Well, let's read a familiar story of the birth of Christ, Matthew 2, verses 1 through 12. 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 have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, but you, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the young child, and when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. When they heard the king, they departed. And behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Amen. Father, we thank you for this part of the story of your redemption that really started in eternity past and will continue to the future. And so we thank you for the privilege of having this recorded in the inerrant Word of God. And I pray that as I preach it, I would do so faithfully, and each one of us would grow as a result. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, as I have evaluated my love for the Lord, my prayers, my worship, my devotions over the past year, I've used a couple of different tools from year to year to evaluate that, and I think some of the most convicting questions have come from Dewell's book, Measure Your Life. And I've gone through that a number of times, and I still can see lots of room for improvement. in this area of life. I think I do score fairly high when it comes to loving God with my mind and loving God with my service, but quality time, yikes, I think that is an area I still need to grow a great deal in. And it makes sense because I think that's an area that I tend to be weak in even with my wife and with other people. It's one of the areas I have to keep pushing myself in. So a part of my goals for the new year is that I wanna grow in concrete ways of seeking God's face. Not just studying about how to seek God's face, but seeking God's face. And this morning I wanna share just a few thoughts that the Lord has laid on my heart from Matthew chapter two. And I've grouped these actions in your outline under two main headings, Seek Christ Without Excuses and Seek Christ With the Whole Heart. Now obviously I pray every day, I worship every day, but we always need to grow. And I don't think probably most of us can honestly say every single day in the past year we have Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Emphasis on the word all. But we're going to use the wise men in Matthew 2 as an example of how to seek Christ with all of our heart. And it's my prayer that all of us would grow and be challenged through this. Now, we're going to start by evaporating our excuses. There were at least five excuses that these wise men could have used if they wanted to, and we'll quickly go through them. Well, maybe not quickly, but we'll go through them. Nothing's quickly with me, is it? The first thing that we see is that the wise men did not use the excuse of distance and inconvenience. Look at verses 1 through 2. 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 have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. Now, what were some of the inconveniences that they had to overcome in order to come and worship him? Well, they had a long trip. Commentators point out that the Iranian origin, that's the modern name for it, but the Iranian origin for the name Magoi, which is the Greek, that's the plural, Greek singular is Magus, but that term for wise men or Magi, however you want to pronounce it, means that they probably came from the city of Babylon. Modern tourist sites say that if traveling conditions are ideal, it takes about 54 hours, if the highways are good, about 54 hours to travel by automobile. Now they didn't have automobiles, they didn't have modern roads, But even if they traveled on camels, which is probably the fastest way that they could travel, it would still take them more than 20 days to reach Jerusalem. And so I would say that's a rather inconvenient trip that they had on their hands. And yet their passion to worship Jesus took that excuse away. A second inconvenience was the risks involved in traveling between countries. Now, it's true that Rome had, you know, soldiers everywhere and they had made their highways and their seaways much, much more safe to travel than they had previously been, but you still had to calculate in some risks when you traveled between countries. Third inconvenience was that they were from a totally different country and probably a totally different Language, though they may have known Hebrew, I tend to think that they were probably Babylonian Jews. There were a lot of Jews that remained in Babylon. Fourth, they probably had important posts that they had to ask temporary leave from. And let me explain that because the Magi, in all of the literature, secular and religious, that we have from the ancient Near East, it seems that they were always counselors to some government official, very often to kings. And they are not, as so many people assume, astrologers or diviners. If you look in the book of Daniel, there's quite a number of references that distinguish the Magi from the astrologers. So Daniel and his three friends were called Magi. Acts 8 speaks of Simon, who was a Magus advisor. Acts 13 speaks of Elymas the Magus, who influenced Sergius Paulus, the pro-council. So Magi, they could be good, they could be bad, depending on whether they're giving advice from the Bible, or as usually was the case, demonic advice that they had. But I believe that these were