All right, the youth can be dismissed for Sunday school. The rest of us, go ahead and grab your Bible and turn to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter two. If you don't have a Bible, there should be one somewhere on a chair within reach or open your app. Matthew chapter two in the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew. And as returning there, good to see you all. Welcome on this last Sunday before Christmas and Christmas Eve ramping up to the holiday. We have been in a verse-by-verse study through the book of Romans, and in light of Christmas, we'll take a brief pause to look at a few other things. And Christmas Eve, if you're in town, I hope you can make it. It's a jolly festive time. The message, as usual, will be highly evangelistic for obvious reasons. This is kind of a slow pitch over home plate this time of year to bring the good news of Christ to people, neighbors, friends. family, all that good stuff. Please be in prayer for that. It's a little bit of a shorter service, shorter message. But in the meantime, I want us to look at a passage surrounding the meaning of Christmas, the events of Christmas in Matthew chapter 2, the glory of the newborn king. It's interesting sometimes how parents When a new child is born, we have that happen often in Cornerstone. The people in the birthing part of St. John's know me well. Come on right in. You're here again. And we love that. Children are a gift from the Lord. Psalm 127. But it's interesting how sometimes parents will give these optimistic prophecies about their children when they're born. Even at a very young age, we dads will look at our three-month-old and say, oh, he looks real smart. He's going to be a Nobel Prize in chemistry or physics. And I wonder about that, because at three months old, it's hard to project that. Our skills are crying and filling our diaper and doing other things. Moms too will sometimes say, oh, you know, she'll be maybe a professional ballerina or a gymnast, notwithstanding the fact that at that age, the children are pretty much good at falling down from a sitting position. But the birth of this child, the prophecies, the foretelling, if anything, they were underdoing it. The time in which Christ was born, we're going to look at that Tuesday. Why did God pick that timing? Why was it then in the first century? It's very, very important why it was then. But the timing around it more immediately of Christ's birth, extravagant, incredible things happen for obvious reasons. Prophecies being fulfilled. Side note, but related, speaking about interesting things on one's birth, I was reading there was a guy born on D-Day, like World War II D-Day, January, June 6, 1944, and his dad named him D-Day. D-Day White is his name. He's still alive today. But Christ's birth, a remarkable time, remarkable events. This one child, based on what happened in his first days and months, it was clear that no amount of optimism concerning this individual would be overly optimistic or a false projection. God became a man. We just sang it. Held incarnate deity. I love these hymns. Thank you, Neil, for choosing those songs. The Christmas carols, the hymns, are just filled with such good theology. A one-time event. This has never happened, nor will it ever happen again, where Christ, being the eternal, uncreated second person of the Triune God, who was there before there was a there, who existed before there was a when, in what theologians call the hypostatic union, Two natures in one person. That's never happened before. Where God humbles himself, and Philippians 2 says he emptied himself, but his emptying was adding. By adding human nature to himself, he was emptying himself. Not ceasing to be God at any point whatsoever, but becoming man, becoming a human, taking on our nature. And when he was born, incredible things happen. We won't be able to look at all of them, but follow along as I read in Matthew 2, verse one, I'm gonna read through verse 12, this incredible stir, this event that occurred closely after the birth of Christ. Verse one, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he was inquiring of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet. And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you shall come forth a leader who will shepherd my people Israel. Verse seven, then Herod secretly called the Magi and carefully determined from them the time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go search carefully for the child. And when you have found him, report to me so that I too may come and worship him. And after hearing the king, they went their way and behold, the star which they had seen in the east was going on before them until they came and stood over the place where the child was. Verse 10, and when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi departed for their own country by another way. This is the word of God. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for Christ. Thank you for him who is the greatest gift of Christmas. Would your Holy Spirit now please strengthen me to accurately and helpfully preach your word that none of us would leave unchanged. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Through the pen of Matthew, God gives us this gospel, this inerrant, biographical account of the birth, the life, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ, this given to us about 50s-ish first century, and it establishes the historical fact and undeniability of Christ the King. All the Gospels have sort of different reasons why they're given. John's Gospel, as we read, John 1, 1 to 18, it's very clear in the prologue what's going on there. John is showing us the fact of Christ's deity, that He is God, very God, not a God, but the God. And Matthew is showing us that Jesus is the one who's credentialed alone, fulfilling all of the prophecies. There are about 330 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ, and that Jesus is just knocking them down one by one, proving that he is Messiah, Messiah, the one about whom the prophets all the way back from Genesis 3, 15, forward through all the 39 books of the Old Testament, Christ fulfills the messianic requirements, thus proving He is the Messiah. And everyone knew, including the Magi who are not Hebrew, that the Messiah is the most important one in the world, in history, because He's God and man. He's the Savior. He's the one who will solve the greatest dilemma for the human race, namely, how, as we sing, God and sinners reconciled. How can that be? That is the chief problem, your chief problem, if it hasn't happened to you yet, by faith in Jesus Christ. And Christ, the Messiah, solves it. He's also the one, the Messiah, who will return As the prophets prophesied, Isaiah 11, Zechariah, the whole book of Zechariah saying, this one will fix everything and establish the new heavens and the new earth. So Matthew is showing this is indeed the one. In chapter one, he has the genealogy. Why is that important? Because the Messiah has to come from the people of Abraham, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And furthermore, he has to come through the line of David as was prophesied about 1,000 BC in 2 Samuel 7 verses 12 to 16. He must be not only Abrahamic but Davidic, king. And so, he is. And so, the big idea here, what we're seeing in verses 1 through 12 is from the beginning of Christ's earthly life, God demonstrates he's Messiah and therefore alone worthy of worship. From the beginning of Christ's life, big idea, God demonstrates he is, Christ is Messiah and alone worthy of worship. And so our outline in verses 1 through 12, we're going to see four demonstrations of the glory of Christ which solicit our worship. Four demonstrations of the glory of Christ, of the supremacy of Christ. which solicit and promote our worship. Everyone worships everybody. To be human is to be a worshiper. You hear sometimes your atheistic friends say, well, I'm not religious. You certainly are religious. I see a lot of religion happening when it snows more than 10 inches at about 7.42 a.m. in the tram line, in the Gandhi line, and then thereafter. Everyone's religious. Everyone dumps their security, their okayness, and attempt to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart in something. Everyone worships. Anything less than Christ, if you worship, And we all do in our less noble moments where we sin. It's a moment of idolatry. We all worship things like our reputation, how we look, our status, money, sex, sports, whatever it might be. Many of these things can be good things, but they're not meant to be God things. And so the scriptures hold up for us the Messiah being credentialed alone as such indisputably to give that soul rest that only Jesus Christ can bring. Come to me all who are weary, he'll say. Later in Matthew, we looked at that last Christmas Eve, and God puts forth his son so that we would find soul rest, forgiveness, he alone who is deserving of worship. So number one, I want you to notice number one, the glory of Christ in bringing The magi. Number one, the glory of Christ in bringing and drawing. Before Christ is in the mystery of God become man, before he can even talk and walk probably, he's bringing magi. Look at verse 1. It's a fascinating history going on here. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, so here is the historical account. And Matthew, as basically all the scripture writers do, they establish that the faith that comes from this book and the God of this book, it's not unverifiable, esoteric, This mysticism, it happened. It's rooted in history. Places, facts, people, time. It happened in Bethlehem. You can go there today. It's a couple miles south of Jerusalem. I've been there. His birth was foretold, highly anticipated. When things are happening right now, there is massive messianic expectation. After 400 years of silence, since the last Old Testament book, the ink had dried, the book of Malachi. 