Captain Obvious Comes to Christmas (Matthew 2: 1-6)
Well welcome Hey kids. I have a special announcement for you. I have a little story to tell you and it results in another question on your sermon notes. So this is a question. I didn't think to write because of reasons always Queen right now, but there's another question coming your way. You know, I kind of have a Saturday night routine on Sundays when I'm preaching there's a I have Saturday night routine. I go to bed a little bit earlier than I normally do and as I'm falling asleep, I walk through the sermon in my mind and that's my last opportunity to make sure that I know how it's going to flow but also to meditate on the text and one of the interesting things that I've noticed is often, I will dream that night about something regarding related to the sermon. So kids here sermon note last night. I dreamed of my high school chemistry class. And your assignment is to figure out why I did that what in the sermon reminded me of my high school chemistry class to just draw a picture of a bed and hears Pastor Don sleeping and then do a thought bubble and in the thought bubble. Write the name and I'll give you the clue at the DM what name appears in this morning sermon that made me dream last night of my high school chemistry class. Got your assignment kids. Okay, here we go. Today is German is called Captain Obvious comes to Christmas. And I don't know if you seen these a hotel.com ads. They've got a character named Captain Obvious. He wears a hat and a red velvet jacket and other humorous ads and their humorous because he says the most obvious things. That's why he's called Captain Obvious. Something is happening in the commercial that is just absolutely clear but unstated and he comes along in and states that he's Captain Obvious and I wonder if it is today. We're going to learn about some people who missed the obvious. Something absolutely obvious right in front of their eyes, and they missed it. And I just wonder whether you've missed anything obvious, if you ever have a time with this something that obvious and you just missed it. I hope someone else has experienced this but I remember looking for my glasses for quite a while one day and I had taken them off and you know, how you can just visit arms down there and I was wearing my glasses on my shirt the whole time. I was looking for them. I remember just a couple of months ago. I was driving home from church. And as I was driving home A white Jeep passed me will send the owns a white Jeep at all. I wonder if that's her coming home from church. I want to go get home from church first and the white Chief come little had so I kind of went fast and see if I can look in the window couldn't look in the window halfway home. I realized I was driving a white Jeep. It's obvious I missed it. What today we're going to find some people who miss something totally obvious, but this is not just an honest mistake. This is just not a momentary time of confusion. The people were going to meet today miss something obvious because they wanted to miss something obvious. They didn't see something because they weren't looking for something. Here's what I've learned in life. I can't prove this biblically. This is just my experience is not exposition of scripture. But here's my experience in my own life and lives. I see. Our strongest desires the strongest desires of your heart the strongest desires of my heart what we want the most colors everything. What we want the most determines what we see and what we don't see. It determines what we hear and what we don't hear. Today we're going to see some people whose deepest desires of their heart or dark. They were black and that's why they missed everything.
I just wanted to illustrate that if I were to put that in a phrase, I'd say this desire drives decisions the deepest desires of our heart can explain why we do what we do. We act according to our deepest desires much more than we're aware. Why don't you know this about me by now, but I quite enjoy science not only the science but how the science was discovered and very often amazing things are discovered in science because someone has this overriding desire to solve a problem. They just can't stop thinking about it there in Tire life revolves around it. Everything that happens in their life. They see through the prism of the problem. They're trying to solve One example would be Dmitri Mendeleev. Who is Dmitri Mendeleev. He's a Russian chemist. Did you get that kids? He's a chemist that lived in the late eighteen hundreds. And I know this is a little bit scientific, but it's interesting to me. So just bear with me. When he lived scientist have figured out that of the zillions of things you see in the universe. They're all made up of a very few elements wood and rocks and air and stars in stones and they're all made up of a very few elements. They're just deranged a different way is a matter of fact when Dmitri was living scientists have discovered 63 Elements, by the way, they were right on all 63. There was a bunch they haven't discovered yet, but they knew that at least sixty three elements and if everything we see the seats you're sitting in the air that your breathing is just recombinations of these various elements. They didn't do much more than that. Dmitri was obsessed with understanding how matter exists what really is the essence of all the things we see and feel and how are these things combined it took over his life. That's all he could think about. One time he was thinking about this and he decided to take the 63 elements and just write one down on each little paper cardi made a bunch of paper cards and on each paper card. He wrote the name of an element and everything. They knew about that element. If you had that element, how much would a cubic inch of that element way? What is the melting point of that element and he just did it with all 63 and he arranged them by weight. and he noticed something really interesting he said you know elements that are the approximately the same weight have a lot of the same properties and then the further away you get away from that weight the more the properties change and then he noticed that when you get really far away it starts all over again so he took this big line of cards and he started to arranging them in rows and columns and he noticed that all the elements in that are close to one another has similar elements and all the elements that are horizontal and vertical have similar properties the reason we call this the periodic table is he said these properties occur periodically This is I'm a science guy, but I find this fascinating when he was alive. They knew about aluminum. But they didn't know about gallium. He said with these cards. He said I'll bet you that there is an element right here. We haven't discovered it yet. When we do I can tell you what its weight is going to be. I can tell you that is melting point is going to be 30 degrees celsius if you have it in your hand it would melt and guess what we discovered years later. Gallium right there snow. Why does he find this? No one else it found it because he had this Burning Desire is all he could think about when he went to bed at night when he woke up in the morning when he had conversations. Everything was about this problem desire drives decisions.
