Turn with me, if you would, to
Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2. Both the Bible
study here and the message in a moment, they will come from
the first two verses of Matthew chapter two. I believe that I
have a true Sunday school for us this morning. Sometimes, this
is our Bible study, and sometimes I feel like I truly do have a
Sunday school for us. And this is one of those days
And I believe that this is a critical thing for all of us to know and
be reminded of, especially at this time of year, especially
at this time of year. I believe, I truly believe I
have a message for us in a moment. And I have a Sunday school for
us now. So let's begin by reading these
two verses and then we'll see what our subject is going to
be. Matthew 2 verse 1 says, now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judah in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came
wise men from the East to Jerusalem. saying, where is he that is born
King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in
the East and are come to worship him." Now, let me give you the subject
matter and the title of this Bible study. It's four words.
Two of them come from verse one and two of them come from verse
two. And it's this, wise men worship him. Wise men worship Him. If the Lord has revealed this
to us, we will take it for granted that He has revealed this to
us. But we should not do that. This
is just so critical. This is such a critical thing for all who are
gonna be true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and true worshipers
of him. I do want this to be a blessing
to our hearts. I truly do. But I also want this
to be a moment of instruction from God to us. We cannot forget
this. We cannot let it slip. We need
to be reminded. And I pray that after we are
reminded, we'll understand it, believe it, love it. I pray the
Lord will teach us that wise men and women WORSHIP HIM. THEY WORSHIP HIM. VERSE 1 SAYS,
WHEN JESUS WAS BORN IN BETHLEHEM OF JUDEA IN THE DAYS OF HEROD
THE KING, BEHOLD THERE CAME WISE MEN FROM THE EAST TO JERUSALEM
saying, where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have
seen his star in the East and are come to worship him. We are come to worship him. I pray that's the case for us.
I pray it is. Worship is something that happens
all the time in all kinds of ways. all the time, all kinds
of ways. Worship is a reverence for something
that you see to be sacred. A reverence for something that
you see to be special, something that you see to be worthy of
honor. It's an inner adoring. We have this adoring for things. It's an inner bowing to. It's an acknowledgement of our
high esteem for something, something that we value. We see to be of
high value and worth. And people feel that way. They
feel that reverence for and that high esteem of many different
things all the time. To get right to the point though,
it is foolish for us to worship anything other than Him. Now, here's the point of this. I really want to make this clear.
Our focus is Him. Our focus is a person. It's a
person. May our reverence only be unto
Him and our adoration only be unto Him. We worship a person. We preach a person. If you want to get to the heart
of our message, it's a person. It's a person. I want to be wise. I want all of us to be wise.
So what is it to worship Him? What is it? Wise men and women
worship Him. So what is it to worship Him? We're truly going to worship
Him. What is it? Well, turn with me
to Philippians chapter three. Philippians 3 verse 1 says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice
in the Lord, to write the same things to you. To me, indeed,
is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, that's
false preachers. Beware of evil workers, those
who preach and teach and believe and cling to works for salvation. Beware of the concision, those
who cause division. For we are the circumcision. That means we are the ones that
God gave a covenant to, made a covenant concerning. That,
that circumcision was a token of being chosen of God, God's
elect people. We are the circumcision, which
worship God. And anytime we see something
like that, emphasize God, God, the God who is God, not the God
who's not God. We're the circumcision who worship
God, the all powerful, all mighty, all doing, all controlling, all
saving all everything. God. We're the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit, in the heart and rejoice in Christ. Jesus rejoice over. God with us, the God-man, the
one who saved, the one who shed his blood. Oh, we rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We are the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. To worship him, is to stop worshiping
the flesh. Number one, number one, I mean,
no confidence, no confidence at all. I heard a man say, One
time, years ago, he said it to me and two other men who were
there. He said, this is my hope. This was an older man. He was
at the end of his life. But he said, this is my hope.
My hope is in the fact that I never went back to my old ways. And
when he said that, I thought, if that's my hope, I'm a goner. Because my old ways are still
my current ways, I feel like. no confidence in the flesh. People too often in religion
They make the focus of their worship themselves. It always comes back to themselves. They make themselves the focal
point. It's all about what they have
done or what they are going to do or what they have stopped
doing. It's all about their feelings.
It's all about how their life is going. They gauge everything
based on how their life is going. It's all about the flesh, what
they see in the flesh, whatever we are dwelling on and whatever
we're looking to, that's the object of our worship. So wise
men and women, number one, stop worshiping the flesh and they
worship him. They worship God in the Spirit
and they rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh. That's the first thing. The next thing is this, to worship
Him is to worship Him. Is to stop worship in the flesh
and it's to worship Him. Turn with me over to John chapter
four. John chapter 4, this is the story
of the woman at the well. And the Lord came to her and
she offered to give him water and he said, if you knew who
was talking to you, you would ask of me and I would give you
living water and you would never thirst again. And then the Lord
said some things about her. He exposed some things about
her sin. And if you look at verse 19,
the woman said unto him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto
her woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither
in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the father you worship,
you know, not what, Oh dear Lord, let that not be us. He's saying
you're religious, but you don't know what you're worshiping.
