Well, good morning, everyone. Merry Christmas. Great to be with you and wonderful to see some
festive outfits out there. I got to tell you, it is actually hot. Getting festive is kind of hot
and also uncomfortable. I've got suspenders on and I can understand why these babies went out
in the 1980s. It just makes you shorter is what they tend to do. They're wanting to stretch up
all the time. One of the great traditions of Christmas is the giving and receiving of gifts.
Who's opened Christmas gifts already this morning? Put your hand up. You know, right up so I can see it.
Anyone open? Okay. Keep your hand up if you got what you were hoping to get.
Okay. So there's a few hands that are kind of, I'm sort of not sure. It's one of those things,
isn't it? That good gifts are not necessarily expensive gifts. They're personal gifts. It's
the hope of getting something that we really, really like. So I've opened a couple of things
already this morning and nothing grand but personal, such as old gold, rum and raisin.
You know, it's a winner. And I can see a few people around there saying, this is a winner and this is
deeply personal. This is the one chocolate that's in my fridge that you must not touch.
In fact, kids, none of the chocolate is available to be touched as a general rule.
The other thing is I got a pair of cheap socks. Seinfeld socks. I binge watch Seinfeld. I love
Seinfeld. And so these socks, if you had given me a $200 gift card to Lincraft, not as valuable to me
at all as Seinfeld socks. Lincraft, I'm just not hoping to shop there anytime soon. It's just not
something. Bunnings, however, very different. The good gifts are gifts that are deeply personal,
that connect with you as an individual. They're not necessarily expensive. And so what we're doing
this morning is we're looking at that passage which Ash just read out for us in Matthew. And we're
going to see there, we're going to look very briefly at the three gifts that this baby Jesus receives.
And what it says about him, they're deeply personal gifts. And then what those gifts say about him and
the response that different people have because of those gifts and what they say about Jesus.
So come with me, open up the passage, Matthew 2. If you've got the St. Paul's app, you can crack
that open as well because I've got a bit of an outline to make it easy for you to follow along.
So Jesus received some very strange gifts as a young child from a bunch of strangers. Verse 11,
Jesus was presented, we are told, with gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. Now as a poor peasant girl,
Mary might have been totally pleased with this. These are expensive gifts. So this baby Jesus might
have been born in a stable, but it appears that he comes with some kind of trust fund or something.
These are expensive gifts. But she's baffled as well. These gifts are deeply personal. These three gifts
reveal three significant things about Jesus. They reveal who he is, what he came to do,
and how he went about doing it. That is what it cost him to do it. So gold, the first gift,
points to the kingship of Jesus. You see, gold was a gift that was bought to an audience with a king
in the ancient Near East in the first century. They tend not to do it nowadays. For instance,
one year, our grateful nation of Australia gave Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II,
the 50th edition of Who's Who in Australia as a gift with a gray scarf. So it's a little bit
different nowadays. We're not handing over gold to Queen Elizabeth. The Magi, when they handed over
this gift of gold, were in fact expecting a king. That's their expectation. They asked,
where is the one born who has been born king of the Jews? What alerted them to the arrival of the new
king is the second half of verse 2, where it says, we saw his star in the east and we have come to
worship him. Now these Magi are astrologers. They're magicians. They're interpreters of dreams. And in the
ancient world, most people believed in astrology. And so the Magi, if you like, are considered the
elite. These guys are the university lecturers of their day. They're the academics. They're the wise men,
the knowledgeable ones. When these guys saw the star, they immediately recognized something
significant, something very special has happened. That's because there was a particular event in
history that caused stars to be associated with kings and rulers of nations. And that was when
Julius Caesar died in 44 BC, one of the most astonishing flukes in history took place. A nova appeared in the sky
magi over his funeral. And from then on, from 44 BC, stars were connected with great leaders and rulers of some
fashion. They became the fashion in the ancient Near East. And so these Magi see the star and they put two and two
together. What would have encouraged them also to dust off their passports was that there was also a very
strong rumor around in the first century that world dominion was going to shift. Politics was going to shift
and Judea was going to be the center. Famous and diverse first century historians like Tacitus,
Josephus, Suetonius, all recorded this shift, expectation of a shift in the first century.
