How Will You Respond To Jesus? Series

How will you respond to Jesus?

Matthew 2:1-18

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What do you think of when you hear the reading of Matthew 2? I thought of the Christmas nativity scene. But if you were listening carefully, verse 11 describes the wise men kneeling down to worship Jesus the child in a house. Jesus was no longer a newborn in the manger. This is an error by the cultural portrayal of the wise men and Jesus.

A few years back, a missionary friend emailed me about Christmas in China: “As expected, the concept of Christmas [in China] is of a Big Fat American hauling gifts on a sled. So it was about 30 minutes of folklore-busting - Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa & his elves, etc. - before I could get to Bethlehem.” People sometimes don't respond correctly to Jesus because Jesus and Christmas are not accurately portrayed.

The book of Matthew is one of four records of Jesus. These records are not biographies. They record evidences of Jesus as God’s good news to mankind. That’s why they are called Gospels. Gospel means good news.

Here are the four authors of the four Gospels: Matthew was a tax collector. Mark, we are unsure of his occupation. Luke was a physician. John was a fisherman. I believe God uses different authors to communicate to different audiences.

The Gospel of Matthew does not name Matthew as the author. The early Christians named Matthew as the author. Papias, a student of the Apostle John’s, also named Matthew as the author.

Matthew was a Jew who collected taxes for the Roman Empire. The Jews didn’t like tax collectors. They saw tax collectors as traitors who worked for the Romans and became rich from charging interest from their own people.

Matthew 9:9 recorded Matthew's turning point response to Jesus; we read: “[Jesus] saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. ‘Follow me,’ [Jesus] told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”

Matthew gave up easy wealth to follow Jesus. As we go through the book of Matthew we'll gain a better understanding of why Matthew responded to Jesus the way he did. In fact, Matthew throughout his writing will invite his readers to respond to Jesus. But how we respond will not always be based on who we discover Jesus to be. How we respond will sometimes be influenced by our own life experience.

I have a secret fear. I have the fear of congratulating pregnant women. I wasn't always this way. I used to congratulate pregnant women in the elevator, in the supermarket and just about anywhere. I congratulated pregnant women I knew and ones I met for the first time.

Then one afternoon at a party, I congratulated a pregnant woman who was a friend I had not seen for some time. Here was the problem: I later found out she wasn't pregnant. Ever since that incident, I have had the fear of congratulating pregnant women.

Back to the point. How we respond to Jesus will not always be based on who we discover Jesus to be. How we respond will sometimes be influenced by our own life experience. Let's look at the four different responses to Jesus.

First, there is the wise men's response. We see this in verses 1-2 and 9-11.

We don't know how the wise men knew about the star pointing to the location of Jesus, the king of the Jews. But here's what we do know. The wise men took action on that knowledge. They made the trip. They packed costly gifts. They worshipped joyfully at the sight of Jesus.

They were rightly called wise men. They were wise in their response. Wisdom is more than knowledge. Wisdom is taking action on knowledge.

Today we have more knowledge about Jesus available to us than was available to the wise men. We have the Bible. We have historical evidences. We have testimonials from eye-witnesses. Yet many don't read, research or take action on the knowledge available. These are unwise responses.

Second, there is King Herod's response. We see this in verses 3-9 and 16.

Herod, the human appointed king of the Jews, was also known as Herod the Great. He was troubled by the prophecy of God's appointed king of the Jews being born during his reign. He feared for the loss of his throne.

History records Herod the Great killed his own children and wives whom he thought plotted against him. So it is no surprise that Herod would kill innocent children to keep his throne. His fear for the loss of his throne blinded him to the love of God through Jesus Christ.

Napoleon, the French Emperor wrote in his diary, “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded great empires; but upon what did the creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions would die for Him.” Christ desires that we respond to His love, not respond in fear.