The 3 Wise Men Series

The 3 Wise Men

Welcome Campuses!

It’s beginning to feel like Christmas around here! Busy working on Christmas services OVER 25,000 people will come though! GET HERE EARLY. Arts team iCampus exclusive! Gift cards from The Andersons for those in need, CAMPUS PASTOR will tell you all about. Night wrapped in RED! It’s starting to look and feel like Christmas! I LOVE IT! Who’s with me! …aaand the day after Christmas I can’t pack it all up quick enough!

Hopefully my opening video got you thinking, reminiscing. As I took a poll online and with my friends this week we’ve pretty much boiled down the WONDER of Christmas. Why did it feel so magical when we were younger? One word, unanimously: GIFTS!

Waking up Christmas morning and running to the tree, shaking things gifts, holding flashlights up to gifts from the other side like your own personal x-ray machine, ‘accidentally’ tearing a gift open and then re-taping it before mom and dad woke up.

GIFTS made it magical! It seems superficial but it’s ok, we were kids! Christmas is all about gifts from a Biblical perspective, not Xboxes and iPads but the whole idea of getting something special that you did nothing to earn is written all over Christmas!

God even gave His Son, Jesus gifts at Christmas. Have you ever thought of that? It took a little while for Him to get them there but when they arrived, Mary and Joseph knew these gifts were special!

We three Kings of Orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar! Great song but there is little to NO evidence in the Bible that these guys were kings, we should stick with ‘Wise Men’ like the KJV indicates. Lets talk about their story, I bet there’s a lot you might not know, the fact that our God and GIFTS go hand in hand!

First of all it’s a myth that there were for sure 3 wise men. There could have been 20, there could have been 2. There were at least 2…and they carried 3 precious GIFTS, fit for a KING. You know, when you bring a KING a gift, you know it’s going to be the BEST gift you can offer!

Matthew is the only biblical author that mentions this situation.

MATTHEW 2:1-12 READ

Friends there’s a LOT going on here! You’ve got OT prophecies, angelic beings leading people, an attempt to KILL the Son of God, God directly helping someone avoid death by tipping them off!.....I mean, the story of the wise men just may be a bigger deal than you’ve ever thought!

Let’s break it down! (I’ll give the abbreviated break down)

WHO WERE THEY?

We, in the west have come to know them as Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Yes they actually have names! I know, this is so exciting! Give me a robe and a fireplace and we’re in business!

Long story REALY short there as I said before there isn’t any evidence they were actually kings but more likely they were KING MAKERS. The top men of counsil for a King.

It’s highly likely that they came from The Babylonian Empire as they would have had plenty of access to Daniels teachings from the OT, so they certainly would have known all of the prophecies about this Savior. Daniel foretold all of that. They would have been waiting, watching around this time for signs and wonders of His coming!

Well they got it didn’t they! BAM…a “Star” they could follow! Not just any star, no this was obviously different to them and they knew it when they saw it! They were astronomers, NOT ASTROLOGERS and they knew the night sky well. THIS star was something special.

While we’ll never know for sure how God chose to guide these men towards his precious Son…it’s interesting how V2 in Matthew 2 the wise men say “we saw HIS STAR when it arose”…there are times, especially when speaking of ANGELS that the word star is used, JOB 38:7 and Rev 12:4&7…it’s quite possible an angel led the way! God certainly wanted to make this special!

Either way they end up in Jerusalem, after all, that’s where you would go to find a King, right? Except Jesus wasn’t there! These wise men must have been something special because Herod happily met with them. The problem is that Herod also didn’t like these “King Makers” telling him they’re here to see the King…and it’s NOT Herod. Herod figures out these men are headed to this Kings birthplace, Bethlehem and tells them they are to find Jesus and report back to Herod, so he can “come worship Him too”.

Obviously Herod’s desire was to kill Jesus and stop all this talk of another King. He was so intent on it that God had to intervene and tell the wise men in a dream to go a different route home to survive! So with the Star once again guiding them, they head out to find this King, to present him with GIFTS.