Matthew 2:1-12
Turn in your copy of God’s word
to Matthew chapter two. In Matthew chapter two, we’ll
be reading verses one through 12. So over the last, uh, several
weeks, maybe since the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we’ve looked
at, uh, Christmas characters. We’ve looked at, um, Zacharias
and Elizabeth, we’ve looked at Mary and Joseph. We’ve looked
at the angels, the shepherds, Herod. Today, we’ll look at the
wise men. And next week, we’ll finish that
series by looking at Anna and Simeon, who in the temple anticipated
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ through the prophecies
of the scripture. And then we’ll soon pick up again
in our study of the book of Acts. So before we read Matthew, Chapter
2, 1 to 12, let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Pray with
me. Lord, in this new year, we ask that our ears would be more
attentive to your word. We ask that our hearts would
be more in tune to sing your grace and that our hands and
our feet would be more willing to serve you. Lord, we could
make resolutions, a checklist, sticky notes, all those sorts
of things. But without your help, without your grace, without your
spirit, and without your blessing, we would come up empty-handed. We would fail, we would fall.
We’d quit partway through. So we need your help and your
strength, and we do ask for it now. Open our eyes to behold
wondrous things from your scripture. Open our ears so that we might
hear the voice of the shepherd. Soften our hearts that we might
be willing and ready and able to serve you Give us strength
in our hands and our feet and in our lives to do your will. Lord, everywhere we go, we want
to be emissaries of your grace, ambassadors of the message of
Christ. So give us that now, we do pray
in his name, amen. This is God’s word, Matthew chapter
two. 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 we 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 the scribes. of the people,
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told
him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet.
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 the wise
men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star
had appeared And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search
diligently for the child. And when you have found him,
bring me the 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 before them until it came to
rest over the place where the child was. Then they saw the
star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 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
being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed
to their own country by another way.” Amen, the word of the living
God. So several of you comment from
time to time that as you were backing out of your driveway
to come to church and you’re making your way up your cul-de-sac
or your street or your lane, you notice nobody else is going
to church. And then you take notice as you
make your way back home, down your cul-de-sac, down your lane,
down your street, all the cars that you passed on the way out
to church are still there. It seems that none of our neighbors
have an interest in the things of the Lord, the things of Christ. Now, to give us another little
perspective, here we are all huddled in here, got our windows
tight, our doors locked, and got our Bibles and our hymn books
and all the rest, and we got these stained glass windows,
you can’t see out of them, but people are driving by, right?
And do you wonder what they’re wondering? Boy, those people.
You know, they’re singing ancient hymns. They’re eating these little
crumpets of bread and these little thimbles of juice. And, you know,
what are they thinking of us as they drive past? Well, the
wise men who came from the East, traveling for months and traveling
for miles, must have wondered some of what we wondered. Maybe
not why have no other cars left their driveway, but why has our
caravan from the East not picked up fellow travelers to come and
see this Christ child? Why as we have traveled for months
and miles, are we the only ones seeking the birth of Messiah? And it gets worse. They arrive in the vicinity of
the birth of Jesus. They come to Jerusalem and inquire
of the priests. and the king and the religious
leaders, where is the king of the Jews? Where is he of whom
the scriptures foretold his birth? For Messiah is born, we know
of it, and we’re here to ask directions. Quite a contrast,
they travel miles and miles, some guests, over 550 miles,
some guess a thousand miles. They travel diligently and faithfully
to see the Christ child. And here they arrive at Jerusalem
and the birth of Jesus has taken place just a couple miles away. These wise men will finish their
journey and go to the feet of Jesus. But the chief priests,
the scribes, the Pharisees, even the king over the region, will
sit back in the palace, they’ll sit back in their churches and
go not the distance to see the Christ child. This is a sad state
of affairs, both in our day and age, where we pass cars that
remain in the driveway on a Sunday, and we read the story of the
wise men. The people within the vicinity
of the birth of Jesus had no clue that he had been born and
no desire to go see him. That’s why it’s important, I
think, to understand what is being said at the beginning of
the gospel of John, when it says, in the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, the Word was God, and now the Word has
become flesh and made its dwelling among us. And the scripture goes
on to tell us, John, the gospel writer goes on to tell us, Jesus
came to his own and his own did not receive him. In a sense,
every Sunday, you’re making a statement when your car does leave the
driveway, you’re saying, and maybe Joshua style, as for me
and my house, our car is going to church. While others are saying,
as for me and my house, our car is staying put in the driveway. Now you are saying to Almighty
God, I will seek the true presence of Christ. You’re saying to the
world and to the fellow Christians, I will seek the worship of the
living God. Now, we don’t need to go on and
on about the present state of our culture. It’s bad, it’s rotten,
it’s getting worse by the day, but we are living in a post-Christian
culture. We used to live in what Flannery
O’Connor, the author, called the Christ-haunted South. Everywhere
you looked, everybody was a Christian. Every road you went down, there
was a church. That’s still the case. But more
and more, increasingly so, and maybe especially post-COVID and
post-rapid cultural decline that we’ve experienced in our nation,
attendance at the worship of the risen Christ attendance at
the worship of the birth of Christ. All of that seems to be waning.
