The Gift of Gold
The Three Gifts December 8, 2024 Matthew 2:1-12 Notes
Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Don’t you feel the tension? Don’t you feel the pressure to spend more money than you have in order to give your kids (spouse, grandkids…) everything on their list? You want everyone to be happy and you want to be happy, so you spend, spend, spend… And the more you spend, the less it feels like Christmas. Or what it’s supposed to mean.
How can we pull our affection off of the crazy, chaotic spending spree that comes every December and instead focus on worshiping Christ as King? How can we spend less and worship more?
In the gospel of Matthew, the story of the birth of Jesus is told within the political backdrop of the times. From the beginning there was a battle between worshiping the true King and the false king Herod. The challenge for us is to remove our worship from the false king and to put our worship on the true King, Jesus Christ.
Audio
Good morning,church. Don't you just love all the Christmas music in this Christmas season? It's wonderful!. We are kicking off a new series this morning entitled, “The Three Gifts.” I'm wondering this morning, how are you doing during the Christmas season?
Have you got all your shopping finished? Good. I see a lot of no's and a few yes’s.
Do you have anybody that is really hard to buy for? Is there someone in your family like that? Is it your wife? Is it your husband? Maybe it's your mother or your mother-in-law? Is it somebody like that? There's always at least somebody in your family;
I just don't know what to get them. They have everything. I wonder what the magi, the wise men, were thinking when they brought those three gifts to the one born King of the Jews. That's the theme verse for our series. Over the next three weeks, we're going to unpack the meaning of those three gifts.
It says in Matthew 2:11 (ESV) “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.” They brought three gifts and they're not ordinary gifts, are they? They are unusual gifts that they brought.
They're not the kind of gifts you normally see presented at a baby shower, right? But, these are the three gifts that they brought. Prominent among those is that first gift, the gift of gold. Gold - what does that mean that they brought the gift of gold?
Well, I would remind you, they came to worship the one born king and that's what gold is. Gold is a gift fit for a king and they came to worship. I wonder how we can worship the one born king; the one that we celebrate at Christmas?
I guess the first question we must ask is, what is worship? What is worship? Worship is whatever you set your focus on as being as it's of highest value to you, it’s highest worth and so you recognize it's worth and you see that it's worth something. And then there's a follow-up step to that in worship.
Then, you give what it's worth. You begin to serve, or to pay, or to bring offerings to that. That's what worship is and we're all built for it. Everyone worships, but we don't all worship the true king, King Jesus. We all have something or someone we worship.
Ironically, Christmas might be one of the most difficult times to worship King Jesus because we have so many temptations, so many material distractions at this season. You know, Christmas is one of the most significant dates on the Christian calendar, but even surprisingly, it is probably the most significant date on the business calendar, on the retail calendar. According to Forbes magazine, retailers in America can expect to make $989 billion this Christmas. That accounts for one quarter of their annual profits and so Christmas is a big business and so we're often distracted.
I asked you a minute ago, have you finished your Christmas shopping? Just bringing that up probably brought some tension to you, but you started thinking about your list. Don't you all feel the tension, the pressure to try to make this the most special Christmas ever? It's like you're trying to grasp some feeling that maybe you had as a child. You're trying to recreate that, especially when you start having children.
I just feel like if I buy this, if I buy this…, and you're trying to recreate or make some kind of happiness. The surprising thing is the more you feel this anxiety, this tension to spend, spend, spend, you often feel less and less and less joy and peace. There's a true happiness that we should feel at Christmas. Don't you wish you could put off all of that crazy, chaotic spending and really focus on King Jesus? Well, that's what we're talking about today. In the Gospel of Matthew, the story of the birth of Jesus is told within the political backdrop of the Roman Empire, King Herod the Great and all of these details. We see a battle for the worship of the three wise men.
The wise men come and there's a battle that breaks out for their worship. Who will they worship? I believe that there's still a battle today between will we worship King Herod or will we worship King Jesus? Because King Herod represents the world's system, but Jesus represents the kingdom of God. As I believe today, we'll look at the book of Matthew, and I hope you can look at it with fresh eyes.
This is my 33rd year of preaching at Christmas, and every year I think, Well, we have Christmas again. How will I talk about it? I will talk about it every year, as I always do, from the scriptures. We're going to be looking at Matthew, chapter two and looking for three steps on how we can worship the true king, how we can put our worship on the true king, King Jesus. Matthew 2:1-12 (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, 2saying, “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.” 3When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5They 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.’” 7Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8And 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.” 9After 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.
10When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11And 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.
12And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.” This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three steps on how we can worship Jesus as the true king. Here's the first step:
1. Understanding the battle for our worship.
Understand the battle for our worship. We can understand the battle for our worship. You'll notice the word, worship, is in our reading today three times. I would direct your attention to the first occurrence. It's in verse two. It's the wise men coming for the purpose of bringing their gifts in worship to the one born king of the Jews.
Of course, they came to the place where the throne was, and that was in Jerusalem. Of course, they followed the star from the east and they came where they thought the whole Jewish people would be celebrating. But to their surprise, they were not. In fact, they were troubled when these Persians, I believe they were Persians, came from the east. If you go directly east of Israel, you find yourself in modern day Iraq, or as it was called in those days, Persia.
They came and they encountered a king named Herod, who was called Herod the Great. Now, he was not a full Jew. He was half Jewish, half Idumean. In other words, he came from the Edomite clan. He was a false king.
He was a puppet king of Rome. He'd been placed there by Caesar, and so he was put there to control the Jewish people so that they would pay obedience to Rome. He served there from about 37 BC until his death in 4 BC. He was known as the great because he was a great builder.
He built Caesarea by the sea, that wonderful port there. He named almost all of his great wonders after Caesar. He also supersized the Jewish temple. He took the temple that had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel after the exile to Babylon, and he enlarged it. Today, when you visit Israel and you visit the one place, you can see that it was still from the time of Jesus, the Western Wall, or as it's sometimes called, the Wailing Wall, because modern Jews go there and they place their prayers between the cracks. They'll rock back and forth and weep because it's the closest they can come to the Temple Mount, which is under Palestinian authority. Upon the place where the Holy of Holies was, there is a golden dome placed there by the Muslims.
So, they rock back and forth at the Wailing Wall. The Western Wall was built under King Herod the Great. He did this to accommodate the Jews to make them happy. He was a very paranoid king. He was threatened by his own children.
