Matthew chapter two, we’ll be reading again the first 12 verses, focusing on verses really three to 12 this morning. Before we go to the Lord, hear from the Lord, let’s ask his blessing once more upon the reading, preaching, and hearing of that word. Let’s pray once more. O gracious, almighty God, again we come before you. We confess, we acknowledge the shepherds of old. We’re full of your praises. saying that all that they had heard and seen was echoed by what they had been told. We thank you, Lord, for your word and for laying down from the beginning these patterns and pointers that would culminate in Jesus. And Lord, we pray now. move among us, be with us powerfully, Lord, that we too may hear and experience the wonder and joy of the living Word, Jesus Christ, as we seek to be transformed by the written Word, even now, through your Spirit, Lord. We pray, bless the preaching and the hearing. in the reading of this, your word, and may you receive glory through all things. We ask this all in Christ’s name and all God’s people said, amen.

Matthew chapter 2, verse 1, please give your full attention. This is the word of our God. 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 we have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. And then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

So for the reading of God’s word, may he indeed add his blessing upon it. Well, in Matthew chapter two, verses one and two, we looked at that in the background last week, and we saw a tale of two kings, really, in this text, a tale of two kings, the pretender king, a pretender king, and then the perfect king. Herod, you’ll recall, was born neither a Jew of the kingly line, nor was he born in the right geographic location according to the prophecy. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was all of that, and much more, as we know and as we will see. God’s divine design, right? We looked at the construction of His Word, pointed and pictured and predicted, right? And was pregnant with anticipation and expectation, this One who was to come, the perfect King, Jesus Christ. And the hopes and fears of all the years indeed are met in Him. at His coming, the incarnation, God taking on flesh. And so Matthew chapter two, we saw and we will see this morning and next week, is full of scripture being fulfilled and all of these things being fulfilled. You remember the end of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament can, how does it close? It says, who will go up for us? Who will go up to deliver us, to save us, to lead us on a new exodus? And that’s how the Bible in the Old Testament closes and then silence. until along comes the answer to the question, the genealogy from Matthew to open the New Testament. And the answer, of course, is the genealogy points to and sets out to answer that question. It is Jesus, the perfect and true King. Verses 1 and 2, you’ll recall, once again, 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. Right? In God’s sovereignty, they knew. They knew and they came. And they came asking a question that challenged, right? It took the lid off Herod’s pretense, his lying life. It placed him as the pretender that he was. It revealed him, it challenged him because he was a pretender. And how did Herod, king of the Jews, respond to all of this? This question of the Magi, right? It says, when he heard this, he was troubled in all of Jerusalem with him. And then in verse four, and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. Evidently, Herod didn’t know the answer. The king of the Jews should have known his scripture intimately, should have been well aware of what was going on in the prophecies. He didn’t know, so he brings the chief priests and the scribes to himself to figure it out. He should have known the answer, which is an indication that neither Herod nor the priests and scribes were searching for or waiting for or looking for Messiah. They were not looking for the Christ. The chief priests and the scribes were yes-men, serving their positions, serving their power and their pretend king. And they answer him, nevertheless, in Matthew 2, 5, and 6, the answer is, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, Micah, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, by no means among the least of the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And we look at this and we recall Jesus has the kingly pedigree, right, established in the genealogy. He is born in the city of Judea, of Judah. He is a Jew. This isn’t some obscure prophecy, right, that they tell King Herod. It’s well known. Even in the literature in between the Testaments, we read about this. But King Herod didn’t know it. They probably didn’t also know, they also weren’t aware of, they didn’t know the dual nature of the coming of the Messiah. That for some it would be good news, but very bad news for others. In this reality, this fact also isn’t hidden or new in the prophets. They tell us that the coming of the Messiah, of Christ, will be very bad news for unbelieving kings, like King Herod. Oh, but it will be glorious news. Glorious news for all who look to Christ and trust in Him in faith. That’s the joyous promise. And this warrants the same question that we asked last week, remember. The questions that come to us when we think about this interchange and this conflict and this challenge, do you trust the Messiah who has come and will come again? Do you trust in Him? Have you embraced the promises of God for your own life? Have you trusted the Messiah? And that old question that comes is always relevant. That old question from that old teaching tool, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That’s a challenging question. It’s a glorious question if