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Magi Come to Worship King Jesus
Magi Come to Worship King Jesus Matthew 2:1-12 Key Verse: 2:1b-2 “Magi[a]from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Last week we thought about the obedience of Joseph and Mary. Both Joseph and Mary put aside their own thinking and plans in order to obey the will of God. When they submitted their lives to obedience to God, God could work and fulfill promise to bring the Messiah into the world who would save His people from their sins. We also thought about the work of the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who work together as one to bring about the salvation of everyone who believes. In this week's passage we have the story of Magi from somewhere in the east who came Judea with one simple purpose in mind. That purpose was to worship the baby Jesus who they believed was the true king of the Jews. We don’t know who these Magi were and we don’t even know how many of them there were, but what we do know is that they came to worship Jesus. They knew who Jesus was and they put their lives on hold to simply go and worship him. We also have the story of King Herod. Herod was a king but he was not a truth seeker like the Magi. Herod did not seek the truth in order to worship God, rather, as an instrument of Satan, he sought the truth only to snuff out God’s plan for world salvation. The story of King Herod also gives us a stark contrast between worldly kings and the one true King of Kings. Finally, we go back to the story of Joseph and Mary. Two obedient servants who God used to fulfill His promise of world salvation. Joseph seems like a very minor player in the story of Jesus, but he was absolutely essential in God’s plan. Through his humble obedience, Jesus was protected and scriptures were fulfilled. May God bless our study of this passage and open our hearts so that we can truly worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. First, the visit of the Magi (1-12). Look at verse 1. “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem…” Up to this point in Matthew’s gospel there has been no mention of locations. Matthew simply doesn’t tell us where Joseph had his dream and decided to obey God and take Mary home as his wife. Based on Luke’s Gospel we can be fairly certain that this all took place in the Galilean town of Nazareth. If we look closely at verse one, we notice that Matthew makes specific mention of the fact that Jesus was born in town of Bethlehem. Matthew doesn’t give us any indication of how this came to be, but he does make it very clear that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Why did Matthew do this? Bethlehem was a small, but very important town in Israel located not too far from Jerusalem. Bethlehem was the hometown of King David who was a direct ancestor of Jesus. In fact, David was the ancestor that God had promised to send the Messiah through. We have also noted that one of Matthew’s purposes in writing this gospel account was to show that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah and King that God had promised to send throughout the Old Testament. It was very important that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because, as we in a little bit, this is where God had promised that the Messiah would be born. The fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem is just one more fact showing that Jesus is promised Messiah. Verse one mentions two other people or groups of people. The first is a worldly King named Herod. Herod is a terrible man who stands in stark contrast to both Jesus and the Magi. The Magi are a rather mysterious group of people that we don’t know much about. We don’t even know where they came from or how many of them there were. All we know about them is that they came to find and worship “the one who has been born king of the Jews.” Look at verse 2. “and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’” As I said, we know very little about these people other than they came from the east and Matthew calls them Magi. I asked myself, what is a Magi? Tradition has it that they were some type of wise men or even kings some distant eastern land, but I was wondering if there was a more definite definition. I looked up the word in my Bible Dictionary and found the following definition: “Originally a religious caste among the Persians. Their devotion to astrology, divination, and the interpretation of dreams led to an extension in the meaning of the word, and by the first century B.C. the terms ‘magi’ and ‘ Chaldean’ were applied generally to fortune tellers and the exponents of esoteric religious cults throughout the Mediterranean world.” From a Biblical point of view this definition is not very good. In fact, if they had been Jews they should have been stoned to death according to Jewish law. However, as this story unfolds they turn out to be the heroes or the good guys. Why? It was because they were truth seekers. They were seeking out God’s promised Messiah for a very simple reason – to worship Him. We don’t know how they came about the knowledge that God had promised to send a Messiah or that the birth of this Messiah would be marked by a star in the sky, but they had this knowledge and when they saw the star, they knew they had to act. Let’s think a moment about what they did. Simply speaking, they stopped what they were doing, loaded up the best gifts they had to offer, left their friends and families and went off in search of a baby in a far distant land. We don’t know how far their travel was, but if you look over at verse 16, when Herod realized that the Magi weren’t coming back and he acted, he killed all the boys two years old and younger. This would indicate that the Magi traveled for a long way just to worship this baby. They exposed themselves to all kinds of dangers and hard toils just to worship Jesus. As I thought about this I asked myself, How far am I willing to go to worship Jesus? What am I willing to give up in order to worship Jesus? What am I willing to offer Jesus – what gifts do I bring him? These pagan Magi were ready and willing to give up everything just to worship the baby Jesus. We need to learn this attitude in our worship of Jesus. Let’s look at verses 3 and 4. “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 Messiah was to be born.” Here we see King Herod’s reaction to this wonderful news. Instead of being overjoyed as the Magi were when they saw the star, Herod was disturb and so were all the people in Jerusalem. Herod was disturbed probably because Jesus could be a threat to his own kingship, but why were the people of Jerusalem disturbed along with him? It was probably because they weren’t ready for this promised Messiah. Their nation was in a mess at that time. They were suffering under Roman rule and their spiritual life was probably not what it should have been. They simply weren’t ready to accept this new king. Maybe they feared that this king would bring the wrath of the Romans on them. Let’s think about the chief priests and teachers of the law. They knew where the messiah was born and they also knew that these Magi were seeking the Messiah because they had seen his star rise, yet they didn’t make a pilgrimage to worship their king. Instead they told Herod what he wanted to know, probably know what Herod was going to do with this information. These were the Jewish religious leaders and they apparently had no intention of following these Magi to worship their Messiah – the Messiah they claimed they were waiting for. There was something deeper going on here. A spiritual battle between the good and evil was in progress. God was fulfilling his promise of sending a Messiah that would crush the head of Sata. Of course Satan didn’t like this and he wanted to stop it so he raised up Herod to be his instrument. Let’s look at what Herod did. Herod called in the chief priest and the teachers of the law and had a quick Bible Study to find out where the Messiah was to be born. Unlike the pagan Magi, Herod was not a truth seeker, he was an instrument of Satan. Herod only wanted to know the truth so that he could snuff out the work of God. Herod tried to use a lie to trick the Magi – Satan is the father of lies. Herod had no intention of worshiping Jesus, he wanted to kill him. Yet Satan’s plan to stop the work of God failed because the Holy Spirit was there to intervene. After the Magi worshipped Jesus the Holy Spirit warned them in a dream not to go back and tell Herod what they had found. Instead they returned to their home by another route. This bought the baby Jesus some extra time. The Holy Spirit sent an angel to Joseph in a dream to tell him to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt and so avoid the slaughter that Herod was planning. In this way, this spiritual battle between good and evil was won. Romans 8:31b says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” If God is on s to be our side we will always win the victory. The question is are we always standing on God’s side? Are we like the truth seeking Magi who sought the truth just so they could worship God, or are we like Herod who sought the truth just so that he could make use of it for his own benefit? May God help us to be truth seekers like the Magi so that we can win the victory in this generation. Look at verse 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 shepherd my people Israel.” This is a prophecy from the prophet Micah and Matthew uses it as one more piece of evidence that Jesus is the promised Messiah. However, I want to look at the last eight words of this prophecy in particular. They say, “a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” Both Herod and Jesus are kings, that is they are rulers, but they couldn’t be more different from each other. The prophecy says that Jesus will be a ruler who will shepherd God’s people. The job of a shepherd is to protect and take care of sheep. When we think of worldly rulers we don’t often think of shepherds. Most worldly rulers are only concerned with getting power and keeping it. They generally aren’t concerned with the individual