He had many wives and many sons and daughters. He was known for even being willing to kill his own family if he thought they were a threat to his throne. In fact, the Roman Caesar Augustus uttered the famous pun concerning King Herod - he would rather be Herod’s pig (hus) than his son (huios). Now, in order to get that pun, you have to recognize that Jews don't eat pork.
It'd be safer, he's saying, to be his pig, than his son. Well, this is who King Herod is, King Herod the Great. There's nothing great about him at all. He's the false king and he's troubled.
Not only he, but all of Jerusalem that says they're all troubled, see verse three, by the arrival of these wise men. Now, you probably have three of them on your mantle, riding on camels or some such thing. We say wise men because that's how we read it here in the ESV translation. The Greek word is magoi; it's where we might get the English word, magi.
They were students of the stars. But I believe that they were also students of the Hebrew scriptures. How would they have had access to the Hebrew Scriptures? Would you remember with me for a moment the prophet Daniel who wrote twelve chapters in the Hebrew Bible? He was the chief of the wise men over Babylon.
Then, when the Persian ruler, Cyrus, overthrew Babylon, he became the chief wise man in Persia. So the wise men, I believe, had access to the Hebrew scriptures from that day forward; he had carried them with him. He refers to them in the book of Daniel. If you say they came from a far land to the east, they were coming from Persia or modern day Iraq. They came because they had read a prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures all the way back there in the book of Moses, the book of Numbers saying this. Numbers 24:17 (NIV) “ ... A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel…”
They came looking for the one born king, the scepter that would rise out of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel and they believed the scriptures. How ironic that they came and the Jews had to bring in the professionals and say, ‘Where was he supposed to be born?’ because they weren't looking. But these Gentiles, these Persians who had access to the scriptures came looking.
It's a foreshadowing that when Jesus came, He came to the whole world. They came looking for a star. Now, we say that there were three wise men. By the way, if you don't want to hear the rest of the sermon because you're concerned it's going to ruin your nativity scene, Google something or put in your earphones because I'm about to ruin your mantle where you have your nativity scene. You probably have three wise men.
Do you see the number three here? You do not. Where do we get that, from the three gifts? We get that from the three gifts. We don't know how many wise men, we don't know how many magi there were.
I think it's more likely that instead of three, there may have been thirty because it created quite a fervor when they came to town. Three guys coming in on camels happened every day in Jerusalem. But these people coming in were in a caravan, I believe, carrying wealth. So they would have carried guards and protection.
They came as representatives of Persia, which was not under the control of Rome. In fact, they were in enmity against Rome. So here come the Persians that everybody in Jerusalem would have thought, oh boy, what's this? They show up with all of this wealth and in this great caravan. We say that they were riding camels. But I think it's more likely the Persians were known for horseback riding.
I'm ruining it for you. I know, I'm sorry. I told you not to listen. But, here they come and so they come into town and they've troubled everybody.
Immediately, they have a problem because they come to the big city of Jerusalem, the city of lights, the city where all the wealth is. They come in, asking ‘Where's the one born king?’ Somebody has to go look it up. They have a battle right out of the gate for their worship. There's a battle for their worship.
Now, we don't know about this star. We have many modern scholars trying to make a natural explanation for the star of Bethlehem. Some of these may be correct. We really don't know. The Bible doesn't describe it.
Some say it was a comet. The astronomer, Kepler, actually suggested that it was the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn because when we look at the planets and the stars, we can follow, with mathematical precision. It's like God set a clock in the heavens. You can run it backwards and figure out where things are. It's predictable. Kepler suggested it was around 4 BC or thereabouts that there was a perfect alignment between Saturn and Jupiter which would have created this star-like amazing appearance. We don't know if it was a natural star.
We do know it was a supernatural star because God had predicted it in the book of Numbers. There was a battle and here they come bringing these gifts and causing and stirring up this trouble. It says in Luke 16:13 (NKJV) “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot serve King Herod and King Jesus. A choice has to be made.
You see, there's a battle for our attention and there's a battle for our affection. A battle for our attention and for our affection, because worship always involves, first of all, recognizing the worth and then secondly, you give what it's worth. Have you noticed the spooky way that when you look up something you thought you wanted to buy for somebody for Christmas, you googled it or you went on Walmart.com or Amazon.com and you looked it up, but you didn't buy it. You're just looking at it. Then you get on Facebook and that thing just keeps popping up. Wow, how'd Facebook know that? It's kind of spooky.
You start looking around thinking, how do they know that? It's based on what they call, “social media algorithms.” An algorithm is just a list of instructions. If A, then B, if not A, then C.
Facebook, Instagram and others share these algorithms. They can predict what you prefer to view, and what gets you to stay there longer. They say it's to improve your experience, but the truth is, it's to improve how long you will stay there and buy something, because that's how they monetize social media now. In other words, they want to keep your attention as long as they can so that you will give your affection to whatever you're attending.
Now, this is not a sermon about social media, neither pro nor con, but what I want to say to you is that social media is nothing new. There's always been a spiritual algorithm to get us to look at things and to get our attention so that we take our eyes off of the one true king. Once we get our attention on something else or someone else, we put someone else in the place of God or something else in the place of God. Our eyes fall to it and we begin to experience a battle for our worship. Now, every morning I get up and I read the scriptures. I have this combination of things I've been trying this year where I'm reading the scriptures on my laptop, but I have my phone sitting there playing the audio of the same scriptures.
I have an app that will read the one year Bible to me. So I get it through two gates simultaneously. Through the eye gate as I read and through the ear gate as I listen. It's been sweet. But occasionally, since I have these two technological devices in front of me as I'm studying in the mornings, I'll get a notification and wonder what that is.
I'm reading and I'm listening. I'm reading and I'm listening. I'll hit pause and then I'm somewhere else. It got my attention. Now, I'm reading some news that just gets me in a bad mood when I should have been staying where I was in the word of God.
Because your preacher is human, I can experience the battle for my worship and so can you. Do you understand that? There's a battle for our worship, there's a war going on for what you would give attention to and then what you would pay your affection to. That leads us to the second step.
2. Overcoming the temptation to spend our worship wrongly.
To overcome the temptation to spend our worship wrongly. We're up to verse four through eight now. He brings together King Herod, all the leaders of the scribes and the chief priests to inquire of them. Well, where's this baby supposed to be born?
