Wise Men Seek Him
Advent 2023 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I can’t promise you that we’ll do this every year, but this year, we’re extending our celebration of Christmas to its traditional conclusion, The Epiphany.
Now, as some of you heard yesterday, the fact that I was raised in a Baptist church meant I never was exposed to the church’s liturgical calendar until we came to Liberty Spring.
So, the first year I was here, I had to learn all about Advent. And I’ll admit that I was a little uncomfortable during that Christmas season in 2018.
What was the point of Advent, I wondered. How did it glorify God?
But I researched the Advent traditions, the meaning of the candles, the Scriptures from the Common Lectionary, and more.
And I began to recognize the value of teaching about how Advent reminds us of the period of waiting in faith for the birth of the promised Messiah. And how it reminds us to similarly wait in faith for His return.
And I’ve come to recognize that when Advent is celebrated in a God-honoring way, it’s a powerful proclamation of the gospel.
Yesterday marked another of those previously unfamiliar dates on the liturgical church calendar. Yesterday marked the church’s annual celebration of The Epiphany.
So, what’s The Epiphany? And how does it glorify God for us to celebrate it?
I’m going to give you the one-sentence version of what I talked about yesterday, during our visit to Autumn Care.
The Epiphany marks the revealing of Jesus to the first Gentiles, the magi or wise men in the passage I read a few minutes ago.
Our celebration of The Epiphany glorifies God, because we’re praising Him that salvation is available in Jesus Christ to all mankind, and not just to His chosen people, the Jews.
And one of the things that’s significant about the way Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles is the lesson we’re taught by the fact that the very first Gentiles to meet Jesus were wise men.
Not Roman soldiers. Not officials from King Herod’s court. Not even a group of plumbers. Wise men.
And I think that’s significant for a number of reasons. But the particular area of significance I want to talk about today is what made these men “wise” in the eyes of God, whose Holy Spirit inspired the very words Matthew wrote in his Gospel.
The first thing to understand is that what made the wise men “wise” in the world’s terms isn’t what made God consider them to be wise.
In the world’s terms, the wise men were described that way because of their learning and their curiosity about the natural world.
Magi in the ancient world would have been involved in the sacrifices and prayers of their pagan religions. But they also studied astronomy, astrology, and the natural sciences.
And they were often called upon by rulers to interpret dreams and to use their knowledge of these things to help decide affairs of state.
We might think of them today as philosophers or Renaissance men.
Their studies and the knowledge they gained from them may, indeed, have given these men some wisdom (though I’d argue that astrology didn’t contribute much in the way of wisdom).
But I’d like to suggest this morning that what made them truly wise from the Bible’s point of view (and therefore, from God’s point of view) is that they were looking for Jesus. They were seeking the Messiah-King who’d been born in Bethlehem.
And I’d argue that true wisdom can ONLY be found in Christ Jesus, whom the Apostle Paul calls “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
So, today, in honor of the wise men and in honor of The Epiphany, I want us to talk about biblical wisdom, which is the only wisdom that really matters in the end.
And what we’re going to see is that, since wisdom is inextricably linked to God, the path to wisdom leads directly TO God and to the Son who personifies Him.
Any discussion of wisdom must, by law, begin in Proverbs, chapter 1. Well, if it’s NOT a law, perhaps it should be.
In the introduction to this book, King Solomon states the purpose for what he is about to teach in the ensuing chapters. Let’s take a quick look at this introduction, beginning in verse 1.
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction, To discern the sayings of understanding,
3 To receive instruction in wise behavior, Righteousness, justice and equity;
4 To give prudence to the naive, To the youth knowledge and discretion,
5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and a figure, The words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Now, the first thing I want you to notice about this passage is how Solomon connects knowledge and wisdom. They’re almost synonyms here.
But Solomon’s not equating just ANY knowledge with wisdom. He’s connecting wisdom with the knowledge of GOD.
And the knowledge of God comes through faith in God. Whenever we see the phrase “the fear of the Lord” in the Old Testament, it’s a sort of shorthand way of referring to faith in God.
It’s a faith that includes reverence for God and even a healthy recognition of His power and majesty that comes close to dread without stepping over into terror.
And what Solomon wants to make clear here is that true wisdom can only be had in a relationship with God. As we’ll see in a minute, that’s because God is the source of all wisdom.
But before we get to that, I want you to notice the components of wisdom that Solomon lists in this passage.
Understanding. Righteousness. Justice. Equity. Prudence. Discretion. And all of these things result from a willingness to receive instruction, which implies that true wisdom also requires an element of humility.
What’s interesting about this to me is how all these traits are characteristics of Jesus.
In the Gospels, we see Jesus interacting with a wide range of people and never failing to understand their hearts and their motives, even when they came to Him hiding their true motives.
We see Him acting with and promoting righteousness in all His encounters. We see Him promoting justice and promising that His Kingdom is a kingdom of perfect justice. We see Him treating everyone equitably, regardless of their station in life.
We see Him exercising prudence and discretion in the careful and moderated way in which He revealed — or did NOT reveal — His divinity and His mission here on earth.
We see His humility in the way He served others and in His willingness to die on a cross for our sins.
And we even see His willingness to receive instruction from God and from His earthly parents in Luke’s statement that “Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”
And I don’t want you to miss what a marvelous statement that is. Think of it: He whom Paul describes as “the wisdom of God” actually grew in wisdom as He grew in stature as a man.
And the key for Him was the same as the key for us: He grew in stature as He nourished Himself with physical food. And He grew in wisdom as He nourished Himself with the spiritual food of His relationship with the Father.
