Amen. We have so much to praise the Lord for. And focusing on the incarnation, if you would turn with me to Matthew chapter two. I know this is a passage that you have read many, many times in the past, but I think we can gain new insights and nutrition from the bread of life as we partake of it today. Matthew two verses one through 11. 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 with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and we pray that as we study it, that you would indeed open our hearts to conform our lives to your word. May Christ be in us. and may we in turn minister the living waters that we receive from him. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Last week, we saw the importance of putting the Father back into not just Christmas, but back into every moment of our lives. The Father sent the Son into the world with a mission and with a purpose, and the same text says that he sent us into the world with a mission and a purpose. Now, we are not perfect like Christ was, so we're not gonna be able to say at the end of our lives, I have finished the work that the Father has given me to do. But that should be something that drives us more and more to fulfill the Father's mission. And today we're gonna be focusing on the Son. So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And you'll notice that I did not title the sermon Putting Christ Back into Christmas, but Putting Christ Back into Christian. The reason is that if Christ is in our Christian lives every moment, he'll automatically be in Christmas. Now, we don't insert Christ into a season because you don't do anything with Christ other than submit to him. He is the Lord of our lives. He is the focus of our lives. He is the foundation of our lives. He is the source of all that we think, say, and do. And if that is true of us, then we're going to receive the same reaction from the world and from other fellow believers that Christ received. He was hotly reacted against by some, and he was rejoiced in by others. A passage that I read shows a whole bunch of people being troubled by Jesus. Verse three says, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. I would challenge you to just consider the possibility that if the Herods of this world like you, there may be something a little bit amiss. It's at least a possibility. At least a possibility. This past week I read a blog that was titled, Putting Herod Back into Christmas. It was a very clever article, actually. And the point of the article is that if Christians are so seeker-sensitive, so warm and fuzzy that even the Herods of this world love you, then you're probably not representing Christ and living out Christ in your life. There's always going to be backlash from at least some in the world, and there's always going to be at least some transformation that's going to be happening in the lives of others as the living streams of Christ's waters flow through us. The way that Paul worded it, is if Christ is living in me, the message I bring is going to be a savor of life unto life to some and of death unto death unto others. There's going to be different reactions out there to our lives. Anyway, the blog said, Herod recognizes something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see. that the birth of this child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind of domination and rule. Jesus challenges the very power structures of this evil age. Herod has all the male infants in Bethlehem murdered. Not so cozy. This is the Jesus who entered the bloody history of Israel and the human race. When Christ was, so to speak, put into that Hanukkah, Herod and all Jerusalem were troubled. And verse 10 says it produced the exact opposite reaction of the wise men. They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when Christ is put back into the Christian life, I think we ought not to be surprised when we see quite different reactions to us. So point number one. says that true Christianity demands more than a belief in a historical Jesus. Josephus tells us that Herod believed in a coming Messiah, and this passage makes it quite clear that he believed that the Messiah had been born. He clearly believed in a historical Jesus. In fact, he knew that Jesus was the king of the Jews, born to be that, and yet he was not saved. Verse two says that the wise men came 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. And take a look at Herod's response in verses seven through eight. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. Notice he believes this message about a supernatural star. 