He said, we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews,
but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers, I wanna
be a true worshiper. He said, the hour cometh and
now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. People associate all kinds of
things with him, but to worship him is not to worship those things. It's to worship him. Let me give
us some examples of this. To worship Him is not to worship
religion. Some people worship religion,
just religion period, all religion. If it's religion, it's reverent
to them. Worship is something that you
consider to be reverent and valuable, and you highly esteem it. Some people, it doesn't matter
what religion it is, it's reverent. That's not worshiping Him. Especially
many, most, there's only one true religion and everything
that's not the truth of the word is a false religion. And that's
a lie on him. And, and seeing that to be reverent
is not worshiping him at all. He just said that we can only
be in a true worship when we worship in spirit and in truth. Worshipping Him in truth. So
it's not just a worship of religion. Worshipping Him is not worshipping
doctrine. I'll have a moment of silence
because that one's important. Worshipping Him is not worshipping
doctrine, even if it's true doctrine. a doctrine of true facts. I've known some over the years
who have been so enamored with facts about him, they've missed
him. Brother Henry wrote an article
one time, I taped it into the inside cover of my Bible, it's
been there for years, and he ended that article by saying,
one can know how sinners are saved and not be a saved sinner.
We can get all these facts lined up, all these facts, facts, facts,
and miss Him. That's a possibility. Totally
miss Him. Worshiping Him is not worshiping
facts about Him. It's worshiping Him. So we don't
worship religion, and we don't worship doctrine, We don't worship
the old writers and the old preachers, Calvin and Luther and Spurgeon. I love those men. I love those
men. They're becoming really popular
now. They weren't for a long time, but they are now. But our hope is not leaning on
those men. I had a man send me an email
a while back. It was a clip from Spurgeon.
I love Spurgeon, but I believe the clip was taken out of context.
I believe somebody cut a snippet of what he said and left out
what he probably said before that and after that. And he said,
do you agree with this and believe this? And I had to say, no. I
said, I love that man. And I don't know if that was
taken out of context, but our hope is not leaning on these
men. We don't worship the apostles.
I've had conversations with men who've made it so clear by what
they've said. They are so enamored with the
apostle Paul They've missed Christ. They want to be just like Paul,
just totally taken up with Paul. And they've overlooked the Christ
he preached. We don't worship buildings. I was in high school and went
on a school trip to London and we went, took a tour of all these
different buildings. We went in St. Paul's Cathedral
and Westminster Abbey and all that stuff. And I noticed that
when people would go into those buildings, they take their hat
off and they'd scrunch down a little bit, you know, and talk a little
quieter, you know, because now we're in the presence of God.
No, we were in the presence of God outside. That makes no difference. God does not dwell in buildings
made with hands. He just doesn't. None of us have
a desire to disrespect or mistreat our house of worship. We thank
God for this, but this is just studs and blocks and paint and
trim, just like every other building. We don't worship buildings, we
worship Him. All right, now, we don't worship symbols. We don't worship symbols. I'm
sure everyone has noticed that we don't have crosses on the
walls. Isn't that strange? You ever go into churches and
not see crosses on the walls? We don't have any pictures that
represent religion. I thought about it. I think we
have three, one in each bathroom. One is a bird. One is a flower. We don't have any pictures in
here that represent religion. Here's the reason why. Our Lord
said they are graven images. That's what God said they were.
What that means is that something fabricated to represent religion,
something that brings your mind to And God said, don't make those. Now I want to show you this because
it's shocking to anyone who has never seen this or heard this.
And if you ever, if it comes up, I want to show you where
it is. So go to Exodus 20. Exodus 20 verse one, it says
in God's spake, all these words saying, I am the Lord, thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Now, you know, somebody will
say, well, wait a minute. You're taking me back to the
law and I'm under grace. We are under grace, but grace
does not deny the law. Grace fulfills it for a center
who can't fulfill it for himself. That's what grace does. Verse
12 says, honor thy father and thy mother. Grace does not give
us a license to disrespect our parents. Verse 13 says, thou
shalt not kill. Grace does not give us a license
to murder. We don't murder. Should we murder? No. Verse 14, grace does not
give us a license to commit adultery. Well, I'm just a sinner and Christ
came to save sinners and he put away my sin. Grace doesn't give
us a license to do that. Verse 15, grace doesn't give
us a license to steal from each other. Verse 16, grace doesn't
give us a license to lie to each other. We could not fulfill any
of this because we've broken all of it in the heart. So Christ
came and he fulfilled it for us. But these commandments still
hold true. They're still to us and we hold
to them in whatever ability the Lord will give us. And the first
one he named was, don't put any other God before me. Don't exalt,
don't worship, don't serve any other God beside me. And we don't
want to do that. Look at the second one that he
named. Verse four, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image. That's a handmade symbol to represent
worship. Something that when you look
at it, you think God or religion or worship. You say people do
that all the time. They do that all over the world.