And so it would not have been much of a leap at all for these Magi to conclude the political
change in the air when they saw the star. Now what these stargazers saw was most likely the conjunction
of Jupiter and Saturn. It happened three times in the year 7 BC, which is most likely the year that
Christ was born. It happened on the 29th of May, the 3rd of October and the 4th of December.
And the Magi would have also known historically that Jupiter was regarded as a royal pattern,
planet, and Saturn was the symbol for Israel in the ancient Near East. And so these competent
astronomers would have concluded that this new age has now begun with a new king and the rule has now
shifted to Judea. And so they set out on this long and difficult journey to find the ruler of the world
and offer this king gold. But incense, that's an odd one. That's an unexpected gift. Incense in the
first century was used by the priests in the temple as they mediated between God and his people.
It symbolized relationship with God. And so the Magi were recognizing Jesus as the ultimate priest,
the one who would mediate between the creator God and his rebellious people.
Any new mother would have been totally thrown, however, by the gift of myrrh.
You see, myrrh was used in the ancient Near East in the first century to embalm the dead. It was a symbol of death.
Imagine one of the presents under the Christmas tree for your children today.
Wrapped up nicely in Christmas is a toy coffin.
A little toy coffin to play with. With a dead person you can put in it.
Unusual, unexpected gift.
How much it cost him to do it.
Then we get three personal reactions.
What is interesting is how people respond here to the who, the what and the how in these verses.
One thing you notice throughout all the historical biographies of Jesus is that when Jesus turns up,
people are divided in their opinions of him.
Right from the get-go.
And you see that even right here as a baby, right from the start of his life, people are divided in their opinions of him.
Two camps are forming already.
We have three ideas here, but two camps are forming.
One is full of praise and welcome.
The other is full of hatred, opposition and indifference.
First of all, we have hostile Herod.
Herod lies through his teeth.
In verse 8, he says,
Now, Herod, as we know, the rest of the text will tell us, has as much interest in worshipping King Jesus as I have in taking up knitting lessons.
Later in the chapter, we read Herod didn't fool the Magi at all.
They saw straight through him and they sneak off down to Egypt without telling Herod where Jesus is.
And he is furious.
Herod is furious and so furious that he orders all of the boys, two years old and under, around the surrounds in the Bethlehem LGA to be put to death.
What a tyrant.
He wants Jesus dead and he wants to make sure that he doesn't miss him at all.
Herod is the Roman appointed king of the Jews.
He doesn't like the news that another king has been born.
He's threatened.
And he's infamous for his cruelty in which he dealt with any rivals to his throne.
He killed one of his wives, several of his sons, anyone who was a threat to his throne.
His response here is hatred and fear.
A hatred of anything or anyone that threatened his self-centered autonomy.
Now we know that this account here of deception and fear and bloodshed and injustice and homelessness are all too familiar.
There is a great deal wrong with our world today.
And we know it.
But we, I think, walk into controversy when we ask where all this evil and wrong has come from.
You see, one end of the spectrum says that the big problem with the world nowadays is the rich and the powerful ones.
They're the ones to blame.
They're just all selfish and making everything, you know, ordered for themselves.
The rich and the powerful ones to blame.
And that particular view of the world, which is generally a liberal progressive view of the world, means that the poor and the minorities in this world are the heroes of the world.
The other end of the spectrum, which is more your conservative perspective, insists that it's the immoral and the irresponsible people in the world.
They're the main problem.
They're the problem with the world.
You know, if you're poor, you just need to get a job.
That's your problem.
You need to work harder.
That's your problem.
This view of the world tends to make hardworking, decent, middle class people the heroes of the world.
Now, at the first glance of this story, it seems here to side with the first view, the liberal progressive view.
Herod is an unjust ruler, abusing his power, slaughtering the innocent.
