Wise Men Still Seek Him

This is cliches. This time of year, obviously some of them come from greeting cards from songs that we hear the 12 days of Christmas. Tis the season to be jolly. Have you been naughty or nice? You're getting a lump of coal in your stocking. Remember that one? For me it was a lump of coal and a bag of switches for Christmas. Looks like Christmas has come early for or all I want for Christmas is and you fill in the blank. And then there are some spiritual ones too. Tiny Tim's God bless us everyone. Jesus is the reason for the season and the one that we probably hear more frequently than any. Wise men still seek him. So a lot of truth in that little cliche. In fact it comes from a well worn and very familiar story in the Bible of Christmas. The story to which we're going to turn this morning and give some fresh attention to Matthew chapter two. Please the story of the wise men. It's interesting to take note of the various people surrounding the birth of Christ. Obviously you've got the shepherds and you've got a simian in the temple. Anna in the temple. Herod and how he responds. And then of course the wise men. There are a lot of misconceptions about the wise men. Most of which come from either our Christmas displays, nativity scenes, Christmas cards or one particular song. We three kings of orient are well the wise men were not kings to begin with. They were probably astrologers. Not in a bad sense more in the sense of we would think astronomers today studying the heavens. Probably priests in their day, but they were not kings and we don't know how many of them there were. There may have been three. We get that from the fact there were three gifts. But we don't really know how many there were. There may have been two of them giving three gifts. There may have been six of them each giving a gift. We don't know there were three different kinds of gifts given, but we don't know how many wise men they were. And probably the worst misconception of all in our Christmas cards and manger scenes is the wise men did not arrive on the night of Christ's birth. I hate to shatter all of your nativity scenes at home, but the wise men did not show up with the shepherds. They probably came months. It not a year or so later than the shepherds, then the night of his birth. But really all of that aside of more importance than who they were is learning the lessons from their actions. And so the Lord has given us a beautiful record of the wise men in Matthew chapter two. He's told us their motivation to see Christ, how they came in contact with him to begin with and what they did once they got there and all of those things have some real important lessons for us to learn. So let's take a fresh look in an old story, dive back into a well-worn story of Christmas, hopefully with a little fresh look and a new perspective. As we look at the story told us in Matthew chapter two, what stands out first in this story is their desire, the desire of the wise men to worship Christ. We're going to read the entire passage and then we'll come back and focus on their desire as it's described in the first eight verses. Let's read the familiar passage. Follow along with me, please. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi 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. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. 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. In Bethlehem and Judea they replied, for this is what the prophet has written, 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. Then Herod called them Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me so that I too may go and worship him. After they had heard the King, they went on their way and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and mirrored. Having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. The first thing that just leaps out at you in this story is their desire to worship the King. It's a desire that was first of all grounded in faith. Back in verse 2 the Bible says they came to Jerusalem with this question on their lips, where is the one who's been born King of the Jews? Why would they come with that question on their minds and their hearts? How would they even know about the King of the Jews? They say, we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Whatever this star was and there have been multitudes of explanations, however it was it was God's means of revealing to them the truth that there was the King of the Jews who had been born in Israel. The lots of attempts have been made to identify the star. Some people identify it with some actual astronomical event back in the 1970s, a leading astronomer first came up with that kind of a view. 1999, a second astronomer did it again with a little twist. Probably the one most familiar to you is the 2007 DVD and website, the Bethlehem star by Rick Larson. Larson probably has done the deepest work, the most intricate and interesting explanation for this being an actual astronomical event, although there are some holes in his use of Scripture and also in some of the astronomy that he uses and the biblical account. Because of some of the holes in those theories of this is a real normal astronomical event, there have been many who have said this was really a supernatural event, a miraculous appearance of a light in the heavens just for the wise men because it appears more than once and