How To Know You Are Worshiping The Saviour

How to Know You Are Worshiping the Saviour

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.

Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.” Matthew 2:11-12 (NIV)

Intro: Someone said, "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in,

and a pessimist stays up until midnight to make sure the old year leaves."

This morning, no matter which best describes you, I'm hoping you will join me in saying,

"so far, 2017 has been a great year!"

I am glad that January 1st came on a Sunday.

I think it is important that we start off the New Year by framing it with Worship.

What better way is there to begin a new year than to begin by worshiping the Saviour?

Today is also known as Epiphany Sunday.

I doubt that any of you were up late last night waiting for Epiphany.

More and more people have never even heard of Epiphany.

How many of you have already taken down your Christmas tree?

Well I have news that Christmas is not over.

The season of Christmas is twelve days long.

Epiphany falls on January 6, on the 12th day of Christmas.

On the twelfth day of Christmas you are supposed to have 12 drummers drumming.

That is why we had the little children playing the drums this morning.

Today we also celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem.

Epiphany in the early church was one of the biggest feast days

–second only to Easter in its importance.

The third great feast was Pentecost, another day that is slowly diminishing in importance in the church.

Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost were the focus of worship in the church for the first 400 years.

Nobody even thought to celebrate Christmas until the fourth century.

So how come nothing epiphs on Epiphany anymore?

Why was Epiphany so important then, and now why is it so unimportant?

The word Epiphany means “manifestation” or “revelation.”

The Wise Men are remembered on Epiphany because they represent that the Gentiles

were quicker to recognize Jesus than the Jews.

In the early days when Epiphany was a great church feast,

it also celebrated the first miracle of Jesus–the changing water into wine at wedding in Cana of Galilee

and the announcement by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God at his baptism.

Those three things–the Wise Men, water to wine, and Baptism

were all grouped together to symbolize the revealing of God in Jesus Christ,

and such revelation was cause for great feasting and worship.

Many people today have lost that sense of excitement and expectation of worship.

Worship is attributing ultimate worth to something.

Worship is valuing one thing above another thing.

Its origin of meaning is from the word "worth" so it is literally “worth ship”.

Today we are going to look at “How to Know You Are Worshiping the Saviour.”

I. You Find Him.

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east

[think about the phrase “from the east” because this tells us something very important about worship.]

came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one

[think about this phrase also: “Where is the one?”

That also tells you something about worship. Where is the one…]

The wise men came from the east.

They had traveled a great distance.

They had journeyed from faraway lands.

These were astronomers.

They had been watching the moon, the planets, the stars for years.

Mapping the design

calculating the patterns,

analyzing the data and predicting the behavior of the celestial bodies.

Then suddenly out of know where came this star.

Not a meteor, Not a comet.

But a rogue star.

They knew it would lead them to the one who is worthy to be worshiped.

Because they had been studying the holy scrolls of the prophets.

They knew the promise that God would send a Saviour.

They recognized this star as a sign leading them westward.

Across rivers and mountains

Guiding them to the perfect light to Jesus the light of the world.

We don’t have to use but just a little imagination here for the bible says

“They arrived in Jerusalem asking, where is the newborn King of the Jews?

We have seen his star as it arose, and we have come to worship him.”

Mathew 2:1-2

They got to Jerusalem they looked for Jesus at the palace of King Herod.

They asked King Herod where is the savior?

But the savior was not there.

They went past the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.