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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

The Wise Worship Jesus

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September 22, 2024
Matthew 2:1-12
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

The Birth of Christ (Advent)

The Person of Christ

Worship

Transcript

0:15Well, good morning. It's good to be together as we now look at God's word. What a, a wonderful baptism testimony that was. And the part that gets me so, uh, excited is just Barb and Tim and all the people just being faithful and wherever they're at and, and ministering to John. And so it's really a, a joy to be together as we now look at God's word. Would you join me as we pray? Father in heaven, we're asking that you would speak through your word. Would you satisfy us with your steadfast love this morning so that we would rejoice and be glad all of our days blow by the power of your spirit and give us eyes to see.

1:02We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I have an election day prediction. No, I'm not gonna tell you who wins. It's not that kind of church. Uh, on November 5th, the people of the United States will vote for a new president and whoever gets elected, some people are gonna be really, really happy. And some people are gonna be really, really sad that that's my, uh, prediction here.

1:35We've kind of seen that pattern, uh, year in, year out or every four years, if you will. Uh, people are gonna gather and they're gonna post on social media. They're gonna have their parades. They're gonna just be so relieved that their candidate was voted in. And then there's gonna be the other people who are saying, now it's time to see, you know, how much does it take to get a, uh, a visa to live in Canada, right? I'm gonna leave the United States and go live somewhere else. There might be a lot of anxiety, a lot of, uh, fear for the next four years, maybe even protests. And then either side I'll say, you know, maybe the election was stolen and voter fraud and all of those sorts of things.

2:15Whenever you get a new president, a new leader, you elicit a wide range of responses. It's very polarizing. And so how one responds to a new ruler, a new president, a new leader, reveals what you think about them. Some rejoice other feel sorrow. And so in our passage this morning, we see that 2000 years ago, God broke into our world as Jesus the king. And his appearance, his entrance into the world created a whole host of responses. So our text kinda follows the visit of these wise men from the east as they come to worship King Jesus and his presence creates a crisis for King Herod. He, he threatens his rule and his reign.

3:10And so the question is, how will they respond to the inbreaking of this new king? And so what our passage does this morning is it warns us how not to respond. And it models for us how we are to respond. And, and our main point this morning is that the wise, the truly wise, those with spiritual eyes to see the wise will worship king Jesus because he is the true king. The wise will worship Jesus because he is the true king. Our passage will show us that Jesus is fully deserving of all of our adoration and affection, and even our allegiance, that all of creation reveals that Jesus is the true king, not just of the Jews, but of the world.

4:02And what Matthew does is he writes to show how many people missed it. They didn't have eyes to see that their eyesight was fine, but they didn't have heart eyes. They didn't have spiritual eyes that could behold the beauty and the wonder of who Jesus is. And so the main question for us this morning is, how will we respond to King Jesus? What's kind of the instinct of your heart? How will you respond to King Jesus when he wants to sit on the throne of your life? And he says, I, I want every aspect of your life to come under my submission. So our text unfolds for us in about three parts. The search for the king, the prophecy about the king, and then the worship of the king.

4:56So the search, the prophecy, and then the worship of the king. So keep your bible open and we'll kind of walk through the text to see how we should respond to King Jesus. Verse one, look with me there. It says, 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 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. So what he does, he begins and he specifies Bethlehem of Judea to distinguish it from Bethlehem of Zein, uh, two cities with the same name here.

5:38And he, he wants to make sure that we see it's Bethlehem of Judea because this is the birthplace of the Davidic king. Now, the main question for us is who are these wise men from the east? They're referred to as magi. We often use that word. It's the Latin transliteration of the Greek word mago, which just means wise men. And despite the popularity of the song, we three kings, there are not necessarily three. We don't know how many there were, and they're not necessarily kings. But as we'll see that there's maybe good scriptural grounds to at least speculate that. But these wise men are probably from a priestly cast of magicians or royal court officials from Persia or Babylon.

6:22They were experts in divination and astrology. And so there, there's some speculation that perhaps these wise men are distant descendants of those magicians that were present in Daniel's day. Let me just kind of share this little speculation 'cause it is very interesting, even though it is just speculation. So when Daniel back in, uh, the Old Testament, there he is, uh, an advisor to King Nebuchadnezzar. And King Nebuchadnezzar has this dream, and what does he do? He calls all the wise men, the enchanters, the magicians, and the astrologers to come together. And he says, I want you to tell me my dream and then interpret it for me.