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." Of course, he had no intention of really worshiping Jesus, but he believed all that they told him about the historical existence of Jesus. I take no great comfort in the fact the statistics show that the vast majority of Americans believe in a historical Jesus. The Antichrist believes in Jesus. The King Herod believed in Jesus. James tells us that the demons believe and it makes them tremble, okay? And yet none of these were saved. True Christianity demands more than a historical Jesus. And I'm convinced that Christmas would be a far less popular festival today if its real significance was understood. Matthew 2 is not about a feel-good Christmas, not at all. It is about the Creator of all of us who is about to turn the world upside down. He's about to make life uncomfortable for a lot of people. Most Christmas celebrators today would likely be troubled if they lived in Jerusalem and were confronted with the kind of danger that was lurking around the corner when Herod finds out. If it came to a contest between pleasing Herod and pleasing Jesus, I think for many Christians, if they're gonna be in trouble, they're gonna get thrown in jail, okay, it's gonna come to pleasing Herod rather than pleasing Jesus. The, This is why I say that the issue is not really about putting Christ back into Christmas. It's about putting the real Jesus back into Christian. Christians don't think biblically when it comes to politics, counseling, education, and so many areas of life. And I think it's time that we submit to the real Christ and we quit worshiping a counterfeit. in the Church of America. Second, true Christianity demands more than a correct theology. Take a look at verses 4-6. When he had gathered all the chief priests and the 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." Now, here were religious leaders who knew their theology of the incarnation quite well. In fact, they knew the significance of Hanukkah far more than most celebrators of Christmas today do. From the time of the first festival of dedication under Moses on Kislev 25, which is equivalent to our December 25, they were celebrating and understanding the significance that this festival pointed forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a Jewish holiday that Jesus celebrated in the Gospel of John. So what these people were celebrating is the temple's significance would end once the Messiah came. That's exactly what the prophecy is about. The significance of the temple would end. So this is not a comfortable truth for these theologians, these scribes, these priests to be remembering because when Jesus comes, their job is going to end. They're going to have to look for new employment. This is something inconvenient for them. So even though they celebrated the proto Christmas, what is now called Hanukkah, there was something clearly missing. They wanted the form of Christianity, the Hanukkah, but not the true Christ of Christianity. Point C shows that even if we acknowledge the supernatural, and this is amazing when you think about it, even if we acknowledge the supernatural, we still might be missing out on something because King Herod believed in the supernatural. Those priests believed in the supernatural. They obviously believed that the scriptures were divinely given, give predictive prophecy. They took it seriously that, yes, this is what it prophesies about the future. So they were better than the liberals of today who deny that the Bible has any predictive prophecy within it. And Herod seemed to believe that as well. Furthermore, verse seven indicates that Herod believed in the appearance of the Shekinah glory, the supernatural moving star. It says, then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. That information would provide Herod with the timeframe within which he knew Christ had to have come. That's why he killed all of the babies two years old and under. He wanted to make sure He didn't miss anybody, that they were all killed. Now, just as a point of interest, you've probably heard discussions of astronomy trying to date the birth of Christ. Astronomy will never be able to explain this phenomenon because it is not a comet. And I'll explain why I think it is not a comet. It's not what we normally think of as a star. Wherever it was, It appeared for a period of time, it disappeared, and then it reappears in verses nine through 10. Furthermore, verse nine says that the star traveled and it went before them. You can't say that of a comet. You can say a comet travels, but you can't say it went before them, right? Way too far away up in the sky to be able to go before anybody. And how are they going to follow it? You try to follow a comet sometime or try to follow a star sometime, I mean, you're not going to get to a house. And it specifically points to a house, right? There is very, very specific guidance. So I believe that it was the Shekinah glory of God in the shape of some kind of a light that was close enough to the earth that it actually traveled, and they were able to follow it, and it stopped right over a house, and so they knew, okay, that must be the destination. This is not the kind of star. And that's the way we saw even in the book of Revelation, that the word star in the Greek can refer to meteorites, It can refer to any light in the sky. If they had satellites back then, you know, these satellites that kind of move like that, they'd call it a moving star. And so any light in the sky would fit. And the question is, if they believed Jesus was the Messiah, If Herod and these priests took the Scriptures seriously, they believed in predictive prophecy, if they even took the supernatural seriously, why, why, why would they oppose Christ? You would think it would just be an obvious point. They ought to submit to him if all of these things have converged like this, but they do not. They