A Child Worthy of Worship

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You know, on Christmas Eve, during the day while I was up here getting ready for the service, I stopped and at one point I was looking at some news stories online. And I went, I saw they posted a news story on one of the news stations here in the state about how a church was open for Christmas Eve services. And I thought, well, what a year we’ve had that that makes the news that they’re meeting in person.

And I scrolled down to the comments, never ever do that, okay? That mistake, number one, and I know better, but the comments section of any website is where brain cells go to die, okay? That’s just, it’s true.

But there were comments on there about how selfish it was that the churches were open for Christmas Eve during the pandemic. How selfish it is that churches were open at all during the pandemic. And I thought, well, I wonder if they’ve been to Walmart or the liquor store or anywhere else.

You know, is it not selfish for them to be open? And I wanted to respond. I didn’t.

I have a long-standing policy that I don’t argue on the internet because, you know, it gets you nowhere. But I wanted so badly to respond and say, it’s selfish for us to be open. Do you know how easy and how comfortable it would be to just call it off and stay home in my recliner?

And not just as the pastor, it would have been easier for those of you who were here, it would be easier for you to have not come than to get dressed up. Many of you got more dressed up than I’ve ever seen you, and we came, and we fought the cold to get here, and we were here for 30 minutes, and I really enjoyed the service and really enjoyed being here. But beforehand, do you know how easy it would have been to not be here?

It would have been the path of least resistance just to stay home with family for all of us. And it’s a reminder to us, things like that, that there is a cost involved in worshiping Jesus. Now, for us, where we live and in the time we live, it is a minuscule cost. What did it cost me?

I put on a tie and I drove here. That’s not a big cost in the grand scheme of things. But I will say that for a lot of people, it’s more cost than they wanted to pay for Christmas Eve or even on Sunday morning.

to just, I mean, those of you who, and those of you who are watching online, we’re glad you have, you have paid the cost of spending your time with us this morning. No, no offense toward you. But those of you who have come here, you have paid the cost of getting out of bed, right?

Getting dressed. You could have had a leisurely morning of having breakfast and reading the newspaper and whatever people, I can’t even fathom what you do on Sundays if you don’t go to church, because that’s never been in my life, but people go through their lives without doing this. You have paid a cost, a small one, admittedly, but there’s a cost involved in worshiping Jesus.

Now, for some people, the cost is much greater. There are countries in our world today, today in 2020, where people have much worse problems than having to put on shoes and drive into town to go to church. Today, in China, in North Korea, in Turkmenistan, in Eritrea, in Saudi Arabia, people are being targeted.

They’re being rounded up. They’re being exterminated, in many cases, by their own governments. Governments that were put there by God to defend their rights instead are trampling on their rights just because they have the audacity to gather to worship Jesus Christ. Or in some cases, just because they worship Jesus Christ in secret in their homes without gathering with people.

and yet they do it anyway. There’s a cost, and they’re willing to pay it. Even in our own country, we’ve seen this year that a step down from that, certainly, or a couple steps down from that, there have been costs that people have had to pay in order to worship Jesus Christ. You know, there have been churches that have been threatened with massive fines and pastors that have been threatened with jail time.

In the United States of America, think about that for just a minute, have been threatened with fines and with jail time for meeting together to worship. while observing whatever social distancing and masking. That’s not the issue, but just for being open.

And some have folded, and some have said, you know what, we’re going to do it anyway. And just as an aside, let me tell you, whatever your feelings are about mandates and things, we can discuss those back and forth all day. But if the position of any state or federal government is that we’re going to close down the churches and leave the casinos open, which some of these states have done, then we’re not talking public safety.

We’re talking anti-religious bigotry and tyranny at that point. If we can just lay the cards all out on the table and be totally honest. But these churches anyway have said, we’re going to meet. You know, we’ll still wear our masks.

We’ll still social distance. We’ll do all that. But we’re going to meet.

And if they fine us, they fine us. John MacArthur said, if they take me to jail, fine. God’s called me into prison ministry.

That’s not an exact quote, but that’s basically what he said. We’re going to do what he called us to do, and we’re going to meet, and we’re going to pay the cost in order to worship Him. There’s always a cost. Like I said, it could be something as serious as the people in North Korea and what they face today.