However, the full teaching of the Bible is that the source of evil in this world is every single human heart, liberal or conservative.
Every single human heart.
Herod's reaction to Jesus is, in a sense, a picture of us all.
If you want to be king and fundamental value of Western civilization is individual autonomy.
We want to rule our own lives.
When someone else comes along and says, in fact, no, I'm the king, then one of us has to give way.
Someone has to give way.
Only one person can sit on the absolute throne.
And Jesus comes into this world and he claims to be that king who has the right to sit on the throne, to be the ultimate ruler of all things.
He calls for our allegiance so supreme that it makes all other commitments look weak in comparison.
It is a claim to absolute authority, a summons to unconditional loyalty, and it inevitably triggers deep, deep resistance within every human heart.
Who has the right to rule my life?
That's the most disturbing question possible for the autonomous human heart.
We want to remain on the throne of our lives.
Some of us, potentially gathered here today, listening online, some of us use religion to stay on the throne of our lives.
Trying to put God in a position where he owes us something.
Because we're so righteous and we're doing these good things for him.
Some of us flee from religion.
Become atheists, we loudly claim that there is no God.
Either way, we're expressing our natural hostility to the rule of the true king.
Religious or not.
Herod could not get rid of Jesus.
Even with an army at his disposal.
In fact, one of the great ironies of this text is right at the end.
Herod is dead and Jesus lives.
Next, we have the passive priests.
We've got hostile Herod, we've got the passive priests.
Their reaction is not as hostile as Herod, but it's just as negative.
You see, these are the ones who simply do nothing about Jesus.
The Magi turn up.
Verse 4.
Herod gathers together all the chief priests, the scribes of the people, inquiring them where the Messiah was to be born.
And they told him.
They told the Magi.
Down to Bethlehem.
All the prophecies say Bethlehem.
Ah, fantastic.
And then they go back to doing whatever it is that you do.
Their sheer silence and inactivity of the religious leaders is overwhelming in view of the magnitude of what has just happened.
They didn't lift a sandal.
Why not go with the Magi?
Why not just go with them and check it out just in case?
Why not go with them and check it out just in case they did nothing.
Their knowledge of Jesus was no substitute for their obedience.
Finally, the final reaction we see is the only positive one and that's the malleable Magi.
That's the only word I could come up with that sort of went with an M.
Malleable Magi.
And their response is remarkable.
In the rest of the Bible, these guys are always viewed negatively.
Only Matthew puts these guys in a positive light.
Impressed by what they saw in the sky at night, they journeyed west to Judea.
Massive journey.
To find out what it all meant.
It's astonishing that men with so little to go on should venture so far, endure such hardships in travel,
face such uncertainty of finding the one to whom the star pointed.
And what's more, they gave him these costly gifts and the worship and honor of their lives.
Where the religious leaders expended no time, no energy, no expense or inconvenience at all.
Where Herod expanded a great deal of time and energy and expense and inconvenience in order to try and find Jesus and kill him.
The Magi expended a great deal of time, no money, no expense or money.
As the king over their lives.
The Magi are the worshipers.
Those who joyfully ascribe dignity, authority, honor to King Jesus and whose lives are ultimately satisfied in him.