Or if you like something a little is tactical, let me tell you about Archimedes Archimedes interesting character and he had a problem. He lived at a time where his land was ruled by a king the king had told a jeweler to Fashion a beautiful pure gold crown for the king and the Jeweler did that but when the king receive the crown he suspected that the Jeweler had not made it out of pure gold but instead had put a less expensive metal inside and surrounded it with gold. The king said the Archimedes tell me whether this gold is Crown is pure gold or whether there's a less expensive metal inside and do it without ruining the crown. You can't saw it and have you can't look at you can just do whatever you do, but don't ruin the crown tell me is this pure gold or not? He was just obsessed with this problem. Everything that happened in life was related to this problem one day. He was taking a bath. It was literally taking about the steps into the bathtub and he noticed that the water overflows. And he got it. He's suddenly understood how we could solve the problem is a matter of fact. He was so excited that he jumps out of the bathtub and forgot to put his clothes on he ran through the streets of the Town naked yelling, Eureka Eureka. I found it. What did he find? Police said look if the I can weigh the crown, let's say it's 5 lb if it's pure gold I should be able to take 5 lb of pure gold put it in a container. And measure the water that it displaces. This is how much water 5 lb of gold displaces. The crown is 5 pounds is that is pure gold it will displace the same amount of water. If it's the same amount of water, the crown is pure gold if it's a different amount of water the crown is not pure gold and that's how we solved the problem. By the way. You may be wondering how it turned out. It did not turn out well for the jeweler. He had in fact she did the king. Here's what I'm trying to say is their lives Dimitri and Aristotle Dimitri and Archimedes. We're absolutely obsessed with their problems. As a matter fact, there's a famous statue of Archimedes and he's in a bathtub. This is a big deal. Have you got that in your head? Cuz this is the question for this morning sermon.
Desire drives decisions when you really want to answer a question when you're really looking you will find it and I asked you why didn't the Jewish leaders go to Bethlehem and our Passage.
Think about this from their position. Wise men come from the east by the way, we don't know much about the wise man, but where we think they came from they did not have the entire Old Testament is a matter fact. They probably only have The Book of Daniel so they are coming with a very fractured very incomplete idea of what a messiah oughta be and yet they show up out of the blue and they say a star has let us to you. Where is the king of the Jews? Herodotos exactly where to go goes to the Jewish leaders and he says these wise men just showed up. They said a star guided them here and that is about to be born the Messiah they want to know where he'll be born and the Jewish leaders say Bethlehem. And then never follow up.
Have you ever wondered what that like? Why didn't they say? What wise men shot get lead me to them and get to the Wiseman and say what star when did disappear how did you get here? And I noticed you said that the king of the Jews is being born? Why did you put it that way? Why didn't you just say a powerful General a powerful King? What about this makes him King of the Jews? I want to know why didn't they accompany the wise men to Bethlehem? They could have seen the star for themselves. They didn't go they could have got to the stable and they could have interviewed Mary and heard about her miraculous virgin pregnancy. They could have interview Joseph and heard about the dream. Instructing him to marry Mary they didn't they could have been first in line to give gifts to the king. And I didn't instead what happened. Three wise men come and say what we saw the star the king of the Jews is about to be born with just need to know where and describe say is Bethlehem, and they go back to their work.
