Welcome Christmas - Joy to the World - Matthew 2:1–12

Hi and welcome to South Sub Church. We are so glad you're here. Whether in person or online, you're part of our family. We're one church with two unique expressions of worship, but one mission to bring people to Jesus Christ and together become passionate followers of him. We value living a life of generosity because Jesus was so generous to us. This morning, I want to invite you to give. It's simple to do online at southsub.church. You can also text the number on the screen or in your seat back pocket, you can choose to put cash in the envelope if you carry cash. Britney, do you carry cash? I do not. I do not either, but this is a third option for you as well. If you're new, take a moment to fill out our connect card. We'd love to get to know you, pray for you, and help you get connected. If you're watching online, welcome. Drop us a hello in the chat, maybe with a few emojis somewhere, maybe if you're tropical or maybe in the mountains. Let us know where you're watching from. We're so glad you're here. Thanks again for worshiping with us this morning. [Music]

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Well, good morning again. Listen, can you believe it is less than two weeks until Christmas? Everybody got all of your Christmas shopping done? Okay. If you're wondering what to buy me, gift cards and cash are fine. Really, I promise you that. No, it is hard to believe that it's less than two weeks before Christmas. Now, I do know this. We may not have all the Christmas shopping done. We may not have all the Christmas baking done. But you must be in full just th wrong of all the Christmas songs on the radio. Okay? Like you can't change the dial. You can't move anything and you're hearing Christmas songs. Christmas songs. Christmas songs. So I thought it might be kind of interesting to try to figure out what are the top five alltime Christmas songs. So here they are to kind of te check you out there for just a second. The number one, and if you're at Welcome Christmas, you should know this. What is the number one all-time topselling Christmas song? White Christmas. Bing Crosby. Yeah. Back in 1942. And then the second most favorite song is All I Want for Christmas is You by Who? Mariah Carey. If I never heard that song again or never saw Mariah again, I will be happy. That would be the best Christmas. Number three, Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helm back in 1957. Number four, The Christmas Song. And who do you think sings that? Nat King Cole back in 1947. And then number five song. Okay, now when I read number five song, I'm going, "Okay, this is more like a modern song until I realize this song is as old as the other ones." When you look at now number five by Wham. Anybody know what it is? Anybody know who is? Okay. George Michael, his group back then, Last Christmas. So back in 1984, my high school graduation, those the type five top five songs. Anybody feel old right now? Yeah. Now, there's one song that um that that's missing on there. And really, if I look at all my favorite songs, it's this one right here. If I look at Christmas carols and modern day songs, is this joy to the world. Like when it comes on, like it just says it's Christmas time. But I have to be totally totally honest with you. Here we are about two weeks away from Christmas. And when that song comes on the radio, I'm in a season right now right right now that I'm not sure I'm feeling the joy. Anybody know what I'm talking about there? Like it's the countdown until Christmas. We're in the middle of Advent season, but the joy that's supposed to come with it is feeling more like being overwhelmed than full of overjoyed. In fact, I thought about this maybe why some of the reasons why I'm feeling this way is just my overcommitted schedule. Like you open up your calendar and you're like, "Do I have a night that I could just stay home and relax? there's something going on every night. Um, not just an overcommitted schedules, our overdemanding family expectations. Anybody have to put a spreadsheet together just to figure out to make sure you get everybody the amount of time they think they want to have with you to make everybody happy? And so, it's just those over overcommitted schedules, over demanding family expectations. What about overextended finances and just overloaded responsibilities? This year, Denise looked at me and said, "I would really like some outdoor Christmas lights." And I looked at her and said, "That's your next husband. We'll put out the outdoor Christmas lights." Okay. I can't add anything else to my schedule. And so, I think about this like all these things, it feels like they steal the joy. No matter what they're over, you fill in the blank. It steals our joy. So, joy is so much more than just