Theme: Following God’s Will – Advent Style
Title: Star, Scripture and Son of God
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
I hope you are enjoying God’s Life Plan for your life – in other words I hope you are enjoy following the Lord this morning.
Sometimes following the Lord can involve some rather unusual things:
+For Moses it was hitting a rock so water would come out (Exodus 17)
+For Elisha it was bringing an axe head to the top of the water. (2 Kings 6)
+For Elijah it was dining on the food that the ravens brought him. (1 Kings 17)
+For the Blind Man, who Jesus had made mud out of dirt and spit it and put on his eyes it was to go and wash his eyes. (John 9)
Now, I am not asking anyone this morning to go out and get a rock hitting stick, an extra axe head or even buying some ravens. But if you do have some mud in your eyes made from spit and dirt then by all means go as quickly as you can and wash it off.
The Bible is full of interesting stories – over the last few weeks we have looked at some of them:
+Zacharias - Go home and tell your wife (although you must use some type of sign language or else write it down) that you guys need to be ready to have a baby. She of course will tell you that she has a headache, and you are crazy but then you tell her it’s from God and then don’t be surprised if she still laughs and quickly goes to the other room.
+Mary, I know that you are engaged but I want to interrupt your life and give you a baby, but it will not be any baby – it will be a son conceived by the Holy Spirit that brought creation into existence. Don’t worry, I will talk to Joseph.
+Joseph, I know you are engaged and are about to hear some rather distressing news. Yes, Mary is pregnant. But she was not unfaithful. Rather, above all women I have chosen Mary to have Immanuel – God in Flesh.
And now we get to our fourth story – the one involving a group of men from a far country that we call Wise Men or Magi.
All they have to do is to follow a star.
Yep, just look up to the sky, find the right one and follow it if you want to find the newborn King of the Jews.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t follow an individual star – I just don’t have a reference point. So, let’s get some perspective on all this. Let’s see how they learned to follow God’s Will:
I. They followed what they knew
These magi, these wise men – they followed what they knew, and they believed that they knew the stars in the sky.
They knew the different constellations. They knew what it meant for certain stars to line up or to not to line up.
They believed that certain nations had certain stars that would not only tell their story but would indicate their future.
How many Wise Men were there?
Where did they live before they traveled to Bethlehem?
I don’t really know. It could have been three Wise Men or it could have been 20 or more.
Where did they live? In the east. What east? Just east.
Now, if you want to know all those things or at least what some will tell you of all those things there are a few good books and plenty of websites that will share all kind of that “knowledge”.
But just knowing those things will be just that. Some knowledge.
I want us to concentrate this morning on how they moved with God.
I want us to see how they did their best to follow God’s will at this time in their lives.
And they started off with where they were, which is the only place any of us can start.
You start where you are with God.
Of course, you don’t stay there. But you begin where you are. With the knowledge that you have, with your walk wherever that may be and you begin.
For them it was in the stars.
And that was enough.
God used the stars or rather a star to get them moving.
They didn’t know everything, but they knew enough to start a journey towards the land of Israel.
All of that should bring us some great comfort.
We don’t always have to know everything before we take our first steps.
In fact, if you walk with God you must walk by sight, sound and at times no sight or sound. You just walk in faith.
Abraham takes Isaac up the mountain on God’s instructions. (Genesis 22) He doesn’t know how it will all play out but Abraham just takes it one step at a time.
Each step is a part of a progressive walk of obedience. Each step brings new insight, and new insight leads you to taking more steps.
That’s how it was with these Wise Men.
Grab some gear, prepare a few camels, donkeys and some protective servants and let’s go to Israel.
What will we find?
Where exactly will we go?
The star will lead.
And along the way we will discover a clearer path.
So, let’s get started.
II. They Magi then went from the Star to the Scriptures; the Word of God
These Magi knew enough to go to Jerusalem.
After all, if you are looking for the birth of a king, then the best place to go is to the city where the present king lives. And in this case that was Jerusalem.
When they got there, they didn’t find a newborn baby.
King Herod was nearly 70 years old and his sons were already grown.
So, who was this newborn baby that was supposed to be born?
And did they not use the word – Messiah?
With Herod’s pedigree and his son’s pedigrees there was no way that any of their family could be the Messiah.1
And so, King Herod set about getting his own wise men and scribes together to see if these Magi were on a wild goose chase or if in fact a new king; the Messiah had finally been born.
It’s here that we see the Wise Men going from the Star to the Scriptures.
That’s usually what happens the longer we walk with the LORD.
We go from the natural to the supernatural. We go from seeing God in nature to seeing God in His Word.
And in His Word, they read the words of Micah 5:2 –
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler of Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (NIV)
And that was enough. They had received some further revelation and were now ready to set about going to the city of Bethlehem.
These Magi had to be overjoyed. They had been traveling for a long time and now to discover that only 7 miles away was the place where they would find this newborn king.
There is a little interesting side note here though.
Why didn’t anyone else follow them?
Why didn’t the scribes that gave them the verse and told them where to go and find the newborn king go with them?
Had there been others through the years been looking for the same Messiah – newborn king that they didn’t think it was the right time?
Did they just not care?
Were they concerned about King Herod being involved?
After all, the word on the street was you didn’t mess with King Herod or his kingdom. More than one person had found themselves either in prison or in the graveyard after crossing this man. And it didn’t take much to cross King Herod.
I don’t know why no one followed the Magi but I do think it is interesting that no one followed either the news about the star or the Scripture.
It is the same today.
All around us are clues to the majesty and greatness of the Lord God Almighty.
It is not the wise that are pushing the idea that all of this is a part of some cosmic mistake or that there is no plan.