oppose him. We call this total depravity. Apart from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, they will not submit. So none of these people here were what we would look at as quote unquote modern liberals or just modern unbelievers who pretend to be believers, right? Take a look at verse two. This gives us a hint. The wise men are saying, whereas 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 heard this, he was troubled. What was there about this little bit of theology that troubled Herod? Josephus tells us he knew the scriptures. And I am convinced he understood the significance of Numbers chapter 24, which not only predicted the coming of Messiah in connection with a star, but said that this coming Messiah would destroy Edom and Moab at the same time as destroying Jerusalem. And that was in the war that we've been looking at against Jerusalem in AD 70. Now, of course, Edom and Moab would be wiped off the face of the map in AD 70. But Herod was an Edomian. An Edomian was an Edomite. Okay, so you see some of the connections here. He was also in charge of the very territories that Numbers 24 says were going to be destroyed by this coming Messiah. Now you can begin to see a little bit why he is troubled. So this means that the passage that the wise men are rejoicing in was a passage that spoke nothing but judgment to Herod if he refused to submit to the spiritual reign of Messiah. So he's got two choices. He can either cast his crown before the feet of King Jesus and say, yes, I too worship you. I'm going to submit my life to you. or he can try to take out Jesus. He obviously takes the latter plan because Jesus had ruined his plans. So rather than staying a nice historical fact within a history book, rather than staying a nice piece of theology in a theology book, Rather than staying even a supernatural piece of curiosity that can be explained somehow in some other book, Jesus actually is making demands upon his life. There's going to be changes that are going to come to him, and he did not want to accede to that. Now, I want to point out yet another factor that may have troubled Herod. The Jews didn't like Herod, Josephus makes that quite clear. And one of the reasons that he built the temple, what we have been describing as the Temple of Herod, it's actually the Temple of Ezra, but he poured billions of dollars into upgrading this temple into one of the most magnificent temples of the ancient world. In fact, even pagans spoke of it as one of the wonders of the world. Now, here's the point that would have troubled him. He did this, Josephus says, to appease the Jews and to try to make friends with them. And, Josephus says, he built that temple to try to gain God's favor. So he was a superstitious guy, and he wanted to gain God's favor. He didn't want to give up all of his carnal living, but he wanted to gain God's favor. Well, here's the problem. The Old Testament prophesies that this coming Messiah is going to destroy the very temple that exists at the time that he is coming. So if Christ has come, even his pride and joy, this temple of Herod, is going to be wiped off the face of the map. You see, here's the point. God cannot be bought with temples, with worship, with money, with buildings. He cannot be bought with your sacrifices. He cannot be bought with anything. God doesn't care about your Christmases if you fail to rejoice at the very thing that was bringing trouble to Herod. He could care less about all of the Christmas celebrations that are going on here in America when the very things that would trouble them should be at the heart of their Christmas. You see, the trouble with Christmas is that it brought more than a birth of a savior. It brought the birth of a judge, a king, a man who was also at the same time, very God of very God. It brought a Messiah who would continue making demands upon his people. And so Herod and all Jerusalem with him, I think stand as a beautiful symbol of how all humans will react until they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, born again, changed inside and out. They might be religious. like Herod was, he was very religious, but they do not find joy in submitting to and obeying his commands. They might visit a place of worship as Herod did. He was a worshiping guy, right? But they do not commune daily with the Lord of that temple. They might read scripture, as Herod did, but they do not find their hearts burning within them as those scriptures speak to them of the loveliness of Christ. So I think this passage is a call for the modern church to put the real Christ back into Christian. Not just the season, but the whole Christian life. Too many have a Christ of their own making because they don't want trouble. Now let's take a look at the joy that this first Christmas brought to the wise men. Verse 10 says, when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. Though these wise men obviously had a prestigious position, their focus was not on their position, like it was with Herod, their focus was on the one who had given them that position, the Son of God. Though they had wealth, it appears that they were enormously wealthy, their chief object of worship was not, and joy was not the gift of wealth, it was in the giver