The Gift of Gold
The Three Gifts

Transcript

Good morning,church. Don't you just love all the Christmas music in this Christmas season? It's wonderful!. We are kicking off a new series this morning entitled, “The Three Gifts.” I'm wondering this morning, how are you doing during the Christmas season?

Have you got all your shopping finished? Good. I see a lot of no's and a few yes’s.

Do you have anybody that is really hard to buy for? Is there someone in your family like that? Is it your wife? Is it your husband? Maybe it's your mother or your mother-in-law? Is it somebody like that? There's always at least somebody in your family;

I just don't know what to get them. They have everything. I wonder what the magi, the wise men, were thinking when they brought those three gifts to the one born King of the Jews. That's the theme verse for our series. Over the next three weeks, we're going to unpack the meaning of those three gifts.

It says in 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.”
They brought three gifts and they're not ordinary gifts, are they? They are unusual gifts that they brought.

They're not the kind of gifts you normally see presented at a baby shower, right? But, these are the three gifts that they brought. Prominent among those is that first gift, the gift of gold. Gold - what does that mean that they brought the gift of gold?

Well, I would remind you, they came to worship the one born king and that's what gold is. Gold is a gift fit for a king and they came to worship. I wonder how we can worship the one born king; the one that we celebrate at Christmas?

I guess the first question we must ask is, what is worship? What is worship? Worship is whatever you set your focus on as being as it's of highest value to you, it’s highest worth and so you recognize it's worth and you see that it's worth something. And then there's a follow-up step to that in worship.

Then, you give what it's worth. You begin to serve, or to pay, or to bring offerings to that. That's what worship is and we're all built for it. Everyone worships, but we don't all worship the true king, King Jesus. We all have something or someone we worship.

Ironically, Christmas might be one of the most difficult times to worship King Jesus because we have so many temptations, so many material distractions at this season. You know, Christmas is one of the most significant dates on the Christian calendar, but even surprisingly, it is probably the most significant date on the business calendar, on the retail calendar. According to Forbes magazine, retailers in America can expect to make $989 billion this Christmas. That accounts for one quarter of their annual profits and so Christmas is a big business and so we're often distracted.

I asked you a minute ago, have you finished your Christmas shopping? Just bringing that up probably brought some tension to you, but you started thinking about your list. Don't you all feel the tension, the pressure to try to make this the most special Christmas ever? It's like you're trying to grasp some feeling that maybe you had as a child. You're trying to recreate that, especially when you start having children.

I just feel like if I buy this, if I buy this…, and you're trying to recreate or make some kind of happiness. The surprising thing is the more you feel this anxiety, this tension to spend, spend, spend, you often feel less and less and less joy and peace. There's a true happiness that we should feel at Christmas. Don't you wish you could put off all of that crazy, chaotic spending and really focus on King Jesus? Well, that's what we're talking about today. In the Gospel of Matthew, the story of the birth of Jesus is told within the political backdrop of the Roman Empire, King Herod the Great and all of these details. We see a battle for the worship of the three wise men.

The wise men come and there's a battle that breaks out for their worship. Who will they worship? I believe that there's still a battle today between will we worship King Herod or will we worship King Jesus? Because King Herod represents the world's system, but Jesus represents the kingdom of God. As I believe today, we'll look at the book of Matthew, and I hope you can look at it with fresh eyes.

This is my 33rd year of preaching at Christmas, and every year I think, Well, we have Christmas again. How will I talk about it? I will talk about it every year, as I always do, from the scriptures. We're going to be looking at Matthew, chapter two and looking for three steps on how we can worship the true king, how we can put our worship on the true king, King Jesus. Matthew 2:1-12 (ESV) 1 “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, 2saying, “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.” 3When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

6 “‘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.’” 7Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8And 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.” 9After 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.

10When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11And 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.

12And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.” This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three steps on how we can worship Jesus as the true king. Here's the first step:

1. Understanding the battle for our worship.

Understand the battle for our worship. We can understand the battle for our worship. You'll notice the word, worship, is in our reading today three times. I would direct your attention to the first occurrence. It's in verse two. It's the wise men coming for the purpose of bringing their gifts in worship to the one born king of the Jews.

Of course, they came to the place where the throne was, and that was in Jerusalem. Of course, they followed the star from the east and they came where they thought the whole Jewish people would be celebrating. But to their surprise, they were not. In fact, they were troubled when these Persians, I believe they were Persians, came from the east. If you go directly east of Israel, you find yourself in modern day Iraq, or as it was called in those days, Persia.

They came and they encountered a king named Herod, who was called Herod the Great. Now, he was not a full Jew. He was half Jewish, half Idumean. In other words, he came from the Edomite clan. He was a false king.