it appears not just over Bethlehem as Rick Larson describes, but it appears over the very house where Jesus was, which would be very difficult for any of us. It was very difficult for any astronomical event to do. So some believe it was just a supernatural, miraculous light of God in the heavens. There are those who also make a good case for the fact this may have been an angel. There are lots of angelic appearances and announcements surrounding the birth of Christ and in the Bible, particularly in the book of Revelation, angels are called stars, numerous times. And so there are some who make that observation about this passage. But again, that's not really the important thing, regardless of how this star or light appeared in the heavens, it was used by God to supernaturally directly reveal to these men the truth of the birth of the Messiah. Now they may have already been looking for this. Remember they are from the east, possibly Babylon, some would speculate as far east as India, but they probably were in the area where many Jews still lived. Remember Daniel stayed in Babylon even after the captivity and the return to the land. Daniel was still there, many Jews stayed in the east. And so maybe these men being the scholars they were were familiar with Daniel's prophecy and Daniel 9 about the coming of the Messiah. Maybe they were familiar with other Jewish prophecies in the Old Testament. So maybe they were already looking and God confirms through this supernatural light in the heavens that this is what the Scriptures have been talking about. Regardless, they received revelation from God and their journey was grounded, their desire to worship Christ was grounded in their faith, in their faith in God's word. They acted on what they believed. And that becomes the first important lesson for I think for us to consider. It was their faith in God's word which gave them this desire, this passion to see the King of the Jews and to worship him. They acted on their faith. If you have genuine faith in Christ, it will produce action. It will produce some heart driven passion for the Savior. I don't understand how it is possible for someone to say, I know Jesus and have no heart for him or his things at all. If you know Christ, if you have through the revelation of God's word, understood who Jesus is and trusted Him as your Savior, it seems like there will be some passionate desire to seek Him in your life. Their desire was grounded in faith. Secondly, their desire overcame obstacles. And there were lots of obstacles in the way before they could make this journey or even after they got there. You think of the obstacles. This is a journey of at least several hundred miles. It would take weeks, if not months, for them to get there. Depending on whether or not they came from Babylon or India, it would take a long time for them to get there. So think about the obstacle, first of all, of scoffers at home. Maybe friends, relatives who ridiculed their thinking. But we've seen this light in the heavens. Oh really? What were you drinking last night? And we believe that we are going to go to Israel. You've got to be kidding. What's wrong with you? Can you imagine all the scoffers that would ridicule their plan to travel hundreds of miles over weeks and months to see a little boy? Really? But that didn't stop them. Nor did the long journey stop them. The difficult, arduous journey. They could have said, you know, that really is a stretch to think that we should go that far, taking that much time just to see this king of another nation. We'll hear about it at home. It'll be on CNN for sure. We'll know all about it. We'll hear about it. We don't need to go. We can just stay at home. It's too inconvenient to go. They overcame that inward pull to do what was convenient. And then once they got there, not even the unbelief of the Jews could stop them. Now this may have been the most daunting of all. You come to the land of Israel, you're a Gentile, you're a foreigner from hundreds of miles away, and the king of the Jews has been born. God revealed that to you. You come to the capital city and you would expect that everybody's talking about this. There's a buzz about the birth of their new king. But nobody seems to even have noticed. You know, sometimes when someone comes to faith in Christ, and maybe you're a new believer here this morning, and you've gotten connected with their church, and you've looked around a little bit, and maybe you see some of us who've been around a while and who have known Jesus for a while, and you see us kind of lack of daisicle and indifferent and just kind of going with the flow and the motions and just kind of cranking out stuff. And there's not a lot of heart and passion and an exuberance for the king. And that can be discouraging to people who've just come to faith and are excited about their newfound life in Christ. But that didn't stop the wise men. Nothing could stop them. Their desire for Christ overcame every obstacle in their way. And if you have a true heart desire to love him, to worship him, to grow in him, to serve him, then nothing will be able to stop you. It is so often that any little inconvenience, any little disruption in my comfortable life destroys the passion of my heart, to seek Christ and to follow him. And I need to get back to the passion of these wise men who would let nothing stand in their way. Nothing, not the ridicule