The Gift of Frankincense
The Three Gifts

Transcript

Good morning, church. It's good to see all of you here this morning. We welcome you to part two of our series entitled, “The Three Gifts.” “The Three Gifts” is based on the Magi, the wise men who came and brought these three gifts. They traveled far from the East and brought these gifts to Jesus.

Last week, we talked about the gift of gold. Today, we'll discuss the gift of frankincense. Speaking of traveling, I wonder if any of you are traveling this Christmas. Anybody traveling to go and visit parents or grandparents or others? Yeah, I see some hands going up around the room.

You'll be traveling. There's someone that always connects us together. It's the matriarch or the patriarch, somebody that we have to go see at Christmas. We pack our stuff and then we also bring our wrapped gifts and we travel. The Magi traveled to see Jesus.

Now, I'm not traveling this year. People are coming to my house. That's the way it goes lately; my children and my grandchildren will descend upon our house on Christmas Eve. I kid around; we love our family. They will descend upon our family on Christmas Eve like a cloud of locusts.

I have ten grandchildren; they will eat everything that we have and then they will depart. Then, they will leave. But we love it and we're happy that we have our family coming to see us. Maybe, you don't have someone that you're traveling to see, or maybe no one's coming to see you this Christmas, but what I would say to you is that Someone has traveled.

His name is Jesus. He traveled from heaven to earth to be one of us and so, invite Him to your house this Christmas. If you've never invited Him into your life, this is the season above all seasons to consider doing so. Would you invite Jesus? He traveled to connect us to God, and He's the one Who can connect us to the Father.

Now, our theme comes from Matthew, chapter 2, verse 11. It says, Matthew 2:11 (ESV) “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.” Last week, we discussed how gold is a gift fit for a king.

Now this morning, we'll talk about how frankincense, which is a gift fit for the Lord, how it's a gift fit for God himself. What is frankincense? Frankincense is an aromatic resin tapped from the very scraggly but hardy Boswellia tree. What they do is they slash the bark.

The first few times they slash it, it begins to form a resin-like tears that drip from it and they are white. But, as they continue to slash it in this process, it begins to form these yellow exuded resins that bleed out and harden. It’s from this that they gather and form many of the perfumes that we use today. Even from ancient times, they used it in perfumes and in incense. The Western name for this resin, frankincense, literally means incense of the Franks.

We believe it was first introduced to Europeans into the Western world by the French who had gone on the Crusades to the Middle East and they brought this frankincense back. Thus, it's been named after them. It's the incense of the Franks. In Jewish temple worship, frankincense was considered a valuable and sacred substance with very specific use. One of its primary uses was it was part of the recipe for the sacred incense that was burned on the altar of incense in the holy place, right in front of the curtain, in front of the Holy of Holies.

It represented the prayers of the saints that went up to God and so, the priest kept this burning all the time. You can read about that in Exodus 30:34-38. It symbolized the prayers of the people rising to God (Psalm 141:2; Revelation 5:8). The sweet-smelling smoke represented the presence and favor of God. It discussed how this frankincense recipe of incense represented the prayers of the saints. It was also included in the grain offering and in the sacrificial offerings.

It was part of that offering in Leviticus, chapter 2. You can read about that. It was restricted for special use. In other words, it was considered holy to the Jews. You couldn't use frankincense in your mixture.

You couldn't go to the temple and get the sacred recipe. No, that was not allowed. It was considered holy, which means set apart for God. We see that frankincense was a very unusual, not ordinary gift to bring to a baby shower.

Just like gold was a gift fit for a king, this frankincense was a gift fit for the Lord Himself. That's what we're talking about today. We're in John, chapter one, verses one through 18. Here, we see that the apostle John bore witness of Jesus as the very Son of God, as God Himself in the flesh. As we look at the text today, I think we can look and consider how we can consider who Jesus really is,

that He is the Son of God. He's God plus humanity in one person, the perfect representation and the way to know God personally. As we look, I think we can give God, we can give Jesus the gift of frankincense by worshiping Him for who He truly is. So let's dig in.