He was a puppet king of Rome. He'd been placed there by Caesar, and so he was put there to control the Jewish people so that they would pay obedience to Rome. He served there from about 37 BC until his death in 4 BC. He was known as the great because he was a great builder.

He built Caesarea by the sea, that wonderful port there. He named almost all of his great wonders after Caesar. He also supersized the Jewish temple. He took the temple that had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel after the exile to Babylon, and he enlarged it. Today, when you visit Israel and you visit the one place, you can see that it was still from the time of Jesus, the Western Wall, or as it's sometimes called, the Wailing Wall, because modern Jews go there and they place their prayers between the cracks. They'll rock back and forth and weep because it's the closest they can come to the Temple Mount, which is under Palestinian authority. Upon the place where the Holy of Holies was, there is a golden dome placed there by the Muslims.

So, they rock back and forth at the Wailing Wall. The Western Wall was built under King Herod the Great. He did this to accommodate the Jews to make them happy. He was a very paranoid king. He was threatened by his own children.

He had many wives and many sons and daughters. He was known for even being willing to kill his own family if he thought they were a threat to his throne. In fact, the Roman Caesar Augustus uttered the famous pun concerning King Herod - he would rather be Herod’s pig (hus) than his son (huios). Now, in order to get that pun, you have to recognize that Jews don't eat pork.

It'd be safer, he's saying, to be his pig, than his son. Well, this is who King Herod is, King Herod the Great. There's nothing great about him at all. He's the false king and he's troubled.

Not only he, but all of Jerusalem that says they're all troubled, see verse three, by the arrival of these wise men. Now, you probably have three of them on your mantle, riding on camels or some such thing. We say wise men because that's how we read it here in the ESV translation. The Greek word is magoi; it's where we might get the English word, magi.

They were students of the stars. But I believe that they were also students of the Hebrew scriptures. How would they have had access to the Hebrew Scriptures? Would you remember with me for a moment the prophet Daniel who wrote twelve chapters in the Hebrew Bible? He was the chief of the wise men over Babylon.

Then, when the Persian ruler, Cyrus, overthrew Babylon, he became the chief wise man in Persia. So the wise men, I believe, had access to the Hebrew scriptures from that day forward; he had carried them with him. He refers to them in the book of Daniel. If you say they came from a far land to the east, they were coming from Persia or modern day Iraq. They came because they had read a prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures all the way back there in the book of Moses, the book of Numbers saying this. Numbers 24:17 (NIV) “ ... A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel…”

They came looking for the one born king, the scepter that would rise out of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel and they believed the scriptures. How ironic that they came and the Jews had to bring in the professionals and say, ‘Where was he supposed to be born?’ because they weren't looking. But these Gentiles, these Persians who had access to the scriptures came looking.

It's a foreshadowing that when Jesus came, He came to the whole world. They came looking for a star. Now, we say that there were three wise men. By the way, if you don't want to hear the rest of the sermon because you're concerned it's going to ruin your nativity scene, Google something or put in your earphones because I'm about to ruin your mantle where you have your nativity scene. You probably have three wise men.

Do you see the number three here? You do not. Where do we get that, from the three gifts? We get that from the three gifts. We don't know how many wise men, we don't know how many magi there were.

I think it's more likely that instead of three, there may have been thirty because it created quite a fervor when they came to town. Three guys coming in on camels happened every day in Jerusalem. But these people coming in were in a caravan, I believe, carrying wealth. So they would have carried guards and protection.

They came as representatives of Persia, which was not under the control of Rome. In fact, they were in enmity against Rome. So here come the Persians that everybody in Jerusalem would have thought, oh boy, what's this? They show up with all of this wealth and in this great caravan. We say that they were riding camels. But I think it's more likely the Persians were known for horseback riding.

I'm ruining it for you. I know, I'm sorry. I told you not to listen. But, here they come and so they come into town and they've troubled everybody.

Immediately, they have a problem because they come to the big city of Jerusalem, the city of lights, the city where all the wealth is. They come in, asking ‘Where's the one born king?’ Somebody has to go look it up. They have a battle right out of the gate for their worship. There's a battle for their worship.

Now, we don't know about this star. We have many modern scholars trying to make a natural explanation for the star of Bethlehem. Some of these may be correct. We really don't know. The Bible doesn't describe it.

Some say it was a comet. The astronomer, Kepler, actually suggested that it was the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn because when we look at the planets and the stars, we can follow, with mathematical precision. It's like God set a clock in the heavens. You can run it backwards and figure out where things are. It's predictable. Kepler suggested it was around 4 BC or thereabouts that there was a perfect alignment between Saturn and Jupiter which would have created this star-like amazing appearance. We don't know if it was a natural star.

