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And in today's passage, Matthew
chapter two, we're gonna make a second stab at it. We looked
at it a couple of weeks ago, but we're gonna see more of the
incredible wonders of salvation and the response of our hearts
to that salvation. Matthew two, verses one 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 and 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 would marry 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 your word. We have preached on this passage
in the past, but I pray we would see new light as we dig into
it and that our hearts would once again be turned to you afresh. We love you and we bless you
as this song that we have just sung celebrates the incredible
victory of your grace far as the curse is found. I pray that
it would increasingly reverse the curse's impact and the flesh's
impact upon our own lives. And we desire that, rising strengthened
from this service and this Sabbath day, that we would be able to
serve you effectively in this coming week. We bless you in
Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, during the last three Sundays
we've been looking at the roles that the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit have had on that first incarnation. And in today's
sermon, I want to look not only at a summary of the gospel that
summarizes the last three messages, where it was all pointing, but
the response of grateful hearts, of regenerated hearts to that.
And I think the response of the Magi could be a response that
we ourselves could have. Now many sermons assume that
since there were three gifts, there were three wise men, And
the text actually doesn't say that. That may have been the
case. There might have been two, there might have been several.
It doesn't say the exact number of men that presented that. And
because it only mentions three tangible gifts, we sometimes
get our focus on those tangible, and we're gonna see they're pretty
significant gifts. But if you consider the languages
of love, there are really five gifts that were given here. And the first gift was their
presence. They showed up. They traveled a long way to be
with Jesus, and people don't often think of their personal
presence as a gift, but it is. It is when you think about it.
Growing up, I think the most wonderful part of Christmas for
me was getting to spend time with my parents and family. I
grew up, spent most of my youth in a boarding school, And we
only saw family at Christmas and during the summertime. And
it was difficult for my parents. It was difficult for the kids.
But it was mandated by the SIM mission station. So we really
looked forward to those times together. And my mother would
stay up late at night waiting for us to arrive. I remember her many times fixing,
we'd come into the smell of curried dumplings or chicken dumplings,
and to this day, dumplings have a warm spot in my heart. I know
there's probably not a lot of nutrition to dumplings, but the
memory of the gift of presence that stands behind that was so
precious to me, still is. I love dumplings. And Jared said
it's the same thing with the food that he has. It reminds
him of his grandma, right? What was the name of that food,
Jared? Yeah, it's got some weird name
that his grandma always made. But anyway, these kinds of things
impact us very, very deeply. And there are those kinds of
connections. Don't get me wrong, we loved the Christmas presents
too. I think we were even somewhat mercenary when we were kids.
But the warm feelings of being able to spend time with family
was an intangible gift that many people take for granted until
they've not been around them for a long time. Anyone who was
in a nursing home, will tell you what a precious thing it
is for them to get a visit. They just feel left alone in
that nursing home. When we were, when we had our
kids at home, we used to read various books, and one of the
books we read through quite a number of years ago was the book The
Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. And in that book, she mentions
how precious it was that she was able to have Betsy in her
presence there in the concentration camp. And you talk to various
people who are in prison, and they say when they get such infrequent
visits, those visits mean the world to them. They treasure
them. Now, the reason I even mention this in Matthew 2 is
because it took quite some doing for these men to personally deliver
their gifts. How do I know that? Well, let
me give you some reasons. First of all, they probably came
from Persia, which was from the east of Bethlehem. It would have
been a long, very difficult trip. Secondly, they were called Magi. In the Greek, it's actually Magoi,
if you want to be literal for the plural, Magoi. It is a Persian
term that refers to people who were counselors, advisors to
a king or to some other magistrate. So they had a hard time probably
getting this time off. It would have taken quite a while
to travel all the way to Jerusalem. And let me give you a little
bit of background on that term, because there are some books