In Proverbs, chapters 8 and 9, Solomon poetically personifies wisdom as a woman, and he describes her as being with God from before the foundation of time. Listen to the words spoken by Wisdom in chapter 8.
22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.
23 “From everlasting I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
24 “When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no springs abounding with water.
25 “Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills I was brought forth;
26 While He had not yet made the earth and the fields, Nor the first dust of the world.
27 “When He established the heavens, I was there, When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
28 When He made firm the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed,
29 When He set for the sea its boundary So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
30 Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him,
31 Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of men.
If wisdom was with God from everlasting, from the time when God established the heavens, from BEFORE He set the boundaries of the seas and marked out the foundations of the earth, then we can understand that God is the very source of wisdom.
Indeed, wisdom is an inherent quality of God. It’s part of His very nature.
In the theological discussion between Job and his friends after Job had lost everything — his children, his possessions, and even his health — this godly man whom Satan desired to prove loved God only because of the blessings he’d received from God demonstrated he understood that wisdom is a foundational characteristic of our creator.
Listen to what Job says to his friends.
20 “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?
21 “Thus it is hidden from the eyes of all living And concealed from the birds of the sky.
22 “Abaddon and Death say, ‘With our ears we have heard a report of it.’
23 “God understands its way, And He knows its place.
24 “For He looks to the ends of the earth And sees everything under the heavens.
25 “When He imparted weight to the wind And meted out the waters by measure,
26 When He set a limit for the rain And a course for the thunderbolt,
27 Then He saw it and declared it; He established it and also searched it out.
28 “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”
Did you hear it again there? “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Do you want to be wise? Turn to God in faith through Jesus Christ.
What we can see when we look at this Old Testament passage through New Testament eyes is that we who are IN Christ by virtue of having placed our faith in Him receive some portion of the wisdom of God as a result of the relationship we now have with Him in Christ Jesus.
Of course, the flip side of that coin is that when we allow ourselves as believers to fall back into sin, we damage our fellowship with God. And in damaging the fellowship we have with God, we also constrain our ability to access His wisdom.
Think about it. Sin doesn’t just affect our current lives. It also causes us to make bad choices, which tends to cause us to sin more. We make stupid decisions that cause us to make MORE stupid decisions.
But God is good, and God is gracious. He’s given us His Holy Spirit to strengthen us to stand against temptation if we’ll only allow Him to do so.
And He’s promised us that if we ask Him for wisdom, He’ll freely provide it. James, the half-brother of Jesus, talks about this in chapter 1 of his New Testament letter.
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Perhaps the greatest example of this principle in action was King Solomon.
You might remember the story. Solomon became king over Israel upon the death of his father, David. And soon after he took over the throne, Solomon went to Gibeon and sacrificed a thousand burnt offerings to God.
God appeared to him in a dream at night and said, “Ask what you wish me to give you.” Listen to Solomon’s response, from 1 Kings, chapter 3:
6 Then Solomon said, “You have shown great lovingkindness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You; and You have reserved for him this great lovingkindness, that You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
7 “Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.
8 “Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted.
9 “So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”
Earlier in this chapter, we’re told that Solomon loved the Lord. He feared God. He’d placed His faith in God. And so, he already had enough godly wisdom to know that he wasn’t capable of ruling the people of Israel well without MORE wisdom.
So, he asked for it. And what the following verses show us is that God gave Solomon wisdom in abundance.
12 behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you.
Folks, I’m here to tell you today that God WANTS you to make good choices. He wants you to live wisely in this world.
And one of the benefits of walking with Jesus is that we who do so are intimately connected to He who is the very manifestation of God’s wisdom in the flesh.
The Apostle Paul talks about this in his first letter to the Corinthians, where he compares the wisdom of the world to the wisdom that can be found only in God.
In chapter one of that letter, Paul describes the sacrificial death of Jesus as a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. But to followers of Jesus, the cross demonstrates God’s wisdom. As he puts it in verse 27:
27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
From a worldly perspective, it makes no sense that God would come to earth in the person of His Son and then give His life to pay the penalty for our sins against Him. From a worldly perspective, this looks like a foolish defeat.
But from God’s wise perspective, this was victory. Victory over sin at the cross. And victory over death at the empty tomb three days later.
I doubt that the wise men from the east understood all this when they made that long journey to Bethlehem.
But what they DID seem to understand was that they needed to faithfully step out onto that road and seek for Jesus.
What they DID understand was that this Messiah-King whose star they followed to Bethlehem and whose birth fulfilled the prophecies they seem to have studied deserved their honor, their worship, and their gifts.
They sought for Jesus, and I think that’s what made them wise in the eyes of God.
Friends, it’s a new year, and I know many of you have probably made resolutions to improve yourselves in some way this year.
And even if you’re like me and averse to resolutions, every one of us here today probably has some idea in mind of how we could be better versions of ourselves in 2024 than we were in 2023.
Let me give you a word of advice this morning. Whatever you have in mind that you’d like to change — however it is that you want to be better this year — start by seeking Jesus.
Turn to Him in faith if you’ve never done so. And if you’re already a follower of Jesus, then resolve first to seek Him in everything you do. Resolve to make your relationship with Him the centerpiece of your life.
This won’t be easy to do. Indeed, the wise men traveling from the east to Bethlehem would have faced an array of dangers on their journey, not to mention many miles of walking.
But they persevered through it all for the opportunity to stand in the presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
It has been said that true wisdom is seeing life from God’s point of view.
This year, let us resolve to see life from God’s point of view. This year, let us seek wisdom in the Christ who IS the wisdom of God.