We do know it was a supernatural star because God had predicted it in the book of Numbers. There was a battle and here they come bringing these gifts and causing and stirring up this trouble. It says in Luke 16:13 (NKJV) “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot serve King Herod and King Jesus. A choice has to be made.

You see, there's a battle for our attention and there's a battle for our affection. A battle for our attention and for our affection, because worship always involves, first of all, recognizing the worth and then secondly, you give what it's worth. Have you noticed the spooky way that when you look up something you thought you wanted to buy for somebody for Christmas, you googled it or you went on Walmart.com or Amazon.com and you looked it up, but you didn't buy it. You're just looking at it. Then you get on Facebook and that thing just keeps popping up. Wow, how'd Facebook know that? It's kind of spooky.

You start looking around thinking, how do they know that? It's based on what they call, “social media algorithms.” An algorithm is just a list of instructions. If A, then B, if not A, then C.

Facebook, Instagram and others share these algorithms. They can predict what you prefer to view, and what gets you to stay there longer. They say it's to improve your experience, but the truth is, it's to improve how long you will stay there and buy something, because that's how they monetize social media now. In other words, they want to keep your attention as long as they can so that you will give your affection to whatever you're attending.

Now, this is not a sermon about social media, neither pro nor con, but what I want to say to you is that social media is nothing new. There's always been a spiritual algorithm to get us to look at things and to get our attention so that we take our eyes off of the one true king. Once we get our attention on something else or someone else, we put someone else in the place of God or something else in the place of God. Our eyes fall to it and we begin to experience a battle for our worship. Now, every morning I get up and I read the scriptures. I have this combination of things I've been trying this year where I'm reading the scriptures on my laptop, but I have my phone sitting there playing the audio of the same scriptures.

I have an app that will read the one year Bible to me. So I get it through two gates simultaneously. Through the eye gate as I read and through the ear gate as I listen. It's been sweet. But occasionally, since I have these two technological devices in front of me as I'm studying in the mornings, I'll get a notification and wonder what that is.

I'm reading and I'm listening. I'm reading and I'm listening. I'll hit pause and then I'm somewhere else. It got my attention. Now, I'm reading some news that just gets me in a bad mood when I should have been staying where I was in the word of God.

Because your preacher is human, I can experience the battle for my worship and so can you. Do you understand that? There's a battle for our worship, there's a war going on for what you would give attention to and then what you would pay your affection to. That leads us to the second step.

2. Overcoming the temptation to spend our worship wrongly.

To overcome the temptation to spend our worship wrongly. We're up to verse four through eight now. He brings together King Herod, all the leaders of the scribes and the chief priests to inquire of them. Well, where's this baby supposed to be born?

King Herod didn't know. He's not even a true Jew; he's just a political appointee. He brings them in and they quote Micah 5:2, and you see they're quoting it verbatim in verse six. The prophet Micah said that He would be born in Bethlehem. According to Micah, he said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

That was hundreds of years before Jesus came. It was predicted where He would be born. There are over 300 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, every one of them fulfilled in Jesus. This is just one of them. And so we see it here.

They quote from Micah 5:2, and we see that He is born in Bethlehem, as was predicted. Now, it's ironic, don't you agree, that Bethlehem, in Hebrew, means “house of bread.” If your name's Beth, your name means “house” and “lehem” means “bread.” Isn't it ironic that the bread of life, the bread of heaven, was born in the house of bread in the city of David?

I think that's wonderful. That's beautiful. As it was predicted, as it was prophesied, that's where He's born. So when they hear this, we see in verse seven that Herod summoned the wise men secretly, because he's a devious snake, this King Herod. What he cares about is retaining his throne, staying in power. So, he brings them in secretly.

He doesn't want the other, the priests and so forth, to hear what he's planning. He wants to know what time that star appeared. When did you first see that star? I believe it appeared two years or less ago. Well, Gary, I don't see that in the scripture.

You said we were going to stick with the scripture. Stay with me. We didn't read it today, but if we stayed in chapter two and we got up to verse 16, then we'd see Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men (remember they went back by a different route), he became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. That means the star appeared around two years before they got there.

It must have taken them a little while to get together their caravan, to get together all that wealth that they were bringing and to make the distance, to traverse that distance and so, he ascertained it. Then, we see the second occurrence of the word, worship, in the mouth of the false king Herod. He says, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.” It's a lie,

because if he'll kill his own children, he'll certainly kill this boy. As we see in the book of Matthew later, he killed every baby boy under the age of two just trying to kill King Jesus. We still see the same leader, Satan, in this world today, active as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He hates Jesus, he hates the church, he hates every believer and he desires to destroy and so we see him pictured here in King Herod.