converted, either converted believers, Gentile believers or Jewish believers who served the Lord, either in Babylon or Media or one of the neighboring countries that were to the east. Bottom line is, it would take some special arrangements for a king's magi to get a few weeks off to visit this newborn king of the Jews. These men had overcome several inconveniences. Now, I think just having gone through those five, The inconveniences that keep us from private devotions are probably a lot less than what they had. And the excuses that we give are probably lousy excuses compared to their own. And as I was preparing for this sermon, I asked myself, what inconveniences have kept me sometimes from full-hearted worship in my private devotions? Now usually I plan ahead on these things to some degree, but I was convicted I don't plan enough. And music is one area that I've really stretched myself in the past few weeks. And actually I was inspired to do this when we were invited by Josh and Angela to their home for dinner. And they were streaming, and I thought, huh, they're streaming words and they're streaming music. I can use Spotify. I'm looking actually for a Christian streaming service. If you know of one, let me know. So that's what I've been doing in the last few weeks, and it's hugely helped me in some of the weak areas that I've had in my own devotional life. And so the point that I made to myself is I cannot allow the inconvenience of planning planning out which songs that we're gonna do in today's private devotions, I can't allow that to keep me from growing in my intimacy with the Lord. And you'll see in this sermon, there's gonna be a lot of confession. But I hope all of us will grow in loving the Lord with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Okay, a second excuse that they could have made was, we don't know where we're going and what we're doing. We don't know what the next day or the next month will hold. These wise men had several uncertainties. I want you to take a look at verse two. Verse two says that the Magi came to Jerusalem asking, where, they don't know, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? So God had somehow revealed to them that what the star was for, it was his star, they had seen his star, and so they understood the what, but there was a lot that they were uncertain about. They did not know the when, the where, the why, and the how. Those who like to feel in control always wanna have more details before they act, right? And even when we on occasion get all of the details, we still have a little bit of, there's uncertainties. And the fact of the matter is God never takes away all uncertainties about our circumstances and our lives. And he doesn't give all the information that we would want. And the reason is clear. He wants us to walk by faith. Not by sight. We would much rather walk every day by sight because we know everything. And God says, no, I'm deliberately not letting you know everything so that you are forced to walk by faith. And so these Magi, just like Abraham, they went not quite knowing where they're going to end up. but they were following the Lord's lead in their lives to the degree that they knew. They did not get deflected by uncertainty. Now, obviously, we can apply this excuse of uncertainty to many areas of our lives, but I've been trying to apply the passage to how fully I seek God. Does uncertainty factor in? Maybe you stumble over not knowing the meaning of a passage that you're going through in private devotions and say, what in the world is that about? And you get out your commentaries. And before you know it, your devotions has turned into a Bible study instead of devotions. And it's not that there's anything wrong with studying. But there's nothing wrong with saying to the Lord, Lord, I want to continue to worship you right now and worshiping the fact that we are never going to get to the bottom of God's infinite wisdom. We're never going to have everything figured out. And so what I do, because this is my temptation, I'm an academic. Anytime I come across something I don't know, I want to start studying before I know it. I'm not doing worship. I'm doing study. So I have a to-do list that I will throw that thing onto, and then about 10 seconds later, I come back and I can focus, because I'm going to deal with that at another time. I can focus on worshiping the Lord and His vast riches that I will never exhaust anyway. So I'm trying not to let the academic side of me crowd out the relational side. Now another area of uncertainty that distracts me in worship is bad memory. So I'm praying for a family, and then I forget the name of one of the family members, and I'm stalled in my prayer for a period of time. Believe it or not, this is probably the far side humor part of my thinking, but the whole time I'm trying to think of the name of that family member, I'm thinking of Rodney sitting on the other side of the room smiling at me and not giving me the name. He's done that so many times. Eventually, the name comes to me, but in the meantime, I've lost my train of worship. I've lost my train of thinking. So how I've gotten around that, I just carry the names of our congregation with me on my phone, or if I'm at the office, I pull out the directory, and there it is, and I can continue on with my prayer. But uncertainty