7:00And, and they couldn't do it. And so they called Daniel, and Daniel goes ahead and interprets the dream. And then it says in Daniel 2 48, Daniel was made ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. And so the idea here is that Daniel's influence continued to spread into the Persian empire, into the Babylonian empire, so that these wise men of the East are distant descendants of Eastern astrology and magicians. But then they also had some kinda messianic expectations because Daniel taught them how to understand that. It's an interesting idea that it's mainly speculation.

7:37There's no explicit evidence for this theory. But what we do know is that these men are from the east, they could read the stars astrology, and they come seeking the king of the Jews. They're probably high ranking officials. They come with expensive gifts and they come looking for this king. Now look in verse three, his, their presence creates this crisis for Herod. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. It is good to know a little bit about Herod. Herod had ruled for about 30 years at this point. He would die a few years after Jesus' birth. And he was known for his giftedness in rhetoric and hand-to-hand combat and politics.

8:21But he was growing increasingly paranoid, uh, always thinking someone else was going to try to kill him or take his throne. And he actually executed his wife and three of his sons because of that paranoia. So he's threatened and his threat, this threat demands, uh, response. The wise men, it says have seen his star. We see that in verse two. So this super supernatural phenomenon, we we kind of speculate maybe it was a supernova or a comet or kind of the perfect alignment of Saturn and Jupiter and various people have kind of looked at that. But what we do know is that God's sovereign hand is orchestrating all of these things so that we would see that this is his son, this is the Davidic king.

9:15Everything in this text is pointing to something else so that everyone would see that this king is here and it's Jesus God's not just putting out a little welcome sign for Jesus. You know, sometimes when we have a baby, you know, back in the day they used to put a sign in the front yard, you know, it's a boy or you know, welcome home Oliver or or whatever it may be. And, and in a sense, God is welcoming his own son, but what he's doing is he's orchestrating all the events of the entire universe to point to this one singular reality. He, he orchestrates the stars that burn hundreds of light years away so that they would show that my son, the Messiah, the Davidic king has come.

10:06But not only is God orchestrating these things, these stars actually fulfill Messianic expectations. This was revealed and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. One of those passages is numbers 24 17. You can turn there if you want. I'll read it for you. But it's numbers 24 verse 17. And I'll just give you a little bit of context. This is, uh, about a prophet named Baam, and he's been hired by the king of Moab, whose name is Baek, to go and curse the Israelites. And so he says, I want you to come and I want you to go curse those Israelites. And Baam says, I, I can't do anything but speak exactly what God tells me to speak.

10:46I I I'm a prophet of God and so I can only say what God allows me to say. And so he, every time he brings 'em, he says, now curse the Israelites. And he says really good stuff about them, right? He doesn't curse them. And so he brings them up on this mountain and, and it says that the spirit of the Lord came upon balam and then he speaks this oracle, and that's where numbers 24 17 comes in, hear the word of the Lord. It says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. So he's speaking about someone who's coming but not close. A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.

11:22It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of chef. So he's foreshadowing. He's speaking of this one that's going to rise up from Israel, signified by a star and a scepter. A scepter would, would point to a king or a ruler. The star now fulfills what we see in this birth account by the visit of these wise men. Now, Herod is disturbed and troubled, and it says all of Jerusalem is as well. It means these, the visit from these visitors and their mission has kind of spread far and wide and the people are afraid of what Herod might do. And as we'll see next week, Herod indeed does crazy things including murdering all the male children in Bethlehem.

12:15Herod calls together the chief priests and the scribes, and he wants to find out where this child is. And so he calls together the captain of the guard, those in charge of the finances. This would've been the Sadducees, and then the Pharisees often would be the scribes, the teachers of Jewish oral tradition. And so they kind of commence this search for the king. Where is he going to be born? So what we see in this first section is the entrance of King Jesus causes great anxiety, anxiety for everybody, for Herod, for the people of Israel, for the chief priests and the scribes. Now this transitions into the prophecy about the king.