people that they rule. Herod is an extreme example of a bad worldly ruler and he stands in absolute contrast to Jesus. As I said before, Herod was an instrument of Satan that Satan tried to use to stop the work of God. Jesus on the other hand is God and he is the fulfillment of God’s promise which can never fail. Jesus takes care of God’s flock. He guides us and feeds us and corrects us when we go off track. Herod on the other hand cares nothing for his subjects. In fact, he was even so ruthless that he slaughtered all the innocent boys who were two years old and under in an entire town. You may think that Herod is an extreme example, but just take a look down through history. Herod is not even close to the worst ruler throughout history, but he is an example of what can happen if a ruler, or anyone, chooses not to stand on the side of truth. If we are not for God’s truth we are against it and we may find ourselves one day committing horrible acts in order to resist God’s truth. Finally, when the Magi got to Bethlehem and they saw the star stop over the place where Jesus was, they were overjoyed. They had found their true hearts’ desire. They had found what they were seeking in life and now they could worship. Human beings need to worship something. If we don’t worship Jesus we will inevitably worship something else. We might worship, money or power, a woman or a man, a video game or alcohol and drugs. Whatever it is, we will worship something. These Magi sought the truth and when they found it they were overjoyed and they simply worshipped. Let’s look at the gifts the Magi brought to Jesus. They simply brought three things, but these three things represent three fundamental truths about Jesus. First they brought him gold which is a gift for a king. Remember, these Magi knew that Jesus was the true King of the Jews and their first gift signified that. Their second gift was frankincense which is used in incenses. It is a gift appropriate for a priest and Jesus is also our high priest. The last gift they brought was myrrh. Myrrh was plant resin that was used in medicine and cosmetics, but it was also listed as one of the items Nicodemus brought to prepare Jesus body for burial (John 19:39). Perhaps these Magi had the foresight to see that this king was going to have to die in order to complete His mission on earth. These Magi could bring appropriate gifts because they had sought out the truth and with the help of the Holy Spirit they had found it. We need to be truth seekers like these Magi. If we are, the Holy Spirit will enable us to always be prepared with the right stuff to worship God in season and out of season. Second, Joseph a precious and important servant of God (13-23). Matthew ends his account of the early years of Jesus with a story of how Joseph was used to win the victory over Satan. Once the Magi had left and they had outwitted Herod and returned to their country by another route, Jesus was still in danger. Jesus had to get out of Bethlehem because Satan wasn’t going to stop until he had made every effort to kill Jesus and thus stop God from fulfilling His world salvation plan. God sent an angel to Joseph who appeared to him in a dream. What was Joseph and Mary’s situation at this time. The Bible tells us that they were living in a house in Bethlehem (Matt 2:11). This was about two years after Jesus birth and apparently they had settled down to live in Bethlehem. Joseph had probably found good steady work there and they had probably made some friends there. Bethlehem had become their home. What did the angle say to Joseph in that dream? The angel told him to get up and take Mary and the Baby and go to Egypt. What? How could Joseph do that? Traveling to Egypt would not be easy especially with a small child. There would be many dangers along the way and they knew no one in Egypt. They had no place to stay. They probably couldn’t speak the language so how was Joseph supposed to work and support the family. This seemed like an impossible request that this angel was making. But let’s look at Joseph’s response. Look at verse 14. “So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt.” Joseph’s response is absolutely amazing. There was no questioning of the order and there was no delay. Joseph got up in the middle of the night and obeyed God. God used Joseph’s obedience to save promised Messiah from Satan’s fury. Joseph may not seem like a prominent or important figure in God’s work, but he was absolutely essential. How obedient are we? Are we willing to give everything up at a moments notice and obey God wholeheartedly? Could you move to China tonight if God asked you to? Could you leave your work, family and friends and go to a country where you had no place to stay, no job and can’t even speak the language? Well, this is the kind of obedience Joseph had and it the kind of obedience we also must have if we want to be used by God in His world salvation work. May God help us to be truth seekers like the Magi and obedient servants like Joseph. |
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