Can people all over the world be wrong? They were in Noah's
day. And I know that man says one
thing, but when God says something else, we need to bow to God. We need to worship God. Our Lord
said that he's not worshiped with men's hands, the graven
work of men's hands. He said, if we're going to worship
him, it has to be only in spirit, in the heart and in truth. And
he said in verse four, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. That
means don't paint paintings or make sculptures or whatever of
a dove with an olive branch in its mouth for the purpose of
representing religion. If you want to paint a dove to
paint a dove, go ahead and paint a dove. But if somebody looks
at it and it brings a symbol of religion, he said, don't do
that. Don't paint a picture of clouds with sun rays coming out
of them in two hands going like this. Most definitely don't paint
a picture of something that is supposed to be the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse four says, thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that's
in heaven above or that is in earth beneath. What is the number
one thing you think of on this earth that when you see it, it
represents religion and worshiping God. A cross. People worship
those, they truly do worship those. Verse four says, thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness
of anything that's in heaven above, or that's in earth beneath,
or that's in the water under the earth. When you think of
something under the water, something out in the ocean, what do you
think of? A fish. God said, don't use a fish to
be a symbol of worship, a graven image. And interestingly enough,
that's the one thing out of the ocean that man has chosen to
be his symbol of worship. So let's not be blind to this. In these times, in these moments,
whenever these things become so prevalent around us, let's
not go dull to this. It's unwise, it's unwise. Our God has given us this commandment
concerning all of these things for this reason. They are distractions
to worshiping Him. They are distractions. They draw
our attention and our reverence to the symbol and away from Him,
and it just can't be. Over in, don't turn, but over
in 2 Kings 18, it talks about Hezekiah's reign, this king who
feared God and did right in the eyes of the Lord. When he began
to reign, it says he gathered up all the symbols of worship,
all the idols, all the graven images, and he broke all of them
to pieces. And one of them was the actual
pole and brazen serpent that Moses made in the wilderness.
Lifted up serpent on the pole and all who looked. lived. One of them was that actual pole
that Moses made. Hezekiah said, it is Nahashtan. That means a worthless piece
of brass. He saw that everybody was worshiping
it. And don't, don't break that. You know, don't, that needs to
be in a glass case. He said, grind that thing to
powder. If it is going to steal our attention from him, It is
worthless brass. God told Moses to make that in
that moment to point men to Christ crucified. It represented Christ
being made the very thing that was killing God's people, that
poison, that evil, which in our case is sin. Christ was made
to be our sin and lifted up as a sacrifice to God to be judged
and to put away that sin, to die. He said, if I be lifted
up, I'll drop, draw all, all my people to myself. Whoever looks to Christ alone
shall live. After that moment, and after
that message from God was over, God was done with that brass
pole. And Hezekiah knew that, so he
destroyed it, and it says God was pleased. He was pleased with
that. The people were worshiping the
symbol rather than the Savior that it pictured. And here's
the thing about it, so would we, So would we had God not revealed
these things to us and taught us these things. So we don't
worship ourselves. We don't worship religion. We
don't worship doctrine. We don't worship men. We don't
worship buildings. We don't worship symbols. We
don't worship ordinances, uh, tables, rituals, ceremonies. We don't worship holidays. I love this holiday. I love giving
gifts to people I love, but we don't worship holidays. We don't
worship Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day. For many people, think about
it, if you disrespect Christmas or Easter, you've stepped on
their God. If it's gonna be in the way of
us worshiping Him, nahushtin. I thank God for this time, I
really do. But we don't worship anything, anything in our heart. This is talking about going deep
into the heart of what we feel and think about these things.
Let nothing take precedence over Him. A service where a ceremony
of baptism or the Lord's table takes place, that is no more
holy than a Wednesday night. It's all about Him. And December
the 25th is no more holy than, you know, September 9th. I don't know. It's all about
Him. It's all about Him. We worship Him. We have come
into this house and gathered in His name. to worship Him. We worship Him. These are my
closing remarks on this. Psalm 29 says, worship the Lord
in the beauty of holiness. We worship Him for His holiness.
Holy, holy, holy. Don't you want to just cry that
for all eternity with the seraphims? Holy, holy, holy. We worship Him for who He is,
what He is. He's holy. We worship Him for
what He's done for us. He has robed us in His own righteous
covering, and we worship Him for that. He has shed His own
precious, indescribably priceless blood and covered us in it, and
we worship Him for that. We worship Him for His faithful
promise to us, His covenant to us. We worship Him for everything
that He's done to save our souls from destruction. May nothing
steal our reverence or our worship away from Him. Wise men and women
worship Him. Lord, make us wise. Please make
us wise. All right, you're dismissed.