of friends, not the long hard, inconvenient journey, not the unbelief and indifference of others. Nothing would stand in their way. What is standing in your way? Of passionately seeking, following, loving, serving Christ. You're letting others stand in the way. You're letting the inconvenience of disruption to your comfortable life or schedule stand in the way of you doing what God's putting in your heart to do. What stands in the way? I find myself at this stage in my life and ministry looking back on the last 43 and a half years that all the people God has brought into our lives through ministry and just reflecting on some of those folks. And this week, as I was thinking about this passage and this topic, I got to thinking about Bertha Scott. Bertha Scott was an 80-something year old woman in our first church in North Carolina back in the early 70s. And Bertha was not well to do at all, quite the opposite. When I first went to Needham's Grove Church in 1973, there were older folks in that church who had been born back in the 1800s. And I saw a rich treasure of people to listen to and their stories were incredible. Bertha was one of those. Bertha lived down an old abandoned road down into the woods, about a mile back into the woods, a ramshackled old shack. There was a little road beside our church cemetery that would go down to her house across from the church, but you couldn't take many vehicles down through there. The road was so redded out and full of boulders. And so she would walk to church. She had asthma. She would walk to church every Sunday, a mile up out of the woods to get to church. If Bertha wasn't in church on a Sunday morning, some of us knew we needed to go check on her, because something was wrong. I remember one Sunday morning, Bertha didn't show up, it was in the summer. And this was pre-children for Genie and Meesa. We struck out after the service that Sunday morning and started down the road to her house. We got about halfway down and we found Bertha. She's sitting on a tree stump. And she smiles that big toothless grin. She didn't have any teeth. She smiled that big toothless grin and said, preachers as far as I could get today. Her asthma hadn't kicked up and she was struggling for breath. She said, this is as far as I could get today. And I'd just been sitting here looking at the woods and praising God and thanking Him for all these done for me. Now, if you ever visited in her home, I mean, it was one of those old, timey shacks. Had been painted in years and years and years, I'm sure. She had an old wood stove in her kitchen and on that wood stove would be curled up a black snake. Genie and I saw it one time and Genie said to Bertha, you know you've got a black snake in your kitchen. She said, oh yeah, take care of all the mice and the rats. You know, I think I would opted for a cat, but she liked that black snake. And it would curl up on that warm wood stove. She was an amazing lady. You just don't see them like that much anymore. What does it take to keep you away from a passionate desire to seek Him? Their desire, the desire of the wise men, overcame all the obstacles. Nothing would stand in their way. But sadly, not only was their desire grounded in faith, not only did it overcome obstacles, it was also tragically contrasted with others. You know, the Bible tells us that after the birth of Christ, the shepherds went and told everybody they could find. Anna and Simeon in the temple told everybody they could think of. But nobody seems to have listened. And so by the time you get a few months down the road and the wise men come, nobody in Jerusalem is even aware that there's been a king born. The Herod doesn't know. And so he has to ask around if there were such a thing, where would this king be born? When I think of the other people that are mentioned in this passage, the contrast of these Gentile wise men is just incredibly, almost smacks you in the face. There is Herod. Herod, this paranoid schizophrenic half mad ruler who had already killed his wife and two of his sons because he saw them as threat to his throne. That's the kind of man who would kill every baby in Bethlehem if he thought there was a king being born down there. Absolutely crazy. A brilliant man in some ways, one of the greatest builders, the Roman empires ever seen. But very paranoid. So you can imagine when he gets news there's been a king born? Huh. I know how to deal with that. But very slightly a crafty plot emerges in his mind because the wise men aside into the back room. And he says, you go down, you go down, find out where he is. And then come back and tell me because I want to go worship him too. Yeah. That chance of that. What a hypocrite. What a tragic, tragic contrast with the passion of these Gentiles to seek the Savior. And then you've got the people of Jerusalem. Verse 3 says, when King Herod heard this, he was disturbed for reasons I've just mentioned, but notice all Jerusalem with him. If King Herod gets upset about something, heads start to roll. And so this is going to be a bad time for the people of Jerusalem. It's going to upset their daily life. It's going to possibly create disturbances in their schedules and fear for their future. And so their inconvenience is going to be disrupted by the birth of this little baby. And so in their self-centered way, they have no use for this king that's been born. And then you've got the religious