This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to Matthew chapter 2. We are
beginning a look at this great chapter of how Jesus arrived in the world, the
story of Jesus arriving in the world and how that story changes my life. The
story of Jesus changes the story of my life and we're going to see that all the
way through the Gospel of Matthew as we look through it.

Last week we looked at how God is working in every circumstance as we looked at
the genealogy of leading up to Jesus and we began to learn from the obedience of
Joseph. We're going to learn some more about Joseph later this week but at the
beginning of this week we begin to look at the story of some wise men. Some wise
men who teach us how you and I can get to a place of real worship.

One of the most important questions of life is how do I get from where I am to
where I want to be? I don't know, maybe you've pulled into a gas station to ask
for directions and they sent you in the wrong direction. This is why men don't
stop by the way because sometimes we get sent in the wrong direction.

Although I will say these men, we're going to look at these guys that went and
found Jesus, they did stop and they did ask for directions we're going to see.
Maybe that's why we call them wise men. So you can think about that either way
that you want.

But the point is it's important to ask someone who knows the way. Just asking
for directions isn't enough. You have to ask someone who knows the way.

If you think of life as this big map, where you are, that big dot where you are,
that's the busyness and the messiness and the routine of life and that's where
the you are here arrow points. And for many of us we think that somewhere over
there is some kind of genuine real life-changing worship of God. Well how do you
get there?

How do you get to that kind of place in your life? How do you bring that to
where you are? Well here are some men, some wise men who knew about worship and
they can teach us to find the way.

Just like they found their way to Jesus, they can teach us to find the way to
worship. How do you move from where you are to genuine worship? And if you've
been working on this in your life, you know you don't do this just once.

This is something that you have to do in essence every day of your life. You get
to a place again and again and again of genuine worship. How do you get there?

What's real worship like? We're going to learn from them these first three days
of this week. First thing you do, we learn from them, is you start with a
sincere desire.

In Matthew chapter 2 verse 1, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea,
during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. " So they
walked from the east. That indicates more than just curiosity or intellectual
interest.

There is a deep desire, a deep hunger to know more about Jesus, the King that
was being born that's represented here. It might sound too simple to say it, but
the truth is if you don't want to worship, you're not going to worship. You
won't worship.

But when you see yourself sometimes somehow beginning to expect to worship, then
you will see worship happening in your life. Sometimes I know people who expect
worship to happen without seeking for it to happen, without giving their desire
to it. An attitude of worship is not going to barge in the front door of your
life.

You have to desire it enough to go to his door. Now where does that desire come
from? Well, for these wise men, they heard a message that they believed, they
heard a message they believed they could trust, and out of that message they had
this desire to worship.

For them, the message was a star. God used a star. What's God going to use in
your life?

What are the thoughts or truths or circumstances in your life that create a
sincere desire to worship God? Once you recognize that, then you build on that.
That's how you get to a place of worship in your life.

You build on those moments of sincere desire. Now we've talked about these magi,
these wise men. Before we go on, who are these guys anyway?

The truth is, we don't know a lot about them. It's easier to list what we don't
know about them than what we do. We don't know how many there were even.

Tradition says there were three because there were three gifts, but there may
have been more. The entourage that went was certainly larger than just three
people. We don't know their names.

Tradition says that their names were Caspar, Malchior, and Balthazar, but that's
just tradition. We don't know the real names of these wise men. We don't know
exactly where they came from other than that they came from the East.

We don't know exactly when they arrived to see Jesus. It was somewhere before he
was two years old, if you plot this out, but we don't know exactly when they
arrived to see Jesus. The word magi that we just read, we get our word magic
from it, but they weren't magicians.

They were, in that day, people who combined a knowledge of science and
agriculture and mathematics and history and astronomy and religion. They were
often political advisors. These magi were men in history that we find of great
power, of great influence.

So what we do know is that these men of power and influence desired to come and
find a new king. And out of that sincere desire, they grew a heart of worship.
These men of power and influence can show us the way to worship, and it begins
with this sincere desire.

Along with the sincere desire comes a second thing. Then you develop an
expectant spirit. In fact, let me read verse two down to verse eight.

In verse two, they asked, "Where is the one who's been born king of the Jews? We
saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard
that this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.

When he'd called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the
law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem, in 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 be the shepherd of my people Israel.

" Then Herod called the magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the
star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful
search for this child. As soon as you find him, report to me so that I too may
go and worship him.

" We know that Herod didn't want to go and worship him, that instead he wanted
to destroy him. We'll get to that later. Let's focus on the wise men for just a
minute, this expectant spirit that they had.

Where is the one who's been born? There was no if. Where is he?

They expected him to be there. They were sure that he was there. They came.

They made this whole journey in expectation, in faith of meeting the king. Why
travel all that way if they didn't expect to meet him? So with worship goes
expectation.

The truth is, do you expect to meet God? Let's just start with church. Why take
all the trouble to get up, get ready, get in the car, go all the way to church
if you don't expect to meet God?

Many times we just sort of show up without any expectation when just a few
minutes of working on our spirit, of working in our hearts and saying, "You
know, I'm going. We're going to be singing songs about God, hearing messages
about God. I expect God to say something to me.

I expect God to do something in my heart. " Just those few minutes can make all
the difference in the world. You expect to meet God at church, you should also
expect to meet him everywhere else.

The truth of the matter is God is everywhere, so every moment of every day can
be a part of our worship. Do you expect him to meet you, to be with you, to love
you, to work through you in every circumstance of life? That's what worship is
all about.

Now when it comes to expectation, there's a marked difference between these wise
men and Herod and even the religious leaders in that day. The Magi, they had an
expectant spirit. Herod, he had a resistant spirit.

He was pushing back against any other king, any other influence, any other lord
in his life. But then I want you to notice the religious leaders. They had an
indifferent spirit.

They have someone ask them, say to them, "There's been a new Messiah that's
born. " They say, "This is where he's to be born. " But did you notice, none of
them went to find out.

None of them asked, "Can we go also? " They were indifferent. They had a bunch
of facts and figures that they could share, but their heart wasn't in it
anymore.

That can happen to us in worship. And when that happens, we lose out on what
real worship is all about. So if I want to have genuine worship in my life, I
have to be like the Magi.

I have to have an expectant heart. An expectant heart towards God often turns
the question marks in my life into exclamation points in my life. The things
where I'm not sure what to think or what to do.

When I expect God to show up at that place, He shows me. And then all of a
sudden, there is the exclamation point of worship in my life. So let's take a
moment just now to expect God to be at work.

Would you pray with me? Our Father, we're surrounded by so many things that can
cause us to have an apathetic heart or an angry heart or an indifferent heart.
The circumstances around us.

The people that speak to us, sometimes messages that are hard to hear because of
the negativity in them. Lord, help us instead of listening to those things to
expect that you will show up. Out of our sincere desire to worship you, help us
to expect you to show up, to say something to us, to do something in our hearts
when we worship you in church, but also when we worship you through the day.

And Lord, when you speak, help us to realize it's you because it's the voice of
love, of compassion, of grace, of power. Lord, even today, we expect you to
work. Even today, we expect you to show up.

We worship you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Join us tomorrow.

Learn two more truths from these wise men about what worship, real worship, is
all about.