King Herod didn't know. He's not even a true Jew; he's just a political appointee. He brings them in and they quote Micah 5:2, and you see they're quoting it verbatim in verse six. The prophet Micah said that He would be born in Bethlehem. According to Micah, he said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
That was hundreds of years before Jesus came. It was predicted where He would be born. There are over 300 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, every one of them fulfilled in Jesus. This is just one of them. And so we see it here.
They quote from Micah 5:2, and we see that He is born in Bethlehem, as was predicted. Now, it's ironic, don't you agree, that Bethlehem, in Hebrew, means “house of bread.” If your name's Beth, your name means “house” and “lehem” means “bread.” Isn't it ironic that the bread of life, the bread of heaven, was born in the house of bread in the city of David?
I think that's wonderful. That's beautiful. As it was predicted, as it was prophesied, that's where He's born. So when they hear this, we see in verse seven that Herod summoned the wise men secretly, because he's a devious snake, this King Herod. What he cares about is retaining his throne, staying in power. So, he brings them in secretly.
He doesn't want the other, the priests and so forth, to hear what he's planning. He wants to know what time that star appeared. When did you first see that star? I believe it appeared two years or less ago. Well, Gary, I don't see that in the scripture.
You said we were going to stick with the scripture. Stay with me. We didn't read it today, but if we stayed in chapter two and we got up to verse 16, then we'd see Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men (remember they went back by a different route), he became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. That means the star appeared around two years before they got there.
It must have taken them a little while to get together their caravan, to get together all that wealth that they were bringing and to make the distance, to traverse that distance and so, he ascertained it. Then, we see the second occurrence of the word, worship, in the mouth of the false king Herod. He says, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.” It's a lie,
because if he'll kill his own children, he'll certainly kill this boy. As we see in the book of Matthew later, he killed every baby boy under the age of two just trying to kill King Jesus. We still see the same leader, Satan, in this world today, active as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He hates Jesus, he hates the church, he hates every believer and he desires to destroy and so we see him pictured here in King Herod.
Here's what we read in 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” Now Gary, why are you reading this verse? Because John has identified Satan's bag of three tricks. He has a bag of three tricks.
The magi brought three gifts. But Satan has a bag of three temptations, three tricks if you will. It goes all the way back to Genesis chapter three. He pulled this on Adam and Eve. We see the desires of the flesh is one of the temptations we see in 1 John.
We see, as he comes to Eve, she looks at it and she's hungry and she sees that the fruit is good for food. Genesis chapter three says, “the desires of the eyes.” She looked at it and she saw that it looked good. She saw it was a delight to the eyes and then Satan said to her that it will make her wise like God.
The pride of life and so we see all three depicted in the three temptations in the garden. What does Satan do when he tempts Jesus In Matthew, chapter 4, in the wilderness? He uses the same three tricks. He says, ‘You're hungry. I can see you're hungry.
After fasting 40 days and 40 nights. If you're really the son of God, why don't you turn these stones into bread?’ Jesus says, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” He quotes Deuteronomy 4:4 back at him.
That's the desires of the flesh. Okay, He didn't fall for that one, so he pulled another trick out of his bag. He says, ‘If you'll bow down to me, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world.” That’s the delight of the eyes.
I'll give you all this. That didn't work. Then he said, ‘Throw yourself down off of this temple.’ Doesn't the scripture say the angels will lift you up so that you don't even get a bruise?
That's the pride of life. Just go ahead and take the shortcut here and don't do what God the Father has told you to do. That's the pride of life. But what does Jesus say to him ultimately?
He says, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. So we see that John has depicted the three temptations. We see how we have failed. Adam and Eve are our parents. But Jesus brings a new way and he defeats the temptation for wrong.
Worship. Worshiping. Only the Father and those of us that are in him now have overcome. We have overcome this temptation to spend our worship wrongly. Now there are some practical ways we could continue to grow in overcoming this temptation.
Because generosity is the antidote to greed. I've noticed in life there are really only two categories of people. There are takers and there are givers. Have you noticed that there are takers and there are givers? Those that are in Christ Jesus.
And the life of Jesus is being fully formed in them so that they're becoming like Jesus. They become sacrificial givers following Jesus. We are filled with his agape love, which is sacrificial, unconditional love. And we become givers. We pour out our lives because the life of Jesus is in us.
And we become givers. Those apart from Christ, the further apart they are, the more they see life as. You have to grab all you can get; it becomes like a beer commercial. You got to grab all the gusto, whatever gusto is.
I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means life or something. I don't know. And so you become a taker. So what might be some practical ways to think about it? Well, you might know of a single mom that's going to have a hard time this Christmas providing Christmas for her children.
Or you might know a family where they just lost their job; they might be in your small group or they might be a neighbor or a co-worker. Because you're a believer in Jesus and because you're a giver, one of the practical ways that you can overcome temptation is you pull your affection off of self, off of worldly things, off of King Herod and you put it on Jesus. Well, Gary, how is helping a single mom or somebody who lost their job putting it on Jesus? Well, Jesus himself said, “When you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me.”
That's a practical way of being a giver at Christmas and just thinking because giving is the antidote to greed. So, we break the bondage of selfishness and greed by letting Jesus form Himself in us so that we pour out and we become givers. Then, we know that God always takes care of us. We're not worried about what we will have because He flows to us and through us to others. That's one way; another way that you could be practical this season is
I want you to be prayerfully thinking about how much you're going to give to the Christmas missions offering, which goes to our international missions. We have missionaries that we support in Mexico, Istanbul, Turkey, Uganda, and then through the International Mission Board around the world. If you're going to give a gift to Jesus, it's His birthday after all, right, then give the most sacrificial gift you can give in the coming weeks.
I'm not asking you to do it today because I want you to pray about it and really think about it. Bring a sacrificial gift. We promise that every dime we will send to international missions to support the gospel going forth. Here are some practical ideas on how we could break the temptation of greed and how we could pull our affection, our worship, off of King Herod and put it on Jesus. Now, here's our final step.
3. Recognizing that Jesus alone is worthy of our worship.
Recognize that Jesus alone is worthy of our worship. We're at verses 9 through 12. We're going to be looking at the third mention of the word, worship. We see it in verse 11, “...and they fell down and worshiped him.” Now, I told you to be careful about listening to me this morning, that I was going to ruin your nativity scene.