leaders. Maybe the worst of all. Old Testament scholars, you ask them any point of doctrine or teaching they have it nailed. Herod knows there the guys that will know. Let's ask them if there's a Messiah to be born in Israel. Where? Oh, we got the answer. There's a little obscure verse in the book of Micah, chapter 5, verse 2. Yeah, we know that. Well, okay, if you know where the Messiah has been born, and if God is supernaturally revealed to the wise men that he's already been born, why aren't you there? Why don't you go with the wise men? It's the perfect example of people who have a head full of knowledge of the Bible, but have no heart, passion for the things of God. What a tragedy. Can you give you all the answers? Answer any theological, doctrinal, biblical question. Can even tell you on what side of the page and how far down the page the verse is. But no heart, no passion for Christ. I love the desire of these wise men. It puts us to shame. Do you remember Hurricane Sandy? Surely you remember that four years ago? The largest Atlantic hurricane on record, at least as far as size, 1,100 miles across. $68 billion worth of damage. 286 people lost their lives. You remember it came ashore in New Jersey, New York, but we got some of the wraparound effect. Remember that? Those winds that came around from the north and dumped eight inches of snow on us on October 29th and 30th of 2012. Amazing storm. Remember the news reports of how it basically shut down New York City? Remember that? The power was out. It was flooded. Lower Manhattan under water. And it was an amazing scene except for one rogue Starbucks in Manhattan. Somehow it stayed open. Let me tell you some of the stories of people who were desperate, committed Starbucks fans who fought high winds, dangerous rains, dire warnings just to get their latte. Let me tell you some of their stories. Bethany Owings, 28 years old, walked ten blocks with her one-year-old daughter in a hurricane for her latte fix. She said, I saw on Facebook they were open. It was scary not having Starbucks. I mean don't you really feel for her? Her neighbor and friend, 29-year-old Chris Hernandez, came along and later said, when she said they were open, I was like, pack the baby up. Let's go. I didn't know they were all going to close. I started panicking. There's nothing else that I would have gone out for. This makes my day complete. Really? Alex Mawongi, age 25, walked more than 20 blocks looking for any open Starbucks. He told reporters it took half an hour to get my order. But I'm a Starbucks fanatic. I go four or five times a day. I want to say get a job. David Low said he went there. He went to three closed Starbucks before learning the store was open. Low said, I'm really happy. These guys are open. I can't get a pumpkin spice latte anywhere else. I love that. When I read that I thought, what incredible desire, what incredible passion for coffee. We laugh about that and rightly so. But you know what that puts us to shame when we compare their desire to our desire to seek out the Savior and to passionately live for Him. You know, some people will let nothing stop them in whatever they're passionate about. A good question to ask ourselves at this Christmas time is what is it that stops me? What is it that causes me to detour or to just stop in seeking out the Savior, worshiping Him, growing in Him, serving Him? What does it take to stop me? That's a measure of our desire. Their desire is a challenge to me. But I want you to notice something else about these wise men. Not only their desire, but their direction. The interesting thing about their story, one of the interesting things is that God led them every step of the way. He led them to Israel. He led them from there to Bethlehem. He led them to the very house where Jesus was. And then he led them back home by a different way. Then what they came every step of the way God led them. And I would remind you that God has promised to go before us and to lead us to direct our lives if we are sensitive to his leading. Now it's instructive to see how God led them because it teaches us some things. First of all, he led them by direct revelation. God directly revealed to them through the star. First of all, in verse two, and then it reappeared in verses nine and ten. So that was a direct sign, a direct revelation from God that evidently communicated somehow to them that the Messiah had been born. And then there was this dream in verse 12. They learned in a dream from God that they should go home another way. And so God directly revealed truth to them. But the interesting thing was that the second way God led them was by the word, by the word of God. When they got to Jerusalem, they began to ask around, where is this king that's been born? And nobody seems to know. So Herod does what? He gets the Old Testament scholars to consult the Old Testament. Where does the Bible say he will be born? Now interestingly enough, when there is biblical guidance, there is no star and there is no dream. The star doesn't appear till after they find out it's supposed to be in Bethlehem and then the star locates the very house. Where this light from heaven, whatever it was, indicates the very house where Jesus was. But as long as there is direction from the word, from the Old Testament, prophet of Micah, the star is gone and there are no dreams, which leads me to this conclusion. The word of God