It could be something as microscopic as just the inconvenience of having to get out of bed and get ready and get here. But there’s always a cost because there’s always something else that the world calls us to, that our flesh calls us to, other than worshiping Jesus Christ. And we have to put those things aside to focus on Him. And this morning, we’re going to be in Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew chapter 2, as we come toward the end of this series I’ve been doing on the announcements of Jesus’ birth, we’re going to look in Matthew chapter 2 at how God announced Jesus’ birth and people came to worship Him despite the cost. They came to worship Him despite the cost. If you would, once you find it, stand with me. Once you find Matthew chapter 2, if you can, without too much difficulty, Matthew chapter 2, and we’re going to start in verse 1, and we’re going to read this morning through verse 12. It says, the prophet, but you, Bethlehem, in 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, until 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 worshipped 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. and you may be seated.

So God announced, up to this point, God has just announced to those who were nearby. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen how God, through the angel Gabriel, announced to Mary that Jesus was going to be born. And then he announced to Joseph that the child Mary was carrying was not cause for alarm, but was cause for great joy, because it really was the work of God, as she had told him.

And then we saw right after Jesus was born, he sent a multitude of angels to announce to the shepherds outside Bethlehem, that the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of kings had been born and was there. They would find Him. They’d find Him.

If you remember back to last week, what was so remarkable about that, He was laid in a feeding trough. And you don’t lay any baby in an animal’s feeding trough, let alone the one who’s come to be King and come to be God in the flesh. And so it was a remarkable thing.

But God said through the angels, that’s how you’ll know when you’ve found Him. Well, at this point, we see where God has begun announcing to the wider world what He’s done and what He intends to do through this child. He has left a sign, a star in the heavens that they would see and that they would follow.

Now, I have read over the years so many things trying to figure out what this was. Was it a comet? Probably not, because a comet wouldn’t hover over Bethlehem.

Was it a star? Probably not, because they were able to follow it once they got to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, and it says it stood over the place where he lay. Was it stars coming together?

Probably not. As far as I can tell, it has to be something entirely unique in all of recorded history. That God just made something appear that we don’t fully understand.

That God used this incredible sign, something that they would have noticed from hundreds of miles away. And something that probably, this is kind of speculation, but my assumption is they were coming from Persia, And if they were in Persia, they would have been familiar probably with the Hebrew scriptures because of Daniel’s time there hundreds of years before. How else would they have known what they were looking for, that the king of the Jews is being born under this sign?

And so God announced to the world outside of Israel that someone of great importance had been born there. He gave this sign in the heavens that these wise men, these philosophers, these astrologers, whatever you want to call them, would recognize. And the star was a call, not just to notice that he’s there, but it was a call to come worship him because that’s what they did.

When they realized who had been born, it was like it was the most natural thing in the world for them. We’re going on a road trip, not just to see a baby, but they were going to worship a king. We’re going to honor him as he deserved.

And so when they discovered this, the wise men sacrificed tremendously to come and honor Jesus the way he deserved. We have no indication from the scriptures that they were even believers. We have no indication from the scriptures that they were jews at that point.

They certainly weren’t new testament christian believers because Even the disciples had no idea at this point. What what was going on? Jesus was just born But they understood this was somebody of great importance that god had sent And so they came to try to give him the honor that he deserved and they had to sacrifice tremendously to do it They had to travel a great distance We don’t know exactly how far but I sat down a few years ago and did some calculations and said if they were If they were Persians, if they were leftovers of these people that would have been familiar with Daniel and Daniel’s reputation, then they would have been in the court of an empire called the Parthians, who were kind of rivals of the Romans at that time and controlled that part of the world, what’s now Iran.

And if they were coming from the Parthian court, then they would have traveled about 700 miles. I was really bored one day a few years ago. I sat down and figured out how far can a camel caravan travel in a day.

If I was doing it now, I could have just called George and asked how far Magi could get if she escaped. Not very far. I did some research, and there’s not a lot on the internet about how far a camel caravan can go, but I really wanted to know, and I figured out it’s about 18 miles in a day, which is not a lot.

So if they were traveling about 18 miles a day, over 700 miles, I hope the math works out correctly still, came out to about a 40-day camel trip for them, which I thought was interesting too, because we see that in Luke chapter 2, I believe, whatever passage in Luke we’re going to talk about tonight, the days of Mary’s purification were completed, where she was considered unclean under the law and had to go to the temple to make a sacrifice. That would be 40 days after Jesus’ birth. And I thought, well, this all comes together.

A lot of it’s just my speculation, but it seems to come together really well. But whether they were coming from the Parthian court not making a 40-day journey over 700 miles. We don’t know that for sure, but we do know they came a long way.