I've already ruined your three wise men on their camels. I've already messed that up. Sorry about that.
Not really, because we're going to be Bible believing. We're not just going to believe in false imagery. It's fun to look at.
So, I've ruined that for you, but I want to ruin some more. I want to draw your attention to when they behold the star, that they see it again. After they left Jerusalem, they went to the place where the child was born. When they saw the star, they rejoiced.
Verse 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.” “And going into the house, they saw the child…” Just pause on that for a second. Did it say stable?
No, it said house. Did it say infant? No, it said child. Okay. How long ago did the star appear?
We think about two years ago. How old is baby Jesus now? He's not a baby. He's a toddler. He's probably close to two years old.
Gary, you have ruined everything. No, I'm just telling you what the Bible says. It's messed up your nativity scene completely. The wise men
are not even supposed to be on the mantle yet. If you've got a stable with the shepherds, that's Luke 2. That's “the baby is born” chapter. This is when the Magi comes and visits the child at the house.
We know Joseph was a carpenter. He may have built the house. They came there with nothing and so they lived in a stable because there was no room for them at the inn. That's Luke chapter two.
What we've done with our nativity scenes and with our memories is, we've melded the two stories together into one. It's two stories. Sorry about that; I’ve ruined it for everybody.
But, this is what we're looking at here. We see that when they come to Him I want you to picture something different. It's not Mary holding a baby that they bow down to the feet of Mary. The Greek word for worship is “proskuneó.”
It's where we get “to fall prostrate, or to kiss the Hand or to kiss the feet.” It literally means to lower or bow down and kiss. Maybe even to kiss the floor. To bow down and kiss. I want you to picture Mary there.
It mentions that they go into a house and we have a child that's two years old and is beginning to speak. A child that's two years old is beginning to walk. Am I right? This is a little toddler that can speak. They bow down, these magi from Persia, bringing these gifts.
They bow down and they kiss the ground. They kiss His feet. There's something spiritual happening here. They came on this journey and they have all this emotional anticipation. They've been distracted and lost sight of the star when they were in Jerusalem.
But as soon as they went south of Jerusalem, which is only about six miles or about a two-hour walk if you're just going slowly. It's not far. But soon, as they headed south, they saw the star again and they're overjoyed. They bow down, they worship King Jesus and they give Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then, it says they were warned in a dream. Can you see how God's really speaking to them not to go back to King Herod?
I think they kind of had an inkling that that was the case. I mean, he didn't even know what was up. They come down, they have to go south to Bethlehem, instead of being in the big city of Jerusalem, where the temple and all this greatness is and where the throne and all the lights of Jerusalem are. They lost sight. You know, we lose sight sometimes of what matters when we get distracted
as soon as they went south. It would be kind of like leaving Wilson and going down south to Black Creek.
Maybe, we go over a little bit to Green Pond over there in Bailey, you know, and then you pull up with this caravan. I'm telling you, everybody closed their doors and shut their shutters. Boy. They knocked on one of the doors, asking, ‘Does anybody know about a baby being born around here about two years ago?’
There was a reply, ‘Well, there was one about two years ago.There were these shepherds that showed up. They haven't shut their mouths since then talking about it. He lives in that house right over there.’
They didn't have Google but they had hearsay and they had a star over the place. It was a little place; it's a southern town south of Jerusalem. They went down there and they were warned in a dream - don't go back the way you came and so they obeyed. Have you ever seen the show, “Pawn Stars?”
I like shows like that sometimes. I like seeing people come in with something they think is valuable and they think they're going to get some money out of it. My grandfather gave me this and I was always told it was valuable. Or, there's another show, like “The Antique RoadShow.”
That's another one. They bring furniture in. The owner of the pawn shop on Pawn Stars is Rick Harrison. I was watching an episode recently and a guy came in with a coin. It was a little bitty coin and it was imperfect.
It was this little coin. On one side, it had two daggers, and under, in Greek, it said “Ides of March,” written in Greek. He puts it on a black velvet cloth on his countertop and he puts gloves on. He asks, “Where'd you get this?”
The guy responds, “Well, it was passed on to me by my grandfather. I was always told it was valuable.” He asks, “Is Brutus on the back of this?” He said to him, “Well, let’s take a look.”
He flips it over, and he see the depiction of Brutus, you know, “Et tu, Brute.” He's on the back, and he flips it back. This looks like the real thing, but let me call my expert in.
He always has to call an expert in. He calls in a coin expert. If you're watching the show, of course, it goes to commercials five times. But then here comes the expert.
He comes in and he looks at it. He puts the gloves on and he examines it. He puts one of those glasses on and says that it's real.
’Well, how much is it worth?’ ‘I think at auction, this would probably go for $150,000.’ ‘Whoa.’ So then Rick asks, ‘Well, how much do you want for it?’
He wants $150,000; that's all he wants. Rick says, ‘I have to resell it.’ So, they
start finagling. What I like about that story is that he sees what its real value is. It's just been a little coin that his grandfather gave him. But now this thing's worth $150,000, right?
It's worth a lot. Have you looked at Jesus? Have you recognized His worth?
Jesus came and took on our sin, our suffering. The Son of God stepped down the ladder of love and became a baby, a child who was nursed at his mother's breast. He took on all the pain and problems. He walked the dusty streets of the Via Dolorosa and carried that cross, shed His blood, overcame sin, death and the grave, and ascended to the Father. Have you looked at what He's worth? Oh, it's matchless. There's no one who comes close.
How could you give Him the gift of gold and call Him King this year? How could you give the King of the universe who flung the stars and set every planet in motion by just saying, “Let there be light.” How could you give Him, the one Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the earth and the people thereof are His? How could you give Him anything?
What do you give the one Who owns it all? He might not have you. How could you give gold to Jesus this Christmas? Have you given Him you? Have you given Him your heart; yourself?
Have you called Him King, Lord of your life? That's how you give Him the gift of gold. That's how you bring that gift of worship to Jesus. You recognize what He's worth. You give him what He's worth.
We see Paul say in Romans 12:1 (ESV) “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Give Him your whole life. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word.
