Iwant To Believe In Something Bigger Than Me! Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• It is December; Christmas is going to be here in a few short days. Have you been buying all your gifts?

• How many of you love electronic stuff?

• I LOVE the latest techie gadgets. If I had an unlimited income, I would have everything electronic thing known to man.

• I remember anxiously going to see Santa to tell him what I wanted to receive from him for Christmas. For me Christmas was all about IWANT! It was quicker for me to tell Santa what I did not want verses what I wanted.

• SLIDE #2

• The Apple corporation has hit on the “I” craze with their IPods, ITunes, IPhones, ITouches, and IMacs along with all the stuff you can get with them.

• Apple has made tons of money on these personal electronic gadgets.

• What do you get when you own all the “I” stuff from Apple? IBROKE! 

• Wanting things is not always bad, I do believe there needs to be some balance of wants verses what we can afford.

• Instead of bashing our consumer mentality, for the next 3 weeks, we are going to build on the “I” theme of Apple Corporation to look at 3 new iWANT items that can change our lives.

• These iWants can make our lives better and they are all within reach, we can ALL afford them, they will not ruin our bank accounts because God sent His Son to make these items something we can all have.

• The first IWANT of this three week series is entitled, “iWant to believe in something bigger than me. We will be in Matthew 2:1-12 as we look at the account of the wise men going to see Jesus.

• These wise men were on a trip of a lifetime, they were looking to believe in something bigger than themselves. Are you ready to begin the journey of believing in something bigger than yourself?

• Let’s walk with the wise men together this morning as they embark on their great adventure!

• Let us turn to Matthew 2:1-12 together. We will begin in verses 1-2.

• SLIDE #3

• Matthew 2:1-2 (ESV) 1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

• SLIDE #4

• From verses 1-2 we see that the wise men were seeking something bigger than themselves.

SERMON

I. THE WISE MEN WERE SEEKING SOMETHING BIGGER THAN THEMSELVES TO BELIEVE IN.

• We do not know a lot about these wise men. They were most likely philosophers, priests, astrologers, or astronomers from Persian, Arabia, or Babylon.

• We do not know how many of them there were. The assumption from folks has been that there were three because of the three gifts.

• Supposedly Catholic Pope Leo the Great in 450 A.D. was given credit for saying there were three.

• I wish we were given some insight to the lives of these wise men but we were not.

• What drove these men to seek something bigger? What drives us to seek something bigger than self to believe in?

• These men most likely had position, power, and prestige, yet there was something missing.

• We can seemingly have it, yet something does not quite seem right.

• How do we go about seeking something bigger than ourselves to believe in?

• Here are three things we can glean from the account concerning the wise men.

• SLIDE #5

1. Seeking requires being aware there is something bigger to believe in.

• This is something we need to understand, think of the wise men for a moment. They could have ignored the star in the East; they could have explained it away. Why did not just ignore what they saw?

• They were aware there was something bigger out there to believe in than themselves.

• When you are aware, you will see the signs. When you realize there is a God in heaven and it is not you, all the sudden we quit attributing everything to luck, chance, and circumstance.

• I wonder why others did not see the star.

• They saw His star in the east, but there is no evidence that it continued to shine or that it led them to Jerusalem. They had to inquire as to where He was.

• WE will not seek if we are not aware. Many people see the hand of god each day, but because they do not want to believe there is something bigger than self, they refuse to see what is before them.