They traveled from far away in the east. Okay, it wasn’t just across the Jordan River, although that was east. They said off in the east, probably in a country that they were not familiar with, that the people of Judea were not familiar with, excuse me. They traveled a great distance to worship Jesus, and they brought expensive gifts to worship Jesus. The gold and the frankincense and myrrh were not necessarily things you just have lying around your house.

Certainly not common people. People like us would have lying around their houses. This was expensive stuff.

Okay, in our day, you might as well try to get your hand. Well, gold is still pretty expensive, but you might try to get your hands on plutonium and I don’t know, whatever the newest thing that apples come out with. You usually have to mortgage the house to get that, right?

They spent some money on these things that they were bringing to him. And we think these were just, we think of these a lot of times as just Christmas gifts. Let me tell you, as I’ve looked into these gifts that they brought him, they sacrificed tremendously.

These were expensive things, but they were also representative of something. It’s not just like when I go try to buy Christmas presents and I have my list, and I think what is the first thing I see that this person will like so I can get out of the store quickly. These things meant something.

Gold is something that they would have given a king. You wouldn’t just ordinarily give a baby gold. Still wouldn’t do that.

But they wouldn’t give a baby gold. That’s a gift that they would bring to a king. That’s a tribute that they would bring.

Because a lot of times, a leader of a lesser kingdom would have to come once a year and give tribute to a higher-ranking king. Say your little kingdom was overthrown by the Romans, but they gave you the privilege of still being in charge of your little area, you’re just under the Romans, you’d have to go periodically and give a tribute to the Romans just to show you and them who’s really boss. So when they came to Jesus, describing him as the king of the Jews, they come to Jesus and they bring him gold.

That looks a lot like paying tribute to a king. And then frankincense is something that you would burn kind of as an incense, as a smell offering. We’ve got some essential oils at home.

Charles is really into those, and we’ve got a frankincense oil. It’s not the best, I mean, it’s not terrible, but it’s not the best smelling thing in the world. It’s not something that I just, you know, want all over me all the time, unless maybe we just got a bad batch.

But it’s something that they would burn in worship ceremonies, in religious rituals. A lot of cultures did that. And so when they would bring an offering of frankincense, an offering that somebody would bring to a deity, to a god, this was expensive stuff that they would have brought into a temple for their rituals to worship a God.

So it shouldn’t be lost on us that they brought Jesus frankincense. When we know from the angel’s announcements that he was God with us, and then to bring him myrrh, myrrh is a substance that would be used to prepare a body for burial. You know, it says at the end of the gospel accounts, when it describes the resurrection, that the women were headed out to the tomb with spices to prepare Jesus’s body for burial because they weren’t able before the Sabbath. And so they headed out there with these spices.

We don’t know exactly what they had, but myrrh would have been one of the kind of spices, one of the kind of substances that somebody would have used to prepare a body for burial. And so to bring him myrrh, that again is an odd gift to bring a baby, unless God has somehow impressed it on you that that baby is going to be a sacrifice. Now, do I think the wise men understood all of that? No, but I think God orchestrated what they were supposed to bring him.

And I think they just knew they were going to honor somebody very important, somebody very special. And God led them to bring the things that they brought. I think in part to show us who he is, why he was so important, and why he so deserves worship. So they travel, as I say, they sacrificed so much to come and worship him.

They traveled a great distance. They brought expensive offerings to him. They also risked the wrath of tyrants.

I mean, Herod does not sound like the kind of person I want to deal with. Herod sounds like somebody I’m glad doesn’t work a counter at the motor vehicle, the tag agency. I’m trying to think of the name.

Sounds like somebody who likes to exert his power and make things difficult on other people. I mean, here you hear a baby’s born and somebody from some other country you’ve never met before says, I think he might be the king of the Jews. And based on that rumor alone, you’re ready to slaughter him and all the other infants in Bethlehem.

That does not sound like somebody I want to go to lunch with, all right? But they were willing not only to deal with him, and you could say, well, they might not have known what he was like before, that’s fair. But they were willing to defy somebody like that.

And how many people, when they’re pushed around, just say, I’m going to go along with it. Even if it’s wrong, I’m just going to go along with it. And yet they realized Herod has this, Herod is bloodthirsty.

He has this plan. And they said, you know, I don’t care what he told us. We’re going to slip out the back way out of his country.

What would it have cost them if he’d caught them? They would have been in major hot water. They went through all of these things and more.

