This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to the third day of our look through Matthew chapter 2.
We're learning from some wise men. This is our last day of learning from them
about worship.

How do I get from where I am to a place of worship each day of my life? And
we've talked about four things we need to do. You start with a sincere desire.

You develop an expectant spirit. You choose to express joy. You determine to
humble yourself.

And then there's a fifth thing that you do. And this is the one that's most
familiar to us about these wise men. You decide to give gifts.

You decide to give gifts. Chapter 11, last half, "Then they opened their
treasures and presented them with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. " A
lot of us really never practice this part of worship.

We have what I sometimes call, when it comes to Christmas, the little drummer
boy syndrome. Remember that line in the Little Drummer Boy song, "I have no gift
to bring that's fit to give my king"? I think many people feel like that.

God gives gifts to me. God gives great things to me. But what could I give to
him?

What do you get for the one who made everything? The truth is, you can give him
your heart. That's what you give him.

You can give him your choice. You can give him your love. You can give him your
commitment.

What these wise men gave Jesus recognized Jesus for who he really is. That's one
of the greatest gifts that you can give Jesus in worship, recognizing him for
who he really is. It's the essence of worship.

They gave him gold and incense, frankincense and myrrh. They gave him gold. Gold
was a gift that was given to kings.

When a king was born or when a king was recognized, they would give them gold.
So they recognized him as a king. They'd seen this star.

They knew that a king was being born. And as you look at these gifts that they
gave, everything in the Bible is there not only for the story of their life, but
also for the story of what God wants to do in my life. The truth of what God
wants to do in my life.

Their gifts encourage us to give. And this gift encourages me to give him my
best. Give him your best.

That's one of the gifts that you can give him. You don't give him your
leftovers. You don't give him what's at the tail end of everything.

You give him your best. You give him your obedience. You give him a willingness
to follow him as the king of your days.

That's what it means to worship him. Give him your best. And they gave him
frankincense.

They recognized him in giving frankincense as a priest. Frankincense was a
perfume that was used in the temple worship and sacrifices. And Jesus became our
great high priest.

A priest is someone who goes before God as a mediator on behalf of another, a
bridge builder in essence between man and God. And Jesus is the ultimate bridge
builder. He built the bridge through which you and I can have a relationship
with God.

When you give God gifts, you give him your best, but you know what else you give
him? You give him your worst because Jesus is our great high priest. You can
give him your sin and your guilt.

Now that may sound like a strange gift, but what better way to celebrate who
Jesus is than to recognize the wonderful forgiveness that he gave his life for
on the cross. Everything that he came to do is recognized when I say, "Forgive
me," when I confess my sins before him. You give him your worst.

Give him your best. And they also gave him myrrh. Myrrh recognized him as
savior.

Myrrh was a gift that was used in the embalming of bodies. And even from the
beginning, Jesus is being recognized as someone who's going to give his life for
us, give his all for us. And in that, you and I can learn.

What do you give to him? You give him your all. Give him your best.

Give him your worst. Give him your all. Jesus gave his all for us.

He gave his life for us. So we give our all back to him. What better gift could
we give than to give our lives back in service for him, to give our hearts back
in service for him?

When you worship, part of worship is deciding to give gifts. And the gift that
you give that's above any other is you give your own heart. You give yourself.

Now, you and I, we can see the meaning in these gifts as we look back into it. I
don't know that the wise men saw this. They may have.

They may not have. The reality is these were probably the most costly things
that they could get from their country. So they brought that which cost them
something, and they gave their all for Jesus.

It's not a bad example for us when it comes to worship. How can I give that
which cost me something and give my all for Christ today? What would I like to
give to Jesus?

That's one of the questions of worship. Then there's a sixth thing that these
men do that teach us how to worship. You end with an obedient response.

That's how worship should end, with an obedient response. In verse 12, having
been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country
by another route. They met with God.

God told them what to do next, and they did it. When you meet with God, whether
it's in a church service worshipping Him or a daily time of prayer or just
walking through the day, you spend some time meeting with God, He will often,
not always, but often tell you what to do next. Sometimes He'll just say, "Hey,
just keep doing what you're doing.

" That's telling you what to do next, by the way. Sometimes He'll say, "Go in
the wrong direction. " Sometimes He'll say, "I've got a new thing for you to do.

" Now, the last one is my favorite. I love it when God opens new doors and has
new things for us to do, but you can't have a new thing for you to do every day.
Many, many days He'll say, "Keep doing what you're doing.

Keep faithful to what you're doing. Keep faithful in that job. Keep faithful to
loving those people in your life.

Keep faithful to spending time with Me. " When you meet with God, He often says,
"Here's what I need you to do. " Now here's a question.

If I don't do what God said to do, have I truly worshipped? I don't think so. I
don't think we've truly worshipped unless we respond.

I remember a number of years ago, I was having a quiet time, spending a few
minutes with the Lord at the beginning of the day, and as I often do at the end
of that, I said, "Lord, what do You want me to do? " And He said something to my
mind that really had nothing to do with the verses I'd read that day. He said,
"I want you to write a note to your dad.

" My dad, you may have heard in other messages, has suffered with schizophrenia,
mental illness all of his life. We'd had many, many angry exchanges because of
that over the years, and been estranged from each other because of it for a long
time. Every once in a while, though, the Lord would prompt me to write a note,
and I would pray out of that note that maybe there would be an open door.

Well, I wrote the note, and I put that note in the mailbox, and as I did so, I
felt a real sense of worship. You often feel that way. When God tells you to do
something and you respond, you feel a very deep sense of worship out of that.

At least I do. Well, a few days later, I got a letter back, and it was filled
with anger. The response was not at all what I was looking for.

So my thought is, of course, "Okay, God, I mean, You said, 'Do this,' and I ran
into an ambush. Why would I even write the letter? Did I hear you wrong?

Did you let me down? " But then, a week later, I got a second letter, and I
actually apologized for his anger in the first letter and expressed a
willingness to get back into contact, and that has led to years of being back in
contact. That has led to my dad eventually coming to know Christ and beginning
to grow in Christ, but it began with this moment of obedience, that I didn't
understand it first and it didn't seem to work out at first.

That's how it often works in my life and all of our lives, I believe, when it
comes to obeying God. We don't always understand it at first, and it doesn't
seem to always work out in the first place, but God knows what He's doing. God's
above and beyond what we can imagine.

So you end with this obedient response. The question I have for my heart is,
"What has God told you to do that you're not doing? " That's how you worship
Him.

Do that. Or, "What way has God told you to go that you're not going? " That's
the way that you worship.

You go, you go there. Let's worship Him together for a few moments, asking for
His strength to do what He calls us to do. Lord, I want to be, we want to be
like these wise men.

We want to be wise men and wise women when it comes to worship. We want to have
a heart for worship. We want to, out of that heart, expect You to meet with us,
to have joy in our lives, to humble ourselves before You, give gifts to You.

But then, Lord, we do want it to end with obedience, this obedient response. So
Lord, I pray You would develop all of that in us. Help us to act on what You say
when we connect with You in worship.

What do You want us to do? Where do You want us to go? Jesus, we want to worship
You.

In Your name we pray. Amen. Join us tomorrow.