a song on the radio. It is something that we're feeling. It's something that we're experiencing. And so it brings me to the question like why why are we a se in a season that we sing that it's a joyful season but yet we don't feel the joy of the season but maybe a better question is not why don't we feel the joy but maybe a better question is then how can we feel the joy and I don't know of any better place to look when we're looking for answers like that than scripture and we began our advent season we began our our Christmas series a couple of weeks ago called welcome Christmas and we're working through the story in the book of Matthew of the birth of our savior. And today we're coming to that section of the magi, the wise men, the men that go and visit baby Jesus. And maybe not baby Jesus, but a little childlike Jesus. And I think as we dig into it today, a very familiar story. We're going to discover that they had joy that we're looking for. And I think as we dig in further, we'll discover why they had that joy. And so if you have your Bibles, you can look with me. We'll have it up here on the screen or if you're a guest here today and you got one of our handouts, it's written there in the handout. But here we'll be looking at Matthew chapter 2 and we'll start in verse one. And here's what it says starting there in verse one as the scripture recounts the story of the magi, the wise men visiting Jesus. It says, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod. And about that time some wise men, some magi came from eastern lands and they arrived in Jerusalem and they asked the question, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and we have come to worship him." Now, let's just put a few facts in here because so many times we know the story of the magi. We know the story of the wise men, but we're not sure if it's a story that we see on TV or the story we read out in the Bible. How many wise men were there? We don't know. The Bible doesn't say how many there were. Now, we often think of three because they brought three gifts. And so, so therefore, it's just assumed, but scripture doesn't tell us exactly how many wise men. Now, we do know the scripture says they came from the eastern lands. And if you were to look on a current day map, that is probably coming from the lands that we would now call Iran or Iraq. Back then, it was called Persia or Babylon. and they came and they would have traveled anywhere from 900 to,200 miles to get there. If you were going somewhere this Christmas to visit somebody and you had a 1,200 mile flight plane journey, that would be a long plane journey. If you were going to visit somebody this year for Christmas and you had to go 1,200 miles on the back of a camel, that would be a very, very, very long journey. And we really don't know how long they traveled. Many theologians, many historians think that maybe they started like the day um that the Christ child Jesus was born. If they traveled 20 miles, it would take them anywhere from a month and a half to two months to get there. But that'd be some pretty fast moving on a camel. Many think that they started even two years prior to baby Jesus Jesus being born and they arrived when he was a small child. We're not really sure how long it took them to get there and we're not even sure exactly how many came, but they came from an eastern land. The Bible says, and then it goes on in verse three, King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this talking about that the men had come to worship this baby Jesus. And King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone else in Jerusalem. So he called a meeting of the leading priests and the teachers of the religious law. And he asked the question, where is the Messiah supposed to be born? It's funny as you read that passage right there. It says he was deeply disturbed as was everyone else. And you read going, "Well, why was he disturbed? Why was everyone else disturbed?" We can pretty much know for sure why King Her Herod was disturbed because he was the king and he felt very threatened if there's any other king there. And so when the Magi showed up in his city and they're looking for this baby Jesus, this new Jew, this new Jewish king, and they asked where he was, it disturbed the king because he's going, "Somebody's trying to take my place." Then you might ask the question, well, why was everyone else disturbed? If King Herod was disturbed because he was the only king. No one else was the king. Why would they be disturbed? Because there was a new king being born. Have you ever heard the expression, mom ain't happy, nobody happy? Yeah. The rest of town was disturbed because when the king was upset, everyone else felt it. And so, you can imagine in this town, there was just this unsettledness taking place there.