Here's what we read in 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” Now Gary, why are you reading this verse? Because John has identified Satan's bag of three tricks. He has a bag of three tricks.

The magi brought three gifts. But Satan has a bag of three temptations, three tricks if you will. It goes all the way back to Genesis chapter three. He pulled this on Adam and Eve. We see the desires of the flesh is one of the temptations we see in 1 John.

We see, as he comes to Eve, she looks at it and she's hungry and she sees that the fruit is good for food. Genesis chapter three says, “the desires of the eyes.” She looked at it and she saw that it looked good. She saw it was a delight to the eyes and then Satan said to her that it will make her wise like God.

The pride of life and so we see all three depicted in the three temptations in the garden. What does Satan do when he tempts Jesus In Matthew, chapter 4, in the wilderness? He uses the same three tricks. He says, ‘You're hungry. I can see you're hungry.

After fasting 40 days and 40 nights. If you're really the son of God, why don't you turn these stones into bread?’ Jesus says, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” He quotes Deuteronomy 4:4 back at him.

That's the desires of the flesh. Okay, He didn't fall for that one, so he pulled another trick out of his bag. He says, ‘If you'll bow down to me, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world.” That’s the delight of the eyes.

I'll give you all this. That didn't work. Then he said, ‘Throw yourself down off of this temple.’ Doesn't the scripture say the angels will lift you up so that you don't even get a bruise?

That's the pride of life. Just go ahead and take the shortcut here and don't do what God the Father has told you to do. That's the pride of life. But what does Jesus say to him ultimately?

He says, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. So we see that John has depicted the three temptations. We see how we have failed. Adam and Eve are our parents. But Jesus brings a new way and he defeats the temptation for wrong.

Worship. Worshiping. Only the Father and those of us that are in him now have overcome. We have overcome this temptation to spend our worship wrongly. Now there are some practical ways we could continue to grow in overcoming this temptation.

Because generosity is the antidote to greed. I've noticed in life there are really only two categories of people. There are takers and there are givers. Have you noticed that there are takers and there are givers? Those that are in Christ Jesus.

And the life of Jesus is being fully formed in them so that they're becoming like Jesus. They become sacrificial givers following Jesus. We are filled with his agape love, which is sacrificial, unconditional love. And we become givers. We pour out our lives because the life of Jesus is in us.

And we become givers. Those apart from Christ, the further apart they are, the more they see life as. You have to grab all you can get; it becomes like a beer commercial. You got to grab all the gusto, whatever gusto is.

I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means life or something. I don't know. And so you become a taker. So what might be some practical ways to think about it? Well, you might know of a single mom that's going to have a hard time this Christmas providing Christmas for her children.

Or you might know a family where they just lost their job; they might be in your small group or they might be a neighbor or a co-worker. Because you're a believer in Jesus and because you're a giver, one of the practical ways that you can overcome temptation is you pull your affection off of self, off of worldly things, off of King Herod and you put it on Jesus. Well, Gary, how is helping a single mom or somebody who lost their job putting it on Jesus? Well, Jesus himself said, “When you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me.”

That's a practical way of being a giver at Christmas and just thinking because giving is the antidote to greed. So, we break the bondage of selfishness and greed by letting Jesus form Himself in us so that we pour out and we become givers. Then, we know that God always takes care of us. We're not worried about what we will have because He flows to us and through us to others. That's one way; another way that you could be practical this season is

I want you to be prayerfully thinking about how much you're going to give to the Christmas missions offering, which goes to our international missions. We have missionaries that we support in Mexico, Istanbul, Turkey, Uganda, and then through the International Mission Board around the world. If you're going to give a gift to Jesus, it's His birthday after all, right, then give the most sacrificial gift you can give in the coming weeks.

I'm not asking you to do it today because I want you to pray about it and really think about it. Bring a sacrificial gift. We promise that every dime we will send to international missions to support the gospel going forth. Here are some practical ideas on how we could break the temptation of greed and how we could pull our affection, our worship, off of King Herod and put it on Jesus. Now, here's our final step.

3. Recognizing that Jesus alone is worthy of our worship.

Recognize that Jesus alone is worthy of our worship. We're at verses 9 through 12. We're going to be looking at the third mention of the word, worship. We see it in verse 11, “...and they fell down and worshiped him.” Now, I told you to be careful about listening to me this morning, that I was going to ruin your nativity scene.