it's a call that
Jesus continues
to cry out to the nations
to the people of all the world throughout the histories
for the last 2,000 years
to throw your crowns at his feet
as the gracious loving king
who gave his life for us
when Queen Victoria ruled as the British monarch
in the 1800s
she controlled one third of the planet
massive
she said one day
that she couldn't wait to meet Jesus
and she was asked why
she said so that I too can cast my crown at his feet
she recognised that even as one of the most powerful people in the world
she too had a ruler
one who deserved her everything
even her crown
which brings me to what is your personal reaction
indifference
hostility
or worship
two camps really
positive camp and negative camp
there's really no middle road
I want to speak to two broad groups here
that are potentially gathered here
and online
firstly to those who are Christians
those who accept Jesus
on his terms
of what he says he is
and what he proved to say
that he is
that he is your Christian
you engage
you believe in Christmas
and Christianity
it's important to know
that as a Christian
that every Christian
still has a heart
with residual
anger
and hostility
towards God
very important for you to recognise that
and it will always be there to the end
that is why it's so hard for you to pray
to give
to obey
to grow
to love Jesus
so hard to love
there is still a little bit of Herod in each of us
there is still something in us
that wants to fight with God
day in and day out
we can't just glide
through the Christian life
we have got to be
far more intentional
about our Christian growth
and prayer
about accountability to other people
to overcome our bad habits
that is the reality
if you think that you can glide
through the Christian life
by yourself
you are deeply confused about it
if however you're here today
and your responses
may be indifference
and hostility
I'd like to give you some
respectful advice
if I may
let's call it respectful advice
for those unsure about Christmas
and Christianity
or perhaps even the existence of God
let's just take it a step further there
remember
I think this is really important
for you to understand
remember that your view
your view
is not an objective view
it's not an objective view
of Jesus
of God
of Christmas
and Christianity
the philosopher Thomas Nagel
who himself is an atheist
was very candid
very candid
he wrote this
I am talking
about the fear
of religion itself
I am speaking from experience
being strongly subject
to this fear myself
I'm an atheist
and I want atheism
to be true
and I'm made uneasy
by the fact
that some of the most
intelligent
and well informed
people I know
are in fact
religious believers
it isn't just
that I don't believe
in God
and naturally
I hope that my belief
is right
I actually hope
there is no God
I don't want
there to be a God
I don't want
the universe
to be like that
my guess is
this cosmic
authority
over our lives
is a problem
and it's not
a rare problem
that is
his point is
that
whatever you are
on the spectrum
here today
you're not
neutral
you might think
well there's another
alternative
Jesus
sorry Steve
don't make the
connection there
there's another
alternative Steve
I'm just neutral
there's no such
thing as neutrality
there's no such
thing as neutrality
about whether
Christmas is true
if the son of God
was really born
in a manger
then you
and I
have lost
all rights
to oversee
our lives
you cannot
be objective
about a claim
like that
and so
keep that in
mind
if you don't
believe in
Christianity
and therefore
at the very
least
question
your doubts
for your own
sake
question
your doubts
now
I figure
you've got
several things
on your
plate
in the next
today
and in the
next few
days
one of them
for me
is sleep
but can I
encourage you
that real
soon
that you
might want
to look
at this
issue
of who
Jesus
is
what he
came to
do
what it
cost him
to do
it
the
magi
were the
knowledgeable
men
of the
east
they were
the
academic
elite
but their
knowledge
about
these
events
around
Christmas
only took
them so
far
their
observation
of the
star
took them
to Jerusalem
to the
palace
because that's
where they
assumed
that he
would be
and they
got that
bit wrong
in the
end
they had
to consult
the
Bible
God's
word
in order
to find
Jesus
and in
finding
Jesus
they found
what they
had been
looking for
all of
their
life
he is
the
wisdom
that they
had been
searching
for
all of
their
life
now I
want to
say this
without
explaining
it
so let
me just
do that
Jesus
is the
answer
to
everything
that you
are searching
for in
life
he is
the goal
he is
the destination
and can I
encourage you
at least
to be like
these wise
men
and search
for Jesus
go to
the source
the evidence
is overwhelming
and it is
compelling
read one of
the biographies
of Jesus
consider Jesus
and ponder
who is
Jesus
what did
he come
to do
what did
it cost
him
in order
to do
it
and what
does it
mean
for me
now
what does
it mean
to bow
down
and worship
him
over
2000
years
later
now I
want to
encourage you
this morning
because it's
Christmas
and because
we're a
Christian church
and we want
to just
delight to
give you
out there
in the
H and
behind us
is a
bunch of
resources
on a
table
they are
all
free
take
them
take
them
this
Christmas
as a
gift
from
us
and
search
for
Jesus
have a
great
day
and
half
down
in