takes priority over every other kind of leading of the Lord. And I believe from other scriptures, not this one necessarily, but other scriptures, that once God completed his written revelation. That supernatural direct means of revelation ceased so that we can't just claim, well, I dreamed this must be from God or I heard this voice or what you can claim and people do claim anything, even if it's contrary to the Bible and claim God showed it to them somehow. This book is God's means of revealing truth to us. Now when this book does not give clear guidance, God expects us to ask him for guidance and ask him for wisdom to make right decisions. James 1, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gets all men liberally and not braids not and it shall be given him. But let him ask and say nothing wavering, wavering is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind toss. Let not that man think he should receive anything from the Lord. You don't receive wisdom if you don't ask and say, but when you're unclear on what to do and there's no clear biblical principle or passage that would give you guidance and a moral issue for instance. When you're not clear about what card of I or whether to move or take this job or that ask God for wisdom and he will direct you. So the word of God is our main means of direction. Then we ask God for wisdom to guide our steps along the way when there's no clear direction from the word. But the thing that impresses me most about this passage that I think is most important for us to learn is that God does not give us the full picture all at once. When he's directing our lives, he doesn't give us the full picture all at once. God revealed to them through this light in the heavens that a baby had been born. The king of Israel had the king of the Jews had been born. He did not say, at that time he's in Bethlehem. He's at 1707 Old Donkey Way. That's the house. He didn't give them specific directions at this time. All they knew, king of the Jews is born. That's all they know. So you start thinking, where do you go to find the king of the Jews? Israel is probably a good place to go. But they don't know where in Israel. So if you don't know where, then what do you do? You see God's guidance and evidently the wisest choice would be go to the capital city. They don't have any clear direct guidance from God. So what's the wisest thing to do is you're seeking God's guidance. Go to the capital city. Obviously if there's a king, that's a place to start to look for him. So they go to Jerusalem. There's no indication that God had told them to go to Jerusalem. But that's where they go. Once they get to Jerusalem, then the circumstances flow around the Micah 5, 2 prophecy. And through the word of God, they find out the next step. The next step, go to Bethlehem. Okay? We'll go to Bethlehem. How are we going to find the child? All of a sudden, that light appears again and leads them to the very house. And they were overjoyed to have that next step. But you see God led them a step at a time. We didn't give it to them all at one time. And sometimes when we're asking for God's guidance for future decisions, we're asking to lay it all out, give me the full blueprint. You know, I want to know what the next five years looks like or the next 10 years are Lord, even better the rest of my life. And God doesn't do that normally. Why? That would take faith out of the equation. God wants us to trust Him for the next step in His direction in our lives. He'll show us what to do next. You know, the Bible says, the word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. Have you ever thought about that in Old Testament times when that was written? A lamp to your feet was one of those little oil lamps that have just a little bit of oil. And you would actually attach it to your sandal. And as you would walk, you would be able to see like one step ahead of you. And that's all you could see. You can't see the whole path. You see the next step. And that's the way God leads us. He leads us a step at a time. That's the way He did the wise men. That's the way He does us. And so it requires. This is the beauty of this. It requires us stopping at each step and seeking His guidance again. And asking for wisdom to know what the next step is and then Lord what's the next step and Lord what's the next step? What an exercise in faith that is. In 2009, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston by the name of Artool Gawande wrote a book entitled The Checklist Manifesto. Now in this checklist manifesto, he describes how doctors particularly surgeons can use checklists to save lives and reduce mistakes in surgery. So his surgery checklist includes what he calls three pause points. That's what he calls them in his book. Pause points. The first is before you administer anesthesia. The second is right before the incision and the third is before leaving the operating room. Each pause point, he says, is designed to last no more than a minute, 30 seconds to a minute, but just long enough for members of the team to make sure basic steps have been followed. For instance, confirm the patient's identity before he goes into surgery. Make sure you got all the needles and gauze and everything after surgery before you leave the room. You're not left anything in the patient. That kind of thing. It might not seem like that kind of pause points methodology would