Matthew 2:1-12...

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There are at least five truths that Matthew wants us to see in this account about Christ and worship
There are at least five truths that Matthew wants us to see in this story about Christ and worship 1) Jesus is the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and should be honored as such. 2) Jesus is to be worshiped not just by Jews, but by all the nations of the world, as represented by the wise men from the east. 3) God wields the universe to make his Son known and worshiped. This is his great goal in all things—that his Son be known and worshiped. 4) Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him and brings out opposition for those who do. 5) Worshiping Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ with sacrificial gifts.
1) Jesus is the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and should be honored as such.
2) Jesus is to be worshiped not just by Jews, but by all the nations of the world, as represented by the wise men from the east.
3) God wields the universe to make his Son known and worshiped. This is his great goal in all things—that his Son be known and worshiped.
4) Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him and brings out opposition for those who do.
5) Worshiping Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ with sacrificial gifts.

1. Jesus is the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and Should be Honored as Such.

Verse 2 announces clearly whom this story is really about: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”
It’s about a newborn child destined to be King of the Jews.
Now, in itself that would not be a very great thing.
Somewhere alive in America today there are probably three or four children or young people under the age of 18 who are going to be President of the United States some day.
But nobody really cares about this, or sets out to find them or honor them.
But verse 4 makes clear what the magi really mean by “King of the Jews.”
It says, “So he [Herod]assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Christ would be born.
Herod had been called “king of the Jews” by the Senate in Rome for almost 40 years.
But no one called him Christ [Messiah].
“the Christ” means the long-awaited God-anointed Ruler,
who would overcome all other rule, and
bring in the end of history, and
establish the kingdom of God and
never die or lose his reign.
We don’t know how the wise men got their information that there was such a king coming.
But it is clear that Herod got the message:
these fellows are not searching for a mere, ordinary, human successor to me.
They are searching for the final King, to end all kings.
And, of course, unlike Anna and Simeon in , that is the last thing Herod was looking for.
He didn’t even know the simple Scriptures about where the Messiah was to be born.
So he asks the scribes, and the one text that they focus on is , “Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times. Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of the ruler’s brothers will return to the people of Israel.”
Now that doesn’t sound very extraordinary either.
The reason is that the only purpose for which the scribes quoted the text was to answer Herod’s question: Where?
And the answer is Bethlehem.
But what if Herod had asked them, “Who?” They might have read on in : “(2) His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times...
(v4) “He will stand and shepherd them in the strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for then his greatness will extend to the ends of the earth.
So this king is not just coming into being in the womb of his mother Mary. “His origin is from antiquity, from the days of eternity.”
Or, as John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” ().
And this king would not be limited in his realm to Israel. “He will be great to the ends of the earth.”
That’s the first truth and this is why worship is on their mind! says “For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.”
Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
And it leads us to the second truth in this text about the Messiah.

2. Jesus is to be Worshiped not just by Jews, but by all the Nations of the World, as Represented by the Wise Men from the East.

Notice that Matthew does not tell us about the shepherds coming to visit Jesus in the stable.
His focus is immediately on foreigners coming from the east to worship Jesus.
Verse 1: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem,
So Matthew’s Gospel portrays Jesus at the beginning and ending of his Gospel as a universal Messiah for the nations, not just for Jews.
Here the first worshipers are astrologers or wise men not from Israel but from the East—perhaps from Babylon.
They were gentiles. Unclean.
And at the end of Matthew the last words of Jesus are, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.”
This not only opened the door for us gentiles to rejoice in the Messiah,
it added proof that he was the Messiah.
Because one of the repeated prophecies was that the nations and kings would, in fact, come to Him as the ruler of the world.
For example, , “Nations will come to your light, and kings to your shining brightness.”
So Matthew adds proof to the messiahship of Jesus and shows that He is messiah
—a King, and Promise-Fulfiller
—for all the nations, not just Israel.
For us, not just Jews.

3. God Wields the Universe to Make his Son Known and Worshiped. This is His Great Goal in all Things—that His Son be Known and Worshiped.