And then it says in verse 5 after he asked where was this this this Messiah supposed to be born in Bethlehem and Judea they said talking about the magi for this is what the prophet wrote and you oh Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not least among the ruling cities of Judah for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd of all my people in Israel. It was a prophecy back in the Old Testament. The prophet Micah said it and he was saying this child would be born. And then verse 7, then Herod called a private meeting for the wise men and he learned from them the time when the first star appeared. And then he told these guys this, "Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and I can worship him, too." Now, here's a thoughtprovoking question for all of us. Did he really want to know so he could go worship him? As you're reading it there, it's like, wow, he's really into this baby Jesus. He wants to worship just like the king. As we keep reading, he had different inter different motives than just going to worship him. And then it goes on to say this. After this interview, the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem, and it went ahead of them, and it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. If you've got your Bibles and you circle things in your Bible, circle that. They were filled with joy. They found joy. If you're like me and you can listen to the radio and you can hear all the songs and you can do all the shopping, you can do all the baking, you can go to all the family's homes, but you're still not finding the joy, it's not the season that brings the joy, it's the heart that brings the joy. It's not what's taking place outside of our lives. It's what's taking place inside of us is where where we find the joy. And there was something going on with the magi that they experienced the joy. It was more than a song and it was more than a season. It was an experience that they were truly having in their own lives. And then it goes on to say this. After they saw the star, they were filled with joy and they entered the house and they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and they worshiped him and they opened their treasure chest and they gave him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrr. And when it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route. For God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod to tell them them tell him the information that he was trying to gather. And so in this story, the Magi, the wise men, they experienced joy. And I want us to dig together for a few minutes. And I really think there's three reasons, three things they did to allow them to truly experience the joy. And here's why I think this is so important for us to look at it today. Because if we're not participating, if we're not engaging, if we're not taking the same steps they're doing, that may be the reason we're missing the joy in this season. And so if you're taking notes, here's the first one. And I say this, joy is found by living a life of generosity. Joy is found when we live a life of generosity. You see, the wise men's joy didn't just come from finding Jesus. They experienced it because they responded to Jesus with open hands of generosity. Look with me again there in verse 11. It says this, "And opening their treasures, they presented him the gifts." You see, the gifts they gave Jesus, the gold, the frankincense, the myrr, they weren't given out of obligation. They were given as a form of worship. Can we do a little selfch check here? How much generosity are you participating in giving in this season? Is it out of obligation or is out of worship? not to the person you're giving it to, but to the one who gave you the gift in the first place. Like, how many times have you done your Christmas shopping list going, "Okay, I'd like to buy for so and so and so and so and so, but so and so's probably going to get us get us a gift, and we're going to give them a gift, and they're going to expect me to buy this gift for this party, and I got to buy this gift for this party." And it seems like so many times most of our giftgiving list are out of obligation and not out of worship to God. the very fact that we have the opportunity to give others and bless others. But when the magi showed up to Jesus, they didn't walk in going, "Okay, here baby Jesus, here's this and here's this. We feel like we need to give it to you because you're the king." Don't you get this idea that they found whatever they had and they presented it to him. They presented it to him out of an act of joy. but more than act out of an act of joy. That's when they receive their joy because of their generosity from their heart. You see, true joy is not found in holding tightly to what we have, but in surrendering it to the one who gave it to us.