really make much difference, but the results were striking. Even before he wrote his book, he was already practicing this. The word got out eight other hospitals in the Boston area began using this procedure and they did a study on it. Major complications for surgical patients had fallen by 36%. Deaths fell 47%. The checklists were working, providing an extra measure of safety and clear direction. So he wrote the book and now it's widespread in the medical community to use those kinds of checklists and it has even gone to other professions. Similar checklists have come up with airlines for their pilots and other vocations as well. Interesting, isn't it? I would suggest that a similar checklist is appropriate for every believer as we seek to determine God's direction for our path. Just like these wise men did, God led them to step at a time. Take one step, then pause, ask God for direction for the next step. Okay, take that step. Have another Paul's point. You see that builds faith, that builds dependence upon God because we can't see the whole path. We must trust him for a step at a time. So pause points where we pause for a moment and seek wisdom and guidance for the next step are very important in God's direction in our lives. I love their desire, I love their direction, but I am really, really impressed with their devotion. What did they do once they got there? Once the wise men got there, their devotion is so instructive. What they actually did in worshiping Christ? The first thing they did was it had to do with focusing on Christ. They focused on Him. Look at verse 11. On coming to the house, and notice, no longer in a manger in a stable, they're in house now. He's several months old at least. And so once they came to the house, they saw the child, not the baby, not the infant, a child, with his mother Mary, notice. First thing they see is Jesus. I don't know about you, it just helps me when I read a biblical story, a narrative. I try to put myself back in their sandals and try to walk through it and see what it would be like. Can you imagine the wise men going up to this house? Remember, they're not looking for a cave or an open stable now. They're looking for a house. And the star is indicated, this is the place right here, this is the house. So what do you do? Knock on the door? Bring the doorbell. What do you do? Somehow you get them to the door. However, they did it in that day. And let's say Joseph comes to the door or maybe Mary comes to the door. Whoa, hello there. Joseph, here we are. And we explain who we are. We are so forth. And you get invited in. You sit down in the living room and chat awhile and talk about the journey. And what are you doing there? And who are you? Let me see your credentials. No, no, none of that. The focus was not on the wise man. The focus was not on Joseph. The focus was not on Mary. First thing they see is the child with his mother Mary. What do you come looking for at church? When you come to church, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a smooth, well-oiled service? Are you looking for how the music is going to be? Are you looking for who's going to be there? As a preacher, am I looking for a good crowd? Am I looking for the sermon to go, okay? What am I looking for? How do I be looking for Jesus? How do I be looking for Christ? The focus of our worship, our devotion is Christ. Not anything about the church necessarily. But the focus is Christ. So they're focusing on Christ. Secondly, they're submitting to Christ. Look at verse 11 again. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him. Here are three very highly trained, skilled and devoted men from another culture and they're in the presence of a young child, a year and a half maybe or younger. And they bow. They show that he is their authority. They worship him. When you focus on Christ, when you come to church, before you give him anything, before you give him a song, a prayer, a gift in the offering plate or even attention to his word, give him yourself. Prepare yourself in the sense of submitting your heart and your mind and your life to him. Lord, I am here seeking you. And I lay myself at your feet. I am the offering today, Lord. And I am submitting myself to you. What he wants most is you and me focusing on Christ, submitting to Christ, but also then giving to Christ. Then they open their treasures. That word literally means a treasure box, a box that held valuables. They opened their treasure box and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and merr. Amazing gifts. Obviously gold you would expect. That's a gift for royalty. That's a gift for a king. That makes sense. It was the rosin of some particular trees in typically in India. That's the reason why some believe came from India, which was widely used in the ancient world. White had wide medicinal purposes. But it was also the only oil which was allowed to be used in the temple in incense. So it was a very well known and highly valued fragrance in its day. And so they brought that. And then they bring merr, which is the rosin of some shrubs that was often used in the preparation of bodies for burial in the ancient world. Now there have been many who looked at those three gifts and said, oh, the gold, they recognized him as the king. And the frankincense, they recognized him temple, tavernacle. They recognized him as the high priest. And merr, they recognized him as