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Joy to the World: The Learned
Pastor Rolan Fisher
Focus: God brings joy when we allow our learning to discover life’s purpose in Jesus.
Following the Signs
With Special Revelation
To the Feet of the King
Following the Signs
Our joy is stirred when we begin to follow the signs in life pointing us to Jesus.
Matthew 2:1-12
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
The first thing we see in Luke’s account of the wise men is that the good news of Jesus is not an idea, but a recorded event.
Jesus came at a particular, well documented point in human history - in the days of Herod the Great, the Roman appointed king of Judea who ruled from Israel and Judah from 37-4 BC.
Two reasons the invitation to meet Christ would have brought joy to these wise men are:
1. It is a calculated certainty that we will all face God one day in death to give an account of our lives.
PHD Stephen C Meyer during his interview by Lee Strobel for the book The Case for a Creator said it this way:
“If it's true there's a beginning to the universe, as modern cosmologists now agree, then this implies a cause that transcends the universe. If the laws of physics are fine-tuned to permit life, as contemporary physicists are discovering, then perhaps there's a designer who fine-tuned them. If there's information in the cell, as molecular biology shows, then this suggests intelligent design. To get life going in the first place would have required biological information; the implications point beyond the material realm to a prior intelligent cause”
-Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
In essence, both then and now we see that resistance is futile.
We’re all going to physically expire one day.
It was joy for these erudite men because for all their deep learning and achievements in life, it all amounts to nothing if you are damned in your destiny after the grave.
King Solomon of ancient Israel, one of the wisest and wealthiest men who ever lived said it this way by the Holy Spirit:
Proverbs 11:4
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Jesus echoed this strongly in his teachings when he posited:
Matthew 16:26-27
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
Mortality is a liberating thing if we are right with our intelligent creator.
Yet it is a fearful and daunting reality if you enter eternity without Christ.
It is better to meet God now with the invitation of peace, than to face the wrath of His foretold judgment.
2. The meeting of Christ would finally put the reason for all of their great learning, achievements and resources into proper perspective.
God intends our great learning to ultimately lead us to Christ.
This is why the wise men deemed it necessary to make such a long, costly and time consuming trip to meet the King.
As in all encounters with God, responses of active worship are not only what God is due, but are for the benefit our hearts as we remember both our place and responsibilities in life before God.
Worship of Jesus puts our world and all that we deem is ours in the right order.
As with the shepherds, an invitation was made to the wise men.
“Wise Men Still Seek Him”
God put his creation to work using the star as a sign.
Psalm 19:1-4a
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
Romans 1:19-20
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
The wise men followed the signs of God’s revelation in the natural world to ultimately lead them to both the predictive and explanatory power of the Bible.
What signs has God been giving you to lead you to meet Jesus?
With Special Revelation
Our joy is confirmed when we embrace the special revelation of God’s Word leading us to Christ.
How did the wise men catch wind of the Messiah?
Scholars tell us that the term wise men originally referred to priests and experts in mysteries in Persia and Babylon where years before the Israelites had been deported in judgment.
The Israelites carried the special revelation of the Law and prophets of God with them to Babylon speaking of the soon coming Messiah.
By this time the meaning of the term wise men extended to those who practiced astrology, dream interpretation, study of sacred writings, wisdom and magic.
It was not that God approved of these practices.
Rather God was demonstrating his love and missionary heart towards all mankind, meeting people where they were to bring them back to Himself through Jesus.
*So it is today.
It is not just good enough that we believe in something.
God wants to bring us to Jesus who is the only means of reconciliation between fallen humanity and God because of what Jesus would eventually accomplish for us on the cross.
When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem, they came into contact with God’s Word and were charged by Herod to diligently search for the child who was born King.
Yet today, so many of us excuse our lack of faith with herd mentality euphemisms to simply justify the sin in which we want to live.
Both Herod and those in Jerusalem were troubled because the advent of Jesus threatened their perception of rule over their own lives.
However, the joy and life that you find in Jesus are worth the prolonged search to make your confidence in Christ sure.
“I started out as an atheist, utterly convinced that God didn’t create people but that people created God in a pathetic effort to explain the unknown and temper their overpowering fear of death. My previous book, The Case for Christ, described my nearly two-year examination of the historical evidence that pointed me toward the verdict that God really exists and that Jesus actually is his unique Son.”
-Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity
It took faith for the wise men to follow the predictions of Scripture to lead them to Christ.
On what were are we basing such confidence today?
“Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.”
-John Lennox
Is there a reliable source to tell us how to find the Lord?
In his apologetic, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, scholar Gary R. Habermas writes:
“We can start with approximately nine traditional authors of the New Testament. If we consider the critical thesis that other authors wrote the pastoral letters and such letters as Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, we'd have an even larger number. Another twenty early Christian authors and four heretical writings mention Jesus within 150 years of his death on the cross.
Moreover, nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within the 150 years: Josephus, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; and probably the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion.
In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death.
In comparison, let's take a look at Julius Caesar, one of Rome's most prominent figures. Caesar is well known for his military conquests. After his Gallic Wars, he made the famous statement, "I came, I saw, I conquered." Only five sources report his military conquests: writings by Caesar himself, Cicero, Livy, the Salona Decree, and Appian.
If Julius Caesar really made a profound impact on Roman society, why didn't more writers of antiquity mention his great military accomplishments? No one questions whether Julius did make a tremendous impact on the Roman Empire. It is evident that he did. Yet in those 150 years after his death, more non-Christian authors alone comment on Jesus than all of the sources who mentioned Julius Caesar's great military conquests within 150 years of his death.
Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke.
Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each.“
The star reappeared after the wise men consulted God’s word, and led them full measure, with natural and special revelation working together, to the feet of Jesus.
To the Feet of the King
Our joy is realized at the feet of Jesus when the purpose behind all of our talents, learning and resources come into full view.
People often wonder at the great purpose behind their learning, their opportunities and the measure of their resources.
God gives us understanding when we finally meet Jesus as He is.
There is no other way to truly meet Jesus except as King.
As with the wise men, when we finally meet Jesus as KING, it demands at least three responses:
Jesus becomes Lord of your time - the wise men made a trip from the East that would have taken 40 days over 800 miles if they averaged 20 miles a day by caravan along the main trade route from Babylon
Jesus becomes Lord of your treasure - the wise men came and laid their wealth at the feet of Jesus that their resources would not be their God, but their God would be the provider of those resources. They understood what Jesus would say later, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24) and undertook great expense to travel to acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
Jesus becomes Lord of our talent - the wise men would take their encounter with Jesus, along with their great learning, to become witnesses of Christ in the places in which they used their talents on a daily basis.
These three responses are right in the middle of the Christmas story because worship always comes back to this:
How will God see that you used your time, treasure and talents to worship Jesus as King?
Will these things have been used for the Kingdom of God to reap an eternal reward or will they have been wasted and one day buried with you?
The wise men ventured together with like minded individuals to meet Jesus.
They ultimately found the joy of worshiping and giving to the One who would reign forever.
So what does Jesus being Lord mean?
“Again; thousands are deceived into supposing that they have “accepted Christ” as their “personal Saviour,” who have not first received Him as their LORD. The Son of God did not come here to save His people in their sin, but “from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). To be saved from sins, is to be saved from ignoring and despising the authority of God, it is to abandon the course of self-will and self-pleasing, it is to “forsake our way” (Isa. 55:7).
“It is to surrender to God’s authority, to yield to His dominion, to give ourselves over to be ruled by Him. The one who has never taken Christ’s “yoke” upon him, who is not truly and diligently seeking to please Him in all the details of life, and yet supposes that he is “resting on the Finished Work of Christ” is deluded by the Devil.”
-Michael L. Brown
God reroutes us in life to ultimately save our lives.
God sent the wise men a dream to warn them of the danger that Herod, who would try to remain his own king until his death, now posed to them.
Will you allow God to reroute you?
Take an account of your life and begin now to reorder your time, treasure and talents in Christ.
*Leaving any one of these out is sin.
After meeting Jesus, the wise men returned home a different way.
So when we meet Jesus let our courses forever be altered to turn us away from a life of self-sufficiency and sin.
In doing so, we will find the joy of Christ’s advent and be a testimony of his true life to the world.
Second City Church - Joy to the World, Pastor Rollan Fisher 2020