What if if every one of our gift tags this year, you know where it says to and from, you put two and you wrote the person's name, but we wrote from God because he gave it to me in the first place. Would that change our attitude towards this idea of generosity? And you since that's exactly what the the Magi, that's exactly what the wise men did. They're going, "We have these gifts and we're sorry we can't give you more, Jesus. here's our generosity. And it it it just brought about the joy in their life. You know, think about this. There's really two characters in the story, right? There's the magi, but then there's Herod. And there's a striking difference in their approach to joy. Like we know this because the Bible says the magi, the wise men, they received all this joy because they were generous. But I wonder did did Herod ever really experience this joy that he was looking for? You see, he claimed he wanted to worship the child. But his hands were so clenched to his throne, he had no way to be generous. Because in order to be generous, we have to let go of what we're holding on to. Now, try giving a gift. You ever gone to one of those those Christmas parties where they make you put mittens on? You got to try to unwrap the gift. Like, you can't even unwrap the gift. It's hard to do it. It's like a just a silly game that you laugh at everybody. But I wonder how many times our own hearts are wrapped with mittens. Our own hearts are so clenched trying to hang on. We give just enough to say we gave, but it actually wasn't generous. It's been said this that the mark of generosity is not in how much you give, but how much you have left over. I have a feeling when the magi headed back home, they weren't carrying any frankincense and they didn't have any gold left over and they sure didn't have any myrr left over because when they came, they gave it all so generously and that's where they found their joy. So, let me give you a little step forward towards joy. If you're like Keith and the song comes on, joy to the world, but you're not really feeling it, let me give you a step. This is not in your notes, but you can write this down. It says this, a step towards joy. Find ways to generous generously share the treasure that God has already placed in your life. Your treasures, those things that God's already given you, your time, your talents, and your resources. See, generosity is not just found in gifts. Generosity is not just found in finances and your time, your talents, and your resources. And so, you take a step towards generosity when you're going, God, I'm going to let go and give. Let me give you the second thing. There's another reason or another way that I think that we can find in scripture that the magi found the joy that maybe we're looking for. And if you're taking notes, you can write this down. Joy is found by living a life of surrender. Joy is found in living a life of surrender. I want you to for for just a moment really visualize with me this moment that the magi met the Christ child. Now we say Christ child. Many people, many historians, many theologians don't believe that our nativity sets are correct. that they don't think the magi actually came to the stable, the same place the shepherds did to visit baby Jesus. Because if you go back and look in this passage we just read, it says they came to the place where the child was. And so many historians, many theologians believe that maybe Jesus was a couple years old by the time the magi arrived to find him. They go back to they probably saw the star when the baby was born and took him two years to actually get to where the child was. But I want you to imagine whether it's in the stable, whether it's in a house, no matter where they were. I want you to imagine the first meeting that here is Mary, here's Joseph, they still don't have a lot, right? I mean, he's nothing more than a carpenter. So, they never started out with a lot in life and then never have a lot in life. Very humble home. Not sure the Christ child is still in a manger that you'd find in a stable, but probably not a really, really fancy cradle that he's in. just a small simple one room house. And all of a sudden, they hear this commotion outside the door. And they pull back the curtain and here comes several camels. Here come several servants. And let's just pretend as we imagine there are only three wise men. These wise men would have been very just proud looking men. Their clothes would have looked nothing like Mary and Joseph. They would have had very rich ornated clothes, just layers of clothing because of their place in life. Um, historians tell us that they probably all would have had beards because the eastern magi from the land they came came in, that's how they would have been looked. That's how they would have dressed. That's how they would have worn themselves. But more than anything else, they were men of just regal, men of great pride, men of great honor. So as they got off of their camel, they would have walked in tall and upright. Chances are their robes would been flowing down. Maybe a servant even kind of moved their robes. And they walked and they knocked on the door. Now do you see the two cultures clashing? The simplicity of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in this one room little house. the regalness of these magician or the these magi, these wise men walking in. And as these two cultures collide, in your mind, you can imagine that Mary and Joseph might have stood up and just held themselves like this, just out of humility, out of humbleness, just going, "You're much more than we are." But the Bible says it doesn't happen that way. The Bible says as these three men walked in and here's baby Jesus in the cradle. There's Mary and Joseph. There's only one side that bowed. And the Bible describes it that the wise men fell on their knees and worshiped the baby. Imagine that that that's like that's like when we sang earlier the king is in the room. If a real king, not not a not not Jesus the king, but a king, a person of royalty came in and bowed down to us. She going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're the king. we're supposed to bow down to you. We got this thing backwards. But the magi didn't get it backwards because they knew who they were and they knew who Jesus was. They realized he was more than just some earthly king. And so when they bowed down physically on their knees to the Christ child, it was not so much look what we're doing physically. It was their heart positioning itself and surrendering itself going, you're bigger than we are. And we release not just what we have in the gifts. We release release who we are in giving the gifts. Them bowing down was an act of complete surrender. Verse 11. And they fell down and worshiped him. Now, can you imagine the room? Like Mary and Joseph know this is the Christ child at one years of age or two years of age. They're not sure what all that means now. But this the first time they these men of of regalist come in and they bow down and they worship. You imagine Mary and Joseph are there and they're just taking it all in going, "Woo!" I mean, we knew we're in for a kind of a trip raising the baby Jesus, but this is more than we ever expected.