We're going to look at three ways we can do that today. But first, let's read the text, and then we'll dig in. John 1:1-18 (ESV) 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,

and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses;

grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” This is God's word. Amen.

We're looking for three ways on how we can give Jesus the gift of frankincense this Christmas. Here's the first:

1. By recognizing Him as the divine Word of God.

Those first three words in John chapter one are the same three words as the beginning of the Bible. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Surely there was no mistake on John's part. He was connecting his Gospel with the very origin of all things.

This Word that he speaks of was there before the beginning. “In the beginning,” he says, “was the Word” and so, he gives us this amazing claim, what he's talking about here is Christ’s deity, that He is divine, that He is God, of very God. Notice the way he talks about Him. First of all, he uses “In the beginning” to connect it to the book of Genesis.

Then, he describes Him as the Word. The Word. What an unusual way to talk about Jesus, that He's the Word. We see it in verses one and all through here. He says He was the Word, “In the beginning was the Word…”

So, He is there at the beginning. “...and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” which speaks of the mystery of the Trinity: the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. He's with God, but He also is God. So John, among the four Gospels, has a clear purpose.

If we consider Matthew, Matthew's purpose is clearly that Jesus is king. He makes more quotations from the Old Testament prophets to prove that He's in the line of David and deserves David's throne. That He's the king. That's Matthew; Mark sees Him as a servant.

He's a doer. He's always doing miracles and He does them “immediately” as the favorite phrase of Mark; he sees him as a servant. John sees Him as God.

Luke sees Him as the Son of Man, so He sees His humanity. But, John says He's God. He's God. He's with God, and He is God.

He calls Him the Word. Such an unusual phrase. Notice that he refers to the Word as a He. Verse 2, “He was in the beginning…”

That's in the masculine singular. This Word is a person. Who is this person? Well, we have to work all the way down to verse 14 to get a glimpse. Verse 14 says, “...and the Word became flesh.” The Word became flesh.

Those three words. Well, that's Christmas, isn't it? That's the Christmas story right there. God, the second person of the Godhead, Christ became human.

He took on humanity. He became flesh. Who is He? What's His name? Well, we have to go to verse 17 to finally hear His name.

John keeps us in suspense. And then in verse 17, he says that His name is Jesus Christ. That's who this Word is. He is Jesus, the second person of the Godhead, God Himself in the flesh. The Word, “Logos,” is the word in the Greek that we find translated as “word.”

It's an interesting word, “Logos.” It's where we get the word logic. It's also the word that all of our studies are based on. If you think about it, biology is bios, theology, theos, and logos is the study of God.

So all of those words that you studied in school, all those studies that have “ology” at the end comes from the Greek word “Logos;” literally a word about or the study of. Why call Jesus the Logos? Well, it was meaningful for John to do this both to his Hellenistic audience, his Greek audience, as well as his Jewish audience when he was speaking to the Greeks. The word, Logos, was rich in the philosophies of Plato,Socrates and others among the Greeks. They saw the Logos as the primary rational explanation of all things.

So, to talk about the Logos was to talk about why we exist. And it was describing our existence. And then for the Jew, the word Logos had the sense of God himself, that somehow it was the embodiment of God. In John's Gospel, he says He is an eternal word because he says,1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…” He's an eternal word.

Then he says that He's a divine word - “...the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”Then he says that He's the creative word - Verse 3, “All things were made through him.” How many things were made by Him?

All things. All things were made by Him. He seems to be harkening back to Genesis even more, because “In Him, verse four, was life.” So he's the source of life. Who?

The Word. Who's the Word? Jesus. He's the source of life and this life, he says, is the light for all men.

So he's the source of light as well. This, too, I think, harkens back to the book of Genesis. Because we see in Genesis 1:3 (ESV) And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Perhaps, if we were to read Genesis chapter one through the lens of the book of John, through the lens of the New Testament, we could read in Genesis chapter one and see the whole Trinity:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

This Jesus, in Him is life and in Him is light. God said, “Let there be light.” Jesus is that creative member of the Godhead. He's the source of all things. This is what John is teaching us about Jesus.

When I think about this, I think about His claim for divinity. I remember when He was talking to the disciples and He was talking about how He would soon be going and leaving them, but He would come again and not let their hearts be troubled. And then we hear Philip say, ‘Well, if You just show us the Father. Could You just pull back the curtain and let us see the Father?’ And he says this to Philip.

He says, in John 14:9 (ESV) Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.” If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. Do you want to know what God looks like? Read the Gospels. He looks just like Jesus.

Do you want to know how He thinks? He thinks just like Jesus. Do you want to know how He feels? He feels just like Jesus. Do you want to know God?

He's the light, the revealing light that reveals who God is to man. That's what John is teaching us today. Have you ever heard of the theory in physics, spelled out by an acronym T O E?

Have you heard this physics explanation for life? It's called the Theory Of Everything: T O E. The Theory Of Everything. It's a theoretical framework in physics that aims to unify all fundamental forces and particles in the universe into a single, all encompassing explanation.

They're looking for an equation that would explain our existence, that they could somehow write out a mathematical explanation. The Greeks called this the Logos, the explanation for everything, the source of everything, the reason for our existence. I think John is telling us that Jesus is not the theory of everything. He's the real deal. He's the true light.

He is the explanation for everything. He is the reason for everything. Giving Jesus the gift of frankincense means to give Him recognition as the eternal creator. Life, Light, Son of God, that he is God, of very God. Have you given Him the gift of frankincense?

You can do it this Christmas by recognizing who He is. Now here's the second way we can give Him this gift. The first is to recognize that He's the divine deity, that He's the Word of God. The second is:

2. By believing in Him as the only true way to God.

He's the mediator between God and man. We're down to verses 5 through 13. Let's unpack them together. Last week in Matthew, we talked about how there's a war for your worship. There's a war between two kings. King Herod,

who's the false king, who was not born King of the Jews. He was appointed. He was a puppet king under the Romans and then King Jesus, who the magi came seeking.

The one born King. He's the one born to the line of David. We still have that warfare in worship today. Will you worship the worldly King Herod, or will you worship the spiritual heavenly king, King Jesus? Now, in John, we see another war going on here.

It's not for our worship, necessarily. It's for our belief. What will we believe? We see it beginning in verse five, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

So there's a war between light and darkness. There's a war. Light here is symbolic of God's revelation as opposed to man's blindness to it or God's righteousness, the light, man's sinfulness, the darkness. So we see a war for what we will believe and then as we keep reading here, he takes a little break, talking about Jesus for just a moment.

John the gospel writer, John the Apostle, gives us six, seven and eight verses talking about another John. This is not John the Apostle, the author of the book. He's talking about John the Baptist here in verse 6 “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”

He's not talking about himself, he's talking about John the Baptist. 7 “He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” He's talking about how John the Baptist was the forerunner for Jesus, that he came to prepare the way for Jesus' arrival. But then we see in verse nine, the true light, the genuine light, the real light, the source of all light.

He's coming into the world. He says that He gives light to everyone if you'll open your eyes. He's coming into the world. He was in the world.

He came. Do you believe that this one named Jesus actually existed historically? What year is it? The year's almost over, right?

How do we number our years? Well, the one Who interrupted history, so that even our date is based on how He interrupted history, that over 2024 years ago, this One came. He came into the world, and He was the light of the world and the world was made through Him, the creator.

John's restating his point from earlier. He's the Creator. The world was made through him and the world did not know him. And we're not talking about, like the Earth, we're talking about the people of the world. Here comes the Creator.

They didn't know Him. Verse 11, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” In other words, He came to the Jewish people born to the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem. He came to His own people, and His own people did not receive Him. They rejected Him.

But then, verse 12 says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” Is that you, have you received Him as your Lord and Savior? “...who believed in his name…,” have you believed in the name of Jesus? What's His name mean? What's Yeshua mean? It means “God's salvation.”

Have you believed in Him? If you have, you've received the right to become the children of God. He's the mediator. The only way to be right with the Father is through Him.

He came into the world to be the light of the world so that people would know the way to God, yet so many rejected Him. It says, in verse 13,

13 “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” He's the only true way. It points to our rebirth in Jesus. He's the only way. It says in John 14:6 (ESV) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.” He says, the way to the Father is not through a philosophy, it's through a person. It's not a path, it's a person. If you want to know the way to the Father, it's through Jesus. He's the mediator.

He's the go between, between God and man. If we flipped over a couple more chapters into chapter three, we would encounter a man named Nicodemus. He comes to Jesus at night, probably to keep it quiet because he's an important man and he wasn't sure about who Jesus was. And so I've titled chapter three of John, “Nick at Night.” So Nick comes.

Nicodemus comes at night to talk to Jesus. He says, ‘Rabbi, we know you're a great teacher, you're a great man and God is with you.’ Jesus just looks at him and cuts right through all the flattery and right through all the “muckety muck.” John 3:3 (ESV) Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

He just cuts right to the quick and Nicodemus is flabbergasted. What am I supposed to do? Go back into my mother's womb and be born again? How am I going to do this?

Jesus says to him,
‘You claim to be a teacher in Israel and you don't understand a spiritual truth like this? I tell you the truth, you must be born again of the Spirit.’ He continues to teach Nicodemus and He says to him, John 3: 14-16, 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

He gives him this beautiful verse that we heard the children quote just a little while ago. It was their “prove it” verse, right?
John 3:16-19 (NKJV) “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” So, He gave him that verse, but then He kept on going. He says, “…He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Here's what Jesus says. People are blind, not because they lack sight, but because they love darkness. There's a war between light and darkness, between truth and lie

and the world loves darkness. But those who have received and believed in Jesus love light. He's teaching this to Nicodemus. I wonder, do you ever ask questions like, I wonder what happens to Nicodemus because he just kind of disappears?

Well, until you get to the end of the Gospel of John. Then, Nicodemus shows up again. Where does he show up? He shows up at the cross. He and one of his best friends, Joseph of Arimathea.

They're both Pharisees, they're both influential men that serve on the board of directors for the Jews, the Sanhedrin, if you will. And they go after Jesus is crucified, they go to Pontius Pilate and they ask permission for his body, because his body would have been thrown down there in Gehenna, down there on the trash dump, along with the other criminals who had no one, if they had not intervened. They went, took His body, cleaned His body and bought expensive spices. They wrapped His body in linen and put Him into the tomb that had never been used. Very expensive. It had been hewn out.

This tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. Do you know what I think? I think Nicodemus came to the light. How else would he have put at risk his reputation and everything to join in this moment of taking care of the body of Jesus? I think we'll see old Nicodemus in the light someday.

That leads us to the third way that we can give Jesus the gift of frankincense. The first is to recognize His deity. The second, is his position as priest and mediator. And here's the final one:

3. By worshiping Him as the incarnate Son of God.

By worshiping Him as the incarnate Son of God. What does incarnate mean? It means in the flesh. In the flesh, incarnate. We are looking at verses 14 through 18

now. I've said this before the Word became flesh, there was a point in time where the Son of God was not. He had not yet taken on humanity. We might be seeing glimpses of Him on occasion in the Old Testament scriptures where He appears. Perhaps, He was the one who appeared to Abram and told him that they were about to have a son named Isaac. These are called “Christophanies,” appearances of the preincarnate Christ before He comes in the flesh.

There are many places. I don't have time to discuss them, but there are many places where I believe the preincarnate Christ appears,because there never was a time when Christ was not; He's eternal. But, there was a point in time where He became flesh.

In other words, He took on humanity and so, He's the God man: 100% God, 100% man, joined perfectly together in one person. There's no one like Him in the whole universe. His name is Jesus and He's the Christ.

”The Word became flesh.” That's the shortest part of any Christmas story in the Bible. It's a three-word Christmas story. Word became flesh and He dwelt among us. In other words, in the Greek, it has the idea that He pitched His tent here, He tabernacled among us.

This is John speaking. We've seen His glory. We saw Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. We saw Him walk on the water. We saw Him heal the sick.

We saw Him raise Lazarus from the dead. We saw Him. We saw Him in His glory, the glory of the only Son, the only begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about Him. Verse 15

is talking about John the Baptist again, verse 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) Make up your mind, John the Baptist, was He before you or after you? John says that I, being clear as I can, He's both.