They went through all of these things to worship Jesus. They traveled the long way just because they’d seen a sign in the heavens. They brought him these enormously expensive gifts.

They even spent time dealing with a very evil man. They did all that so that they could come and give Jesus the honor that he deserved. They said, we’ve seen his star in the sky and we’ve come to worship him.

They came to worship him, and they weren’t about to let anything stop them or stand in their way. There was a cost involved for these men, and whatever it was, they were willing to pay it. And as we read through this and understand what it tells us about what they were doing, it also tells us something about Jesus.

It shows us something about Jesus, that Jesus deserves our worship regardless of what it costs us. Jesus deserves our worship regardless of what it costs us. Listen, I hope you’re not coming to church because you feel guilty if you don’t, Or because you think, well, if I’m not there, who will do such and such?

Or I’ve got to let people see the new clothes I got for Christmas. Or because, well, I just don’t know what I’d do otherwise. I’m in the habit.

He deserves our worship because of who He is. That should be our reason for being here. I’ve said this a lot the last few weeks.

Our reason for being here is not that God takes attendance. Our reason for being here is not that we’re bad people if we’re not. And again, I appreciate those who are watching online.

I consider you an extension of this. I realize that many of you would love to be here and just can’t. So please don’t take anything I’m saying as a slight toward you.

But our reason for being here is because we have been called to gather to worship Jesus Christ together, and He deserves our worship no matter what it costs us. And not just on Sunday, but all through the week, He deserves our worship whatever it costs us. He deserves it because of who He is.

They said we’ve come to worship Him because He is King of the Jews. and we think of that as being an office like president. It’s something you’ve done and become.

No, you were born a king in those days. Well, today in countries that have monarchies, you’re usually born whatever you’re going to be. He was born the king.

That says something about who he is, king of the Jews. And folks, let me tell you, Jesus deserves our worship because of who he is. He is the son of God.

He is God, the son, the second person of the Trinity. He is the co-creator of our universe along with the Father. He’s the sustainer of our universe.

He’s the one that orchestrates all this. The Bible says that by Him all things consist. He’s the one that looked through time and eternity and saw before He had ever created us that we were going to sin and that we were going to need a Savior. And He created us anyway knowing that in order for us to spend eternity with Him, knowing that for us to have the fellowship with Him that we’re supposed to have, He was going to have to come and die in our place after we had rejected Him time after time after time and rejected Him all the way to the cross.

He knew what we were going to be like. He knew what we were going to do. But because of who He is, He went through it anyway.

For being the loving, gracious God that He is. For being the holy, sinless God that He is. For being the almighty God that He is, Jesus deserves our worship, no matter what it costs us.

But on top of that, he deserves our worship because of what he’s done. And verse 6 here describes him as a ruler who would shepherd God’s people Israel. And that’s exactly what he did for us.

He came to shepherd God’s people back to him, back to the Father. And he did that for Israel, but he did that for the Gentiles as well, thank God. He came to shepherd us back to God.

And I know there’s some overlap there between who he is and what he does. But let me tell you, the difference is that if Jesus Christ had never done a thing for us, He would still deserve our worship because of who He is. But on top of that, He deserves our worship because of all that He’s done to save us and to bring us into that relationship with the Father.

He deserves our worship regardless of what it costs us. And just to be clear here, worshiping Jesus means that we give Him the proper place in our lives that He deserves. I want to make that clear because a lot of times we think of worship as what we did right before the sermon, where we gather in here on Sunday morning and we sing three songs and we listen to a special, that’s worship.

That is a part of worship, but worship is really about the attitude we have toward Him. It’s about whether or not we are living in obedience to Him and seeking to honor Him with our whole lives. Let me tell you what, you can worship Jesus driving down the road just as easily as you can sitting in this auditorium.

Now, I’m not saying from that, just go drive down the road and worship Jesus and don’t come here. We’re supposed to do both, right? It’s not an either or thing.

I am supposed to worship Jesus with my life on Sunday when I’m here. I’m supposed to worship Jesus with my life on Monday through Friday when I’m at work. I’m supposed to honor and worship Jesus with my life when I’m out working in the yard and I slam my finger with a sledgehammer.

I’m supposed to worship Jesus with my life still. I’m supposed to worship Him with my life when my wife sends me to Walmart the week before Christmas or the week of Christmas and I have to deal with people. I am supposed to worship Jesus with my life at all times because he deserves it.

That means having an attitude of obedience toward him, seeking to do things that bring him glory. It’s hard to do because of our flesh. Our flesh wants us to be on the throne in our lives.