you have the right answer. What is your only comfort in life and in death? What is it, dear friends? Can you give the answer of that old catechism, question and answer? My only comfort in life and in death is that I belong body and soul to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s at least the first half of the answer. Is that the answer that you can give? My only comfort in life and in death is that I belong body and soul to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, I pray that you can, and I pray that you will embrace that and have that answer for yourself. When we move on and we look in verses seven and eight, we see this, Herod has this secret summons, right? He’s troubled. And after the chief priests and scribes leave, he has the secret summons. He calls a private meeting with the Magi. And he says he met with them secretly and has ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. Verse 8, and he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring word to me that I too may go and worship him. And this is rather curious, of course he’s lying, but it’s curious that the summons is secret, right? Herod sends them out on a covert assignment for himself. He’s troubled and he’s worried and he’s determined to take out this one who was born whom he sees as a threat to his throne because he indeed was a threat to his throne. And we know from the rest of the chapter we’ll look at next week that Herod He’s not going so he can come and worship him. He has no desire to go and worship this child. He only wants to kill this child. He’s trying to be secretive in sending the wise men to find the child for him and then come back and tell him where he is. But the Magi don’t obey Herod, you’ll notice. They don’t listen to his command, and there is a kind of repudiation or disrespect in the treatment that they give to this pretender king, Herod. We don’t know how obvious or how severe or significant this was, but notice what it says in verse 9. It’s simply what it says. And after listening to the king, they went on their way. And very often, In the interchange between royalty and those who aren’t, there is a very regimented protocol, decorum, right? And there’s none of that with this. There’s none of that. It doesn’t tell us how they, that they paid homage to Herod or bowed down to him or gave gifts to King Herod. And some have commented because of this, that they barely treat him like a king at all. And it says that they listened to the king and went on their way. They don’t obey what he told them to do. They don’t leave and come back and tell him information. And then verse nine continues. And behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And so that star that they saw, they see it again. The star had risen to mark the birth of Christ, Messiah. They knew and were waiting for this. And so they went to the West looking for the child, asking about it as they went. They saw some extraordinary stellar activity, to be sure, and then they saw it again. And we’ve seen very often in Scripture, again and again, that God is a condescending God. He condescends, he stoops down for us, stoops down to us for our weakness. He’s a merciful and thoughtful God who knows our weakness and our forgetfulness, and our needs, and our feebleness, and our foolishness. And this being the case, we’ve seen again and again how God in His Word lays down patterns for us, patterns for us. And He lays down pointers and pictures all throughout His Word. And we see again here a connection that’s being made that is not new. This language should remind us of the Exodus. I remember what the Lord did at that time, how he was with his people, remember, in a pillar of fire and cloud. This is very often in scripture how we see the Lord coming with and being and leading his people. Even in the garden you’ll recall. Most of our translations in that one verse say that he walked with them in the cool of the day. Probably not the best translation. What he’s saying there is in the wind of the storm. Right, and there’s a mightiness, a heaviness that’s going on. And so this should remind us of that. It says that the star rose and went before them, like in Exodus, until it came to rest, standing over the place where the child was. Very interesting. And it is all pointing to, right, not the star. The emphasis shouldn’t be the star in stellar activity. As awesome as that may have been. But it’s pointing to the one who was born King of the Jews. The birth of Christ, the second person of the Trinity. God, come in the flesh. Emmanuel, be with us, God with us. That’s the glorious thing. Too often people focus on this star, as amazing as it may have been. But you know, when you go to a monument or a world-renowned place or a great cathedral, you don’t show up and admire the spotlights that are shining on the cathedral. You don’t say, oh, look how bright and how many lumens. No, it’s a thing it’s pointing to. And that’s what this star was. The glorious thing is the birth of Christ, the one who would be born. Everything else supports and points towards and highlights that. And it’s glorious indeed. Glorious indeed, because in his coming, dear Christian, he satisfies both the covenant perfectly in keeping the law, and he satisfied God’s justice by taking the wrath for his people upon himself. And we have to remember, we can never separate, no matter how culture tries to separate and pull us apart, we can never separate baby Jesus, the Christ of Advent, from the Christ of Easter, the resurrection. And by the way, as we’re looking at the text, this likely isn’t in the manger that they come and find baby Jesus. Surely it’s not. Remember the second half of the chapter, Herod seeks to kill all children, in a certain age