But God and his faithfulness tells us he will always have
a remnant. He will always have a faithful
few. We support missionaries in Europe
and their calling is to go into that once Christian culture and
to push away the darkness by proclaiming the light of the
gospel. Europe is about 50 years ahead of us or so. And so what
might we see in the rapid decline of our culture? We may see increasingly
no cars going to church. We may see increasingly the conversion
or the repurposing of church buildings. Our missionaries tell
us that the great cathedrals of Europe have become nightclubs.
They have become mosque or they are converted into apartment
buildings. And we hear this story of wise
men traveling months and miles to come see the Christ child,
probably nearly two years after the birth of Jesus, at least
a year and a half, possibly as much as two years after the birth
of Jesus. Where is the crowd? Where is
the line? Where are those who are flocking
to Bethlehem to worship the Christ child? The wise men come to a
scene of indifference. They come to a place where there
is a man, a King, Herod. We looked at this two or three
weeks ago, I suppose. We looked at the hatred of Herod
as a descendant of Esau, as an Edomite. And even in the vein
and the theme of Genesis chapter three, he would be an offspring
of Satan seeking to snuff out the life of the Messiah. Well, we can never, ever lose
sight of or forget the fact that God is always at work. God is
always at work in the darkest times. When you are leaving your
driveway and no one else is, do not despair. When you were
seeing church buildings torn down or repurposed for things
other than houses of worship, you remember in your mind, in
your heart, the truth of God’s word. God is always at work. God is always able to keep a
people for himself, a remnant. And God is always up to something.
In fact, as we read in Isaiah chapter 60, God is bringing people
from all nations, from all places into his kingdom. Just read the
genealogies of Jesus, both in Matthew and in Luke. There’s
Rahab from Jericho in the genealogy of Jesus, not because of her
pedigree. She was not of Israel. But she
had faith in Yahweh, and she gave hospitality to the spies. And then there’s Ruth the Moabitess,
who would be the grandmother of King David. In her barrenness
and in her famine, God brought her to Boaz, her kinsman redeemer. And just a few generations from
there, we had King David, who is of the line of Jesse and Jesus
comes from him. And we could go on and on through
the scriptures and give examples of the people of God, but also
the Gentiles who came in by faith. Well, you have these wise men
who travel for months and miles and come to the center of the
religion of God’s people. And God’s people are indifferent.
They’re doing other things. They’re following after other
gods. But here these wise men are guided by a star. Now, we got to pause for just
a second and clean ourselves up. Where do we get our facts
about the wise men? Well, we get them from manger
scenes, right? How many wise men are there?
Thousands. Okay. Now there’s three, right?
And why are there three? Because of the gold, the frankincense
and myrrh. Well, who, who knows that there could have been six
could have taken two each to carry the gifts. There could
have been 15. There could have been 19. There
could have been 17. There could have been 300. We,
we, we just don’t know. Uh, when, when did they come? How did they get there? What
made them? want to seek the Christ out. We get lost in the details
of our manger scenes. We get lost in the details of
modern art. We get lost in the details of
things we don’t really know about. But here’s what we do know, God
is sovereign. And he moves in the hearts of
people to seek his face. He moves in the hearts of people
to look for Christ. You know, we’re kind of nice,
neat Presbyterians, aren’t we? And we have our little catechism
that talks about the ordinary means of grace and how generally
speaking, God works through the word and the sacraments to both
save people and to build them up in their faith. That’s how
he ordinarily works. But then we get a missionary
who comes from the mission field overseas over in the East. And
he says, God is using dreams. to reach into Muslim countries
where those countries are closed to the gospel and missionaries.
And God is putting in the hearts of people in Muslim countries
and saying, go seek this person and have this person read the
scriptures to you that you may know of Jesus Christ. And so
we sometimes put God in a box. He can only work this way. And
we do, yes, believe he ordinarily works through the preaching of
the word and through the ongoing ministry of the church. But God,
God is God. And he moved somehow in some
way in the hearts of these wise men, astrologers maybe, priest
of Babylon possibly. We could list all the things
they may be. We could build a great resume for them and we still
wouldn’t know if that’s what they were. But we do know this,
they responded to God’s work in their hearts. And they spent
months and they spent miles making their way to Jerusalem. We don’t
know if it was on camels. We don’t know all that sort of
stuff, but this is something we do know. There was a star
in the sky and this is where we get into some other sticky
wickets. So some call it the Christmas comment, much like
Haley’s comment. And it was a comment that moved. And as it moved, it moved to
Bethlehem and the wise men followed it. And that’s how they got there.