of that wealth. Though they were obviously religious, their joy was not in religion, but in Jesus, the heart of their religion. There was nothing like knowing that Jesus was their personal king come to earth that gave them excitement. And so this brings us to the second main point, the joy, the meaning, the power that can be experienced when the reality of Christ is with us day by day. First of all, it comes to those who trust Jesus. What does it mean to trust Jesus? Well, we've already seen it's not simply believing. We do have to believe he's a historical person, but that's not enough, because Herod believed that and he was not saved. We saw that it wasn't enough to believe in the supernatural. It's not enough to believe that he is king. Herod knew that Jesus was king, And yet he did not have a heart of trust. He did not have a heart of unconditional surrender. I think that's really what's involved. In fact, that's the title of one of Gary Norris' books, Unconditional Surrender. It's a great definition of trust. Herod knew that Jesus was king, but he sought to unseat Jesus from his rightful role. So believing in Jesus was one thing, but being ruled by Jesus was quite another. We might think that we would never do what Herod did to the young children in Bethlehem, and that's probably true. We wouldn't go in there. That seems like such an audacious thing to do, is killing all of these young children. But every time we willfully disregard what Jesus has commanded us to do, we're doing the same thing as those Jews later on did in the Gospels and say, we will not have this man to rule over us. That's exactly what we're saying. We will not have Jesus rule over us. He can rule over us in this point, but not here. This is something I'm going to willfully hold onto. We are just as hypocritical as Herod was when we hold out in some area of our lives and do not give an unconditional surrender to him. If you look at verse eight, We see that he was claiming that he wanted to worship Jesus, and he was a religious person, that I may come and worship him also. He gave every outward appearance of submitting to Jesus, but in his heart, there was really murder. Lord willing, in two weeks I'll look at the meaning of the three gifts given by the wise men, but today I'll just mention that they gave sacrificially to Christ. They traveled far to give these gifts to Jesus. They sacrificed their energies, their money, their time, and I think all of that indicates that their hearts were in submission to their King. And I would encourage you to make sacrifices for your Lord, not just seasonally at Christmas time, but making sacrifices every day of your lives. And the way that we do this is how we serve, how we obey his commands, the more difficult, the more distasteful our service to others may be, the more valuable that gift is seen in God's eyes. Because Jesus said, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me. Now he's doing that in context of being a king on his throne, speaking to these people, and it was a definition of submission to him. Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it to me." So Jesus is not just a king who's out there in theory. No, he's a personal king and personal relationship with us. So the first thing it means to put Christ back into Christian is to submit to his kingship and unconditional surrender. But in verse four, we find that the wise men had described this king as the Christ. That's just the Greek term, Christos, for the Hebrew term, Meshiach, Messiah. And that means the anointed one. He's not only anointed as king, but he's anointed as our priest. A priest provides atonement for sins, doesn't he? Here's the problem. If we do not recognize sin in our life, and we do not repent of our sins, we're failing to treat him as fully Christ, as fully Savior. C. John Miller wrote a fantastic book called Repentance and 20th Century Man. And it's a book both against Phariseeism and against lawlessness, both at the same time. A pretty interesting book, but he points out how repentance needs to be a daily part of the Christian life if we're truly Christians. If the true Christ is in our Christianity, then he is a priest who is daily washing us from our sins. So We will recognize our sins more and more, we're gonna recognize our need of him as Christ more and more. Verse six, prophesied that this Messiah would, quote, shepherd my people Israel. So if Christ is in what it means to be Christian, it means that we are his sheep, he is the shepherd. What do sheep do? Well, they hang out with the shepherd every day, don't they? We're guided by Him, we're fed by Him, we're protected by Him. There's shepherding going on. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, is there any evidence in my life that I am being shepherded by Christ? Or is it only a doctrine in my head? Now in terms of protection, these converts to Christianity were guided and protected by Jesus as well. In verse 12 it says, then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Jesus wasn't just a shepherd in a general sense in their lives. No, he was their shepherd, and as shepherd he did what? He guided them, he protected them. That's a personal relationship of shepherd. So is he your personal shepherd? Do you follow where he tells you to go? It's one of the ways you can tell if you're being shepherded by him. Sheep are supposed to follow where he wants you to go. Next, he was also their God. Only God is worthy of worship. And yet it's clear here that these wise men come to worship him. In verse 2, it says, they have come to worship him. Verse 11, it says, they fell down and worshiped him. So Jesus's deity meant something to them personally. They recognized that the very one who was being held in Mary's arms was upholding Mary and all things by the word of his power. If they didn't recognize that, it was blasphemy for them to worship him. I think they recognized his deity because the Old Testament anticipated it. They may have been given a personal illumination. They probably had to, to have understood the Old Testament scriptures. And here's where I say that so much of what is called Christianity today is not Christianity at all. It is a complete fiction. what people call liberalism. I know that word drives Josh nuts, but it's the only word I can think of that people understand. Liberals will teach that Jesus was a great man, a great teacher, a great philosopher, but they deny that he was very God of very God. And I say, well, you're not even a Christian. The very definition of Christian means we bow down to worship. We treat him as God himself. And because Jesus was fully God, the last point in your outline was also true of these wise men. They had come to worship, love, and serve him. And that is where true joy in the Christian life is found, in worshiping, loving, and serving him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. So is that what Christmas means to you? James Hewitt tells the story of a Christmas play being put on by a group of children and to show the radiance of the newborn child. They didn't want to have a baby in there. They didn't want to have any image of Jesus. So they put a light bulb in there to represent the fact, okay, he's come and they were supposed to turn out all the lights and only the light in the manger was going to be on. But the boy who was doing it turned all the lights out, including the light in the manger. And the other kids didn't know what quite to do because their cue for their coming in and celebrating and everything wasn't there. So one of the boys in a loud stage whisperer said, hey, you switched off Jesus. And they quickly switched him back on again. Now, we may not switch off Jesus as obviously as Herod in Jerusalem did. But if you ignore Jesus throughout most of your day, there's a sense in which during those times you've switched off Jesus. If you ignore facets of Jesus's work, you've switched off Jesus. In other words, oh yeah, I believe Jesus is my Savior and you're glad that he saved you from hell. Okay, but you're not so glad that he's saving you from your sin. You're not so glad about his kingship and his demands upon your life. You've switched off Jesus in that portion of your life. And I would encourage you to begin to develop a constant awareness of Christ in your life moment by moment. This is something that is difficult to develop. It was something I had to really work on, and one of the books that helped me on that was Brother Lawrence's book, the practice of the presence or something along those lines. It's in PDF form for free on the web, but if the only times that you worship Jesus are at Christmas or on Sundays, you have switched off Jesus at least sometimes. Even if you are not grateful to him for what you presently have, and you can only grumble over what you do not have, you have switched off Jesus, or at least you have dimmed the lights. Now it is true that when Christ comes into your life, you get persecution, you get pushback, you get difficulties, troubles from the world. You're going to have trouble. The tendency when that happens is to back off and to get troubled by biblical truth as well. The world will castigate you if you believe the Bible's politically incorrect message about Jesus. They want you to believe a Jesus who's GLBT, you know, has got rainbows all across his picture. There's so many politically correct views of Jesus out there, but Jesus said, whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. This Christmas, Make it your goal to no longer be troubled over anything that Jesus does or has said in the scriptures. And I would encourage you to even ask God, give me joy in the very things that trouble the world. Help me to be like these wise men and not be troubled over Jesus, but to find great joy in the very things that this world despises about the scriptures and about Jesus Christ. Let's submit to the real Christ who claims all that we are, all that we have, and at the same time, who promises us that he will give to us everything that pertains to life and godliness, everything that we need to live godly in Christ Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we respond in singing this hymn, about how everything in our lives, we want to be focused upon you. I pray that the reality of it would take hold of us, that it would be something not just that is theology, but something by the supernatural presence of your Holy Spirit would become a reality. We pray it in Christ's name, amen.