12:55If you look at verse five and six there, the chief priest and the scribes tell Herod in Bethlehem of Judea for, so it is written by the prophet. And you can kind of see in your Bible, verse six is set aside. And this is a quote from Micah five two, and it, it's a little different than what you see in Micah five two. And so let me read Micah five, two for you. You can keep your eyes on Matthew two six and you can kind of see the differences. So I'm gonna read Micah five two, you can keep your eyes on Matthew two six, it says, but you o Bethlehem Ritha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth from me who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days.

13:45So you can kind of see all the differences in Matthew two, it talks about a shepherd, it says in Bethlehem, the land of Judah. And here it says Bethlehem Ritha. So what, what gives for all these various differences, it, it's a little bit like how preachers might kind of quote from memory, uh, a Bible passage and kind of paraphrase it. And I think that's a little bit what he's doing here, but he's doing it for a very specific purpose. And so le let's just look at some of those details. First he says, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, instead of saying Bethlehem Ritha, what he wants to do is he wants to clarify the location.

14:21And he wants to again point to this is the Davidic king who's coming that opening genealogy, it was all about the Davidic king. And then Joseph, he's the son of David, he's in that line. And then he wants to say, this king, this child is born in Judah, the birthplace of the Davidic king in the line of Judah. It's a little bit like saying Bloomington, Minnesota as opposed to Bloomington, Indiana. Bethlehem was just five miles south of Jerusalem. So it wasn't far at all. And there was actually a controversy later because people were like, well, Jesus can't be the Messiah because he's from Nazareth without, because they thought that he was born there.

15:05But in fact, he was born in Bethlehem. So he, he's showing that Micah five two is being fulfilled. The second thing he says, he says, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah? So that's the wording in Micah, but in Matthew it says are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. And what he's doing there is he's saying, uh, Bethlehem is this kind of podunk, no, no name town that no one really goes to, but now it's become this really prominent village that's now known because of the Messiah's birth. So it'd be a little bit like driving in Wisconsin and, and you get to this town called Pepin, uh, Wisconsin, and it's the smallest county in the state, and it's not known for anything unless you read, uh, Laura INGO's Wilder and it's her birthplace.

15:56And they have that little shack, right? And they got that little plaque up there in a, in a sense, Bethlehem is this known name, Podunk, little insignificant city. But then it becomes significant so that people might even name their church after this little town or a seminary after this little town that has a terrible meaning. It just means house of bread, right? Like it's, it's not all that special, but then it becomes this prominent name, Matthew's quote, he goes on right at the end and he says, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. What he's doing there, it's not in the original in Micah five two, but what he's doing, he's probably drawing imagery from Micah five, four or second Samuel five two in both of those speak about this ruler that will be a shepherd, the shepherd king.

16:45And what he does is he again, corrects those messianic expectations. The the king that is coming is not the military hero that we're all waiting for, but how is he going to rule? He's going to rule as a shepherd who speaks tenderly to his children. And so har summons the wise men and he sends them to search for the child. In verse eight, he says, so that I may come and worship him. We know that that isn't true. He has no intention to worship. But as the wise men depart in verse nine, we see that the star appears once again. So we get these supernatural manifestations. Why do we do that again? God is trying to show with clear and obvious signs that are in the sky that anyone can just look up and see.

17:39The king has come, I I'm trying to pull out all the stops so that people would see that Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ is here, and Herod the chief priest, the scribes, all the people of Jerusalem are just blind to this glorious reality. The surprise of our passage is that they all have the same information. They were all able to go back, read Micah five, two, and say he's born in Bethlehem, five miles south. It's not that long of a walk. You could do it in one day. And did they go, did the chief priest go? Did the scribes go? Did Herod go? Did any of the people of Jerusalem go? No. All of Israel was completely blind and ignorant.

18:23They did not go to see their king. And who came Gentiles from the east? They were the only ones to pay tribute to king Jesus. Jesus condemned such blindness in his ministry. He says in John eight, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me, that you may have life. The only ones that care are the ones who should have no interest at all. And so this morning, do you have true spiritual sight to behold? Jesus? Do we see Jesus in all of his beauty and glory and majesty? Do we have eyes to see and hearts that respond to the revelation of God?

