MISSION (Wiseman)

Introduction/Orientation

Good Morning Church, I trust you had a blessed Christmas holiday celebrating the greatest gift that was ever given… n the advent of Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

And this Sunday, the Sunday after Christmas, we are going to finish our Christmas Series entitled “AWAY IN A MANGER” where we have been looking at the traditional themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love through various characters from the Advent story.

We began with a teaching from the ancient prophet Isaiah who 700 years earlier instilled in God’s people a sense of “HOPE” for the Advent of the Messiah, or the Christ.

Then we looked at Shalom or “PEACE” through the eyes of a Shepherd and all he encountered on the night the Angels delivered their message: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased”

Then we considered the “JOY” of a man who became a father in a very unusual way, he was appointed by God to be the Father of the Son of God… and showed in his character why God chose him.

And if you were able to be with us on Christmas Eve, you heard the overarching theme of “LOVE”, not just the love of a young mother toward her first born Son but that Son’s divine love for her and the whole world.

And today… well lets see we have Hope, Peace, Joy, Love and so all we need is… um… well I think that is it. Oops. Those four are what we typically celebrate each Christmas and now that Christmas is over… um.. well… what do we focus on now?

While it is not one of the four traditional Christmas focuses… I would like to suggest that we take today to look at our response to those four advent themes. The arrival of the Messiah or the “Advent” of Jesus Christ brought us the best gifts of “Hope, Peace, Joy and Love”… so how should we respond to such extravagant gifts?

Many of us have already forgotten many of our Christmas gifts, and even those that got the greatest “Wow” will get less and less of attention as time goes on. But how we do rightly respond to the gift of Jesus?

The answer to this question gives us what I am calling our “Mission”.

And even though we have exhausted all four of the traditional Christmas themes, we still have one traditional character to introduce. I can’t think of a better example than the Wise Men when it comes to exploring our response to the birth of the Christ Child. They seemed to understand investing in a “Mission” better than anyone else in the story and I think you might be surprised to learn that we have more in common with these Magi Guys than we imagined.

VIDEO: Wise Men Still Seek Him

Tension

WISE MEN STILL SEEK HIM.

It’s quite a phrase. Maybe you found it in a Christmas cards this past week or saw it on a church sign somewhere. What a great reminder of the mission of the Magi or “wise men”. They came from the East and we sit here in the West and somehow we can share the same MISSION: To pursue the one born King of the Jews, honor Him with our worship and offer Him our gifts.

Let’s stop for a moment and pray that God would show us how to faithfully execute our mission, even as the magi did so many years ago… and even more so. Because they were seeking Jesus on the other side of the Manger, but we seek Him on the other side of the cross.

Let’s pray.

Truth

I don’t know if you know this or not, but some more liturgical churches have an additional celebration shortly after Christmas which they call “Epiphany”. As a part of this tradition they consider the wisemen specifically, instead of grouping them together with the rest of the advent story. And when you think about it there are many unique aspects to their story especially when contrasted to the others.

Mary, Joseph and even the Shepherds all learned of the arrival of Jesus by way of supernatural messenger. Angles showed up to them in person, in dreams or lighting up the night sky. It was something of an intrusion or invasion into their ordinary daily life. These encounters were so unsettling and surprising that one of the first thing that the Angels said was “Fear not” in order to calm an assure them.

In contrast to those “fear-filled” experiences, the wise men learned about Jesus in a process that was very natural to them. They discovered it through doing what they did on a regular basis, studying the stars and reading the Scriptures. While the star had supernatural placement, it didn’t seem to be something that impacted every person that may have looked up at the night sky… but they knew something was different.

Whenever they saw a star or planet they could not account for, they knew something significant had happened and so they did what they always do in this situation… they searched the Scriptures to try and discern the meaning behind it all.

Our first theme is…

Wise men read and believe God’s Word (Mat 2:1-6)

I loved that transition in the video that went from the Wise Men from ancient times to wise men… and women today pouring over… presumably the same ancient writings - The Bible. And of course that is where we get this story of the Wise Men from Matthew Chapter two which begins…

Matthew 2:1–2 ESV

1 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 saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

Best we can gather these wise men traveled to Bethlehem from eastern lands somewhere on the other side of the Arabian Desert. They did not merely wander or let the wind blow them in a haphazard direction without intent. They came on purpose. They packed royal gifts with purpose. They weren’t on a vacation… they were on a mission.

A mission that included a very long journey. Mary and Joseph’s journey was about 90 miles to Bethlehem, but these men traveled about 900 miles on their mission to find the one to whom this particular star belonged.

Did you catch that? They were pretty specific. The star belonged to the new born King of the Jews, it was “his star” that rose and caused these men to begin their long journey. But how did they know of the star? How were these foreigners from a far off distant land able to identify a star as belonging to the Jewish Messiah… especially before most of the Jews did?

HOW DID THEY KNOW?