Thank You for the Christmas story;
The shadow of the cross overshadows the cradle. This baby came to die and so we repent of our sins. If you're here today and you've never given your life to Jesus, you can pray with me right now, ‘Dear Lord, I repent of my sin
and I recognize that You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. I declare You king of my life. Come into my life. Forgive me.
Make me a child of God. I want to follow You all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. He'll adopt you into His family. Others are here and you're a follower of Jesus,
but you've been distracted by the glittering lights. You've taken your eyes off of the value of King Jesus. Would you just set them afresh, upon His face and upon Him and remember who He is. Then give Him your all, afresh. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Audio
We're going to be doing a three part series together called the Three Gifts and we pray you can stick around and check those out. As we look into the three gifts given by the Magi on the Christmas season and this is a really interesting time of year. I wonder how many of you have finished your Christmas shopping up. Some of you overachievers in the room got that done already. I bet there's someone in your life.
I've got several in my life that are pretty difficult people to buy for. Difficult to figure out what they need. Me and Michael Caine say this a lot around here, like the reason that we're hard to buy for is if we need something, we just buy it. We're adults and so it's kind of hard to figure out what to save for other people to give you. But what do you give the God of the universe?
What are you supposed to give to the creator of all things, the sustainer of all life? That was the challenge in the first century as the, as the Magi came to see the infant Jesus, the child Jesus. And this comes out of the book of Matthew, where we're going to be for the next few weeks. Matthew 2:11, it says 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. So we're going to really dive into why those three gifts. What do they mean about who this Jesus is? And today we're going to talk about the idea of the gift of gold. The Bible says that these Magi brought three specific gifts and they weren't a small thing.
I imagine your nativity scenes at home have three guys coming in on camels and that's pretty, that's cool. It would have been an entourage. They traveled for many, many miles over a great distance. They would have had a lot of people with them to protect them, maybe even a small contingent of fighting men even to protect them from bandits on the path. We know this because as they come into Jerusalem, they kind of create a stir.
In fact, as we will read today, they made everybody in Jerusalem very nervous. Who are these people from Persia or from out in the east? Why are they here and what are they up to? It created quite a commotion in town and they brought three, not very ordinary gifts. I don't know if any of you have ever been to a baby shower.
Normally you don't bring gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold would be kind of cool. I imagine the moms would be down with that. But the other two make no sense. You probably don't even know exactly what those things are.
You've probably not often considered them. But they came with a very specific intention in mind. They came seeking to worship that they had been students, in fact, of the ancient prophets of the Old Testament. And they knew that when they started seeing these signs like a star and these other things, that they would come and see the one who was born king. So they brought gifts for a king.
And the one we're going to deal with today is especially that gold is certainly a gift fit for a king. And that's who Jesus is to us. Savior of the world, King of the universe. Ironically, though, Christmas is one of the most difficult times of year for us to truly worship the Lord and Savior, to really focus our attention on Him. The reason for that is there's a lot of other things that could steal your attention.
There's a lot of other things to consider, and they're not bad things. They're just different things. And they can be very tempting to pull your affections off of the true worship of the Savior. Christmas, you probably know this. But just to put a number to it, Christmas is the most important season of the financial calendar.
Retailers around the world go nuts this month. And the reason is, and this comes from Forbes magazine, retailers in America expect to make $989 billion this year in Christmas sales, accounting for one quarter of their yearly profits. They expect to make 25% of the whole year this month. And so they're out. They're out to get you.
They're out to get you to come in the store, and rightfully so. They're running a business. But do you feel that tension, that tension of, I know what this is supposed to be about, and trying to keep it that way is tough. There's a bit of pressure to spend more, to do more, and get everything on the list. And you want everybody to be happy, right?
Like as a good family member, as a good dad, a good mom, a good spouse. You want everybody in your house to be happy, and that makes you feel grateful. And so you do more and possibly spend more. How can we pull our affections away over these next few weeks? I want to challenge you, as I'm challenging myself, what would it look like to really make the gift of gold this Sunday towards Jesus, who needs nothing from us, but deserves everything from us?
And this is an amazing thing that we would consider how to spend less time and treasure and our talents on Things that don't eternally matter. And on something, the Lord Jesus that matters eternally. We're going to be in the Gospel of Matthew today. If you've got your Bibles, it'll be on the screens for you as well. Studying the story of the birth of Jesus when there was already, in the very first century, a battle for their worship.
There's always been a battle for your worship. It's been true since the book of Genesis, since the beginning of all things, there's been a battle for your worship. And the challenge for us, not just at Christmas time, but especially so, is to put our worship on the one true king, who is Jesus Christ. The text will give us three steps on how to spend our worship on the true king. So let's dig in.
We're in the Book of Matthew, chapter two, and starting at the top, it says this. 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, 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. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, 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, and Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and this is from the prophet Micah.
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. Then Herod summoned all the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem, so 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. 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. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly, with great joy.
And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and and fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country. By another way, God bless the reading of his word. Amen.
What a wonderful text to dig into this morning and discover how we can worship Jesus as the true king this Christmas. The first step is a careful one, and that is that you would understand there's a battle for your worship. Understand that there is a battle going on for your worship. This word worship appears several times in the text. It could be argued, it's kind of the emphasis of this text, that worship is on display.
The word is in the Greek proskuneo. It literally means to fall or go towards, and cuneo means to kiss. It's the idea of almost to kiss someone's feet or to go down on your face before them. This is something that we see the kings here, the wise men coming from the east, spending great money and effort to come and worship. They've made quite a journey to do so.
And they come into town probably expecting a warm welcome. They come in town probably expecting everyone there to be a buzz in town. Wow. There's this incredible star that has appeared in our land. The king has been born.
They expect to come into the city capital of Israel and everybody's going to be bustling and going nuts. Instead, they come in and create trouble. They come in and this false king, Herod, has no idea that the Savior has been born. In fact, it doesn't appear anyone knows that the star has come. Now, I don't know exactly what the reason for that is.
There's a lot of different research out there. People have tried to really figure out what exactly is this star, what was this event. And there's a lot of different opinions about this. But no matter how you slice it, it seems like the people of Israel were completely unaware that a king had been born. And so they created a stir when they came into town.
And Herod, just so you know, Herod in the story of Jesus is a false king. I think Matthew is very careful to put him in place and to tell these details about him so that you would know the true king Jesus has been bor. In the midst of a place where a false king is reigning. And this false king, Herod, he's not excited, he's not trying to come worship Jesus. This is why in verse 12 it says they were warned and they went home a different way.