Why didn't they follow up? Why didn't they go to Bethlehem? This morning? Sermon is about two groups of wise men were wise men. Got it and one group of wise men missed everything. We're focusing on the men that missed everything how. Why? How could they have missed such an obvious time? The text gives us three reasons. Reason number one they knew the location, but they were not looking for him. They knew the Messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem. They answered that question right away member the old show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the question start off easy. And then they get progressively harder. Where would the Messiah be born is the first question? What does the easy question? Everybody knows is Bethlehem? They knew the location, but they weren't looking for the Messiah have you ever for those of you a bit older old enough to buy a car? Have you ever considered buying a car and you're going to buy a Toyota Camry? You're going to buy a RAV4 you going to buy a Honda CRV? And as you're considering that when you're driving on the road to can't see anything except Toyota Camrys or RAV4. What happened? Did the did the highway suddenly populate with that car? They've been there all the time. You just weren't looking for it. Now that you're looking for that car, you can't see anything else. They didn't see the Messiah cuz they weren't looking for him. They weren't looking for him at all. But there's a subtlety here in the text just a beautiful but tragic subtlety. It has to do with the Stark look at verse 2. do you say where is he who is born King of the Jews for we saw his star when it Rose and I've come to worship Him notice the star did not leave them to the house in Bethlehem that comes later in the story The Star LED them should Jerusalem It's only when they go to Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders say, oh you're looking for Bethlehem, then when they go to Bethlehem, then the star reappears and takes him to the house. Why did the star take them to Jerusalem first?
songs of the Jewish leaders could know God reveals to the street what the wise men. However many they work the Sun the Son of God is about to be born. He leaves them to Jerusalem to tell the leaders athletes guys and then leader say whatever Bethlehem, could we hurry this up? I got some very important work to do.
They weren't looking.
The star reappears in verse 7 and then Herod some of the wise men secretly and ascertain from them what time the start appeared Herod is more interested in the star than the Jewish leaders sure. He's asking more questions than they are. She's looking harder than the Jewish leaders. First aid and they sent them to Bethlehem saying go and search diligently for the child for when you have found him. Bring me word that I may come and worship him after listening to the king. They went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it Rose went before them the star reappears and now takes them to the very house, but it didn't take them directly to the very house. Why didn't I just take the deed wise men and send them to Bethlehem. Cuz they have to go to Jerusalem first and alert the Jewish leaders, but the Jewish leaders weren't interested.
They knew the location, but they weren't. Looking friends. Do you see desire drives decisions? They didn't find Jesus cuz they didn't want to find Jesus. And by the way, they would not have admitted that if we could go back to them and say are you guys looking for the Messiah absolutely is describe the worst super interested in the Messiah. But that wasn't really true cuz when the Messiah showed up, they weren't interested at all.
their hearts were dark They never looked for him because they didn't want to find him. And by the way, you know how the rest of the story. Plays out when he was a baby. They didn't go looking for him. But when he was a man, he went looking for them.
And instead of putting a crown of gold on their head. They put a crown of thorns on his head.
These are the wise men that totally missed it. And may I just pause here if you were a Las Vegas bookie and I said, hey, I got some wise men here. They have a little fraction of the Old Testament. They have a very incomplete and rudimentary idea of what a messiah is. As a matter of fact, there were astrologers. They think the course of the Stars determines the events and they're looking for the Messiah on the other hand. I got this other why is Mantine to they have the entire Old Testament? Play study of day and night they structured their entire society around the coming Messiah and I'm telling you one group finds them in one group doesn't please lay your bats. Wouldn't everybody bet on Team 2.
Have the whole Old Testament a much much much Fuller idea of what a messiah is supposed to be and they were the ones that missed it why cuz they weren't looking. The new the location, but they weren't looking. The second reason to miss it has a new the scriptures, but not the god of the scriptures. Notice how quickly they can find the reference to the prophecy about Bethlehem. This is I say in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at this is an introductory throwaway question. This is like what tool would you use to hit a nail a hammer or a wrench? Like that's that kind of question. They got Bethlehem right away. They knew their scriptures, but they didn't know God.
The scriptures are powerless without the Holy Spirit inspiring us to obedience. And sometimes we think that advent is about getting to know the Christmas story Advent is much more about getting to know the Christmas Child. Did it is the Christmas story? They didn't find him because they weren't looking they didn't find him because they knew the scriptures but not God, they didn't find him because they didn't want to savior.
They would have denied that so no not we want to save your all we are so all we are so interested in the Savior or not. They didn't find them cuz they don't want to save you're looking for 6. It outlines to rules for a savior to fill and you oh Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah for from you. Shall come a ruler a messiah is a ruler. He's a leader. He's a thorn. He's an authority. He will require obedience. Okay. I'm out. Looking for a leader looking for an authority that you just do it. You don't get it. Do you I'm living in a world where I'm the leader. The World Sports Authority. I'm the go-to guy who did Herod go to when he had a question. Why would I want another leader? Why would I want another Authority?