Well for one thing, we believe that these men had access to the Jewish Scriptures because of the influence of the ancient prophet Daniel. Remember him? He was taken captive to Babylon with his three friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Even in Exile, God provided for His people by giving these four young Jewish nobles exceptional abilities to understand literature, culture and world religions so they could navigate to positions of power in Babylon. Daniel quickly rose to the rank of chief over all the wisemen in Babylon.

Daniel 2:48 ESV

48 Then the king (The Babylonian King) gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.

Then after 70 years of captivity, just as God promised, the way was cleared for the Jews to return to the promised land. Most of the Jews returned, but many including Daniel stayed in Babylon to continue their influence there. So along with many manuscripts from other nations and cultures around the world… “wise men from the east” studied the Old Testament prophecies just as Daniel did.

And while doing so they came across verses like: Numbers 24:17 which says:

Numbers 24:17 ESV

17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;

It seems likely that they might have heard of this prophecy because the one speaking here was actually someone from their neck of the woods. It was foreigner prophet named Balaam who was hired by a Moabite king to curse God’s people, but God intervened and made him bless them instead! Which is fun, but not as fun as when God made his donkey talk to him a couple chapters earlier.

The big idea is that God was involved in all of this and used what these guys did on a daily basis to draw them to Jesus. True to their culture they studied the stars, and true to the influence of Daniel and other transplanted Jews, they studied God’s Word… and believed it! Enough so that they packed up a caravan to travel 900 miles to worship the new born king.

Which is at the heart of the reason why these Wise men discerned the times before the Jews in Jerusalem did. They have the same Scriptures… but they were not even looking for their own Messiah. Of course, they are now, now that these Wise Men arrived… but for all the wrong reasons.

Matthew 2:3–4 (ESV) 3 When Herod the king heard this, [about a new born king] he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him… “how should we know, we don’t study that stuff. Why don’t you ask these guys…” no that is not what they said at all…

Matthew 2:5–6 ESV

5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: 6 “ ‘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.’ ”

You see...they were not lacking information, they were lacking motivation.

We know this because their first response was not a celebration, it was to be “troubled” along with Herod. This was the religious climate in Jerusalem at this time. The chief priests and the scribes were more political pundits then men of faith, daily trying to stay in the good graces of the disturbed King Herod. The whole city knew that the announcement of another king in Herod’s Jerusalem meant trouble, big trouble.

Of course the Wise Men from so far off didn’t know such things, they were just continuing in their mission, because…

Wise Men seek Jesus to worship Him (Mat 2:7-8)

The Wise Men were not secretive about their mission, they saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. They had no reason to work in secrecy, but secrecy was a big part of the way Herod played his games.

Matthew 2:7–8 ESV

7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 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.”

Next Sunday we will be returning to our Matthew series, picking up at Chapter 7, so it was not too long ago that we learned details about this King Herod and what a nasty guy he was. How he was as paranoid as he was arrogant… he had at least one wife and several sons put to death because he thought they were eyeing up his crown… there is no way he is going to share his throne with some no-name infant.

And he probably did this secretly because no one who knew this King would think for one moment that he wanted this information so that he too could come and worship Jesus. As the end of the story certainly shows... He wanted exactly the opposite: to destroy Him.

Especially because Jesus was not a “no-name” infant. Herod had pretty good reasons to be paranoid over someone taking his throne away because he was not the rightful King of Israel. He had no royal blood in him. He was a puppet king installed by the Roman government because he did Rome’s bidding in the region. So Herod was always on the lookout for someone from the Kingly line of David gathering a following and usurping his power.

So hearing about a baby born in Bethlehem, the city of David, was a great concern. Rightly so, as we looked at last week, Jesus was from the royal line of King David from both his mothers and earthly father’s side.

We see this from the opening of the book Matthew which says:

Matthew 1:1 ESV

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

So Jesus was Jewish through Abraham and Royalty through David… which begs the question: How did Jerusalem's “chief priests and scribes” miss this? Why weren’t these “learn-ed” men of Israel looking for the Messiah? They obviously had the information, why not the motivation?

APPLICATION

Well since the Bible doesn’t tell us, we can’t know for sure but we could probably come up with some good possibilities when we consider our own lives. Reasons why we don’t seek to worship Jesus like we know we should.

It could be because of fear of retribution. That was pretty likely... serving under a guy like Herod, but even in our day, our culture is becoming more and more antagonistic toward those who stand up or speak up for Jesus. So we keep what we know of Jesus, His Word and His ways on the down low in public… don’t wanna rock the boat.

Or it could be complacency. In Herod’s day it had been 400 years since God had spoken through a prophet, so they probably thought why would today be any different? Some of us have waited a long time for God to move in our life, maybe we have given up worshiping Him because He hasn’t shown up where or how we expected Him too? Asking, “Why would today be any different”

It also could have been selfishness. They probably worked hard to get to their position in Jerusalem, compromising whenever they needed to. In order to excel in the crooked system Herod had instituted, they probably did some things they were not proud of… so the idea of running after the Messiah seemed like one more thing to do… instead of it being THEE thing that we were designed to do.