can sometimes get in the way of meaningful reach of the heart to God. Your uncertainties might be totally different. They might be not quite knowing what to say in prayer, or what others will think of you if you raise your hands, or uncertainty about, oh man, I've brought this before the Lord 50 times. Is he gonna think I'm nagging? Is he going to be upset with me? That was something that used to be an issue with me when I was much, much younger, thinking I do not want to irritate the Lord. For me, it was like three times. is a fourth time nagging. And then I ran across a passage in Isaiah where he said, give him no rest until he answers his promises. And so you're basically asking him what he wants anyway. So it's not nagging, really. But if you have uncertainties about how to pray, I have a booklet that can teach you how to do 12 types of prayers, and even has words, sample words written out for each section, except for one section, which is the section where we're listening. We're trying to hear from God. But the point is, don't let uncertainty hinder the degree to which you seek Christ with all your heart. And there's many ways we can get around those uncertainties and not let them divert us from worship. A third excuse for failing to be as passionate in your worship as you might otherwise have been is that no one else around you is passionate. You look around, you think, oh boy, I better cool it or everybody's going to think I'm weird, you know. Nobody else is raising their hands. Nobody else is crying. And I'm crying right now. And it kind of dampens your spirit. Just as Jesus could do no mighty works in his hometown because of their unbelief, it is so easy to have your spirit dampened by the wet blanket of other people's worship or lack of worship. So observing the status quo can dampen our own joy and take away our energy. But here's the point that I've had to learn. It doesn't need to dampen your worship at all or your enthusiasm. These Magi are examples on this point too. They sought Christ even when others did not share their enthusiasm. Take a look at verses three through six. When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. They're not excited that the Messiah has come, not at all. They're troubled. Herod's troubled because he doesn't like anything messing up the status quo in his nation that could foment trouble. And the people are troubled anytime Herod is troubled, but they're not enthusiastic. For sure, Herod was not interested in worship. Look also at how seriously Herod takes Christ's threat. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. I want you to notice that Herod believes the Bible to be true. He's looking to the Bible. Where is he going to be born? He believes the Bible to be true, but even though he takes that seriously, he does not submit. He has no interest in worshiping Jesus. How on earth can people do that? How can they know the truth and yet have hearts that are so far from God? Well, as Calvinists, we know exactly what that is. We call it total depravity, right? People, apart from God's grace, will not seek after Him. You cannot account for the difference between Herod and the wise men that the wise men had some good in them and Herod did not. No, Romans 3 says there is none righteous, no, not one. We cannot account for it that while these guys have a seeking heart, Herod did not. Romans 3 says there is none who seeks after God. The only reason that they sought God in faith to worship Him is because God had regenerated them, given them faith, and He had not done so to Herod. It's sovereign grace. Our salvation is all of grace. There is nothing we earn or deserve. I want you to notice, too, that the scribes and Pharisees know exactly where Christ is going to be born. You don't see one of them going there. Verse 5, So they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. I think it's kind of scary that people can know the truth and either oppose it or just ignore it, as the case of these leaders. And when a society is filled with such people, it is easy for Christians to lose their enthusiasm as well. The wise men kept their focus on God. on God, not on what the religious leaders or Herod or any of the other people were doing. If you're too concerned about what other people are doing or saying or thinking, it can dampen your joy, your enthusiasm. It can dampen your single-eyed pursuit of Jesus. But when your focus is on what God thinks, you will pursue Christ without any reservations. So be enthusiastic in your pursuit of God and of Christ. No matter if everybody around you is thinking you're extreme, let the Bible decide that question. And believe it or not, this is an area that I did struggle in in years past. In years past, I didn't raise my hands in worship, even though the scripture speaks about that a great deal. Because I had a little bit worried that other people would misinterpret my motives and think poorly of me. I did not kneel in worship, even though in private devotions I did, because I didn't want to be judged by others. I didn't say a loud amen, even though the Bible commands everyone to say a loud amen many, many, many times. Why? Because it was the fear of man that was driving what I did and what I did not do. It's so easy for this to be a problem. So the bottom line was that in the past, the lack of enthusiasm from