19:23And our prayer is that you would. So Micah five, two sends the wise men on their journey. And now this climaxes in the worship of the king verses 10 to 12, the wise men depart and it says, when they saw the star, this is verse 10, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. So notice the overabundant joy that comes with seeing this star. Once again, God is pulling out all the stops to show them the Messiah is here and it rests over the place so that they can go and find him. And so it's a reminder and it's a rebuke for us this morning. Whether you've been a Christian for one day or a hundred days or decades, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 decades, do we rejoice with great joy in behold the glory and the wonder of the Messiah this morning?

20:19Do we come to our bibles eager and expectant that God is going to speak to us from his word so that we would see things that would satisfy our souls, enliven our hearts, and show us how beloved we are? This is one of the reasons why we gather week after week after week, and we preach passage after passage. We all know that our hearts are prone to wander, Lord, we feel it prone to leave the God that we love. And we, we wake up some days and we're like, I don't know if I'm a Christian. I, I don't know if I believe all these things that I've heard all my life. And we need to be reminded and our hearts realigned to see the beauty and the wonder of Christ that all of the stars in the sky, the prophecy of the scriptures is pointing to this one singular reality, which is the greatest reality in all the earth.

21:19King Jesus has come, the Messiah has arrived. We need our joy reignited by this truth. Now, verse 11, that worship continues and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and they worshiped him. And just imagine the scene, these however many distinguished men, probably nice gray hair in, in their flowing robes, they prostrate themselves four heads to the ground over this child. Jesus hasn't just been born, it's probably up to two years, uh, but he's uh, he's a baby, he's a toddler. And they worship this child because they see that he truly is the king. They bring gifts, they opened their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and meh.

22:16Uh, many have kind of pointed out the various kind of symbolism that's in each of these gifts. Gold would, uh, emphasize royalty. And so it would highlight Jesus kingship, frankincense, it's this kind of tree sap, if you will. It was used for incense and the worship of God. It was in the chamber of the sanctuary or stored there. And so this would emphasize Jesus priestly work or his deity. Meh was also tree app and it was used as a perfume or fragrant spice. It was used by Nicodemus and Joseph of er matha in to prepare Jesus' body for burial. And so this would emphasize his humanity and sacrifice.

22:57The broader point is that they bring extravagant gifts that are fit for a king. When you come see a brand new baby, what do you bring? Maybe a little pacifier, maybe a little onesie, maybe a baby blanket. We don't bring gold jewelry. We don't bring diamond earrings. Why? Because it's a child. And what this is trying to convey, this is no mere child. I'm orchestrating the stars in the sky to say it. I'm orchestrating all of the Old Testament prophecy to show it. I'm orchestrating kings from the east, excuse me, wise men from the east to come and bring gifts to show everyone this is the king. This is no mere child.

23:45This is the king, not just of the Jews, but of the world. And so do we have eyes to see? Not only do these gifts convey that, but they actually fulfill Old Testament prophecy. So I'm gonna bring you to two passages. You can turn there or you can just listen. Psalm 72, Psalm 72 speaks of a royal son. It's written by Solomon, and it says that this royal son will judge with righteousness. And then it says this, Psalm 72 11, all kings will fall down before him and all nations will serve him. And then in verse 15 it says, and may gold of Sheba be given to him. What is this pointing to? This is pointing to Jesus being the fulfillment of Psalm 72.

24:37He is this royal son in which the nations are going to come and gather before him and bow down and they will bring their gifts of gold. Every single detail in this text is fulfilling the Old Testament to say, look, pay attention. This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Your hearts should rejoice in this moment. This is the Messiah, the Christ and the king. And all of Jerusalem did not come to see. They should know their scriptures. The chief priests, the scribes would know their scriptures better than anyone else. They would have Psalm 72 memorized and they would not come and pay tribute to King Jesus.

25:28Israel missed it. But this was recorded and written so that this morning we wouldn't miss it. Don't miss it. Jesus is worthy of all of our affection and praise and adoration and allegiance. The other passage is Isaiah 60, Isaiah 60, verses one to three. You can turn there, you can just listen. It begins this way. It says, arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. The people dwell in deep darkness. But then Isaiah 60, verse three, the nations shall come to your light and the kings to the brightness of your rising. You, you hear that? So the nations are gonna come to this light, the kings to the brightness of this rising.