700 years previous to Jesus' birth, Micah sets it out, Micah 5.2, as Matthew quotes in verse 6. It's going to be, he names the town. And this is difficult to do because in Israel at that time, I mean, there are at least, probably way more than this, but at least 50 towns. And that's a roll of the dice of one in 50, if not one in 100. And he gets it right. So what will happen? Verse one, in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem. Herod, for a moment, Herod is a general term for a class of kings. That's not his name. It means this sort of cast of kings in the ancient east. This particular Herod was Herod the Great. He was very well known for infamous reasons. Julius Caesar appointed his father Antipater governor in Judea, so highly linked to Rome. This Herod is then named the King of Judea or the King of the Jews by the Roman Senate in 40 BC. He was an accomplished military leader. He oversaw the construction of all kinds of theaters and the city of Caesarea. And he also, this Herod, in order to appease the Jews, began building the temple whose stones you can go look at today, at least the foundation stones in the Western Wall there, the Wailing Wall. under their massive tension. The Roman Senate, again, they gave him the title King of the Jews, and that was a burr in the saddle of the Jews because Herod was not Jewish. He was imported, and that was offensive, especially to, understandably, some of the nationalistic Jews. He was not from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was an Edomite, which is sort of a hard irony. for the Jews because Edom, that nation off to the east, which doesn't exist anymore, they came from who? They came from Esau, Jacob's brother. And they were in constant rivalry for centuries. And so, this fueled the fire. Herod did marry a Jewish woman. He was a suspicious, wretched king. His wife was from a family of Jews who possessed a throne in Judea before Rome put him in place. And again, Herod was, again, very suspicious. He eliminated competition. He had family members killed. He eventually would have his wife killed and two of his sons. And there is a saying circulating about this Herod that it was safer to be his pig than his family because he would assassinate. his own family. So the so-called king of the Jews, here he is when God enters the scene, Christ, the king. So this is when people heard about Herod, that's what would enter their mind. And the situation in Israel was like a parched, dry forest like we had up north this summer, just ready for a spark to hit it. And so behold, verse one, these magi arrive from the east in Jerusalem. Magi from the East, who are these people? How did they know about Christ? Lots of interesting speculation. We don't know how many, despite the song, We Three Kings, right? The Three Kings as an estimate from the three gifts that are mentioned, but there could have been two, there could have been 12, there could have been 19 or 49. We don't know how many there were. There were probably, this was probably an entourage though. because of where they came from. We'll talk about that in a minute. They are high-ranking noblemen. They probably had servants, military protection. This isn't just a couple of tourists shuffling on into Jerusalem. This is a massive entourage of pomp and circumstance. You've heard their names probably, Kaspar, Melchior and Belshazzar or whatever it is, Balthazar. There's another tradition that says their names were Larvandad, Gushanasov and Hormastus. These came from Latin writings. Gesundheit, right? These came from Latin manuscripts that appeared centuries after the inerrant biblical text. We don't know what their names were. Doesn't matter. Most importantly, they're Magi. It's a transliteration from the Greek. These Magi, this is an ancient East title in the first century. Everybody knew what they were. They were a highly esteemed A group of elite men, trained, skilled, educated in the sciences, astronomy, math, philosophy, religion, and probably dabbled in pagan astrology as well. They were not kings, though they were thought to be king makers. They would find who should be king based on their wisdom and their academic, unmatched academic ability. They would make kings and then be advisors to the kings in the ancient East, experts in their field. Probably they were descendants from these magi in the kingdom of Babylon. And then later, which was crushed and overtaken by Medo-Persia, 5th, 6th century BC and so on. They were accomplished scientists. The Zodiac was a Babylonian invention. accurately predicting eclipses, solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, that's from the Magi. They figured out the math and all that. And so Babylonian astronomy, not just astrology, astronomy, the actual science, influenced later Greek astronomy when the Greco-Roman world came about and the Mediterranean world was Hellenized, and even to the East. Mathematics, all of which have influenced our field of math and astronomy to this day. Now, when you think of magi, think of somebody like Daniel in the book of Daniel. He was like a chief magi. Now, they weren't all saved like Daniel was. Many of them, again, astrology and ancient Babylonian religion. But as far as the wisdom he had, the influence he had, Daniel and Daniel 2.48, because of his ability to discern Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the statue in Daniel 2, he becomes lead magi in Babylon in the 5th century. So think of those guys, right? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were Magi. And then Daniel is advising Darius the Mede and Cyrus of Persia. Why this matters is because this tells us how these Magi probably had a clue when the Messiah was going to be born. Daniel was an expert in the Old Testament books. He knew like the 70 years. He knew all that, the exile of Israel, and he's handing this down. The book of Daniel and other Old Testament books were probably floating around in these Magi courts and in Magi academic training down into the first century from the time of Daniel. Again, they weren't all believers. Probably many of them were Zoroastrian. who worshipped the god Ahura Mazda. It was an ancient monotheistic Persian religion. But they had, almost for sure, had the book of Daniel. And again, we'll study at Christmas Eve service, Lord willing, that how they made this calculation to know about when the Messiah was going to be born. They would have been paying attention at this time because of Daniel, and then it happened, verse two. Where is he, they say, who has been born king of the Jews? Because for we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. It's possible when they say, we saw his star, they're referring to Numbers 24, 17. In the first century, this is a very messianic passage where it says, a star, Numbers 24, 17, shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel. And so that passage was white-knuckled as a Messiah passage by this time in the first century. So that, with the book of Daniel and Numbers, They're paying attention to this brilliant guise, and here they are. Now, what is this star? It's somewhat of a mystery. Over time, well-meaning individuals have attempted to correlate this with alignments of certain planets and eclipses, but you can't really do that. There's none that falls on this date. It's a mystery. It's a supernatural phenomena that God prophetically and providentially put in place in His sovereignty so that these Gentiles, not Jews, would be guided. And it says, verse 2, notice, we have come, we saw the signs, and we've come to worship Him. They didn't come across town. They didn't come across Israel. They're coming up to a thousand miles from the east, across the desert, before highways and hotels. It would have taken months, costed a fortune to have this entourage with all their military protection and servants and livestock to come for one reason, worship. Worship. The word worship carries the idea of throwing oneself on the ground as a gesture of sincere respect to kiss the feet of someone of supremacy. It also has the idea of an individual's recognition of their dependence on someone of far greater worth and ranking and glory than them, the ability to provide for them, and an attitude of trust and submission and obedience. of arrival upon rest, as Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28. The Magi had to be where the Messiah is. There's no one greater. Nobody equals His credentials. Nobody has done, will and will do in the future. You realize that God's redemptive history, only a fraction Only a fraction of the glory has happened yet. Great stuff has happened, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, but there is so much remaining. And the Magi are recognizing this, so they had to be there. It didn't matter if there was a desert, sand dunes, whatever it was, they were compelled to come. to quench their empty souls, and the drive of their existence was to be where the Messiah was. This is the most exciting thing in history, the arrival of the Messiah, which brings non-Jewish worshipers. And this is a hint of what we've been studying in Romans 11. Gentiles, the door booted open, which Matthew will emphasize. In Matthew 28, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. The nations are coming before Christ has even preached one sermon or died on the cross. So this was an eyebrow-raiser when they show up in Jerusalem. By the way, the Abrahamic covenant is playing out here, isn't it? Genesis 12.3, 2100-ish BC, through Abraham, his seed, singular, Galatians 3 reminds us, you will be a blessing to the nations. The nations are already being blessed when Persian magi arrive. So Christ's supremacy is shown in this remarkable arrival. And by the way, this reminds us, God will draw unexpected people, won't he? God will draw all sorts of people to himself. Nobody expected the Daniel disciples and the Magi from Persia to show up. Pray for people. Pray for people in high places, in low places, in side places, in whatever places. God will draw all kinds of… I mean, if God can save someone like you and someone like me, God can save anybody. He will draw all sorts of people. Trust Him. Pray. Number two, the glory of Christ and the supremacy of Christ is shown, number two, in his threat to wicked rulers, wicked world rulers. The glory of Christ and his threat to wicked rulers. Again, even as a baby. Verses three to eight. The glory of Christ and his threat to wicked world rulers. So the arrival of Messiah should launch every human being into the demeanor of the magi. But the world is a dark place. Not everyone will have the logically right and necessary response of these magi, the wise men. Some will be fools. Because John 3.19 says, men loved darkness. The reason, having heard, that people don't fall down and worship Christ is not because objectively they've discovered some superior savior, but because they love darkness. They love their sin. And is that ever obvious with Herod? Look at verse three. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. So Herod responds the opposite way to the Magi, And nothing made him, as we talked about earlier, more paranoid than a potential threat to his throne. What are they doing? What is this entourage? These elite noblemen? It would have been far more than just, again, a couple guys. What is going on here? There's shock and confusion. And there's shock and confusion. Imagine being the magi. You've just devoted your life to studying and figuring out when the star comes, you're there. And the Magi are probably scratching their head standing in front of Jerusalem, the city, and Herod and his posse, and yet the Messiah is not the one who's being hailed as king. There's a different king of the Jews. So what an awkward and embarrassing moment for Herod and his officials. What's going on here? We don't know. We don't know about this. And there's a large elephant in the room, isn't there? As they roll in from the east, why is it business as usual in Jerusalem? There should be praise and celebration, parades. In Israel of all, this is of all people, this is the Messiah and the Magi are in a sense too polite. They could have said, what's wrong with you guys? Why you as the Jews, why are you not celebrating the Messiah? And again, you see a bit of Romans 11 in here, don't you? The hardening. And so Matthew 2 is a bit of rebuke to the unbelieving Israelites. Where are the scribes, the Pharisees, those who know the scriptures? They should be doing cartwheels and praising God. Also awkward moment when the Magi request to see the King of the Jews. Herod and his posse are like, that's my title. What do you mean? Herod's already killed people because they threatened his rule. Everybody knew that. Of course, they knew king of the Jews was inaccurately accurate for Herod being non-Jew. But the Magi are asking for someone who's been born into this position. Herod is stirred. If it was someone of insignificance, Herod wouldn't give it a second thought. But this threat was unlike any. No one has drawn so much foreign attention. When Herod was born, no magi came. When Herod's sons were born, no magi came. There's no star. The threat happens because Christ is actually the Messiah, is actually the King of Kings, and actually fulfills all of the Messianic credentials. This is a foreshadowing of what Christ will say of himself a couple decades down the road where he says, if you're not for me, you're against me. I came to bring a sword. I came to bring a sword. It's gonna be one or the other. 2 Corinthians 2, 17, Christ is going to be an aroma of death to those who love their sin, and he'll be an aroma of life to know they need to be saved from their sin. Which is it for you, by the way? What kind of aroma is the biblical Jesus for you? There is no in-between. There is no in-between. It's either a smell of corpse or a smell of life. Herod wasn't the only one troubled. All Jerusalem with him. Why? Not because they were so bummed that Herod might not be their king anymore, but because they knew Herod's tactic. They knew blood was going to be shed. This was war. If someone else has this title. And so Herod sets out in his mission, verse four, look there, and gathering together all the chief priests and the scribes, the guys who were supposed to be expert in the Bible and teaching it, that's what they're devote their life to, The scribes of the people, he was inquiring of them where the Christ was to be born. This is probably the only time Herod took interest in the Bible, when there was a threat. Verse 5, they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for that's what has been written by the prophet, This is Micah, again, quoting Micah 5.2, and you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a leader who will shepherd my people, Israel. You remember Bethlehem where David's, well, before that were Ruth, Ruth and Boaz. Ruth comes back and Moabite marries Boaz. They have Obed. Obed has Jesse, and Jesse has David. Bethlehem, the house of bread. 700 years earlier. Again, Christ's supremacy fulfilled in prophecy, again, one of 330. No spiritual guru, not Gandhi, not Confucius, not Buddha, nobody, not Joseph Smith, especially not him, can fulfill this many prophecies. Only Christ that sets him in a category above all others. This is one thing that was very powerful for me when I became a Christian. I did not grow up in a home where the scriptures were taught. I didn't know anything. I knew nothing. And as I was digging in and trying to find an escape portal, a loophole, I came across this thing, the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's the entirety of the Old Testament except for the book of Esther. And no one, even the hardest skeptics, no one disagrees about this one fact with the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely that they were completed at the latest, second century BC. And you have all of these prophecies. And when I read that and then all of these things that Christ fulfilled, I had to wave the white flag because You're a dangerous type of person if you see these prophecies being knocked down by Christ and want to remain willfully obstinate and ignorant. That's like a dangerous type of person, right? And by the grace of God alone, God used that to save me. The prophecies, Micah 5, 2, one of them in Matthew 2, 6, verse 7, then Herod secretly called the Magi and carefully determined…be careful of secret meetings with political rulers, right? Sigily called the Magi and carefully determined from them the time the star appeared. Why didn't Herod and his posse see the star? I don't know. The text doesn't say. Perhaps because for the same reason why Christ often taught in parables. Parables veil truth from the hard-hearted and reveal truth to the humble. Verse eight. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. And when you found him, report to me so that I too may come and worship him. Herod pretends to be interested. Few are receiving God the Savior with worship, others rejecting even before he's grown. You see then the glory and the supremacy of Christ. He hasn't done anything yet, but be born. And he's a massive threat to wicked world rulers. I tell you, the greatest of all political rulers, not Christ. Nobody when they were born was a threat to existing political rulers when they were born. None of them. Not a single one. Christ alone. And even in that, we see his supremacy also demonstrated by the fact that He's a threat to world rulers in the sense that this proves to us how good he is and is going to be. Evil doesn't hate evil, evil makes friends with evil. The next Herod and Pilate would become friends, remember that? These were bad dudes. Christ is absolute good, good incarnate, evil hates him. This is his glory. But this reminds us of a couple things by way of application that God's people, the church, will often face opposition. God's people will often face opposition. You will face hindrances to your faith. You will face obstacles in your attempts to further the kingdom of God as you attempt to live for Christ. nationally, globally, personally. Someone learns you're a Bible-believing Christian, and they're not so excited about you anymore. Maybe they don't want to be friends with you anymore. They're not as excited about business deals with you anymore. Or if you have kids, they don't want their kids playing with your kids anymore. The church will face obstacles this side of heaven. However, these obstacles never surprise God. They never surprise God. The wise men, they don't know exactly what's going on here, why we have this weird interaction, secret stuff going on with this king, all this stir. They don't know the next verse. Obstacles to the kingdom of God never surprise God. You don't need to know. I don't need to know why there's this hindrance and why there's apparently an impassable Red Sea before you. You and I don't know. whether in your personal life, suffering, your business, business deals fall through, stuff in your family. You don't know why these hindrances come, but God does, and He has a plan. And because God is sovereign, and Psalm 115.3 says, and Psalm 135.6, He sits in the heavens, He does whatever He jolly well feels like. Paraphrasing. Because of that, obstacles are not hindrances, to His purposes in His good redemptive plan, there helps to it. All of it is under the sovereign hand of God on a large scale, and so how much more on a personal scale in your life? God operates in a way for me that sometimes has been frustrating. More than wanting me to know the plan and how it's all going to work, He wants you to trust Him and rest. Psalm 131 verse 2. Number three. The third manifestation of Christ's glory and his supremacy that promotes worship is the reverent worship from the Magi. Number three, the reverent worship from the Magi, verses 9 through 11. I want you to notice the reverent worship from the Magi. Look at verse 9. After hearing the king, this deceitful sort of meeting and plan, They went their way, and behold, the star which they had seen in the east was going on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was." So this is sovereign God supernaturally directing, oh, there's the star again. It reminds us when God is drawing somebody to faith in Christ, he'll do all kinds of amazing things. And no obstacle will be an obstacle, just a hurdle. Matthew 15, like the Syrophoenician woman who says, yes, Lord, but even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. God will draw his people for worship. Joseph and Mary are no longer in a barn, but a house. Christ could be up to 18 months, one or two by now, we don't know. God illumines the way for them because he's drawing them. This is his Gentile mission beginning for all nations. And so, verse 10, when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. The text piles up these superlatives that can be translated, they celebrated with great delight. The person of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the promise that here is the guy, here's the one, that's going to fix the world one day. New heavens, new earth, here he is. Verse 11, and after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother. And you can imagine, I mean, Mary and Joseph. Hey, honey, there's a… A lot of people outside at the door here with garb and servants and military, very well-dressed. It seems like they've lost their way. They're not from around here. They're not Hebrew. Treasure boxes. And it says, verse 10, verse 11, excuse me, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him. What a scene. The most distinguished Wise, academically capable men in the ancient world are on the ground with dirt and sand on their faces, hitting the deck, bowing before the baby. And that's what's right. Worship. On your face, worshiping Christ is the safest place for