others rubbed off on me. And I think I've gotten past that for the most part, but this fear of man is something I need to always be on guard against so that it does not hinder my worship. But I would encourage you to not let it hinder your worship. A fourth excuse is being surrounded by hypocrites. This past week, I was on Facebook, and I don't know why all of these bunched together, but a bunch of my Christian Facebook friends were making comments on why they don't attend church. I didn't even know some of these didn't attend church. But they said that they didn't attend church because they didn't get much out of it, or the church is not being salt and light, and it's not transforming society, or they're filled with hypocrites. One issue or another. Well, that could have dampened the enthusiasm of these wise men, too. Jerusalem was full of hypocrites. By the way, almost every church has got one or two hypocrites in it, people who profess faith in Christ, but really don't, right? They're conforming outwardly, but their heart is not with it. Look at verses 7 through 8. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. So Herod professed to be a worshiper of the true God, but in his heart he was not. If you keep on reading in that chapter, you'll see his whole purpose was to kill Christ, and his attempt was to do that when he killed all of those innocents. I don't know how many times I have heard unbelievers excuse their careless attitudes with the expression, well, the church is full of hypocrites anyway. And my response to them is, oh, have you attended church? No. Well, how do you know the church? You know, it's really weird. People who have never been in church know that the church is full of hypocrites. But here's the point. Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, the church is full of hypocrites. It still does not excuse you from your responsibility before God. Remember the church of Laodicea? Jesus was so distanced from that church that he left the church. He was outside the church knocking on the church door, but I think it's so cool that he promises to anyone in that church that's filled with hypocrites He promises, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. So any individual in that church full of hypocrites can have the most spectacular fellowship with Christ, even though others are not. The last excuse that these wise men could have made, but did not, was that their quest was dangerous. If they were good at reading body language, they could have seen that Herod was not enthused in verse three. In verse 12, it was apparent that their lives were in danger, but these Magi sought the Messiah despite danger. Are you willing to face danger for Christ? I mean, that's their stated goal, right, is to worship. Are you willing to face danger? The danger for you might be that you could potentially come down with COVID-19. Or you could potentially get ticketed for $25 or whatever the fine is from police. Or that you might get sick if you keep getting up early enough to have private devotions in the morning. Dangerous. So those were the potential excuses that these wise men avoided. There are a ton more excuses that we could easily have. The question I have posed for myself, and I pose the same question for you, is this. In our pursuit of Christ, are we characterized by excuses or are we characterized by solutions? I mean, neither one ignores the problems and the difficulties and the inconveniences. They both are aware of those. But when we make excuses, we're not approaching it by faith. When we are looking for solutions to those issues, we are approaching it by faith. So the second major point is that these wise men also illustrate seeking Christ with the whole heart. This is a repeated command in Scripture. Deuteronomy 4.29 says, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. And he's not talking to unbelievers there. He's talking to the church. He says, you will find him if you seek for him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 28.9, if you seek him, he will be found by you. Jeremiah 29.12, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. So let's take a look at the seven ways that they modeled that they were seeking Christ with all of their heart. First, they didn't keep their enthusiasm to themselves. They shared their enthusiasm about seeking him with others. In verses two and seven, We see that the wise men, they're not ashamed of inquiring at the temple of where Jesus is and that their intended goal was to worship him. I bet you they probably thought, oh, the whole palace guard's gonna wanna join us in worshiping Jesus. I think people who are sold out for Christ, they love worship, are astonished when they look and they see others who don't share that enthusiasm. Most of you, when you first came to Christ, probably overflowed with enthusiasm. So how does that enthusiasm get dampened? Well, there could be any number of reasons. Constantly seeing others who put you in your place, well, that could dampen your enthusiasm. Fear of man can make us shut our mouths. Even King David was tempted to become ashamed of sharing God's word with other kings, and the supposition is those kings didn't like God's law, so do I share it with them? They're gonna totally disagree with me, but he determined, no, I am not going to be ashamed. He said this, I