Over and over the Bible baffles our curiosity about just how certain things happened.
How did this “star” get the magi from the east to Jerusalem?
It does not say that it led them or went before them.
It only says they saw a star in the east (verse 2), and came to Jerusalem.
I want to exhort you not to become preoccupied with developing theories
that are only tentative in the end and have very little spiritual significance.
I risk a generalization to warn you: people who are exercised and preoccupied with such things as how
how the star worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal.
the star worked and how
the Red Sea split and how
how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal.
the manna fell and how
Jonah survived the fish and how
the moon turns to blood
are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal.
You do not see in them a deep cherishing of the great central things of the gospel
—the holiness of God,
the ugliness of sin,
the helplessness of man,
the death of Christ,
justification by faith alone,
the sanctifying work of the Spirit,
the glory of Christ’s return and
the final judgment.
They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack
with a new article or new video or book.
There is little centered rejoicing.
But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is that
it is doing something that it cannot do on its own:
it is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship Him.
Note carefully in v2, “For we saw His star”. I was thinking if we desire to cause others to follow Jesus, we must totally follow Jesus ourselves.
Every beam in that star shone forth for Jesus.
It was His star always, only, and altogether.
It didn’t shine for itself, but it shown as “His star”!
May people not be so much drawn to our personalities or our deficiencies, but that they’d always observe this one thing,
that we are men & women of God,
ambassadors of Christ,
Christ’s servants, and
we do not attempt to shine for ourselves, or to make ourselves stand out,
but labor to shine for Him. Think of this shining star and then listen:
() May God be gracious to us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us Selah so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
We shine so that His way may be known on earth and His salvation among all nations.
Spurgeon, C. H., & Crosby, T. P. (2010). 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 5). (T. P. Crosby, Ed.) (p. 364). Leominster: Day One Publications.
We can see how to point people to Christ. Flip with me over to John’s gospel.
1:19–28 John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah.
First-century Palestine was filled with Messianic expectations, and some people wondered if John was the Messiah.
So the priest’s and the Levites are asking John if he’s the Messiah.
Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet? “No” John says. Well then who are you then?
He says in v23, “He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”
So then if you are not any of they people that we asked you, then why are you out here baptizing?
Watch how John points away from himself and to Christ: (vv26-27) “I baptize with water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.”
Pointing away from ourselves to Christ. Then John gets some fruit for his labors.
(vv35-37) “The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus.
Didn’t Andrew and Philip point others to Christ and not to themselves?
Andrew is Peter’s brother. Andrew goes to his brother and tells him about Jesus then brings him to Jesus:
(v41-42) “He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated “the Christ”), and he brought Simon to Jesus...
Peter would then do this in Acts chapter 3.
They just healed the man at the gate of the temple and a big crowd rushes over and they are astonished.
So Peter says (in v12), ““Fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us, as though we had made him walk by our own power or godliness?
(vv15-16) “You killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead; we are witnesses of this. By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you.”
Stars that shine to point people to worship Christ!
(Please turn back to our text)
But this star is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship Him.
There is only one Person in Biblical thinking that can be behind
that intentionality in the stars
—God himself.
So the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to Christ to worship Him.
And He is doing it by exerting global
—probably even universal
—influence and power to get it done.
Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire so that the census comes
at the exact time to get a virgin to Bethlehem
to fulfil prophecy with her delivery.
Matthew shows God influencing the stars in the sky
to get foreign magi to Bethlehem
so that they can worship him.
This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it now.
His aim is that the nations—all the nations ()—worship his Son.
This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. ().
This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work, and in your neighborhood and in your home.
As says, “Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.”
At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see” pattern.
Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.” At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see” pattern. But at the end the pattern is “go-tell”. The magi came and saw. We are to go and tell. But what is not different is that the purpose of God is the ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations, the reason the world exists.
But at the end the pattern is “go-tell”.
The magi came and saw.
We are to go and tell.
But what is not different is that the purpose of God is
the ingathering of the nations
to worship His Son.
The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations, the reason the world exists.

