Star, Scripture And Son Of God Series

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.