out there that treat Magi as if they were astrologers. But if you look in the Greek
translation of the book of Daniel, you'll see many, many verses
in Daniel that distinguishes the Magi from the astrologers
and the diviners. There were three groups that
the king had around him, the Magi, the astrologers, and the
diviners. And the Magi were the wise men
who had special training to be able to give the king good advice. They were like on his, what's
it called, the cabinet, I guess. They had functions that they
had to go through every day. So for more than one of these
Magi to be visiting Bethlehem, being on that long trip, would
have been quite an absence from the king's court. Every time
the word Magoy or the singular Magus occurs in the Bible, it
refers to people who give counsel to magistrates. So Acts 8 speaks
of a very bad one, Simon Magus. Acts 13 speaks of another bad
one. It was Elemus the Magus who was the counselor to Sergius
Paulus, the pro-council. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, they were all Okay, so that gives you a little bit
of a feeling for how important these people were. They were
in very critical positions, and they had to overcome several
work-related and travel-related inconveniences. And to me, this
speaks volumes. They didn't just send gifts by
UPS like we've been doing the last few weeks. And interestingly,
they could have done so. They were wealthy enough that
they would have been able to send a messenger with a very nice note. To them,
but they brought the gift themselves And I think the value of their
personal presence far outweighed the value of the money and the
perfume There are some who substitute giving a present for being present
And it's not the same now sometimes. It's unavoidable. I mean we can't
avoid it. We can't be traveling to Canada
and California and Florida, you know, they'll be personally giving
our loved ones these presents. So we're very grateful for Amazon
and other shipping organizations. So convenient. That's wonderful.
I'm not putting that down at all. But it is not a substitute
for presents. My mother told me about our great,
great great-grandpa. There might be another great
in there, but we'll just use three greats. I think it's great-great-grandpa
G was a traveling salesman. And he was not home very frequently,
made a lot of money, sent money regularly to his wife, but great-great-great-grandma
G was not appreciative. She wanted him home. She wanted
to spend time with him. So finally she said don't send
any more money. I don't want any more money you
come home well, he sent a thousand dollars which back in those days
would have been a huge sum of money and Said I can't come home. I've got too many Responsibilities
right now in a fit of anger. She threw the thousand dollars
into the fire and burned it all up now Her temper might explain
a little bit why he wasn't at home. I don't know but but In
her mind, when there was no, not even a desire for personal
presence, the gift had little meaning. Now that's not to say
there's not a place for sending gifts. I think there is, but
I believe the greatest gift that we can give is making ourselves
available to those whom we love. Now, I wanna make an application.
It's obvious when we do it on the physical level with our family.
I wanna make an application to our spending time with the Lord
Jesus Christ, because after all, that's who the Magi came to spend
time with, right? It was with Jesus. What kind
of effort do you put into seeking his face? It's a very convicting
question when you think about it. Now, your strongest language
of love may not be closeness or quality time. Maybe your language
of love is service or gift giving, and those are wonderful, but
God loves all of the languages of love, and we ought not to
neglect personal presence as we seek to grow in our relationship
with the Lord. Now, if you're like me, here
comes confession time, if you're like me, you're more of a Martha
than a Mary, and you find it very easy to do things for the
Lord, and you find it a lot harder to actually spend time sitting
at Jesus' feet like Mary did. I mean, even in my personal devotions,
I'm struggling. Okay, I gotta be a Mary. I'm
getting into devotions, and all kinds of things are going through
my mind that need to be done for Jesus. You know, it's distractions
from devotion And so I need to listen quite frequently to the
rebuke of Jesus. Now there's a place for service.
We all need to be involved in all of these languages of love,
but it's so easy for me to neglect this time alone with the Lord. That's the whole point of this. So what kind of effort do you
expend in seeking God's face? The Magi came to Christ despite
inconvenience. Is traveling to church on Sunday
too much effort to give to the Lord? What are your devotions
like? Is waking up early enough in
the morning so that you can even have some devotions time too
inconvenient as a gift to the Lord? You know, putting offerings
into the plate, as wonderful as that is, I liken that, you
know, to the $1,000 that my great-great-great Grandpa G sent to his wife. It's
wonderful. The Lord loves gifts like that.