You see, in that moment, joy was not found in their status or their knowledge of the magi, but in laying that all down before Jesus. So I wonder in mine, in your life, if one of the reasons that we are missing the joy of the season, missing the joy of the season is because we're hanging on to everything so tightly. Rather than surrendering, we're controlling. Rather than giving up, we're keeping.

See, surrender lifts the exhausting burdens of trying to control outcomes, protect our own kingdoms, and secure our own worth. That's what we want to surrender. So the season is not about us. It's about him. And whether we physically bow down and worship or we just emotionally bow down and worship, whether we spiritually bow down and worship. You see, worship without surrender becomes nothing more than religious performance. Let me say that again. surrender or worship rather worship without surrender becomes nothing more than religious performance. It's a game of charades that never satisfies the soul. Maybe the reason we're missing joy is we're just playing Christmas charades. We're putting on all the Advent paraphernelia, but we're not surrendering. We're singing the songs in worship with our lips, but we're not singing the songs of worship from our heart. And so, we're losing joy because it's just a game of charades. Think about Herod for just a second. Herod told him, "Hey, tell me so that I too may go and worship him." In verse eight, "Tell me so I can go and worship him." Herod had no intention of ever worshiping Jesus. He had no intention of doing anything of surrender. He was just trying to impress others for his own agenda. And I wonder how many times we can all confess that our own spirituality sometime is driven by our agenda rather than God's glory. Let me say that again. I wonder how many times our own spiritual journey is driven by our own agenda and not God's glory. But when we surrender, it becomes his glory.

So, taking a step towards joy when it comes to surrender. Here's something you can do this week. Ask God to show you the areas of your life where you're refusing to surrender control. Maybe you'll just take it one step at a time. Here's your prayer this week. God, show me one way, one place that I need to surrender control. It could be something huge. God might show you something small, but just asking that one simple prayer, God, I'm going to take a step towards joy. And that step involves surrendering. So tell me and show me what or where I need to surrender. Here's the last one I leave you with. Why did the wise men discover joy, but we may be missing it? Joy is found by living a life of obedience. Joy is found by living a life of obedience. In verse 12, it says this about the magi. After they came and they worshiped Jesus, after they presented the gifts to Jesus, here's what it says. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed another way. The Magi obeyed God's warning immediately, trusting him rather than his own their own plans. Like, think about that for a second, man. We just had this glorious moment. We just saw this baby. We gave him this gifts. Like this is what we've traveled for for all these months. This is amazing. Let's go to sleep. They go to sleep and they have a dream says change all your plans. Like if I have a dream like that, here's a couple of things that's going to go through my mind. Was it from God or was the pizza I ate last night that caused me to have that dream? And then if I'm going, if it's from God, I'll just be honest with you. There's many times that I feel like God has told me something and I have to step into some negotiation process with God. God, if you want me to do this, are you sure you want me to do this? Could I do this a little bit? Maybe could I go this way but not this way? Anybody there with me? Don't leave me hanging out to dry on Christmas like this by myself. Okay? Anybody ever try to negotiate with God? But the magi experienced joy because they heard what God wanted them to do and they did it fully. Maybe the reason you and I are missing some of the joy that God wants us to have in life and experience in life is because we hear what God wants to do and we do it not fully. We just do it a little bit. You see, here's what we need to understand. That when God places his desire, when God places his designs, when God gives us obedient things to do, here's why he does that. Not to control us like little figurines that he's playing some game with. God does it because when we line up in the obedience of God, we place ourselves under the umbrella of his protection and his blessing.