Just look around you. Look at the sun and the moon and the stars. Walk up a mountain or down through a valley. Sit for a while on the beach or by a stream of water.
Hear the birds, smell the flowers, feel the grass under your feet, watch the cattle or bison or just go to a zoo and look at all the wonderful animals and follow that up by going to an aquarium and be totally amazed.
Walk around to see all the beautiful works of art, the majesty of the buildings that mankind has made and then ask if we got all this knowledge and skill just by accident.
Watch a group of children play and be amazed at their joy. You can do the same with a group of teens or college-aged adults.
Sit and watch a couple as they walk together holding hands and looking deep into each other’s eyes.
Do the same with an elderly couple and see how love has grown deeper as the hair has grown gray and the lines on their faces have a lifetime of history in them.
All around us if we just listen, we will hear the voice of God everywhere. All the things on this beautiful earth of ours sing of His majesty and grace if we will just have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
And on top of that we have His Book – His Book of Love given to us that shares who He is and how He has walked with us from the beginning of time.
From Star to Scripture to finally we see the Magi
III. Kneeling in Worship to the Newborn King – the Messiah
I don’t know how they found him – again its that star thing again but for the life of me I just can’t find the star above my house let alone the star above anyone else’s house.
Maybe it was an angel shinning so bright that it looked like a star that moved over the home where Mary and Joseph and little Jesus was staying.
Maybe since it was a town of under 1,000 at the time it was easy to ask – Where is the couple that had a baby recently.
I mean in a town of 1,000, how many babies could have been born in the last year or two? On top of that it had to be a male child and one whose parents were from the Tribe of Judah.
So, I think we have a combination of somethings – Divine wisdom, wisdom from Scripture and some common sense.
And those are three great things to have – Some divine wisdom, Scriptural wisdom and some plain old common sense.
There is a beautiful picture that happens in this scene when they go up to knock on the door, and it is opened by Joseph and Mary.
To say that they were surprised had to be the understatement of the day.
Angel visits, dreams and shepherds already had happened to this young couple in just their first year together as husband and wife.
And now, some camels and some Wise Men.
That had to make quite the show in a little town like Bethlehem.
I know because I grew up in a town of similar size.
And when a baby was born everyone in town knew it.
And if some shepherds showed up in town while it may have not made a lot of noise because they came at night it would have still be news around town.
But seeing a bunch of men with their servants riding in on camels and donkeys. Well, that would have brought a great many people out of their homes and probably a crowd following them down the street.
I am sure they had to dismiss the crowd before they could quietly go into the house and spend some time with Mary, Joseph and the baby.
“Where did they come from?”
“Why are they here to see Mary and Joseph?”
“I thought Joseph was just a carpenter.”
“What do those men want?”
“I wonder if King Herod knows about all of this?”
“I don’t know, we will have to wait until they leave and then Mary and Joseph will tell us if they want us to know”.
We know what they wanted and why they were there in that house at that time.
The came to worship, to give honor and to present gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh.
They came to see the baby and to look at his face and to feel the peace that one has when a long journey has ended in success.
They had wondered if they would make it.
Could they find the child.
What would he look like and what kind of parents would he have.
I doubt seriously they thought their journey would lead them to a small town like Bethlehem and even more to a house of a simple carpenter.
But then again, they were Wise Men.
If you can find your way through the stars and later through the Scriptures, then perhaps you know in your heart you are at the right place and time.
Their journey was not finished.
From star to scripture to the Son of God and then experience a dream to go back another way – it all was being led by the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
King Herod would be looking for them. They would be wanted men.
But God in a dream showed them how to outfox Herod and make it back home.
The Magi Story is a fun story.
It is one that shows how God can use all kinds of different things to guide us and to lead us – A Star, A Bible passage, A Little Town, The Simple House of a Carpenter, A Child and A Dream.
It’s part of the wonder of walking with the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
Some are called to hit rock.
Some are called to bring an axe head to the top of the water.
Some are called to follow a Star.
Some are called to share the Good News of a Scripture passage.
Some are called to come out of the fields and see the wonder of God’s Son being Born into our world.
Some are called to worship the child of a simple couple living in Bethlehem at the time waiting to go back to their hometown of Nazareth.
Some are called to do great things while others are called to do what we would call simple things.
But all of us are called to follow the paths, the directions, the signs and wonders and the counsel of God’s Holy Spirit as He leads us day by day.
It’s a comforting picture this picture of the Wise Men kneeling before Jesus.
It’s a picture of seeing how God took some men from the east to a young couple that in just a few days would need that gold and other gifts to escape to Egypt.
It’s a picture of God working in His world in so many different levels with so many different people – The Magi, the scribes, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph and others.
As we think about this story – let it challenge you and help you to see that you too are experiencing a journey with the LORD through the power and presence of His Holy Spirit.
Perhaps there is no mud and spit waiting for you – but there is the ability to learn and share Jesus with others.
Perhaps you will not be called to follow a star but all of us are encouraged to kneel before the Savior and to give Him the greatest gift of all – more valuable than gold, frankincense or myrrh – ourselves.
As we go from Christmas to begin a New Year – let’s challenge ourselves to follow God’s leading however and wherever God leads us. It will take all that we are and have but in the end to be able to see the face of Jesus and to be in His Presence - could we ask for anything more?
And let’s start that challenge this morning by sharing Holy Communion.
And from the book of Micah 5:2 they discovered that a king’s son was to be born in Bethlehem much like King David had been born in Bethlehem.
1 Herod Antipas and Archelaus's mother was Malthace, a Samaritan woman. Herod Philip's mother was Mariamne II, who was the daughter of Simon Boethus, the High Priest.