It's very useful gifts. But those are not a substitute
for being present. With King David, let us long
for the presence of the Lord. The second thing that these Magi
did was to worship. Verse two says that this was
their long-anticipated plan. They say, 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. In verse 11, that was the
very first thing that they did. It says that they fell down and
worshiped him. So worship actually took precedence
before the giving of the gifts or any of the other formalities.
Their first and their foremost desire was to give God the glory
that he deserves. And I believe it continues to
be a very precious gift in the sight of the Lord. You may not
have a lot that you can give tangibly. You may not even have
a lot of ways in which you can serve the Lord tangibly, but
every one of us at least has the ability to do these first
two gifts. Spend quality time with the Lord and worship him. And when we do so with wholehearted
sincerity of heart, God receives it as a fragrant aroma. Now let's
look at the next three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Why were they given? When I was
a child, I puzzled over the frankincense and myrrh. Gold, totally understandable. Yeah, I was all about the gold
gift. That made perfect sense to me. But what about the frankincense
and myrrh? Did these wise men do like some
dads sometimes do and shop last minute and they get to the store
and it's all sold out, all that's left is frankincense and myrrh.
Okay, well, we'll get that. I don't think so. I don't think
so. I think they had a reason for
doing this and various commentaries have different suggestions on
why these particular three gifts. Some have suggested that those
three items were simply the most expensive gifts that you could
get back at that time and were gifts worthy of a king. Gold,
obviously, back in that day was the most precious metal. It's
not anymore, but it was back then. Frankincense and myrrh
were extremely expensive to obtain. So some commentators have said
these are the most expensive gifts that would be easy to travel
with a long distance. And so that's why they got them.
They were gifts worthy of a king. And I think that definitely does
factor into the explanation. They were coming to worship,
what did they say, a king. So very, very appropriate gifts
on that level. But I think there's more to it
than that. You see, the Old Testament prophesied
that this Messiah king would receive precisely those three
items. So from God's perspective, there's
at least the purpose of prophecy being fulfilled. And let me give
you a few scriptures. These are scriptures even the
wise men would have known about. This was the beginning of Psalm
72's fulfillment, which said that the kings of all the earth
would bow down and bring gifts and serve him. Isaiah 60 prophesies
that these kings would come on camels, bringing gold and frankincense. Psalm 45 speaks of this great
king as being perfumed with myrrh. Song of Solomon speaks of him
as coming out of the wilderness with gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. And so I think there is a very
deliberate fulfillment of prophecy that God is orchestrating in
this nativity scene. I think we can at least say that
as a minimum. But we might go a step further and ask, why did
God prophesy that Christ would receive gold, frankincense, and
myrrh? Was it simply to portray him
as a king? It did do that. But is there more? I think there
is. Now what I'm about to describe to you may not have been in the
minds of the Magi. I can't be dogmatic about that.
But God had firmly established these three things as rich symbols
in the Old Testament that portray facets of the work of Christ.
He was not just any king. He was a king like no other who
had ever come. So what did the gold symbolize
throughout the Old Testament? If you study the symbolism of
the temple, you will see that it is a sign of divinity. a sign
that Jesus was God. Jesus was not simply a king. He was the king of kings, the
Lord of lords, God manifest in the flesh. And so the Old Testament
messianic kingship passages that talk about gold in connection
with him, I think are pointing to this, symbolically are pointing
to that fact. In fact, you look at the temple
furniture, We had to do a class sometime, just an independent
class on the temple furniture. It's one of the most fascinating
studies ever. But a lot of these pieces of
furniture are made of wood and they're completely covered with
gold. So the wood represents the humanity
of Christ and the gold represents the deity of Christ. And you
see examples of that all through the Old Testament. Now, the reason
I think that they probably had at least some knowledge of this
is they worshipped this Jesus. If they were, it appears that
they had been converts to Judaism, there is no way they would have
bowed down and worshipped a mere man. They recognize Christ as
God. So you link their worship of
Jesus together with the fact that throughout the Old Testament,
gold was a symbol. I think it's at least appropriate
from God's perspective, but it may well have been in their minds
as well. They may have been informed by
the Old Testament symbolism. What about frankincense? Frankincense
was also seen as a royal gift in four Old Testament passages,
so it's at least consistent with the kingship theme. But everywhere
else in the Old Testament, 18 times I counted, frankincense
is tied to the temple work. In fact, in my massive 10-volume
dictionary of Greek terms, which looks more extensively than any
other dictionary that I know, it says this about frankincense.
