity for us to see God and grow closer to Him and as we do, we grow closer to one another.

Conclusion

So here we are, just a couple days before Christmas, with a story we’ve heard a thousand times… and yet, if we’re not careful, we can be just like the folks in Jerusalem. So close to the truth. So familiar with the Scriptures. So used to the routines. And still somehow missing the King standing right in front of us.

Meanwhile the people who shouldn’t have seen it—the star-watchers, the pagans, the outsiders—are the ones who drop everything and say, “If God is moving, we’re going to respond.”

And honestly, that’s the whole thing right there.

God has revealed Himself. In the birth of Jesus. In the movement of history. In the promises that have never failed. In the star. In the manger. In the cross. In the empty tomb.

And the only right response to a God like that… is worship.

Not the “sing a couple songs and check the box” kind of worship. The magi-level worship. The “I prepared my heart” worship. The “I’m actually pursuing Him” worship. The “this costs me something” worship. The “Jesus, You’re the King and I’m not” kind of surrender. The “let’s do this together” kind of worship that a family of believers shares.

So as we walk into Christmas week—into the meals and the gifts and the chaos and the kids hopped up on sugar—don’t lose the awe. Don’t miss Jesus because He doesn’t fit the picture you had in your head. Don’t let the noise drown out the wonder.

Take a breath. Slow down. Lift your eyes.

Prepare your heart. Pursue Him. Offer Him your worship. Lay down your life. And do it together.

Because the same God who moved the Roman Empire, who aligned the stars, who brought His Son into the world exactly as He promised— He’s still sovereign. He’s still writing the story. And He’s still worthy of worship.

Let’s be the kind of people who see Him clearly… and respond just like the magi did: with joy, with surrender, and with worship.

Merry Christmas.

Gospel

Directed Prayer