4. Jesus is Troubling to People Who do not Want to Worship Him and He Brings out Opposition for those Who do.

This is probably not a main point in the mind of Matthew, but it is inescapable as the story goes on.
In this story there are two kinds of people who do not want to worship Jesus, the Messiah.
The first kind is the people who simply do nothing about Jesus.
He is a nonentity in their lives.
This group is represented by the chief priests and scribes.
Verse 4: “So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Christ would be born.”
Well, they told him, and that was that: back to business as usual.
The sheer silence and inactivity of the leaders is overwhelming
in view of the magnitude of what was happening.
And notice, verse 3 says, “When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
In other words, the rumor was going around that someone thought the Messiah was born.
The inactivity on the part of chief priests is staggering—why not go with the Magi?
They are not interested. They do not want to worship the true God.
The second kind of people who do not want to worship Jesus is the kind who is deeply threatened by him.
That is Herod in this story.
He is really afraid.
So much so that he schemes and lies and then commits mass murder just to get rid of Jesus.
So today these two kinds of opposition will come against Christ and his worshipers. Indifference and hostility.
Are you in one of those groups?
Don’t wait till the Christmas season for the time when you
reconsider the Messiah and
ponder what it is to worship him.
So let me close with that, the fifth truth in this account.
What is worship in this text?

5.Worshiping Jesus Means Joyfully Ascribing Authority and Dignity to Christ with Sacrificial Gifts.

There are four pieces to that definition of worship, and all four are grounded in this text.
First, I see the magi ascribing authority to Christ by calling him “King of the Jews” in verse 2: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”
Second, I see the magi ascribing dignity to Him by falling down before Him in verse 11: “Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped him.
Falling to the ground is what you do to say to someone else:
you are high and I am low.
You have great dignity and I am lowly by comparison.
Third, I see the joy in these ascriptions of authority and dignity in verse 10: “When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.
Now this is a quadruple way of saying they rejoiced.
It would have been much to say they rejoiced.
More to say they rejoiced with joy.
More to say they rejoiced with great joy.
And even more to say they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
And what was all this joy about?—they were on their way to the Messiah.
They were almost there.
I cannot avoid the impression then that true worship is not just ascribing
authority and
dignity to Christ;
it is doing this joyfully.
It is doing it because you have come to see something about Christ
that is so desirable
that being near him to ascribe authority and dignity to him personally
is overwhelmingly compelling.
And the fourth part of the definition of worship here is that we do our ascribing with sacrificial gifts.
And the fourth part of the definition of worship here is that we do our ascribing with sacrificial gifts. Worshiping Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ with sacrificial gifts.
Worshiping Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ with sacrificial gifts.
Now we have learned in previous studies on worship that God is not served by human hands as though He needed anything ().
So the gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need-meeting.
It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.
Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes.
says that God takes no bribe.
Well, what then do they mean?
How are they worship?
The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself in much the same way that fasting is.
When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying,
“The joy that I pursue (verse 10!) is not the hope of getting rich with things from you.
I have not come to you for your things,
but for yourself.
And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by
giving up things,
in the hope of enjoying you more,
not things.
By giving to you what you DO NOT need, and
what I might enjoy,
I am saying more earnestly and more authentically,
‘You are my treasure, not these things.’ ”
I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
So here, Redeemer Church, after you have worshipped Christ in your souls and seen Him with the eyes of faith, give Him yourself, your heart, and all that is in you! Give it to Him!
And so may God take the truth of this text and waken in us a desire for Christ himself.
May we say from the heart,
“Lord Jesus you are the Christ, the King of Israel.
All nations will come and bow down before you.
God wields the world to see that You are worshiped.
Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you, and
bring my gifts to say that You alone can satisfy my heart, not these.
If you have gold, give it;
if you have frankincense, give it;
if you have myrrh, give it to Jesus; and
if you have none of these things, give him your love, all your love, and
that will be gold and spices all in one.
Give Him your mouth and speak of Him;
give Him your hands and work for him;
give him your whole self.
I know you will, for He loved you and gave Himself for you. The Lord bless you… Let’s pray.
Spurgeon, C. H., & Crosby, T. P. (2005). 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 3) (p. 367). Leominster, UK: Day One Publications.
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