a human being to be. It's your rightful place. It's the sweet spot of humanity. It's what you were made to do. This is why people cycle through worshiping the creation, and they just blast through it. It's like busting through, do not enter signs over and over. It's never enough. Worship myself, worship my looks, worship my career. Until you're at the feet of Christ, you'll keep doing that. And so the magi hit the deck, they couldn't help it. A very necessary explosion of the healed soul, the spiritually alive soul on the ground before Christ, knowing how unworthy we are of him. God and man and one human being, the hypostatic union, the creator of the stars, Billions and billions of galaxies. Him, a baby, joining human nature to himself. He who was rich became poor for our sake so that we in our poverty might become rich. The giver of all things, the one who needs nothing to create, he creates ex nihilo, makes the planets and the world. Iron in the oceans from nothing but the power of his own word. The Magi are on the ground. They didn't even respond to their own kings back in Persia this way. They could care less that they're getting dirty, expensive robes, Mary and Joseph's unimpressive floor. Christ is worthy of your worship, friend. He's worthy of your worship. If your soul is in sixth gear towards anything else, you're going to have to keep finding like a seventh and an eighth and a ninth and you'll realize you were never in first. He alone is worthy of your worship. He deserves your worship. And he loves you. And this king is going to go die on the cross to prove that he loves you. to wipe away our sins, clean conscience, so that we can stand before the holiness of His Father in blazing glory in eternity. The only way to have your sins forgiven will be this King dying on a cross. These gifts, they present them, verse 11, opening the treasures, they present to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What are these gifts? Lots of talk about these. Gold, the most precious. Item in the world at the time. It's symbolized royalty, nobility, reverence, supremacy, gold. The gift for a king. Frankincense, a beautiful smelling and very, very expensive incense used in the ancient world only for the most sacred occasions, extremely difficult to make back then. Again, considered a great treasure in the East at that time. Modern-day equivalent, a pound of this would cost thousands, dozens of thousands, tens of thousands of dollars. Myrrh, a very valuable perfume of the Ancient East. Some have said this was a spice that would be given to someone for their death. I'm not sure if we can quite read into it that much. Maybe. They did know Isaiah 53. Point being, above all, these are the most valuable treasures of the ancient world, and they're giving them to Christ as an act of worship. Why? Because whether or not you can afford gold or not, he deserves all of you. All you can give Him in worship. When we get to Romans, we'll see Romans 12, Paul will say, in light of the gospel we've heard for 11 chapters, present you, present yourself, not just Sunday for an hour and a half, present yourself to God as a living and a holy sacrifice, which is your acceptable offer of worship or service of worship. Notice their worship, number one, it was sincere. It gives us some lessons about worship. What is worship? Sincere from the heart. Knee-jerk is on the ground. They rejoiced exceedingly, not fake-able. Second, sacrifice. Worship, the word worship is sometimes used synonymously with the word sacrifice. The long journey, long, long journey with all that they could give. Joy in worship, there was joy. The joy that can be taken away. This is the Messiah. I don't have to worry anymore. My anxiety makes zero sense in light of Messiah. It was thoughtful and intentional. They thought about what to bring. We need to go. Also, their worship didn't care about the fear of man. No fear of man. They didn't care about people's approval. The stir they caused in Jerusalem. Worship involves ditching the fear of man for fearing He who alone is worthy of reverence and fear. Also in worship, they weren't perfect in coming to worship. Right, again, maybe they were dabbling in astrology or Zoroastrianism. They just knew they had to come to Christ. You come to Christ as you are. Again, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. I'll die for your sins on the cross. Luke 5.32, it did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Respect, respect and worship, reverence, a high view of God. They weren't strutting. There was a humility in worship as well. It's another aspect of worship, humility. They didn't strut before Christ, they're on the ground below him. Nobody is better than Christ. No one even approaches a fraction even equal to him. And he'll show it when he returns. Not that he hasn't already showed it. This is the glory of Christ. Number four, finally, fourth, The glory of Christ and ultimately overcoming evil. Verse 12. The glory and the supremacy of Christ and ultimately overcoming evil. The glory and the supremacy of Christ and ultimately overcoming evil. You see here as this narrative concludes, the inability of evil to overcome God's saving plan. And this will be a theme in his ministry. It's been a theme up until now. As soon as God gives the first gospel in Genesis 3.15, you have Genesis 6 happen, where it's a bizarre head-scratcher of a passage, Genesis 6, one through four, where you have Satan probably intervening, trying to create an ulterior, an alternative human race to disrupt the plan that he heard back in the garden in Genesis 3.15 with the Nephilim. And so Satan is constantly trying to interrupt this thing. Through Herod as well here, it will never happen. Verse 12, look there. Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi departed for their own country by another way. Remember Herod said, come back and tell me where he is so I can worship, aka kill him. They go by another way to their own country. God is never surprised by opposition, never overtaken by it, even the most evil conniving plans by the highest rulers, God is never overtaken. Oh yeah, evil happens and it can be unspeakably sorrowful. Unspeakably perplexing at times, but this will not disrupt the most important plan, God's plan to bring in the Savior the first and the second time. He came once and so obviously he's gonna come again. Which reminds us of something. The pathway on which God leads believers is often different than what you expect and the one that you lay out for yourself, isn't it? The wise men are thinking, we'll go, we'll come back, and this weird thing happens with Herod and his posse, and God intervenes in a supernatural way, you're going to go home a different way. You're not coming back on the main highway to Persia. You're going a different way. They don't know what's happening, but God knows, and in God's providence, He is exercising His sovereignty so that evil will not thwart the saving plan, the most loving thing anyone could ever do, and that is Christ coming to die on the cross for your sins. They will not be able to thwart it, though they try to over and over again, because Psalm 2 says, he who sits in the heavens laughs. He laughs at evil and their attempt to put out Christ. And it's not a laugh of humor, it's a laugh of derision. disdain, you puny thing, think that the sovereign God of the universe, that His plans can be interrupted by your evil. The pathway in which God leads you, if you're a believer in Christ, is different than what you thought sometimes. Sometimes it has a lot more disappointment than you had hoped for, a lot more discouragement than you had anticipated. Letdowns, I thought it was going to be different. I thought this and I would do that and go here. And we have to trust God, again, Psalm 131. Even Christ, Isaiah 53, was a man of sorrows, not because he was taken unaware of what was going on. The path is winding, it's forking, it's who knows what-ing, going all kinds of places. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you're with me. But there's one more thing and I want to end with this. God the Father in his providence protects Christ. Why does he protect him? He protects Christ from death here as an infant. And in Matthew 2.13, a horrific thing happens in the following. But why does God protect the young Christ from death? Answer? so that he could not protect him from death later on. God the Father spares Christ of death so that he would not spare Christ of death. God the Father protects Christ from death for death. The only reason God joins himself to a human nature and brings humanity and becomes a man is because God as infinite God, eternal Spirit, He can't die. And He must die if one single person will go to heaven and have their sins forgiven. It's the only way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the love. No one comes to the Father except through me. So God must be able to die. to pay for our sins and breaking of the commandments. And so God joins himself to humanity, human nature, takes a body that can die, and up until the moment after which Christ had obeyed all the commandments, because God requires a perfect sacrifice, Christ is spared from death for death at the right time so that he can go to the cross to die. And this is the reason he lived, to die. Dear friends, you and I, I especially, have just violated God's holiness and sinned against him. We all have. Thought, word, deed, nature, outwardly, inwardly. And God the Father provides and protects this baby so that he could go to the cross and upon him our sins would be placed. God doesn't say, come on, get more moral and then I'll see if you're gooder enough and holy enough to get into heaven. That is not how it works. That's heresy. He says, no, I will put all your sin on my son, and Christ will incinerate the penalty for it on the cross. And he rose from the dead three days later with a body, a literal body, so that all who put faith in him can be saved. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? Have you come, and this worship, this bowing is a picture of faith. Do you know Christ? I pray you would. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for this incredible plan to spare the young Christ from death so that he would be prepared later for death for our sins. And I pray all of us, if we haven't yet, would be like the magi and fall down, put our faith in Christ, trust in him. He's the only way to go to heaven. Worship him. He satisfies our soul. May we do so this Christmas and beyond. It's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen.