HOLY MOMENTS: Finding Jesus In Your Life

Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by DaVinci Resolve 18

The Power of Stories

Storytelling is powerful. And throughout our lives, we have different narratives that shape us and different narratives that we believe, and especially when it comes into the church culture and some of the things we believe, we have different narratives that shape us. And sometimes it’s not always scripture. Sometimes it’s stories that we have heard from other people—maybe our own family, different religions, and things—and it is important to try and get an accurate picture and the accurate narrative of this amazing story as we reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ.

And so over the last several weeks, we’ve got this sermon series called Holy Moments, divine moments, where God impacted different lives. We’ve looked at the shepherds, we’ve looked at Joseph, we’ve looked at Mary, and today we will be looking at the Magi.

But as I’m thinking about narratives and stories that shape our beliefs, in South Africa, especially within the black South African community, they have a belief, they believe in—not everyone, but there’s a majority of people that believe in—the Tokoloshe. Everyone say Tokoloshe. Man, you are ready for South African Christmas today. And so the Tokoloshe, really, they see this person, it’s almost like a short, scary witch doctor. There’s actually a lot of demonic stuff into this. But so again, in South African culture, a lot of homes kind of growing up, you have a little house or a little room outside of the main house of the family where the maid or domestic worker can live during the week. And so in this black community, a lot of times the women will take their beds and they’ll put it on paint cans. So they’ll lift the bed because they are worried that the Tokoloshe might come and assault them at night. And so it is a very strong and very real narrative in the black South African community. And so it’s always fascinating, and we would kind of abuse the story, and we would go and scare them and knock at their doors late at night, right? And they’ll be all freaked out thinking it’s the Tokoloshe and make these weird noises. But again, you’ll see when you go into some of the villages, you’ll see people have their beds raised up high on bricks or on paint cans because they wanna be high enough in the air so that they can’t be reached by the Tokoloshe. Now, again, powerful narrative. Is it true? No. I’m sure that there is some demonic and spiritual things that is going on.

The Date of Jesus’ Birth

In the same way, we gotta try and clear and get a biblical understanding of the narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ. Now, if we’re honest this morning, when we think about Christmas, Constantine—now there’s very different reasons or theories around why the early church picked December 25th. December 25th, if we’re honest this morning, is not the actual birth date of Jesus Christ. And guess what? Nobody really knows the exact date that Jesus was born. This is… people are trying to figure out, there’s a lot of speculation. But for various—like I said—different reasons, people have picked December 25th to say, “Let’s use this date to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.”

Now, sometimes the church has come up with some weird ideas, and it’s like, “We shouldn’t celebrate, it’s all pagan,” and different things, and there’s kind of a theory out there that the early church picked December 25th because it was a pagan religious day, and they were kind of sticking it to the man to say, “We’re gonna celebrate Jesus, okay, on this day.” Another one, a stronger one that I like that it’s exactly nine months from the crucifixion day of Jesus Christ. I do like that theory. But again, nobody knows exactly the exact date when Jesus was born.

Now, does that matter in the big scope of things? I don’t think so. There’s a lot of things in scripture that we don’t have all of the details. And so we gotta, as believers—when you’re a mature believer, there is a lot of information—and you have to try and discern and study and to say, “Yeah, this is the heart of it. This is important.” Yeah, guess what? This isn’t that important. And through even this narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ, there’s a lot of things that we don’t know. And to be okay with it. If God really wanted us to know, the writers would have shared that with us—obviously being inspired by the Holy Spirit—but we don’t have all of that information. But there is things that God said, “This is important,” right? And so when we see the prophetic words, when we see the story of Mary and the Virgin birth, here’s enough details that we know and that we can celebrate.

And so I am okay with all of December. I am so grateful that we as a church can take all of December and to have a month where we can just zoom in on this incredible story, the story of Jesus Christ. And then I’m so excited that we get to do that again over Easter, when we think about a Lenten season, right? To take all of that time, to focus again on the crucifixion. So don’t let the specific date throw you off. We know that the story is real. We know that Jesus came as a baby, and that he, later on through his ministry, he would die on the cross for us. And those are some of the key things that we need to walk away with and for allow our lives to be transformed.

The Story of the Magi

Now, when I think about the Christmas narrative, this Christmas story, at least in my mind, kind of growing up, I had it that here is a star that appears to the Magi, and they’re like, “Cool star. Let’s quickly jump on our camels,” right? “Okay, somebody grab some Starbucks for us. A couple of sandwiches. Let’s go.” All right? And then somewhere even that same night, they arrive somewhere in Bethlehem and  here’s the star. I don’t have a lot of questions about the star appearing right over the house, it’s like, “Okay, that’s the house.” And here’s Jesus in a manger. Oh, and even there, they were still looking for Jesus, and then they just show up at the palace in Jerusalem, say, “Hey, King Herod, here I am. Where’s this King Jesus?” All right? And so and then you kind of have the story of the shepherds and everyone is kind of singing along there with the animals. But unfortunate… not unfortunately—it is not the correct narrative.

And so I want to help us this morning to reflect a little bit on the life of… on the Magi, and kind of their holy moment that they experience as well. And then we’ll look at several principles that I believe might impact our lives this Advent season. So if you have your Bible with you, please turn with me to Matthew chapter two. We’ll start in verse one to verse twelve. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there’s a Bible right in front of you in the chair in front of you, so grab that. If you don’t have a Bible at home, please feel free to take that with you as well. That’s our gift to you. All right.

After…

You can kind of mark that “after.” Everyone say “after.”

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, …

That’s kind of another clue that gives us a time period with King Herod.

… Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, …

Everyone say, “disturbed.”

… and all of Jerusalem with him.

That’s an interesting point. Kind of if you wondered why.

When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah 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 shepherd 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 search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me so that I too may go and worship him.”

Everyone say, “Lie, lie, lie!” Right? Thank you for that passionate “lie,” I appreciate it. Come again.

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, …

There’s kind of another clue.

… coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened up their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to the country by another route.

History of the Magi

Now, I want to take you back about five hundred years before this moment. Now, five hundred years—last… several weeks ago, we talked about how old is America? America is about two hundred and forty nine years old. And so even first, think five hundred years, you have the story of Daniel. Now, Daniel at this point is in Babylon and he was captured, but the Lord gave him a lot of favor. And he really had a lot of influence. Some commentaries say actually part of his role that he was over some of these magi. Now, that’s kind of the context. That’s some of the first time that we see who the magi is. And so here’s one kind of a description on the magi. They were “a sacred cast of the Medes that were powerful, fabulously wealthy, high-ranking priest who were devoted to interpreting dreams and studying the constellations.” So in short, just want you to know that these were really gifted, very influential people and very wealthy. Rulers and kings were actually quite scared of them because of their influence. It is fascinating when you read some of the history. They had the power to make a king, to put somebody new on the throne, or to remove a king. This was the type of influence that they had. Now, they were not believers. They were actually involved in magic. And again, kind of studying the stars and astrology. And so again, none of these things were good things, but at least this was the context for the magi. Very influential, very rich. And so they probably heard over the life of Daniel some of the prophecies that Daniel shared about Jesus. I want to share with you one of these messianic prophecies. This is in Daniel 7 verse 13–14:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

This is one of the messianic prophecies that Daniel shared while being an influence five hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. So we are assuming that the magi wrote some of these things down, these prophetic words, because that’s really in a sense the only way that they were able to have known about this coming king.

The Journey of the Magi

Again, not their world. They’re very far away removed. Magi from the east, they’re probably from Babylon, they’re probably from Persia. So that’s Iran today, right? Or Iraq. We’re not exactly sure where their exact location is from. And so that is probably somewhere between five hundred to a thousand miles away. So again, just think about our narrative that, oh, they saw the star, they quickly jumped on their camels and off they go, and by midnight they’re with Jesus, okay? Not the case. From here to Orlando is about a thousand two hundred miles. If you’re really a speedy driver and make no stops, you can probably do it in twenty-five hours, right? Maybe twenty-four. I don’t know if it’s possible in twenty-four, you really have to break every speed limit. No stops, no eating, and that’s when you jump in your SUV. They had no BMWs. This was probably on camel or on horse for a thousand miles. It probably—again, we don’t have the specifics—but probably took them about three months to a year to travel.

So somewhere out east, there’s this star which makes sense that shows up, and they’re like, “Whoa, there’s these prophetic words about a new king that will be born.” And they’ve studied—actually when you look at the Greek and stuff, it talks about them taking time to confirm that this star, this event, is something special. And at some point then in their preparation, I mean, nobody just climbs on a camel and say, “Let’s go for a thousand miles.” There’s some planning that needs to happen. You gotta pack your bags. Now, again, when we think about the Magi, they were rich, they had all kinds of gold and amazing gifts. You’re not gonna just travel with these gifts, with gold, without security. Again, they probably had soldiers with them. And again, there kind of goes our story of these three lonely wise men traveling on camel in six hours and get to Bethlehem.

Some commentaries talk that there was probably around twelve magi, right? Again, we don’t know the exact number. We only speculation through the gifts that people have said there’s three magi. Probably 12+ of them. Again, we just don’t know. But we can be assured that this group had hundreds of people with them. So this was quite the scene of them. You know, they had to stay in the desert. There was tents that had to get up. So you can imagine that all took manpower.

Encounter with Herod

Now, they’re following the star, and they end up in Jerusalem, and they are looking for this king. It’s like, “Where is this king?” Now, again, we, in our minds, we just, oh, now suddenly they appear there by King Herod. Like, cool story, right? “Okay, King Herod, tell us where is this, this new king?” Probably did not happen like that. We see that they’re actually searching for this baby, for Jesus. And that creates a stirring in Jerusalem. And somehow this ends up with King Herod. And when you know his story, he was a brutal man. He brought much pain and suffering into his kingdom. People did not like him. He was a very good builder, right? Had a lot of influence, but not a godly man, and was nothing for him to torture and to kill people, especially when he felt threatened to the throne.

And so suddenly there’s excitement in town with all of these magi rolling in. And one, you can imagine that King Herod got quite scared. Maybe had a lot of questions, because again, of their influence. They could make trouble for King Herod. They had that type of authority and that type of political power. And so he calls them and say, “Hey, tell me more about the star. When exactly was this baby born?” And then he says, “Hey, all right, when you have found this baby, come and tell me so that I can go and worship him.” And obviously, we know that that wasn’t the plan. He was getting ready to kill Jesus because he wanted to destroy and eliminate anybody that might take over his reign as king.

Meeting Jesus

And so then the magi is off. Now again, we see that they show up at a house. Now, I am not sure if this is back in Bethlehem, or is this in Nazareth? I’m not sure. And there’s not a definite answer on all the things that I was reading and studying. I can’t tell you exactly. There’s part of me that I want to say Bethlehem, this part of me that wanna say it makes sense that it’s in Nazareth.

But as they’re walking again, there’s this star that appears and that leads them to the house. And oh, what rejoicing and worship happened in that moment. And this is quite the scene, when you have people of influence, that they will fall on their knees, that they will fall on their face and worship Jesus. This was quite the discernment process in their lives to be on a place to be able to recognize that, guess what, this is the King of kings. This is the Lord of lords. And for them to have that revelation, that is quite amazing. I had to kind of wonder even as I was studying this, if they really understood the impact of Jesus, that they really understood the whole, you know, what was gonna happen in the future. Probably not, but they just knew that this was a future king. Probably had no idea that this was the son of God.

And then we see again, they had a dream. It said, “Hey, go a different direction, and don’t go to King Herod. Don’t tell him where or what. Go back in a different route.”

Now that’s probably a little bit more of an accurate picture. And again, there’s a whole lot of gaps in there and timing of things that we just don’t know. And that’s okay. We gotta be at peace with it. One day we’ll be in heaven, then you can ask all of those questions. That might not even come to mind when you get to experience all of heaven.

Key Points of the Story

I want to just leave you this morning with some main points as we look at the Magi and kind of in this holy moment for them. Actually, when we look at how God set them up, even with the story of Daniel and how Daniel gave a prophetic word, and his influence in that community, and how that will impact people 500 years later, for these magi to say, “Let’s go, and let’s follow the star.” Even that for me is kind of a holy and an amazing moment.

But here it is, a couple points I want you to know this morning:

Jesus is for everyone. Jesus is for everyone. The narrative and the story that we have about the Christmas story, God goes out of his way to reveal this good news to the outcasts, to the shepherds, to the magi that is not at all connected within the belief system of Jerusalem. And showing and revealing to us that Jesus is for everyone. And I want you to know this morning that Jesus is for you; Jesus is for that crazy uncle that might show up this weekend for Christmas dinner that you don’t like and that you have given up on. Jesus is even for him, amen? And Jesus is for everyone, and he can change anybody’s life, amen? He has changed my life. Even in the story this morning as we have heard from Christo, how he experienced God’s love and how that impacted his life. God is still in the business of changing lives and hearts. And he is for everyone. It doesn’t matter your past, some of the stuff that you have done. You can experience God’s love this morning and this Advent season. And you can experience the forgiveness of what Jesus did on the cross for us.

And then I love this, that these magi seek God diligently. I mean that was quite the commitment to leave their country, to get on some camels. I mean sometimes I’m too lazy to go to Walmart or to Target, right? To go and grab some stuff. It’s like, “Man, do I have to really go?” I’m so excited Hailey just got her permit this week on Friday, right? So a little scary too. But I was like, I can’t wait for her to just get her license, like, “Okay, go and grab us a milk,” right? But then to have that, it’s like “Oh, there’s a star. That’s amazing. Let’s get on the camels. Let’s pack our bags, and we’re gonna follow.” Seeking this King diligently.

It’s quite the invitation for us this morning too. In this Christmas season, in our faith journey, do we really seek Him still in our lives? Is He still the number one priority in us? Or is it maybe just religious activity? There’s so many people all over this world today that will even be in churches and that are showing up because of tradition and rituals, so it’s like, oh, it’s cute, but they’re not seeking God diligently. And this is our invitation to seek Him with all of our hearts. Here you have magi that is way outside. It is fascinating that even the scholars, the people that should be in, that’s in the heart of Jerusalem, people that are following the Law that are supposedly to be a man of God, right? That they are missing it. That God is revealing Himself to the magi, and the people, the spiritual leaders, are totally missing it. They had no clue what was happening right in their backyards because they’re not seeking Him. They’re seeking all kinds of other things. And yet that is true in our lives too. A lot of times we can get so hung up on seeking everything else but Jesus. Let’s seek him diligently this Advent season. Amen?

And then it says that they worshipped. They worshipped. That’s what we’re all about this morning. Man, we’re just here, and tonight we’re going to worship Jesus because he is worthy of our praises. He’s worthy of our praises. I love the Greek here. Greek lexicon says, “‘Worship’ in verse 11 translates as proskyneo.” You might be very familiar with that Greek word. It is “to express an attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure. To fall down, to worship, to prostrate oneself before, to reverence, and to welcome respectfully.” And that’s the Greek word here, that these magi fell on their faces, they worshipped. Another word is kind of the Greek. It talks about moving forward and to kiss, when you break down the Greek word. To kind of fall at somebody’s feet and to kiss their feet. That’s the powerful image that we have of worship. And this is the Greek word. This is what the Magi did. People in authority. They realized that this was the King of kings and they worshipped. Can we worship God in this beautiful Christmas Day?

And then, just, it speaks to their obedience. I think there’s several aspects of their obedience. What are we gonna do when we leave here today? What are you gonna do when you leave tonight this Christmas Eve, the Christmas service? Is our lives gonna be just the same? Are we gonna be living a life of obedience to God’s Word and following him?

And then, I love this—nobody can say exactly, but I love the symbolism in this. When we look at this passage, it said that they left in a different direction. They returned there to the country in another route. What it might be speaking to, some of the symbolism in here, is a transformation, that their lives was transformed in that moment. It was all turned around. They got to meet, they had their holy moment. They got to worship the King of kings. Even for us this morning, it is always this invitation. When we meet the King of kings, when we experience the salvation message, when we experience the power of the cross, what Jesus did on the cross for us, our lives are being transformed. And our walk looks different. We don’t go and walk the same way again. And that is, you know, so true. When we think about those that have been deeply impacted by the power of Christ, your life, when you’ve given over your life to Jesus Christ, your life will be transformed. Amen?