will speak of your testimonies also before kings and will not be ashamed. Jesus said, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Now, I do tend to watch you guys' Facebook pages just because I love you guys. I pray for you, right? I want to know what's going on. And I am very encouraged, actually, by the boldness with which you name the name of Christ in the public arena. So what I'm wanting to emphasize here is not, are you ashamed of Christ in general? Because I think you guys are not. I've seen wonderful testimony, but how enthusiastic are you about the relationship that you have with Christ, the things that he's doing in your life? You know, we could have just a testimony time every week, but that's what the tables are for. You know, when we eat together, share the reality of the supernatural that God has done in your life during the past week. That's what Hebrews tells us. We're to encourage one another and stimulate one another up onto love and good works. And as we share these kinds of things with each other, the reality, I think there's nothing that stirs up enthusiasm like the realization God is real. God's at work in my life. Now, I'll be, well, I'll get to that in a little bit. Second thing I see here is they were diligent in seeking Him. Verse 8 says, go and search diligently for the young child. Of course, they'd already been doing this. They had been looking to the Lord and to the star for information. They traveled, they inquired, they searched for more information that would help them. They didn't do just what came spontaneously. They put work into their seeking. While diligence and devotions is not the full answer, it certainly doesn't hurt to be diligent with our time. Our thought and even our forethought, our research and effort, putting some diligence into devotions and worship, I think can help to improve both for our families. The English novelist J.B. Priestley once was asked why some of the gifted writers who had grown up with him had never matured in their art to the degree that he had. They had the same skills and his answer was very interesting. He said, gentlemen, the difference between us was not in ability, but in the fact that they merely toyed with the fascinating idea of writing. I cared like blazes. It is this caring like the blazes that counts. How much do we care to know Christ and to be drawn into a closer walk with Him? And you can say, well, I just don't have the time. But the funny thing is, we always have the time for what's important to us and what we really like to do. So it's a reflection on our heart. If you have the enthusiasm of these wise men, there is no one here who cannot achieve great things spiritually. Theodore Roosevelt said, I'm only an average man, but I work harder at it than the average man. So make it your goal to work harder at worship than the average person does, to be enthusiastic, diligent in your search for Christ. Another indication of the enthusiasm with which these wise men sought Christ is their great joy. Verse 10 says, when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. Now I get the impression that rejoicing with exceedingly great joy is a lot of joy somehow. Joy. Joy should be a part of our daily life. Do we find joy in life? If we're too academic in our praises of God, it may not translate into joy, but If we adore God's greatness in relationship to us as unworthy recipients, it will begin to stir up joy. Just some examples. If we worship God for his wisdom as being sufficient for our lack of wisdom, His power being sufficient for our fears, His presence, you know, and His power being sufficient for our needs. It begins to take on a dimension of a relationship, not simply a study. There's nothing like the realization that God is real, that He's actively working in your life to give you this joy and enthusiasm. Now, I'll be Honest with you, hasten to say that life is never perfect. Not a one of us has joy every day of our lives. Well, maybe some of you do, but I certainly don't. I've never met anybody that has joy. Even the most joy-filled person in my life, I've seen them occasionally without joy, and I can tell you about him. He's an amazing guy that has ministered to me a lot. Here's the thing. We can be totally aware of God's work in our lives and lose our joy. Just think of Elijah. He's a tremendous man. He has his Mount Carmel experience. And the very next day he is depressed, so depressed he wants to die. He has lost his joy. We can go back and forth from this. So the very fact that I'm saying we need to do this does not mean you should be beating up on yourselves and saying, oh man, I'm a worm. No, it's direction, not perfection. We're always going to be pressing into this on our lives. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones speaks of this mysterious loss of our joy. in his amazing book, and I think everybody needs to have this book on their shelves, this is an amazing book, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, it's called Spiritual Depression, Its Causes and Its Cures. Now he has some profound things in there, but he also has some just very simple, there was one chapter, it's such simple, basic advice. If you're depressed, you lack joy, how much have you been sleeping in the last month? I mean, simple question. Sleep loss can take things away. Guilt can take away our joy. Physical exhaustion, stress, there's many different things. Demonic oppression can take away our joy. And so, as John Piper pointed out, there are times when we need to fight for joy. David preached himself into joy in Psalm 42 and 43. He said to himself, he's preaching to himself, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him. So he's arguing with himself in those Psalms that he has every reason to praise God and to be joyful. He doesn't feel it, but I have every reason to be joyful. And especially when I have had many, many nights of sleep loss. I have to do things differently to maintain my attitude of joy. If my mind drifts while I'm on my knees, okay, well, then I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna pace back and forth in my study. I might even be shouting out loud. You have to keep sometimes, sometimes you have to rebuke yourself, say, no, I will rejoice. I'm not going to get down in this cycle of depression. Those declarations are steps of faith that God honors, but joyless worship should be an oxymoron for a healthy Christian, and that means I have been an unhealthy Christian from time to time, and I've had to adjust my attitudes. Okay, so I'm not saying be perfect like Phil Kaiser. I'm saying try to grow like Phil Kaiser. Try to keep pressing, and even when you stumble, move forward. Another thought I see in this passage is that great things don't happen until we step out in faithfulness to the Lord. You may not feel like worship because you feel dry. But as you step into worship by faith, you will many times find God pouring out his showers of blessing. Here is the point. It's just across the Bible you will see this. The Jordan River did not part until they started crossing. The blind man did not get healed until he asked for healing. The man with the withered arm did not get that withered arm healed until he willed to do the impossible that Christ commanded him to do. And he stretched forth his hand and Christ healed it in the process of him acting in faith. There are times we don't receive joy until we determine to enter into joy through our praises. Well, in the same way, these men didn't see God's supernatural star again until they set out on their journey again in verse 9. They set out before they saw the star, and then God met them. And it's like, okay, we don't know quite, yeah, we're gonna go to Bethlehem, but God meets them in the act of obedience. And I guess the point of the passage is they didn't need the star till they set out on their journey again. Inaction leads to stagnation. If you would have joy, you must do as the wise men did and proceed with your marching orders. And almost always, it is as we step out in faith, that God supernaturally meets us, fills our hearts with joy as he did theirs. This means that there is a connection between serving God before worship and serving God in worship. Fifth, their enthusiasm could also be measured by the sacrificial nature of their gifts. Each of these gifts was costly. I've preached on the gifts before, but gift giving, very important part of Christmas, but here they're giving Christ their best. You know, they're not giving away their unwanted sweaters, and they're broken. I mean, God can use those kinds of things, right? But they are giving the very best, what they valued the most. Can Jesus see the expensive alabaster box opened up and poured out on his feet? How extravagant are we in our pursuit of God, or do you give God only your second best? And that means our energies, our best of our energies. The sixth thing that I see in this passage is the complete and unreserved trust in God's word that these Magi had. Now, we don't have recorded what revelation they had received in Babylon, but they trusted it. And I should point out that Magi did not receive revelation by reading horoscopes, the way some people interpret this passage. I just do not think that they were astrologers who saw, you know, as so many commentators say, they saw a, what do they call it, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and they said, okay, well that must mean that there is a king born over there somehow. No, that's utter, sheer nonsense. A conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter does not stand over a house. you There's no way you could find an individual house based on that. No, this was a theophany that went low enough to the ground they could follow it, and low enough to the ground where it could stand over a house and point to where the Jesus was born. And so I believe that this theophany was coupled with prophetic insight from the Lord as to the significance of this manifestation. So God, by prophecy, revealed what it was that he was doing there. And the only certainty to this day that we can ever have is the inspired revelation, which for us has been recorded in the scriptures, right? So once you are grounded in the scriptures, nothing should be able to shake us. Not frequently does. But that's because our faith tends to wander from the scriptures. Learning how to personalize the Word of God is really an absolute foundation for a relational Christianity. Gary's handed out, I forget now if everybody got them or just a few people got praying the scriptures. But anyway, he's handed out a few of those at least. That's an amazing book. It's basically at the nursery