Lots of possibilities, for the religious leaders and for us, but it was Wise Men from far off who believed God’s Word enough to seek Jesus, and worship Him. But that is not all they did.

Wise Men offer Jesus their gifts (Mat 2:9-11)

Matthew 2:9–10 ESV

9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

It seems to me that this event was the most “supernatural” thing the Wise Men experienced. We can all wrap our minds around how a new star might come into view in the night sky at a particular time... but how does a star come to rest over a single house?

If their visit with King Herod caused them any doubt, then this peculiar acting star had to be great affirmation that they were still on the right track. And they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

What do you think that looked like? I don’t know about you but I always picture the Wise Men as these rather stoic figures who walk into any room slowly and regally… but this doesn’t paint that picture does it? They didn’t just “rejoice” but they did it “exceedingly” with not just “joy” but “great joy”. How would you picture that? We aren’t talking about cracking a little smile here are we? We are talking something closer to a whopping big “Yahoo!” Maybe jumping off their camels and dancing around them… we don’t know specifics but we know it was not just a “Oh, wow. Well that’s nice”

When was the last time you came to Worship Jesus like that? Where you realized the privilege it is to be shown the way to God and so you “rejoice exceedingly with great joy”? Seems to me anticipating being in the presence of Jesus should do that for all of us.

And that is just what happened to these Wise Men. They were invited into the presence of Jesus…

Matthew 2:11 ESV

11 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.

We see in the text that Jesus was a “child” not a baby at this point and they found Him in a “house” not a barn structure of some kind. Details found later in the story tell us that Jesus was close to 2 years old at this point so Mary and Joseph had already traveled with Jesus to the Temple for her purification ceremony (Luke 2:22) and Jesus’ “pidyon ha’ben”... the traditional Jewish presentation of the firstborn male that we talked about Wed Night. (Luke 2:23-39).

And the Bible is very specific about the gifts because of their extravagance. These were nothing like the gifts that any of us got for Christmas this past week. Mary and Joseph had only heard about these kinds of things… they would never have expected to have them in their own possession. These were the kind of gifts that people in these days would offer a King or even a god… and whether they realized it yet or not… these men were doing both.

Application

So what kind of gift did you give to Jesus this Christmas? His gift list probably looks a lot different than most of ours. Because God doesn’t really need stuff. Best we can figure, Joseph and Mary sold these gifts to finance their trip to Egypt which happened in the dead of night moments after the Wise Men left. Because God isn’t looking for our stuff, He wants the worship of our hearts.

Because He knows that anything that is truly given as an act of worship, will become a blessing to those who are giving. Listen to how the Apostle Paul instructs Christians to give in 2 Corinthians 9, he says.

2 Corinthians 9:7–8 ESV

7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Did you catch that? It’s never about the amount, it’s always about the heart. When we give cheerfully it means that we offer our gifts with that exceeding joy, entrusting that anything else that we could have invested it in pales in comparison with what God is going to do with it.

And of course this does apply to our finances, but really much more than that. God is wanting to do good works through His people and He equips His people with everything they need to accomplish that good work. A good work that will satisfy us better than any worldly entertainment, distraction or pleasure ever could. Because God has always been the very best gift giver as…

James 1:17 ESV

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

And because we are made in the image of God, He designed us to be good gift-givers as well. Everything we give should be in response to what we have been given in Christ

1 Peter 4:10 ESV

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:

And we might think that the Wise Men finished their mission with their bowing down before the Christ Child and offering Him such lovely gifts but there was still more for them to accomplish. Now that they had experienced the presence of Christ, they must take it home with them.

It became more than just a good story they tell, it became something that informed every aspect of their lives… even how they make their decisions. And we see this impact right after they met Jesus. Because…

Wise Men obey God over men (Mat 2:12)

These Wise Men had reached an agreement with the local king, a secret agreement, but the did so without knowing the King’s heart. God gave them a picture of that heart and they immediately made a new plan. As we read in verse 12…

Matthew 2:12 ESV

12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Gospel Application

This is the last that we hear of these Wise Men, but their example echo’s on into our lives even today. Wise Men Still Seek Him

We seek Him through reading and believing what He has given us in His Word.

We seek Him to worship and honor Him for who He is and what He has done

We seek Him to offer Him the gift of our very lives, knowing that our soul will never be satisfied with anything less.

We seek Him in obedience, knowing that everyone else on earth is just as corrupted by sin as we are.

Landing/Next Steps

This is our mission, but we are only able to accomplish it because Jesus accomplished His. He traveled further, gave even better gifts, and honored the Father with greater obedience than the Wise Men ever could.

Philippians 2:8–11 ESV

8 And being found in human form, (born of a virgin, placed in a manger) he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus accomplished His mission, born in a manger so He could go to the cross for you. Now how will you respond to a gift like that?