It says, Frankincense seemed to be such a characteristic element
in the sacrificial system that the term could be used to represent
the entire system, as can be seen in Isaiah 43, 23, Jeremiah
6, 20, etc. That dictionary says that frankincense
is primarily a symbol of the priesthood, okay? So I would
say that though it is four times used in connection with a king,
and it's consistent with kingship, frankincense symbolized Jesus
as a priest, the priest king after the order of Melchizedek,
and it especially symbolizes the priestly intercession of
the Lord Jesus Christ because the incense that represents the
prayers of Christ on the prayer altar. It always goes up as a
cloud of incense. That was frankincense that was
there. And frankincense was on the wave offering and on the
grain offering. And it was in the little censer
that they would put out there during the prayer meetings and
the worship. In fact, the word for censer is a derivative of
the word for frankincense. A frankincense is libinos and
censor is libinatos. Okay, it's a related word. So this gift pointed to the fact
that this king was a priest king who would offer up intercession
on behalf of Israel. In terms of long established
Old Testament symbolism, I think it was an incredibly appropriate
gift. Now what about the mer? It's pronounced more in Hebrew
and either murah or smurna in Greek. There are two words for
myrrh in Greek. Myrrh is, I think, the oddest
of the three gifts. It was an extremely bitter compound,
and even though it was an expensive perfume, and I think probably
that was one of the main reasons why they purchased it, it was
a very precious gift, it was associated with suffering and
death. With suffering, because it was
a narcotic, if you took it internally, it helped to dull the pain, but
it was also associated with people who were dying, and once they
died, it was always associated with their burial. That was what
they would entomb them with, embalm their bodies with. So
in the Jewish mind, when you think of mir, you often think
of death. You just never had a burial without
myrrh. And even the form of the word suggests this. The Greek
derivatives from the word myrrh are bitterness, grief, and gall. I think that's very significant.
And that's why I say it's an odd gift. Why on earth would
you give a gift that points to death at a baby shower, right? It doesn't seem quite right. It would be sort of like sending
a big bouquet of funeral flowers to a baby shower. People, why
did they send those kind of flowers here? It just doesn't fit. And
giving myrrh could be misinterpreted very easily by people. Now whether
they knew that Christ was going to die on their behalf, I believe
that they did. Whether they knew it or not,
I believe we can at least say that God himself guided them
to give this gift to symbolize our salvation. Just as the other
baby passages of Jesus prophetically point to his suffering, I believe
this one does too. God was pointing to the bitterness,
suffering, and death of this baby king. So those three gifts
explain why Christ came into the world. He came to be the
divine king who was promised to rule over the entire earth,
that's the gold. He came as the priest king who
would intercede on our behalf. That's the frankincense. But
before any of that could happen, he had to die as the myrrh king,
the sacrificial king, the suffering king, the king of tears and sorrows
and bitterness of heart, the dying king. And to prove that
this was God's intent in this gift, I want to look at the only
examples in the Gospels that this word occurs. There's four
other times that this occurs. The second time was in Luke 7,
36 through 50, where the converted prostitute anointed Christ's
feet with myrrh. And Christ in that passage recognizes
her faith in his coming sacrifice. and says to her, your sins are
forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace. It symbolized
the gospel of her redemption. A similar incident occurred in
Mark 1. Why don't you go ahead and turn
there so we can see this. No, not Mark 1, Mark 14. Now
some people actually I think this is the same one as the one
I just referred to, but I believe this occurred significantly later
in his ministry. But in the first two verses,
the Pharisees are plotting how they can kill Christ. So the
way Mark has constructed this, he's already in his storytelling
giving a foreboding of the imminent death of Christ. In verse two,
Mary pours a flask of very costly oil of spikenard. and the literal
rendering is myrrh of nard on his head. And in verse four,
some complained that this was a waste of fragrant myrrh. It was a very special formulation
of myrrh that was made liquid. Now take a look at what Jesus
says in verses eight through nine. Mark 14, eight through
nine. She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint
my body for burial. You get that? This gift of myrrh
and burial were associated in Christ's mind. He goes on, he
says, Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached
throughout the whole world, what this woman did will also be spoken
of as a memorial to her. He was saying that the gospel
of his death was foreshadowed. It was pictured by the myrrh. It was a fragrant aroma. It is
a kind of perfume. But the aroma was only brought
about through the bitterness, the suffering, the death of our
Savior. And I think we should never lose
sight of that fact at Christmas. For too many people, it's a sentimental
story, but it's not really related to the gospel in any way. But
it must be. And the way that the gospel writers
talk about the birth, they're pointing to the death of Christ,
aren't they? I want you to turn next to Mark 15, that's one chapter
over. Mark 15 verse 23, this incident
takes place while Christ is hanging on the cross as our sacrifice. And it says, then they gave him
wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it. I mentioned
earlier that myrrh is a narcotic to dull pain. And the reason
Christ couldn't take it here, but he does receive it at his
burial, is because he came to suffer in our place. He's not
about to dull and take away any of that suffering. He intended
to fully suffer on our behalf. So that's the reason he avoids
that. But anyway, it's connected with
his death. And the last passage, if you turn to John 19, and verses 39 through 40. After Christ's death, Nicodemus
came to prepare Christ's body for burial. And it says, And
Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came,
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
Then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen
with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. So that
establishes that using myrrh and aloes was the normal custom
of the Jews for burial. And by the way, a hundred pounds
was an enormous amount. It was very costly. Enormous
amount of myrrh. But this was not any ordinary
burial or death. This was the death of the suffering
king. So here we have the rich bring
myrrh to Jesus at his birth, The rich bring myrrh to Jesus
at his death. And so in terms of symbolism,
I think you can see that these three gifts that are mentioned
in Matthew chapter 2 are inseparable. Without the suffering spoken
of in the myrrh, there's no basis for the intercession spoken of
in the frankincense. And there is no basis for Christ's
resurrection, which Paul says is the declaration that he's
the Son of God, right? So these all are linked together. Now, unfortunately, some theologies
separate cross from kingdom. In fact, Dispensationalism does
it by thousands of years. We're in the age of the cross
and the age of the kingdom is often the future, but Jesus is
both Lord and Savior right now. In fact, you look through the
scripture, I challenge you to find one example where it ever
says Savior and Lord. It always says Lord and Savior. And even the order of the gifts
here with gold coming first, it's Lord and Savior, right? But you can't even separate those.
They all belong together as a unit. Anyway, so this passage really
does contain, I think, some glorious symbolism. It not only symbolizes
the offices and the work of Christ, it symbolizes the appropriate
response of our hearts to all that He has done. It should be
a joy to give gifts to Jesus when He has given His all to
us. It should be a joy to worship Jesus wholeheartedly when He's
devoted His whole life to us. And it should be our joy to continually
put our faith in Christ. Now I want to end by reading
for you the glorious future that these Magi introduced as recorded
in Isaiah 60. Arise, shine, for your light
has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. The
Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of
your rising. The multitude of Campbells shall cover your land.
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, all those from Sheba shall
come. They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and they shall proclaim the praises of the Lord. Surely the coastlands
shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish will come first to
bring your sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them
to the name of the Lord God and to the Holy One of Israel, because
He has glorified you. Therefore your gates shall be
open continually. They shall not be shut day or
night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles
and their kings in procession." So the Magi were really the beginning
of the glorious expansion of the kingdom of Christ. Christmas
means that the king has come and he's shortly going to die,
be resurrected, be providing everything that was needed for
the establishment of his kingdom. So let's be as excited as the
Magi were when they brought him their very best, amen.
Five Gifts of the Wise Men
Series Advent
| Sermon ID | 12418827562 |
| Duration | 31:24 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 2:1-12 |
| Language | English |
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