And I say that and there's emotions that rare up inside of me because this past week, Keith had to go through some things and I'm going, "God, I want to be obedient." And even in the obedience, it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Yet, I knew if I was obedient, even if the immediate results didn't feel the way Keith wanted to feel, I was placing myself under his blessing and his protection. Now, don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean just because we're obedient, we get to put the kind of the the spiritual dime in the box and in in the in the candy machine and pull out what we want. Obedience doesn't mean success, but obedience will always put us under the umbrella of God's blessings and protection. You wonder how the story would look different if, and it doesn't. Let's pretend for a second. The Bible says, "And the magi had a dream, but it didn't really make sense to them, and they compared it to some of their own practical thoughts and their own practical wisdom, and they decided to go back and see the king after all."

You wonder this, would the magi, the king, Herod look at him going, "Hey, thanks so much for coming by. This is great. Thanks for telling me where the king is or this new king is, and you go on your merry way and have a great life." I don't think the story would have ended out good for anybody. But yet they were obedient.

Joy is not found in obtaining more information about Jesus. It's found in obeying his instructions. You know, it's funny. We're all sitting here and we're taking notes, right? You're taking notes and like, "Oh, I learned this. I'll write this down. Oh, I learned this. I'll write this down. Oh, I learned this. I'll write this down." We would do better by not writing down what we learn, but writing down what we need to do.

If your mind is full of information about God and you walk out of here and it never changes how you live on Monday, then you really didn't hear from God. You got information but not instructions. The whole reason God gives us knowledge is that we can look and act and be more like him and follow in his steps. So what's your step for joy when it comes to obedience? You can write this down. Listen for God's leading today and act promptly. God, what do you want me to do? Okay, I'll do it. And sometimes people ask me the question, well, Keith, how do you know what God wants you to do? He gives us the Holy Spirit, but here's what we need to realize. The Holy Spirit will never speak anything different than what scripture already says. That's the reason I encourage you week after week just read God's word and and you may read it going, "Well, I don't really get anything that God didn't tell me to do anything." That's okay. He's saving it for another day. So, Holy Spirit and God together will show you what you're supposed to do.

Sometimes I wonder what the magi's initial response was when they saw the star. Let's just pretend for a second. We don't have the exact timetable, but let's say they saw the star two years before Jesus was ever born in their eastern land somewhere. Or maybe they did see it the day he was born. But they're in their far off land in Babylon. They're in Persia. They look at that star. And do you think they saw the star and went, "Wow, I'm full of joy."

They saw the star and thought, "Man, wonder that's an interesting looking star. We've never seen a star like that before." They were full of curiosity. And then they see this big bright thing up in the sky going, "Oo, that's I may be curious about it, but I'm a little concerned about it because you know what? What is that? That's not Yeah. Just concern. So maybe they were full of curiosity. Maybe they were full of concern. It might even cause some fear in them. They're going, "We need to follow this thing and find out because we may need to it may affect our own country somehow." Here here's why I share it this way. They did not experience the joy that we know that scripture tells us about when until they followed it to the Jesus to the Christ child. Joy was never experienced until they took the first step. Joy was never experienced until they took the second step. And so my invitation to us this week as we continue to moving towards what we refer to as the Advent season and as we move towards joy, don't sit around going, "Well, I don't have any. Can I light the candle? I don't feel joyful. Should I even light the candle?" The joy comes when we take the steps towards joy, the steps of generosity, the steps of surrender and the steps of obedience. And when we begin taking those steps, then our heart is put in a position to experience the joy.

And you may need a new lighter to experience the joy.

But then we're in place to experience the joy. We're going to close the service this way. Would you just stand for just a second?

We're going to sing that psalm that we sang earlier. Oh, come let us adore him. Can you do me a favor? Would you just take your hands just symbolically and hold them like this? an act of surrender, an act of generosity, and an act of obedience. And as we sing this song, this very familiar song, will you join me in imagine the Christ child? Maybe even sometimes when I'm singing Christmas songs, the Christ child, I imagine the Christ on the cross. And I even sometimes imagine the empty tomb. Oh come let us adore him. And as we surrender, as we obey, as we show generosity, we will experience the joy. So Jesus, we come before you

and we worship. Oh come, let us adore you.