Because Herod's up to no good. He doesn't want to allow this true king to come and reign. No, he wants to continue.
He's not even a Jew. He's a half Jew, half Edomite. He's. He's been put in place and ascended to the throne by Roman influence and power, not by anybody's vote or anything like that he became increasingly paranoid having. Historically, you can look at this.
Herod the Great had several of his wives and sons and others executed because he was worried they would ascend to his throne. Certainly he's worried about this baby who's been born. It says in verse three that they were troubled. They were stirred up. Not just Herod, though, all of Jerusalem.
They were not expecting a king. So the wise men come following the star. The word there is where we get the word English word asteroid. It definitely means some type of star. I did a lot of research this week, and I can't share all this with you because there's just no time and there's no way to know for certain.
But some say it's a star. Some say it's a supernova that went off. Some say it's a conjunction of several planets, Jupiter and things like that, that cross paths and suddenly make this bright star in the sky. But the thing that we know for certain is this is not a common phenomenon. This is a supernatural kind of event that causes these men from the east to do the research and go, wait, what is that?
This is not a star we normally see. And it's the kind of thing that directed them towards Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem. This comes out of the Book of Numbers, where it says in numbers 24, a star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel. This is crazy that there's people from probably ancient Persia where Daniel and some of the exiles had been and likely left their scriptures. And now these wise men of old have been studying the biblical texts, and now they see numbers 24.
A star is coming up. All of a sudden they're looking at the night sky going, wow, what is that? And then they follow it and find King Jesus. They're doing something that, sadly, the people of Israel weren't even doing. They weren't even looking.
This battle for worship, this battle that's going on in Jerusalem is still true today. This might all sound like, okay, that's cool. First century, you just gave me some knowledge. What do I do with it? This idea of a battle for who's king in your life will be an ongoing battle.
It'll be true for your whole life. It was true from the day you were born, and it'll be true to the day you die. Of who you will serve. It will always be a constant question for you. It goes all the way back to Genesis 2 at the Fall of man, where the serpent said, are you sure that God said, are you sure he's the Lord.
That's the question really. He's asking to Adam and Eve. And it's still the question today is, whom will you serve? Who is the true king? The people of Jerusalem seem to be pretty content with their false king.
Herod. You know, he did some good things. He expanded the temple, he's built the city larger. He did a lot of great things as far as the infrastructure of the city. But he's not the true king and he's a murdering difficult person.
But seems like the people of Jerusalem would rather have him than the one to expect. This is still true of us today that there is a constant demand for our worship. Luke 16. Jesus says, no servant can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon is simply material wealth. I don't know if you've observed this. There's this, like, spooky thing that happens when you're on your social medias or even on Alexa, like, if you've got one of those dots in your house and some of you are like, no, man, I'm definitely not putting that in my house. And I know you're having fun with your aluminum foil hats and all that stuff, but there's this spooky thing that it's doing where if I'm looking, let's just say this past week I was looking for a heater.
I'm trying to heat the outside area for y'all. That way it's not so miserable as you come in the building. All of a sudden I'm looking here on Amazon, and then I'm just over here on Instagram and things like that, checking things out. All of a sudden, I've got heaters galore all in my. I mean, it's nuts.
And you know this is true. There's an algorithm built in. As soon as you search for something good or bad, you're gonna get a whole lot more of that. And that's a terrifying thing. You know, these companies, they say we're just using this personal data to explain improve your experience.
Now, I don't know if you feel like your experience has been improved. I know exactly what they're doing. They're trying to sell you products, they're trying to sell you something. That's how they make their money. These are these algorithms that are put in place.
Did you know that there is a worldly algorithm that's going on right now for your Worship. You don't have to be on social media to have this happen. There is something that desperately wants you to worship it. Rather than God and material goods, relational things, everything is attacking you such that you will worship anything else but the Lord Jesus. And this is like way more obvious during Christmas, but it's always true.
Christmas just brings it to light. Who's the king? Who is your king? Yeah, I can say this confidently. Jesus Christ is the King of the universe, but is he my king?
Is he mine? Is he yours? This war is going on for your worship and he's made you in his image. What will you do with that? Here's the second step.
And these really kind of come in order. Do you see that? There's a battle. And then second, overcome the temptation to spend your worship wrongly. Overcome that temptation.
This is what happens in the middle section of today's scripture. These prophets in Jerusalem, they know the scriptures. They take them right there to the book of Micah and say, this Savior is supposed to be born in Bethlehem, but we're not looking for him, but you can go check it out and then come back and tell us so that we can go assassinate this little child. That's really what's going on here. And thankfully the Lord guides them.
They're tempted in fact instead to worship everything but the one that God has sent. And so this is still true for us. We've got the city of Bethlehem here in place, quoted here from Micah chapter five. And just so you know, there's over 300 messianic prophecies that are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. This is a very difficult thing to do.
Modern scholars will try to give you some late dates so that way they can emphasize that there's no way possible that there is miracles occurring in the Bible. But the facts are this. There was a whole lot of stuff that was told hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born. And he fulfilled them all. And the things he hasn't fulfilled are still hanging out there for him to fulfill later.
This is an incredible thing. And here he is in the city of Bethlehem, the city of David. It's only a six mile walk from Jerusalem. Six miles, a two hour walk maybe for, for most people, unless you're really, really hoofing it south of Jerusalem. So they get this word that they come to town, there's all this commotion.
They say, hey, it's supposed to be in Bethlehem. And as soon as they leave the city, the star reappears. Maybe I don't know what's going on in Jerusalem. I don't know if there's a lot of smoke or what, but they were unable to see it until they left the city. And here they are led straight to Jesus in Bethlehem.
Bethlehem at this time, just so you know, is probably only like 3 to 600 people live in this little town. It's not a major town. I imagine that the scriptures don't tell us every single little detail about how this occurred. But I would imagine they came to town and this commotion stirs in the city square. And they're like, who are all y'all?
Probably 40, 50 people show up with gifts. We're not just talking one chest. They've brought great gifts for a king. And they start asking, is there a babe in town? Has somebody been born recently?
Is there a child? And they led by star and by word straight to Jesus. There's this temptation to spend our worship wrongly. The world tempts us with love and desire. There's a lot of different things.