He was after me, but He was before me as well. What does he mean? Well, John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus, born to Elizabeth. We know in the story of Luke, that Elizabeth was six months pregnant when the angel Gabriel told Mary, “This is a sign to you, your relative Elizabeth has been pregnant for six months.” Mary goes to see her

and when she goes to see her, John the Baptist, who is in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy at the presence of Mary coming with Jesus in her womb. So, that's where we get our idea that John the Baptist is six months older than Jesus. So he says that He came after me; that's my cousin.

Jesus came after me, but actually He came before me because He's God. That makes sense. Now, Johnwas being very clear here. I don't know why you were so confused. Verse 16.

”For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” All this back here was from Moses. But grace and truth, they came through Jesus. No one's ever seen God

but the only God, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom at the Father's side, He has made him known. If you want to know God, you have to know Jesus. There's no other way. He's the one Who took on humanity. He's the one Who took on our situation.

Philip declared Him and got His question answered. Strangely enough, Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born, declared His coming in such a way. He says, Isaiah 7:14 (ESV) “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us.” He's God taking on our situation.

He's God with us. 700 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah saw this. Even the centurion at Jesus' crucifixion was convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. Notice what he says in Matthew 27:54 (ESV) When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

This is who He is. This is Jesus. Do you ever have trouble trying to figure out why there's so much suffering in the world? Or maybe you have a friend who's an agnostic or maybe even an atheist

and that's their thing that keeps them, they say, from believing in God. They say, ‘Well, if God's all powerful and he's all knowing and he's all good, why are there starving children? Why does a hurricane come and destroy western North Carolina? Why?’

I'm not here today to crack the code for that. It's a tough, tough conversation to have. It's called the problem of evil. If God is good, why is there evil in the world?

Perhaps another sermon. We can consider that. But here's, I think, a window into the answer for this and it's this, that He didn't just leave us in our suffering situation, but He took on our suffering. Look what John Lennox says.

He was speaking at Oxford when he was talking about what he believes about Jesus and the problem of evil. He says, “If it is actually true that Jesus is, as I believe Him to be, the Son of God, then we can ask the question, “What is God doing on a cross?”

And the answer comes back at the very least. God has not remained distant from our human suffering but has become part of it.” So what's God's answer to our suffering? It's God on a cross.

The shadow of the cross overshadows the cradle. This baby came to die. This baby came and took on flesh, took on our suffering, took on all of our sin, all of our separation. And He offers His righteousness, His eternal life and His sonship so that we have the right to become children of God. That's the answer to the problem of evil.

It's the Logos. It's the “Word became flesh.” It's Jesus. Let us worship Him. Let us believe in Him.

Let us recognize Him for who He is. He is God, of very God. He has become one of us in His humanity. He's the go between and the mediator between God and man. Let's pray.

Lord, I pray first of all, for that person that's here this morning that has yet to give You the gift of themselves. They haven't recognized You as the Son of God, as the Savior of the world, as the light of the world, as the source of life. They haven't recognized that, nor have they received and believed in You. Is that you, my friend?

I'm praying for you right now. I believe the Lord Jesus is knocking at your heart's door through His spirit. He's calling you to Himself. Would you say yes to Jesus today? Would you pray with me right where you're seated?

Perhaps you're watching in the next room or you're watching online. He's listening. Would you respond? You can pray like this. ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.

I've chosen my own way. But today I want to follow You. I believe that You died on the cross for me and that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. I believe that and I receive You now as my Lord and Savior. Forgive me of my sins and make me a child of God.

I want to follow You all the days of my life.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, the Bible says He will save you and adopt you into His family. Others are here today and you've made that confession of faith and you are a follower of Jesus. But you're going through a season right now and I want to pray for you as you go to your Christmas festivities this year. There might be someone missing at your table that was here last year and you're grieving but we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

I pray for you. I pray right now that the joy and the presence, the real presence of Jesus would be so full in your life that you would experience His grace and His mercy. Especially now. Oh, we pray it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.