This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look at Matthew chapter two. We're
learning from the wise men. We're learning from them about worship and real
worship and how it can come into our lives, how we can move from where we are to
a place of real worship each day of our lives.

And as we said yesterday, this is a daily experience, a daily decision. Today we
talked about starting with a sincere desire and developing an expectant spirit.
A third choice that's a part of real worship that these men teach us is you
choose to express joy.

Joy and worship go together. So you choose to express joy. In verse nine and
ten, after they had heard the king, they went on their way and the star they had
seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the
child was.

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. They had hearts that were bursting
with joy. In the Greek, that last phrase is "echarison, charon, megalon,
sphodra.

" Echarison, they rejoiced, charon, with joy, megalon, great, and sphodra,
exceeding. They rejoiced with joy, great, and exceeding. So there's a double up
on joy.

They rejoiced with joy. And there's a double up on the greatness, great and
exceeding. This is a way of saying things that says there was the most awesome
joy in their hearts.

So let's just get down to what this means. There are many things we could talk
about when it comes to joy in our lives. But when we talk about worship, let me
just make it very simple.

One simple point. The truth is, if you don't enjoy being a Christian, if you
don't enjoy God, you aren't worshipping him. To worship God without enjoying
God, how can you worship without joy?

God is a God of joy who tells us the fruit of his Spirit within us is joy. Now
joy is not something that happens automatically. Joy is a choice.

They decided to rejoice with joy. They weren't forced to. They decided to
rejoice with this great and exceeding joy.

Joy is not accidental. Sometimes happiness can be accidental. You can get lucky.

You can have a good, fortunate circumstance. But joy is not. It is a choice.

It's a choice to express joy. Not just to have joy, but also part of worship is
expressing joy. Now two things about expressed joy.

First, it fits your personality. For you to express joy is not how someone else
would express joy. So don't think when I say express joy, it means you have to
jump up and down and wave your hands like this person would.

That's how they express joy. For you, a small, wow, just a very small word out
of your mouth. That could be the greatest expression of joy for your
personality.

So make sure it fits your personality, but express it. And second, it doesn't
have to be a Christian cliché. Sometimes a high five is better than an amen.

Sometimes our expressions of joy, they fit all these clichés of how everybody
else expresses joy. The truth is, how do you usually express happiness,
excitement, joy? Let that be your expression of joy.

As you look at your own life, these men were overjoyed in their worship. What
causes you to become overjoyed? Why are you overjoyed right now?

And you look at yourself and you say, "Well, I'm not. " Well, it's a choice. So
let me give you a few minutes to become overjoyed.

Let me give you a few minutes right now to choose joy. I'll wait. Just let me
give you these few moments.

Now as I say this even, you might be thinking, "I had a rotten day. You are not
going to force me to be happy. And I don't think I can force anybody to be
happy.

" The truth is, happiness and joy are different things. I'm not saying you have
to be happy. I am saying you can choose to be joyful.

You might be looking as I'm saying this and thinking, "No one is going to make
me be joyful. " That's exactly true. But I want to say to you, God made you to
be joyful.

No one can make you be joyful, but God made you to be joyful. God made you to be
filled with joy, not because of your circumstances, not because of the people
that are around you, but because of your relationship with Him. That is
something you can always take joy in.

Happiness, it's an emotional thrill. Joy is a spiritual truth. Happiness focuses
on circumstances.

Joy focuses on Christ. And these wise men teach us something. That star, it went
and it stood over the place where the child was.

The star told them, "Jesus is here. " I can't think of a better way to
experience joy in my life than to realize, no matter what I'm going through,
Jesus is here. I don't care if it's the worst moment of your life.

Jesus is right there with you. You are not alone. So let me ask you again, why
are you overjoyed?

Where's the joy coming from in your life? And let me also remind you, the Bible
tells us in Romans, we're to rejoice with those who rejoice. The joy in your
life comes not only from your own joy, it also comes from the joy in other
people's lives, in other believers' lives.

Don't allow Satan to get you into this trap where you get angry, you get bitter
because other people are joyful. That's not the way we're made. We're actually
made to multiply joy in each other's lives rather than to be bitter about the
joy in other people's lives.

Satan has his traps. He's been working them for years. Don't let him work them
on you.

One of the ways that we find joy is by rejoicing with others who have joy. If
I'm going to have sincere worship, genuine worship in my life, real worship,
I've got to choose to express joy, joy in who God is, no matter what the
circumstance. And then there's a fourth choice we have to make for genuine real
worship, and that is to humble ourselves.

You determine to humble yourself. The last part of verse 11, "On coming to the
house, they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and they
worshiped him. " Now, here are these men of great power.

Some called them kings in that day, and they're bowing to someone who is
greater. They're bowing to the Lord of lords, the king of kings. When we
worship, we recognize that we are in the presence of someone greater than
ourselves.

So much greater that we can't even comprehend how much greater he is. And that's
not just in church, just when we're singing songs, just when we're hearing a
message. We are living in the presence of someone greater.

Just think about that. That is a humbling thought. Each moment of the day today,
you are living in the presence of someone who is immeasurably greater than you
can imagine.

It's part of worship, is recognizing that truth of who he is. It's a humbling
thought, but it's also a worship-producing thought in my life. So let's take a
moment right now, just in prayer, to humble ourselves before him, to take joy in
him.

Our Father, we worship you right now. As we worship you, we in humility
recognize how much greater you are. Lord, you made everything that we see.

You can see everything at a glance. You are the Lord of the universe, and yet I
can talk to you. I can boldly come to you because of what Jesus has done.

It humbles me to realize that someone so great would love me so much that I
could talk to you, that I could hear from you. And so Lord, I speak to you with
a humble heart. Lord, I tell you with this humble heart, I also want to speak to
you with a joyful heart, a heart that takes joy not in my circumstances.

Those can be happy or sad, a heart that takes joy not in my relationships. Those
can be good or bad, but a heart that takes joy in your love for me, a heart that
takes joy in the character that you have that's going to last for eternity, a
heart that takes joy in the purpose and plan that you have that nothing can
destroy. So I choose to rejoice in who you are right now.

I choose to rejoice no matter what my circumstances, to make that my greatest
joy, because that is the only thing that truly produces joy. Thank you for who
you are. Thank you for your love for me.

In Jesus' name, I worship you. Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look together at
two final things we can learn from these wise men about real worship.