26:22And then what does it go on to say verse five and six, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall bring good news and the praises of the Lord. Psalm 73, Isaiah 61 through six, all of it is pointing forward. God has put out his big bright neon sign. Like when I was a kid, they used to have those big giant spotlights that would sit in like someone parking lot of like a car dealership, and they would kind of shine in the sky, you know, kinda the bat signal kind of thing. And, and it would just be like, what's that light out there? And then you would drive up and you're like, oh, it's just a car dealership, right?

27:02Uh, grand opening for some falafel place or whatever that, that, that's what God's doing here. Bright giant sign. Hello, anyone, anyone, anyone out there, anyone seeing this? The Messiah's here. These wise men are the first fruits of the worldwide worship that is going to come to Jesus. They bring their gold and their frankincense, and we are in that pathway of those who see and behold Jesus. And so we're to bring our worship and our treasures to Christ. And it's begun. King Jesus will increasingly receive all the worship of the entire world. It says every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

27:55And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It it, it's happening. It's coming. The worship of the wise men reveal the infinite worth of king Jesus. That's what we're supposed to see in this text. Not just that, oh, some guys in the east, they were able to tell from the stars and they came. It's showing that God has put out stars and prophecy from the Old Testament and fulfillment of scriptures. Everything that he could do pulled out all the stops so that everyone would come and see this is the Messiah. Don't miss it. And everyone missed it. And many still today miss it. And so my singular aim this morning is don't miss it.

28:40Don't miss it. Like the testimony that was shared for many years missed it and now you haven't missed it. Welcome to the family, brother. We're glad you are here. The wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, verse 12. So they return by another pathway home. Uh, I wanna maybe take a little bit of a side to talk about dreams for a moment. So we, we saw last week, Joseph was warned in a dream, he was told in a dream to marry Mary, the wise men, get a dream here and the next passage will get a dream as well. What do we do make of all these dreams? You know, it's like you get a dream, you get a dream, you get a dream.

29:22What's going on? It doesn't mean that we are to seek out dreams. Nowhere in scripture does it call us to pursue dreams. Ecclesiastes five seven says, when dreams increase, there is vanity or meaninglessness. False prophets can have false dreams, Jeremiah 29, 8. And so one of the things I wanna do is beware, warn us, beware of trying to manufacture some sort of ecstatic spiritual experience. There's gurus out there who are saying that, you know, if you just take some psychedelics, if you take some LSD or ayahuasca, uh, you can have these hallucinogenic experiences that can help you understand your scriptures better.

30:02And that is just from the pit of hell. That's from Satan. So do not dabble in those things. The second thing is to be aware of thinking that our dreams are infallible or reading too much into your dreams. Like you get a dream, weird dream and you're like, what was that? That, you know, pink elephant with unicorn horns. It must be telling me something about, you know, my life. Uh, Paul warns of people who in reliance on their dreams defile the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones referring to angels. And so beware of those dreams. People throughout the history of the church have used dreams to justify wickedness.

30:41If your dream tells you to divorce your spouse, that is not from God. And in fact, we know of whole religions that pop up out of dreams. And so-called visions like the Mormons, and they directly contradict and add to scripture they should be cursed. And yet they claim to be from God and they even try to co-op the name of being Christians. So what do we make of dreams? The scriptures describe God's divine intervention often in dreams that he pours out his spirit. In Acts two 17, it says, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. I've had a moment where I've gotten really clear insight from a dream into a particular situation.

31:22We hear that God often will appear to those in, uh, mired and kinda Islam. Muslims will get dreams of God showing up or Jesus showing up and saying, go, go talk to that one missionary so that he can tell you about who I am. So God can indeed work in dreams. But, but the broader lesson that we should see in all of this is this. We serve such a powerful God that he works in the most intimate moments than when you are asleep, when you are unconscious, when you can't control your body or your thoughts, God has insight into those deepest innermost parts and he is working that should give us great comfort.

32:10That should really encourage us this morning. Not only is he at work in the smallest, most intimate moments, when we're asleep and powerless, God can speak to us if he needs to. And he's at work in the biggest, most massive global realities like a star that burns in the sky hundreds of light years away at exactly the right time to communicate exactly the right message that is the scope and the reach of our sovereign God. And even better than that, even better than dreams, even better than the stars that speak, he has revealed himself in his word, that you can come to this book, you can open it up, you can read it.

