Text- Matthew 2:1-12
Title- What Made The Wise Men Wise?
Matthew 2:1-12 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: 6 "’But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’" 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 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 and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
I. They had a Knowledge of God’s Word
II. They had Faith In God’s Promises
III. They had a Spirit of Worship
IV. They were open to God’s leading
There are a number of aspects to the Christmas story that I find fascinating. There are so many miraculous, amazing, uplifting parts. There is the study of Mary and Joseph and who they were as people. There is the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of thousands of prophecies. There is the wonder and amazement of the announcement to the shepherds. There is the picture of Jesus coming from such humble means.
The whole story is just amazing. I would encourage you to read all the way through Luke 1-2 as a family at some point in the next few days. Take the time to share it with your kinds and allow it to sink in a little.
Today I want to spend our time focusing on the story of the wise men. These guys have always interested me. They are a little bit mysterious, but they teach us so much about the importance of the birth of Christ. They also teach us something about what it means to be wise.
The question I want us to investigate today is, “What made the wise men wise?”
Wisdom and intelligence can sometimes be hard to quantify. It’s tough to define intelligence. It’s usually one of those things that is obviously there, or obviously not there. And it can sometimes be a lot easier to identify when it is not there.
If I were to ask, “who is the smartest person in the world?”, that would be tough to answer. There are a lot of different opinions about who the smartest person might be. Some people claim that the famous mathematician and physicist Stephen Hawking is the smartest man alive.
There is a Korean guy who supposedly scored 210 on an IQ test. Considering the average IQ is 100 and genius is 140, this guy is pretty smart. He was a child prodigy and got a PHD in physics when he was 14. I couldn’t even spell physics at age 14.
Some people have even suggested that Bill Gates is one of the world’s smartest men because of how he built the Microsoft Corporation.
Is wisdom something that has to do with knowledge, experience, or achievement? Is it something you are born with, or is it developed, or both? Wisdom might be defined as the ability to apply knowledge in order to make good judgments. Wisdom is taking what you know, and putting it into action. It is a combination of knowledge and positive action.
As we will see in the story of the wise men, they had a knowledge that they put into action. Follow along as I read the story in Matthew 2:1-12…
There are a lot of unanswered questions about the wise men. Where did they come from? We don’t really know, it just says the east, but there are a lot of places east of Jerusalem. How long did their trip take? The text doesn’t say. But it probably took a long time. How many were there? Tradition says three, but the text really doesn’t give a number. We just assume there were three because three gifts are mentioned.
Even though there is a lot we don’t know about these wise men. The Bible does give us some information about them. And what we do know about them can help us understand why these wise men were wise.
First of all, the wise men had a knowledge of God’s Word. They were clearly anticipating a God appointed king. They were looking forward to his coming. They had read and studied and understood the prophecies about the coming messiah.
How did these men from the east know the scriptures so well? If you remember your OT history the Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians and drug off into captivity… in the east. Some of the Israelites who were brought into Babylonian captivity assimilated into the culture and even held positions of leadership and authority.
Daniel was one example of this. He was not only a wise man in Babylon, but he was in charge of all the wise men there. Daniel was someone who worshiped God, loved God, and would have passed on his understanding of Hebrew Scriptures to the wise men there.
So these wise men from the east would have had close contact with the OT scriptures. They knew about the prophecies concerning a coming messiah. They no doubt had access to the books of Moses, the first 5 books of the OT. In the book of numbers there is a prophecy that says…
Numbers 24:17 17 "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.
They were looking for a rising star, literally. They were men who had studied the skies and noticed something different. They saw something that must have convinced them that the king they were waiting for had finally come.
What an exciting time it must have been for them. For hundreds of years they had been reading these prophecies and studying the scriptures, and now they were seeing the fulfillment of it for themselves. They saw that it was true, there really was a savior coming, their joy must have been overwhelming.
All because they had studied the scriptures. These wise men were wise because they studied the right book. They were wise because they had God’s revealed word at their disposal. They were wise because they were educated by God.