There they say they want a messiah but they don't want a messiah because of Messiah is going to be a ruler the very thing. I'm not interested in having.
Not only ruler. The next line of verse 6 who will Shepherd My People Israel? The Messiah is not only a ruler but he is a shepherd and a Shepherd provides for and protects the Sheep. I don't want to Shepherd. I don't want to be provided for I want to I don't want to be protected that would indicate that I'm vulnerable. That was a decision. You don't understand. I don't know what's wrong with you guys. You just don't get it. I live in a world where Shepherd I'm the protector the provider. Why would I use the tragedy? We see three groups of characters in the story. There's the wise men there's the Jewish leaders and there's hair red. And the Jewish leaders are much closer to Herod then the art of the wise men Herod acts out of a fear of having his kingdom taken away. So today.
The wise men see Jesus as that deliver as a messiah Herod sees the Messiah as a threat. That's why he tries to kill all the babies a little bit later. No one's taken my kingdom. The Jewish leaders are much closer to Herod then they are to the wise men. These are the wise men that missed a what a tragedy what a tragedy they are. So familiar with the Old Testament the Old Testament has ended and there were 400 years of Silence. God never said a word. God is breaking that silence on their watch and they miss it.
The very prophecy that they quote about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem is being fulfilled as they're reading the prophecy generation have been waiting for this moment and it's happening on their watch and they miss it. Angels Wiseman taxation Bethlehem. It's all fitting into place right now, and they missed it all. They completely missed it all.
Why didn't they go to Bethlehem with the wise men? Because they weren't looking. Because although they knew the scriptures. They didn't know God and because they didn't want to savior. They didn't want to ruin her and they didn't want to Shepherd.
What can we learn from this tragic story? I would just submit to you three things. I think the story communicates. That's some wise men seek Jesus. And when they seek him they find him. And when they find him they find everything they want. These guys are not the guys that I would but they are not the horses I would bet on as I said before they had a very partial understanding of the Old Testament the idea of what a messiah was supposed to be they got some of that wrong like they did not have a clear idea of what the Bible taught about the coming Messiah, but they wanted to find him. And they did. The other guys there the horses I would have bet on they understood a lot more about a lot of what a messiah is going to be. They understood they had they missed it.
It's not a school thing. Is it desire thing those that want to find Jesus find Jesus? Unfortunately, the second thing that the communicate that the story communicates is some wise men pretend to seek Jesus. As I said earlier in the sermon if we could go back to the Jewish leaders instead of you seeking the Messiah. They were said I have solutely. Why do you think we spend so much time in our old testament's why do you think we knew Bethlehem? And then why is that because we're so interested in the Messiah. They're pretending they are pretending to seek Jesus, but they're not really interested in finding him.
And the road is tragic not only don't they find him that's kind of a passive thing that homicidal thing happened. Did you show up on sorry. I never got the invite though. That's an opportunity missed. It's much worse than that. They did not only miss the Messiah they opposed him. These same people are the ones yelling crucify him. They're the same people giving the 30 pieces to Judas. They are the same people trying to arrange the crucifixion. They not only missed the Messiah. They spent their lives opposing the Messiah. And why is that? Cuz they were never looking for him. They're not interested in having a messiah.
And then the third thing I would point out is true men true wise men will pay any price to find him. And this is the application of the sermon which wise men are we? Because true Wiseman will pay anything. They won't find Jesus if it's convenient, they'll do whatever it takes. They will have sleepless nights. They will think about a console they'll do everything that they can possibly do to find Jesus because he's worth finding. Doesn't depend on your skill. If you were looking for Jesus this Christmas, you will find him. That's a Biblical promise ask and it will be given you seek and you will find knock and it will be opened to you. No one honestly seeks Jesus and doesn't find him he make sure of it. I know if use this illustration before but let me use it again when our children were smaller. We used to play hide and seek. And sometimes I would be The Hider. And they were very young and early in the game. It was I became aware that I had selected to obscura place that they were not going to think the look where I was. So, what did I do? I said I win. One for dad know wherever I was I started making noise or I did everything I could do sound if this is too hard for you. I will make it easier. My goal is for you to find me. That's what God is like.
People with very high intellect low intellect lots of money, not much money really healthy relationships not held it doesn't matter if you're looking for him. You will find him.
And the search is worth it. The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up and then in his Joy sells all that. He has sells all that he has to buy that field.
This is what Christmas is about. the search for Jesus many in this building and in the basement and at home have already found Jesus. And something that people do when they have found Jesus is they celebrate communion. They remember his birth and death and resurrection and they remember how that has purchased our salvation.