And they, they are just accidental Jesus followers. Well, that doesn’t
sound too much like the way our God works. He’s not a God of
accidents. Uh, there are other options.
You know, it was a figment of their imagination. Um, lots of
people don’t like to believe in the supernatural. Here’s,
here’s what I think. This is a good biblical guess.
Think back to the old Testament when God brought Israel out of
Egypt, how did he guide them? There was a cloud by day. And
by night there was a pillar of fire. And it was the presence
of God. And he led his people when the
cloud or the pillar moved, the camp of Israel moved. And when
it stopped, they stopped. And I imagine in some way in
God’s wisdom, he used this star. It was a means of interest to
these men who were star watchers. And God says, okay, I’ll use
a part of my creation and I’ll bring them to Jerusalem. And
there’s this, Well, we can’t help but think about all that
Isaiah chapter 60 told us when we read it just a little bit
ago. And we can’t help but think of all that God promises that
he is, his son is, and heaven will be. God very often uses
light. Jesus is the light of the world.
And so we have these wise men guided by the star to this tiny
little baby who is the light of the world. And God’s promise
is coming true. Ultimately, it will come true
in heaven where we read that when we get to heaven and heaven
comes down on earth, there will be no sunshine because God himself
is the light. There is no need for constellations
because God himself is that light. Well, it’s interesting. These
wise men, they have one goal. And that’s to go worship this
king. They have come all this distance, all these months, all
these miles, their cost, the dangers, their perseverance,
their zeal. And they want to go worship the
living God. And so after all the rigmarole
of wrestling with Herod and all the work with the chief priest
and the scribes, who is he? Where is he? Tell us what you
know. They go to Bethlehem. and they see the Christ child.
And it says that upon their arrival, they rejoiced exceedingly. Now think back for just a moment,
if you will, about our assessment of our Sunday morning neighbors,
cars staying in the driveway. We live in the South where everybody’s
a Christian, or at least was. What has come upon our world
with the indifference to Jesus Christ, the indifference to seeking
his presence and worshiping and bowing before him. It says, when
they found this child, they rejoiced exceedingly. And at the sight
of him, they fell down and they worshiped him. And they offered
him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. There’s a little saying
or lesson that you can learn from stories in the scriptures. And it’s this. Oftentimes we
are rebuked by pagans. Oftentimes we who believe in
God, we who follow Jesus, we who know our Bibles, we who,
you know, we go to church, we do those things, we can be rebuked. by people who seek God’s face.
I remember in the story of Genesis and the story of Abraham, in
his dealings with the pagans around him, you know, he would
say, well, let’s go to Egypt and honey, you tell them you’re
my sister. Cause if you say you’re my wife, you know, they won’t
treat me. And so the wife gets taken in by the King and bad
things happen to the King and the King says, what are you a
liar? You get rebuked by pagans. Here is a strong rebuke, I think,
to the Christians of our day by pagans who sought Jesus. We’ll
go the distance. We’ll take the time. We’ll seek
Jesus at all cost. We’ll bring him our treasures.
We’ll give him our everything to see him and to worship at
his feet. I’m afraid we’re entering an
era where even people of faith forget the cost of following
Jesus, forget the cost of denying Jesus, forget the cost of what
it means to follow Him in a hostile world. And so I encourage you
today to recognize the greatness of Christ, but also recognize
the zeal and the joy and the energy and the cost of these
wise men to seek His face. And maybe say to yourself in
the times ahead of the afternoon and maybe tomorrow, New Year’s
Day, as you think through the year ahead, how can I be more
diligent in seeking Christ and in worshiping him and in making
him known to this lost world, this dark and dying world? Let’s do pray together. Our God,
we thank you so much that in your word you show us how people
from a unknown place who would never go seeking your face are
moved by your spirit, moved in their hearts to come to you and
to worship at your footstool. Lord, we pass by so many churches. On the way to our church, it’s
a dime a dozen. We have stacks of Bibles on the
shelves of our homes. And yet we don’t diligently seek
you and worship you as we ought. So forgive us and help us. We do ask in the name of Christ,
our savior. Amen. In our changed order of
service, we will not sing the hymn of preparation, but we’ll
move right to the Lord’s supper. So let me invite the elders to
come forward.