I want to spend just a moment talking about this. In the book of 1 John 2, we see the scriptures say, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires.
But whoever does the will of God abides forever. This verse, I think, puts plainly the temptations, the types of things that are trying to steal your worship. Here's the good news, the evil one. Satan has only got a small bag of tricks, but he's really good with them. And you've probably experienced this in your life, that sometimes you're drawn down paths you did not intend.
Sometimes you've been in relationships that in hindsight, you're like, that was terrible for me. Sometimes you've bought things or done things or taken jobs. At hindsight, you're like, man, that was not of God. That was a big mess. There's, I think, only really three main temptations that are coming your way to steal your affection from God.
You can pop up. Do I have. I think I have a. Do I not? Well, I have a chart here, but not there.
Y'all just. You probably are like, I don't even want a chart, Jonathan. Thank God there's no chart. You're welcome. For me forgetting that.
But here John really describes three things. He says, the. The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, that these are the kinds of temptations that you're facing, certainly this time of year, but they're often still in your affection. Genesis 3 says that the apple, the fruit was good for food. That's the desire of the flesh.
That you would look at a thing and say, that looks good. That looks like it'll be good for me. That's desire of the flesh. And then it goes on in Genesis 3 to say, that's the delight to their eyes, that now I'm seeing it and I think I want it. And then there's the pride of life, that in Genesis 3, right off, right out of the gate, we've got them hearing, hey, this will make you wise.
It'll make you like God. The serpent says right away, when man falls, you see all three of the temptations of his old bag of tricks. And Jesus says this in Matthew 4. He says, Be gone, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. There's an opportunity right now, this Christmas.
There's an opportunity with your families. This is the application of this. There's an opportunity for you to say, you know what? A little less is a little more for us this Christmas. What I really want to have happen for my family.
And you can do this. I want us to be together as much as we can be together. Because time is something that's really hard to get back. Time together, time in worship of the Savior, there's almost no price tag on that. And the older I get and the more I start to lose people that are with the Lord, and I can't wait to see them.
But until then, I can't get that time back. And so rather than treasures and rather than all these things, that I would make the decision to spend my time wisely and that our family gatherings would start having more of a tone towards Christ Jesus. Now, my family, you're probably thinking, well, you're the pastor's family. I bet you guys, you probably pray all Christmas morning. And that would be cool.
That would be cool. My kids wouldn't probably manage that. Well, they're still pretty small. Even me. There's things that we do together that I think are cool.
They're good things. But making time to spend more time in worship with the Lord and in time well spent with each other, that's where it's at. So make the decision this Christmas with your families. And some of you see extended families, and I hear these complaints of, like, man, I've got to buy this. This and this for all of the little cousins and start cutting that stuff out.
Say, hey, we're just trying to be together. And the worst part about this whole season is that I've got to try to figure out what little Johnny, who I don't even see but once a year is supposed to watch want. And then if you're like me and you've got a big family, one of your brothers or sisters already bought little Johnny that thing, and you're like, well, I guess I'm out of luck. I've just got to. Guess I've just got to figure it out.
So I'll give you a couple of things that the Combses do. We stopped buying gifts for the adults. That ship sailed. We're done with that. And I'd like to get that all just, let's just be together.
Maybe we'll just. Yeah, we've gotten it down now to $10 gifts, which I'll tell you right now is actually pretty hard. It's pretty hard to find a decent gift for 10 bucks. It often, I gotta admit, sometimes I'm coming in at that 15 mark. How do you spend more time worshiping Jesus this Christmas?
Spend less time worrying and stressing over that stuff. Overcome that temptation. And then the third step, and this one is so fun. Recognize that Jesus alone is worthy, that your worship that Jesus alone is worthy. I love that.
These strangers from the east show up in verse nine, following the word of God, following this star that God has put in the sky for them. And when they arrive, they just know, and they fall on their faces before him and they offer the gifts to him. Now, just a couple of things to blow up your nativity a little more. And some of you have heard me say this before, just so you know, they did not go and see a baby Jesus. Here's how this thing worked, all right?
Jesus was born and the star appears in the sky. Those wise men did not suddenly look at it and somehow teleport into town. That's not how any of this worked. It probably took them some time to observe it and go, what is this? And do the research and get the gifts together.
This child here, in the Greek, it's the word technon, which means not an infant, but a child. He's probably toddling around. He may even be saying a couple of things. He probably is. And it says also, and this will mess up your stuff even more.
It clearly says it's a house. So I used to play this joke with my family that I would take the three magi and Put them somewhere way far away in the house. My dad would set up the Nativity, everything would be right. Baby Jesus is there, the shepherds are there. That's all cool.
I take the wise men and hide them somewhere way far away because they got a journey ahead of them. And that's the kind of weird pastor's kid humor that you're getting out of me. Alright? So I'm sorry about that. That's just who I am sometimes.
Pure cringe. I know.
And then Jesus, and then the Lord tells these wise men to go a different way. This is in Matthew 2. One of the tragedies, one of the great tragedies of the gospel is often just overlooked. This is a terrible event. Matthew, chapter 2, verse 16.
It says, Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to that time that he had ascertained from the wise men. So the wise men told him, hey, we saw the star up here about two years ago. So he kills every child in the region, every male child. What a tragedy. What a terrible thing.
That's what the region did in response to the king. Do you see it? Do you see the battle? Can you imagine being a parent in that season and saying okay to that? I don't quite understand how this is even possible, that this took place without there being a complete revolt in town.
Unless the people were just completely run by a false king, just completely submissive to something false. So it takes people from afar to come in and rightly worship the king. Everybody else in town reacts poorly to who he is. Have you ever watched the show? This is going to be a hard break, all right, a hard change.
But you ever watch the show Pawn Stars? You ever watch this? It's been around forever. Alright. It kind of annoys me to be honest with you, because they're always low balling people or just messing with folks.
And that ain't my kind of humor. But there was a recent episode I happened to catch where someone brought in a small coin with two daggers on it and the Ides of March written on one side and Brutus on the other. They brought an expert in and found out that this was an ancient Roman denarius. It was a coin, a currency from the Roman Empire. And the expert says it's worth like 150k.
Wonderful. So the client's like, all right, I'll take 150k. So y'all know if you've ever seen the show. That's not how it works. So he offers them 100, and they go back and forth.
