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.