the dying savior. Well, I'm not real sure the wise men had all that theology yet. I'm not sure they knew all of that. I think they were bringing three highly treasured gifts to express their devotion. And what it is that you give of yourselves to Christ measures your devotion. Now I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about money necessarily here. That might be included. But I'm talking about what do you give a value to you time, other possessions, giving of your heart, giving of yourself the measure with which we give in abandoned to the Lord is really the measure of the Lord. It's really the measure of our devotion to him. Did you know that they're actually working on sending people to Mars? Now that may seem like, you know, weird science kind of thing or just a far out star wars kind of thing. But they are actually working on eventually sending people to Mars. There is a program already in place involving some government agencies, but also some nonprofit organizations. One of those nonprofits is called Mars one. And it has the lofty goal as they describe on their website of establishing a human colony on Mars by 2027. Now they plan to send four pioneers as a test group and then they will add four volunteers more every two years. They have to be highly resourceful people because these people will serve as the college's chefs, farmers, doctors, engineers. I mean, they're going to be building a society from the ground up is the plan. The most striking prerequisite as they put out the word for for people to volunteer for this. The most striking prerequisite is the knowledge. There is no return flight. You're going to Mars to make it and die there. The one way trip takes seven months. The cost is astronomical. So volunteers have to be willing to give everything they have to go to another planet and help establish a new world there and give your life to do so. You say, well, wow, you know, would anybody volunteer for that? They had over 200,000 video applications. That was whittled down through a lot of careful screening to about a thousand 58 people, then six hundred sixty. And now there are a hundred ambitious visionaries still in the potential. One of those one of the finalists is a emergency room position by the name of Lila Zucker. She hopes to be as famous as Neil Armstrong. She says the first man to the moon. She said this. She said we can't stay on this planet forever. I would argue. So let's go now. Other applicants said this mission is a way to unite humanity for one extraordinary transcendent cause. The Mars one website says this once on Mars, there are no means to return to Earth. Mars is home. A grounded deep sense of purpose will help each astronaut maintain his or her psychological stability and focus as they work together toward a shared and better future. Wow. Incredible. And there are there were over 200,000 people ready to sign up for that knowing what they were going to be giving up and doing. You know what friends there is only one shared and better future. There is only one extraordinary transcendent cause to use their term. And that is the cause of Christ who is preparing us for a world far beyond Mars. Where we will not have a return ticket. Where we will be with him forever. Listen folks, there are people willing to give up everything they have and willing to die for this cause, crazy cause of going to Mars. Where is our devotion for a much higher cause, the only cause that really matters. And that is the cause of Christ to establish a new colony in heaven. And he doesn't want just to select you, highly qualified people to go. He wants everybody to go. And he's putting that task in our hands to reach the world with the gospel so that billions of people could go colonize this out of the world place called heaven. Are you willing to sell all give all are you willing to be all in to serve this one this Messiah this Jesus. Our devotion falls so many times so far short we let so many inconveniences or fears or anxieties keep us from stepping out to boldly reach the world for Christ so that we can all be together in heaven someday. Where is our devotion. You see I look at this story I look at it much differently than I used to it used to be a Christmas card kind of story nice little story guys riding camels crowns on their heads cool. I see it a lot differently now. I see it as a slap in the face that Gentile well trained men would put to shame their Jewish counterparts with a passionate desire to seek the Savior trusting God's direction each step of the way with an incredible devotion. That expressed itself in focusing on Christ and submitting their whole beings to him and giving everything they had to him. Where where is that among us today. Where is it in my heart. Let's pray Lord help me to be a wise man. Help me to be a man who is wise who seeks your heart. Help us all to be people who learn from these three Gentile leaders. What it means to have a passionate desire to seek you and is willing to trust you for a step at a time and not knowing the next step go all the way to Israel and not knowing the next step ask around Jerusalem where this king is. And just trust you a step at a time. And then Lord help us to give all for your cause the most transcendent glorious cause in the universe. Help us not to shy back. Help us not to be afraid. Thank you for the example of the wise men. May we follow it in Jesus name. Amen.