And eventually the guy, the client, just walks out. All right, you won't give me what it's worth. I'll leave. That's how that whole premise works. That's how the pawning thing works.
But I thought about that, and I'm always. This is another weird thing about a pastor, is that everything could possibly be an illustration in my head. I'm always, like, filing things away that might work in a sermon. I can barely operate in life anymore. But I saw that and thought about this idea of worship and the kind of worship that we have in the first century and now in the 21st century century.
And that is you can know what something is worth and still not give it. That worship's really two parts that some of you in the room, you're here, maybe I don't know who dragged you in here or who made you feel a certain way that you had to be here today, but maybe there's a part of you that knows this story about Jesus is true, that he is. Maybe you even know this. Okay, I think he might be the king, but that's not worship. You understand this.
That's recognizing who he is, but it's not giving him what he's worth. And we do this constantly in our lives. That. Yeah, you can know that that denarius was worth an incredible amount of money, but that doesn't mean that's what you're going to offer. And you can know that Jesus is king but choose to run your own life.
You can know that he's king and still choose not to worship him with your purpose and with your being, you can do that. I know this because we've all done this. That worship is twofold. Recogn the worth and then give what is worth. So what will you be giving Jesus this Christmas?
Will you be okay? I agree. I agree that he deserves the gold of the three gifts. He deserves the gold because he is king. He is king.
But is he king of my life? What would that even mean? What would it mean if Jesus were king of my life? What would that change? I can't really determine that for you, but what would it affect if you made the decision when you walk out those doors today?
Yeah, Jesus is king of my life. And here's how that's going to impact every decision I make. I can tell you one thing. If you make the decision that Jesus is not only the king but my king, that suddenly you're going to be a very different husband or wife. You're going to be a very different father or mother, you're going to be a different student.
Because if Jesus is my king, then the way that I interact with everything in this life is based on Him. If I look at this world and it's his creation and he sustains it and he's got a plan for it and he's in charge and he's my king. That means I've got to change the way I look at things. That means some of those people that are frustrating you to death right now, co workers, family members, people you're interacting with, now, suddenly you look at them and go, but God, Christ is king. And what do you think about this person that is a pain in my butt.
What do you think about them? What do you think about the way in which I'm running my business, Lord? That sometimes I cut corners? No, God doesn't seem to be pleased with the way I'm running my business, that I'm giving my half. I'm not giving 100% commitment to the things I feel called to do.
I'm just giving a little peace.
You know, that can happen to any, each and every one of us that can. If you think I'm above such a thing like that, you'd be wrong that there have been times in my ministry where I had to look back and go, huh, I don't think I'm giving God my best. I think I'm getting the job done. There's a big difference. Is Christ King of your life now suddenly those anger issues and those struggles you've been having at home, now you can start laying him at his feet and saying, God, why am I so angry with my spouse?
Why do I treat my wife, my husband this way? They deserve better. Not because they're good or perfect, but because you love them and you gave them to me. Changes everything. Do you see it?
I pray you see it is Jesus. Yeah. Is he king of the universe? Well, I could argue until I'm blue in the face that Jes. King of the universe.
But only you can make this decision if he's your king.
There's some practical ways to worship Jesus this Christmas. I would say just a general phrase that will help you. I think that giving is the antidote to greed. Generosity will break you free. Would you consider just living more simply?
We've argued for that today, but maybe there's some things you can do that are sacrificial this Christmas Maybe some people you can serve, maybe some gifts you can give to people that you barely know. We're going to be taking up over this Sunday and next Sunday our annual Christmas missions offering. This is an opportunity for you to give towards international missions, national missions. We've got several missions partners right now. We've got folks that we have served in the past and are still serving in Guatemala and Uganda.
We've got people in Turkey right now. Not easy to be a Christian in Turkey, not easy to be a Christian in Indonesia. It's pretty great being a Christian in Uganda right now. If any of you ever get that chance. Those people are going nuts for Jesus in a way you've probably never experienced.
But what they lack is what we have in great quantity and that is resource. They don't lack the spirit at all. They lack resource. It's an opportunity for you to give. Christ gave all for you.
Choose to give your whole life to him in true worship. This is where Paul writes in Romans 12. And let me close with this. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Understand the battle for your worship. Overcome this temptation and then make him who is alone king. Make him your king. Let's pray now together. CHURCH Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that you are the one true king.
That your goodness and mercy, that your love and your grace was poured out in such a way that we simply couldn't miss it. And it started with Christmas. The reason we celebrate this at all is not the decorations. They're fun. They're good reminders.
But it's not that. It's not even the gifts. It's not the cool movies and the songs and all of that. And we enjoy that. No, the reason that we do Christmas, God, is because you took on flesh.
That the God of the universe sent his son to become a man. Well, that's an incredible thought there. God, how good are you? How amazing is your mercy that you would look at us and say, there's no way that they're ever going to be right, that my justice would ever be possible by these people unless I myself walk before them as a man. Take on flesh.
The incarnation, we call it. God, what a wonder. What an amazing thing that you would do this, that you would come and walk among us and go a step so much farther than we ever could live a sinless life and die on the cross for our sins. What an incredible gift. All we can do now, God is give you the gift of gold because you're king.
The gift its meaning we can give to you right now. God, I know you're king. Jesus, I know your king. And today you're my king. As I leave this place, as I continue to walk my life out, you're my king.
Dear friend, if you've come today and you'd like to make Christ your king and to really accept him first as savior, Lord and King, pray simply with me. The book of Romans chapter 10 says if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. We believe this scripture. And if that's you today, my friend, pray with me. Jesus, I believe that you died for my sins.
I believe that you came and died on a cross and that God, you raised Jesus from the dead and that by this you have paid for my sin, my shame, my guilt, my misdeeds, my brokenness. God, you have paid. I believe that today Lord, and I'm thankful for that gift. And God, I'm asking now, would you help me to now give you the gift in return of you're my king and I want to walk with you and serve you and do according to your will. Dear friend, if you prayed that with me, welcome to the family of God and we can pray right along with you those same words.
God help us Christians and non Christians alike that we would make the decision that God that Jesus, you are my king and I want to serve you with my whole life. Help me to understand how to do that better this Christmas. Help me to know how to put your purposes ahead of mine and walk with you. We pray all of these things in Jesus name. Amen.