level of praying the scriptures, but our prayer meetings, if you regularly attend them, we're praying the scriptures, teaching you how this applies to all of the different areas of life. When you pray the scriptures, you're beginning to enter into a relational character with the Bible rather than just an academic one. Okay, I do want to end with the last good mark of their hearts, their obvious desire to worship. They tell everyone in verse two that's their goal is to worship Christ. In verse 11, they actually do so. When they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Worship is the goal of our lives. In fact, in Scripture, the only thing that it ever says that the Father seeks is worshipers. Now, it doesn't say he seeks worship. Acts, the book of Acts, in fact, explicitly says he doesn't need worship. That's for our benefit that we learn to worship him, but it says he seeks worshipers. Let me read that verse, John 4, 23. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him. He's seeking your heart. God wants your heart. If you have little or no desire for worship, it displays what kind of a relationship that you have with God. Ask God to give you a new heart that is enthusiastic for Him, enthusiastic enough to worship fully and freely, even when everybody else is dead as a stone. Enthusiastic does not care what other people think of you. Give yourself an extravagance to him. Now, if John Wesley were alive today, I definitely would not go to him to get theological advice. He was a bad theologian, but he loved the Lord. And I dare say, if John Wesley were alive today, I would go to him to get some pointers on how to deep dive into the ocean of prayer, how to walk with God as Enoch did, how to develop a deep relationship with God. And we can learn from our brothers and sisters from many different denominations, even those who are theologically messed up. And I guarantee you, you and I are probably messed up theologically in some area. we need more unity in the Bride of Christ. But anyway, John Wesley said this, right tempers, that's just an old word that means dispositions, right dispositions cannot subsist without right opinion. In other words, you got to get your theology right first. The love of God, for instance, cannot subsist without a right opinion of Him. However, The right dispositions cannot subsist without right opinion, yet right opinion may subsist without right dispositions. Basically what he's saying is, yes, we are called to be theologically orthodox, and you can't have good practice without good theology, but he says you can have good theology without having a good relationship with God. That's what he's saying, as another book worded it. We can be fantastic data-based Christians, but the question is, having all of that data about God, do we have fellowship with the God that we know? Do we have the reach of the heart? Do we minister to Him? Do we love Him? Do we enjoy spending time before His throne and in His presence? You see, God calls us to seek Him, to fellowship with Him, to worship Him, to love Him. And if you want a whole new dimension to your Christianity, I would urge you to obey Paul's admonition when he calls us to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, or in another passage where he calls us to enter into. We've been called into the fellowship of the Son, the same fellowship. This is astonishing. It blows my mind. The same fellowship that the Son and the Father have had throughout all of eternity and will eternity in the future, we've been called into that fellowship. And the only way we can get into that fellowship is if we have fellowship with the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to have the reach of the heart. And so we need all three persons of the Trinity if we're to be able to do what this passage is calling us to do. It is through the Holy Spirit. May each one of us aspire to grow in this area of a relational Christianity with God, fellowship with God, devotions with God, You're not going to be perfect. We're going to be going up and down, but let's make it our desire to keep growing in this. Amen. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the way that it shows us how shallow sometimes we can be. Thank You for convicting me Thank you that you meet us in our weakness. Thank you, Father, that though our hearts may be shallow, you have promised to shed abroad your love into our hearts, full to overflowing with love, with joy, with peace, with all the fruit of your spirit. It really matters not how shallow my cup of joy, my cup of love, my capacity to love is if I give you all. And Father, may all of us love you no matter how small our hearts, our souls, our power might be. To love you with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. May we glorify you. May you be pleased. May we have your smile of approval upon our daily walk. And we know that just as a little child who brings his really pathetic artwork to you, to his parents, pleases the parents when that's the best that they have to offer. I thank you that you receive that which really in many ways is pathetic because nothing we bring in itself can be pleasing apart from being perfected by your spirit, by the merits of Jesus Christ. So help us to not worry about our inadequacies. Just help us to keep pressing into you, in Jesus' name, amen.