33:00The Holy Spirit, that indwells every believer can give you insight so that it lands on you afresh and you can hear God speak. This is no less remarkable than dreams or stars. God has spoken decisively through his word. God spoken many times and in many places through the prophets in many other ways. And now he has spoken to us through his son and he's put it in his word. And so treasure God's word this morning, our main point this morning is that the wise will worship Jesus because he is the true king. Everything, the stars, the dreams, the Old Testament prophecies, everything's pointing to this glorious reality.

33:52The king has come, oh, that we would've eyes to see and not just to see, but then to respond rightly. Our texts had two groups of wise men, didn't it? There was the wise men from the east, but then there was Herod chief priests and scribes. They were wise men in many ways as well. They knew the location, but only one group went to see the child. And so today, even in a gathering like this, many might be like those wise men of Herod, they see Jesus as a good teacher, a a moral example. They might even know their bibles and be like, oh yeah, Micah five two born in Bethlehem. But they do not worship Jesus because they fear the loss of respect or income or freedom.

34:41They wanna live their own way. And so how will we respond to the revelation of King Jesus? Our to texts had four responses. Herod is angered by king Jesus. Jerusalem was anxious about Jesus. The scribes and the chief priests are apathetic to Jesus. And the wise men adore Jesus. They come to worship him with gifts. And so I have two primary applications for us this morning. The wise men worship King Jesus. And they come and they give him the rightful praise that he deserves. And that's what I wanna call us to this morning, that we would praise Jesus for who he is. It's kind of like, uh, sometimes maybe the summer you heard about the Northern Lights, right?

35:33There's gonna be some electrostatic activity and they're gonna be visible from the Twin cities. You know, if you drive out to the middle of nowhere where it's dark, you know Hugo or something, right? Uh, the Aurora Borealis, right? And, and if you drive out to this dark place, then you can look into the sky and you can see them and you wanna take pictures. You wanna capture this moment and you wanna tell your friends like, we, we, we gotta see 'em. And in that same way, do we come to a text like this and, and have our hearts stirred, afresh and like we've seen the Lord. He's so good. This is king Jesus.

36:14He's come to take away our sins, to wash us clean, to draw us near He, he is the Lord. And he will shepherd his people with a tender hand and with his voice. And so if you're struggling to worship and to come and behold Jesus as who he is, then I would just encourage you, pray with me, satisfy us in the morning, oh Lord, with your steadfast love, that we might rejoice and be glad all of our days we will become what we worship. And, and so the call is to come and worship Jesus for who he is. The second application this morning is that the wise men come and give treasure as part and parcel of their worship and thanksgiving.

37:03And so we don't often talk a lot about money giving, but we do think, I do think this is a apt to application of this text, that those who call this their church home, that they would give from their financial resources to what, uh, to the church from what God has entrusted to us. The starting point is to give regularly and proportionally and cheerfully. And why do we do this? Because our hearts are where we put our treasure, what what we value is revealed in how we use our resources. And so the call is to give, if this is your church to give proportionally, I, I think 10% is a good benchmark and a starting point.

37:51And to give cheerfully part participating in the life changing ministry of the church. And part of it is, it's not just that we need more money, it's that we want to invite you to partake in the joy of worshiping God with our treasure. Jesus is the king. He, he, he's worthy of all that we have, that we might behold him in all of his majesty and beauty. And one of the ways that we worship is by giving. And I know we don't pass baskets or plates, but it is part and parcel of our worship, of saying, I treasure you this much. And so may we be those who partake in the joy of giving. It is for our joy and for our collective blessing.

38:41So we had two kings, two sets of wise men, four types of responses to Jesus. And we close with one last word. Jesus is the true king. Everything in all of the universe, from the stars to the dust, to the scriptures, to the dreams that one has, everything is pointing to this singular reality. Jesus is here, he is the king. May we receive him and may we pay attention and not miss him. Let's pray. Father, we do ask that Christ would be greatly exalted in our midst this morning as we seek to be those who worship in spirit and in truth who, who give of our treasures. Because we want to display that our treasures are not here on earth where moth and rust destroy, but our treasures are in heaven.

39:42And so help us be those who love you and invest in kingdom work for your glory and for our joy. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 2:1-12

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