bracket, under two years. So Christ is probably, at this point, one or two years old. He wasn’t born in the manger and lived there for two years, right? So the magi, the wise men, they listen to Herod, they leave, and then they see the star again. What do they do? Verse 10 says, when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And literally what it says is, they rejoiced with joy exceedingly great. And we have these pagan sorcerers, wise men, searching for the king, rejoicing greatly, exceedingly. There’s a multiplication of adjectives here to bring this out. And these magic, they’re ecstatic. King Herod is troubled, seeking to kill this child. But Herod, but the Magi, are exhilarated, they’re ecstatic to find and worship. And they do, and the promises and prophecies weren’t even theirs. Yet they rejoiced exceedingly, greatly, that they weren’t Jewish. They didn’t have the word for them to look through. It wasn’t for them anyway, but at that point, but all that had been written and prophesied was being fulfilled in their time right before them. And that star is there like the pillar of fire in the wilderness. And it leads them, and it is the presence of the Lord pointing to the presence of the Lord, right? The kingdom is here. How do we know? Because the king is here. The kingdom has come, we know because the king has come. Emmanuel, God with us. And then verse 11, it says, and going into the house, They saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. And then opening the treasure, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. They fell down and worshiped Jesus. They worshiped him. And there’s that command again. that demand, that decision once more for them and for all and for you and I this morning. To believe, to trust, to surrender, to worship Him, King Jesus, Lord and Savior. And what do they do? They open their treasures and they offer Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. You don’t think that this is merely, flatly the decorum of the day, the thing that was done. We’re never to read our Bibles flatly, right, in one dimension, or monodimensionally, right? There is depth and layers and richness and pregnant meaning in all of God’s Word for us if we seek it out and we pray the Lord to reveal, give us eyes to see. Yes, these are precious gifts for the king of kings, absolutely indeed. Yes, this is obeisance paid to the king that has come, but it’s much, much more than that. These pagan Gentiles rejoiced and worshipped the king, while Jerusalem and King Herod are troubled. They bring these gifts, and what are they? They’re the gifts of the kingdom of heaven. They’re the gifts of consummation. They’re the gifts of that final, ultimate reality. They’re eschatological gifts, and an ultimate gifts. And if you’re not thinking of it already, hasn’t come to your mind, I bet if you took some time, you would remember that place in God’s word where we see this as well. We see these same themes, right? It’s the book of the Revelation 21, chapter 21. And then Revelation 21, it speaks of that city, you remember, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And remember how it’s described, that it has gold and rare jewels on the walls and the streets. And it says in verse 24, by its light will the nations walk, and then notice, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And so these magi, Matthew chapter two, in this we have an intrusion or a precursor of that very thing. That city is being built by these gifts. It’s the beginning of the fulfillment of all these promises. And further, when we look at scriptures backward and forward, which we should always do, when you look at scriptures, we see that frankincense and myrrh are found together a number of times, three times in the Old Testament. And when they are, they’re all associated with Solomon. It was Solomon in the Song of Solomon or Song of Songs. And you remember Solomon, right? Who was Solomon? David’s son, right? He was the one to sit on the throne of David and to build the temple of the Lord. And so, are there connections here with what we’re seeing in Matthew 2? This is pointing to something. Well, you better believe it is, right? You better believe it is. Frankincense and myrrh, and then gold and frankincense. When we look at this combination, these gifts, we read in Isaiah 60 about the nations bringing their gifts to Zion to worship the eternal Lord and King of glory, just like Revelation will tell us. And we read in 1 Kings 10, we read this last week, 1 Kings 10, about the Queen of Sheba, remember. There was this large caravan coming across the desert to give what? To give these gifts to the king. And what did it say? Remember, 1 Kings 10, verse five, and when the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, and all the rest, right? Verse five, when she saw it, it says, there was no more breath in her. There was no more breath in her. And she said, but I did not believe the report until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told of me. And then it goes on in verse eight, happy are you, happy are your men, happy are your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom. Blessed by the Lord your God who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel. because the Lord loved Israel forever. He has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness. And then it says in verse 10, she gave the king 120 talents of gold and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones. Never again, it says, came such an abundance of spices as these that the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon. This is a big deal. It’s quite a description, quite a description of wealth. The magnitude is hard to grasp for us. It’s hard to grasp. Solomon, the greater son of David, the king in whom the promises of God are fulfilled, at least on one level. The Abrahamic promises, remember, all that was promised to him. And the Davidic promise to have one greater, a great son on his throne. Solomon is the great king. But what’s the problem? Solomon’s corrupted. Solomon eventually dies. So what are the promises? All of these promises and pointers are fulfilled in our text. in Matthew chapter two. And for you, brothers and sisters, for you, dear Christian, you who are citizens of the heavenly city, for you, it is the best news. It is the best news. Because for you, he came. He came and fulfilled all that was needed for you to be forgiven, for you to have eternal life, and to dwell in his presence forever. Jesus comes and we trust and we put our faith in Him. This is a great reason for us to rejoice, to rejoice. And for you, dear Christian, He will return. Not in judgment for you who have placed your faith in Him, who love Him, who are united to Him. Not in judgment for you, but in blessing. If you flee to Him and find your life hidden in His. That is the promise, that’s the promise. And it’s the message that all need to hear, right? We know that through Solomon, even though he died and was corrupted, Jesus is the true Solomon and he lives forever. He will never die. He is not corrupt. He is the perfect man, the God-man. Jesus is the greater Solomon. He’s the greater son of David, the greater son against whom the scribes and the Pharisees that conspired against him will later conspire with Pilate to crucify him. And in Matthew 12, what do they do? They come to Jesus, who was feeding the multitude and healing, and they come and they ask this King, this Messiah. Right, Matthew 12, 38. And some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. What does Jesus say? Right? Do you remember your Old Testament? He said, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh, he says, will rise up at judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. He goes on, the queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this great generation and condemn it. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. Greater than Solomon. Matthew here is telling us the same thing in our text. The child with his mother Mary, something greater than Solomon is here. And we, brothers and sisters, We have the honor of bringing our gifts, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day, even every day of our life, and offering ourselves as a living spiritual sacrifice of thanksgiving to the King who is in our midst, Emmanuel, God with us. He is with us, He is the greater King. Indeed, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Jesus Christ, the King, the greater King, the greatest King. If He is your King, rejoice, rejoice. Rejoice with an exceedingly great joy. And if you feel the very real sense of failure and lost and inability and weakness and forgetfulness from our sins and our heart issues and our relational issues, that we blew it again and again, still rejoice, dear Christian, rejoice. Because while those feelings are surely true and valid in and of yourself, We still rejoice, we rejoice in this king who’s come, this king who forgives, this king who cleanses and cleanses and gives life. Because if you were his, right, how are we to do this? Why still rejoice? Again, because if you were his, he is your king and lord. He is your king and your lord. Then you are united to him, and all that is his is yours. All that he earned and merited for you is yours, right? Heaven must be earned. and was earned by Jesus Christ. So it’s a gift to you. It’s a covenant of grace to you. All that is his is yours. And the Father doesn’t see you in the gross, dirty robes of your own unsinfulness and brokenness and unrighteousness. The Father sees you clothed in the robes of his perfect, clean, neon white righteousness of his dear son, Jesus Christ, to whom you belong. and that will drive you to live lives of gratitude for His glory, lives pleasing to Him. There’s so much here, brothers and sisters, so much here. But if you take nothing else away from this, think this, Jesus Christ is the perfect King. He is the King of kings. He’s the King of kings, and this King accomplished redemption for His people, for sure. You’ll recall in Luke 1, I believe it’s verse 68, The muted father, right, for all that time, his mouth was stopped up, and then once it was opened up, what was the first thing he said? Blessed are you, for you have accomplished redemption for your people. Accomplished redemption. It is done. He accomplished redemption for us, his people. The whole of redemptive history finds its culmination in him. And that being the case, Make for certain that you find yourself under the care and protection and safety of this King, King Jesus. And so during this season, dear Christian, let us ground our thinking in the text of God’s word. Let’s ground our thinking, not in the cultural, traditional obfuscation and muddied waters of what we see all in regard to the birth narrative of Christ, the reality, the truth of his first advent, the incarnation of Jesus. Let us ground it in his word and always be protected and corrected by that word. Let us afresh and anew behold the wonder and glory of the promises of God from redemptive history and how they are fulfilled in this King, in Jesus Christ. And let us rejoice. in who He is and that He is our shelter and our King. And as we go back into the world, brothers and sisters, and during this season, let the magnitude and the weight of all of this drive us to fresh wonder and excitement and conversation with those with whom we come in contact. And in all of it, may we praise Jesus in the glory of His name, amen.