Our flesh wants us to be the one worshiped. Some of you might have dealt with this like I did this week with Christmas. Let me tell you, a whole lot of Weight Watcher points went out the window this week.

Because I know in my mind, I should be doing this. And I see these little pretzel things that Charla made with Rolos and pecans on them. And I said, fine, I’ll have one.

And then my flesh said, no, you need more. I ended up serving my stomach a whole lot of those things, all right? Every desire I had Christmas day for those little dessert things, we do that in far more serious ways, don’t we?

We know God expects this, but my desires, my flesh demands this, and I’m going to end up worshiping my flesh. It’s hard to do. Worshiping Jesus requires us to make some adjustments to our lives and our lifestyles.

That’s where it costs us. That’s where as Americans it costs us. Very unlikely we’re going to be thrown into prison for worshiping Jesus at this point.

But it costs us having to deny our flesh and do what He wants instead of what we want. And so this morning, with the thought in mind that Jesus deserves our worship, regardless of what it costs, given that we’ve received this example of the wise men who sacrifice so much to worship Jesus at great cost to themselves, let me ask you, what are you holding back in your worship because the cost is too high? What is it that he’s called you to do or not do?

And you’re saying, no, thank you, Lord, because the flesh wants this. I know this is what you say, but my desires are this, and so I’m going to worship myself over here. And we’re real good at doing that.

We compartmentalize. And we say, Lord, you are Lord of my life, except maybe this over here. Anybody else guilty of that?

You don’t have to raise your hand. I’ll just look in your eyes and know. We’re real good at doing that.

My question for you, not something to answer out loud, but just in your heart and your dealings with the Holy Spirit, what is it that you’ve been holding back in your worship because the cost is too high? What is it that you know you need to do or not do? as a Christian, and this is not a means to getting right with God and getting into heaven.

I’m talking about this question specifically to those who have trusted Jesus as their Savior already. What is it where you realize that in order to be obedient to Him and to glorify Him, you need to start doing or stop doing? And you know the Holy Spirit’s already been dealing with you about it, but you’ve been saying, no, hold on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Is there someplace that the cost has been too high. If there is, ask him to give you the strength and the grace to pay the cost. If you can’t find anything, if you can’t think of anything, ask him to show it to you, and he will. If you pray to God, help me to be more obedient and help me to glorify you more, he will show you ways to do it.

That’s a request I believe God will answer every time. Ask God to show you what you need to do to honor Jesus the way he deserves. Now to anybody who’s never trusted Christ as your Savior.

I don’t want you to take any of that as, well, if I just start doing right and stop doing wrong, then I’ll be right with God. No, that is a recipe for people who are already believers. See, the reason why that’s so hard to do, even for believers, is because we’ve got that sinful nature that likes to be worshiped and likes to be served.

It’s part of who we are, and it leads us to disobey God. Now, the problem is that any disobedience, God looks at and calls sin. And because God is absolutely holy, God cannot just excuse our sin, cannot just ignore it, and He certainly can’t condone it and say, oh, it’s all right, come on and be with me anyway.

God is absolutely holy. And so our sin that comes so naturally to us separates us from God. And you and I can’t do enough good to change what we’ve done wrong.

I mean, you can do good things, you can go to church, you can give money, you can be nice to people. All of that’s important. But if you do everything God tells you to, you’re just doing what God expects.

You don’t get extra credit from that, and it doesn’t erase the wrong that we’ve already done. Or like when my children get in trouble in one area and are given a consequence. Let’s say there may have hypothetically been lying, and Charla has said, okay, no Christmas dessert for you.

And I come to Charla and I say, you know, they were so good with this, you know, they were so obedient with this, we don’t automatically say, okay, you get your dessert back. Because doing what was expected here doesn’t change the fact that wrong was done over here. That’s how it is with us.

All the good we can ever do doesn’t change the fact that we’ve sinned. That’s why it’s so important that Jesus came. Because only He could take responsibility for our sins without any sin of His own, take responsibility for our sins, and be punished in our place to pay the penalty of our sins so our slate could be wiped clean so that we could have peace with God and eternal life with Him.

And if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, this morning you can do that. If you realize, if you recognize that you’ve sinned against God and that sin separates you from Him and you need a Savior, and you believe that Jesus Christ was born to die for you, and He died on the cross to pay for your sins, and He rose again three days later, not because of any good you could do, but because of what Jesus did for you, you can ask God this morning for His forgiveness, and you’ll have it.

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