Their study of the scripture brought them face to face with Jesus. It led them straight to Him. They were seeking answers to some of the biggest, deepest questions of human existence- who are we, why are we here, is there a God? They found the answers in the scripture.
The exciting thing about this is that we have the scriptures available to us as well. We have the ability to read it and study it and gain insight and wisdom from it. We not only have the Bible, but we have the Holy Spirit of God that helps to guide us, enlighten us, and convict us. We have a supernatural ability to understand God’s Word. We have something that other people don’t have.
If you want to be wise, you already have everything it takes. You simply need to open it up and read it. The more you study, the wiser you get. We have Bible studies, small groups, Sunday school classes, and lots of other opportunities to dig into the scripture. Take advantage of these classes. But the simplest thing you can do is just pick it up and start reading. You don’t have to read it through in a year, just read it. You don’t have to understand every custom or figure of speech, just read it. You don’t have to read it at a set time or in a set place, just read it.
It’s what made the wise men wise, and it can make us wise too.
Wisdom doesn’t just come from knowledge though. There are plenty of foolish people out there who have a lot of knowledge. Knowledge only becomes wisdom when it is rightly applied to our lives. Wisdom is knowledge in action. It isn’t a neutral or passive thing.
The wise men were not only wise because they know God’s word; they were wise because they had faith in God’s promises. They didn’t just know His promises, they believed them. They believed the prophecies about the coming king. They believed that the messiah would come from Bethlehem. They believed that the messiah would save his people from their sins.
We know they had faith because as soon as they saw the strange star in the sky they saddled up and headed out. The text doesn’t say anything about angels announcing things to them like with the shepherds. There is no indication that they got a special invitation to the birth of Christ. They were simply armed with their knowledge of the scriptures, their faith in God, and a star that suddenly appeared.
The question I have is why didn’t the Jewish leaders in the area of Bethlehem go and seek out the Messiah. They had the same scriptures. They knew the prophecies. In fact it was these Jewish teachers and priests that told Herod that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. They had the same knowledge that the wise men had, the difference was their faith.
All the knowledge in the world doesn’t do us any good unless we act on it; unless we take that step of faith. Jesus was not welcomed into the world by His own people, but by lowly shepherds, and visitors from afar. The Jewish leaders where so caught up in their own religion that they completely ignored the arrival of their Savior.
Many of us have at least a basic understanding of what the Bible says. We have been around enough to know it. We know what it has to say about our own sin, about how that sin separates us from God, and how only faith in Jesus Christ can set us free. We’ve heard it and know it, but we don’t fully believe it.
What made these wise men wise was not just their knowledge of the truth, but their complete faith in it. Do you have faith in God’s word? Do you believe it? Are you willing to take a real step of faith towards Jesus?
Knowledge doesn’t do you any good if you don’t apply it properly. Knowing about Jesus is worthless unless you are willing to run to Him, bow down to Him, and worship Him.
That’s the next thing that shows us that these wise men were wise, they came with a spirit of worship. Verse 11 says…
The wise men worshiped Jesus in two ways. They bowed down to Him, and they gave Him gifts. Unfortunately Christmas has become more about the giving of gifts and less about the bowing down to Him.
I read an article that said that the gifts they gave spoke a lot about their understanding of who Jesus was. The gift of gold was a gift that would be given to a king. It was a present that recognized the fact that Jesus was King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The incense was a gift generally given to God. Incense offerings were given as a way of pleasing the gods. This gift indicated that they understood that the child was more than just a common man. They understood that they were witnessing God with us. This is also obvious in the fact that they bowed down and worshiped Him.
Myrrh was a gift usually given at a funeral. It was used in the burial customs. So at some level they must have understood His purpose as the suffering servant…
Isaiah 53:4-9 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Wisdom comes from a spirit of humility. In the Psalms the foolish person is often equated with the proud person. Wisdom comes from knowing our own limits. It comes from a realistic view of ourselves.
These wise men sought out the promised messiah, found a young child, and bowed down to Him. They came to offer their worship.
Have you entered into this Christmas season with a spirit of worship? Have you been successful at cutting through the noise and business and giving Jesus His rightful place?
They way in which the wise men worshiped Jesus showed that they had a real understanding of who He was and a solid belief that He was indeed the messiah. They had the wisdom to see Him for who he really was, even though he was just a young child.
Do we see Jesus for who He really is? Do we worship Him accordingly?
Finally, we see that the wise men were wise because they were open to God’s leading. Look at verse 12…
Earlier in the story King Herod had met with the wise men in secret. He had discovered from them the exact time the star had appeared and he had asked them to come back and report on the exact location of the child. He claimed that he wanted to go and worship him too, but in fact King Herod was insanely protective of his power and his position. He had no intention of worshiping Jesus, he simply wanted to eliminate any potential threat to his rule.
The story seems to suggest that the Magi had every intention of going back to Herod and informing him of the location of Jesus. But God spoke to them in a dream. He warned the wise men not to go back to Herod, but to go home another way.
Look down a few verses at verse 16…
Matthew 2:16 16 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi.
The wise men were open to God’s guidance and direction. God communicated to them in a number of different ways. He spoke to them through the scriptures. He spoke to them through creation in the form of a star. He spoke to them through a message in a dream. They were able to hear God because they were listening.
How many times have you longed for God to give you some kind of clear, specific, obvious direction? Where should you go to college? Who should you marry? What job should you apply for? What city should you move to?
There are times when we are just not sure what God wants us to do. But all too often we really are not open to His leading. We don’t allow Him to lead our whole life. We want His help with the tough decisions and the hard times, but we want to do most things on our own.
The wise men were wise because they listened to God. Are you taking time on a regular basis to stop and listen to God? Are you allowing His word to guide your life? Are you going to Him in prayer and seeking His will? Are you watching faithfully to see how He is going to direct you steps and lead you down the right path?
The wise men were open to God’s leading and God led them straight to Jesus. Is God trying to lead you to Jesus too? Has God been speaking to your heart, bringing you back around to Jesus? Have you been too busy to hear Him? Stop. Listen.
The world measures wisdom and inelegance based on IQ, education, or achievement. But true wisdom isn’t about what you know; it’s all about who you know.
The story of the three wise men is such a great illustration. They are a picture of what God expects from us.
These men didn’t allow pride or arrogance or meaningless speculation shape their understanding of the world. Instead, through a humble spirit they sought to discover what God had to say to them. They studied God’s word and allowed Him to answer their big questions about life.
Then, after studying the scriptures, they put their faith in God. They trusted His promises. They took steps of faith to pursue the savior.
They came to Jesus with the desire to bow down before Him. They came wanting to worship Him. They came to Jesus with gifts and praise. They found the messiah that they had been searching for for hundreds of years.
And ultimately they allowed God to guide their steps. They didn’t try and do things their own way, they allowed God to lead them.
That is exactly what God wants from us. He wants us to search for Him with a spirit of humility and openness. He wants to speak to us through His word. He wants us to read and understand the scriptures.
God wants us to come to the place where we too bow down before Jesus. Where we are willing to give Him our gifts, our praise, and our whole lives.
And God wants to direct our steps. He wants to be the leader of our lives. He wants to be in charge. He wants to have a place of prominence in everything we do. He doesn’t just want to be another thing that we juggle in our busy lives. He wants to lead us at work, at home, at school, and everywhere in between.
In his commentary on this passage, Warren Weirsbe says…
“The magi were seeking the King; Herod was opposing the King; and the Jewish priests were ignoring the King.”
Where are you this Christmas? Are you seeking him, ignoring Him, opposing Him? The wise men were wise because they humbly sought the savior. Let us be wise too. Let’s make sure this Christmas season that we take the time to come and worship Jesus Christ.