I've already ruined your three wise men on their camels. I've already messed that up. Sorry about that.

Not really, because we're going to be Bible believing. We're not just going to believe in false imagery. It's fun to look at.

So, I've ruined that for you, but I want to ruin some more. I want to draw your attention to when they behold the star, that they see it again. After they left Jerusalem, they went to the place where the child was born. When they saw the star, they rejoiced.

Verse 11, “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 going into the house, they saw the child…” Just pause on that for a second. Did it say stable?

No, it said house. Did it say infant? No, it said child. Okay. How long ago did the star appear?

We think about two years ago. How old is baby Jesus now? He's not a baby. He's a toddler. He's probably close to two years old.

Gary, you have ruined everything. No, I'm just telling you what the Bible says. It's messed up your nativity scene completely. The wise men

are not even supposed to be on the mantle yet. If you've got a stable with the shepherds, that's Luke 2. That's “the baby is born” chapter. This is when the Magi comes and visits the child at the house.

We know Joseph was a carpenter. He may have built the house. They came there with nothing and so they lived in a stable because there was no room for them at the inn. That's Luke chapter two.

What we've done with our nativity scenes and with our memories is, we've melded the two stories together into one. It's two stories. Sorry about that; I’ve ruined it for everybody.

But, this is what we're looking at here. We see that when they come to Him I want you to picture something different. It's not Mary holding a baby that they bow down to the feet of Mary. The Greek word for worship is “proskuneó.”

It's where we get “to fall prostrate, or to kiss the Hand or to kiss the feet.” It literally means to lower or bow down and kiss. Maybe even to kiss the floor. To bow down and kiss. I want you to picture Mary there.

It mentions that they go into a house and we have a child that's two years old and is beginning to speak. A child that's two years old is beginning to walk. Am I right? This is a little toddler that can speak. They bow down, these magi from Persia, bringing these gifts.

They bow down and they kiss the ground. They kiss His feet. There's something spiritual happening here. They came on this journey and they have all this emotional anticipation. They've been distracted and lost sight of the star when they were in Jerusalem.

But as soon as they went south of Jerusalem, which is only about six miles or about a two-hour walk if you're just going slowly. It's not far. But soon, as they headed south, they saw the star again and they're overjoyed. They bow down, they worship King Jesus and they give Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then, it says they were warned in a dream. Can you see how God's really speaking to them not to go back to King Herod?

I think they kind of had an inkling that that was the case. I mean, he didn't even know what was up. They come down, they have to go south to Bethlehem, instead of being in the big city of Jerusalem, where the temple and all this greatness is and where the throne and all the lights of Jerusalem are. They lost sight. You know, we lose sight sometimes of what matters when we get distracted

as soon as they went south. It would be kind of like leaving Wilson and going down south to Black Creek.

Maybe, we go over a little bit to Green Pond over there in Bailey, you know, and then you pull up with this caravan. I'm telling you, everybody closed their doors and shut their shutters. Boy. They knocked on one of the doors, asking, ‘Does anybody know about a baby being born around here about two years ago?’

There was a reply,
‘Well, there was one about two years ago.There were these shepherds that showed up. They haven't shut their mouths since then talking about it. He lives in that house right over there.’

They didn't have Google but they had hearsay and they had a star over the place. It was a little place; it's a southern town south of Jerusalem. They went down there and they were warned in a dream - don't go back the way you came and so they obeyed. Have you ever seen the show, “Pawn Stars?”

I like shows like that sometimes. I like seeing people come in with something they think is valuable and they think they're going to get some money out of it. My grandfather gave me this and I was always told it was valuable. Or, there's another show, like “The Antique RoadShow.”

That's another one. They bring furniture in. The owner of the pawn shop on Pawn Stars is Rick Harrison. I was watching an episode recently and a guy came in with a coin. It was a little bitty coin and it was imperfect.

It was this little coin. On one side, it had two daggers, and under, in Greek, it said “Ides of March,” written in Greek. He puts it on a black velvet cloth on his countertop and he puts gloves on. He asks, “Where'd you get this?”

The guy responds, “Well, it was passed on to me by my grandfather. I was always told it was valuable.” He asks, “Is Brutus on the back of this?” He said to him, “Well, let’s take a look.”

He flips it over, and he see the depiction of Brutus, you know, “Et tu, Brute.” He's on the back, and he flips it back. This looks like the real thing, but let me call my expert in.

He always has to call an expert in. He calls in a coin expert. If you're watching the show, of course, it goes to commercials five times. But then here comes the expert.

He comes in and he looks at it. He puts the gloves on and he examines it. He puts one of those glasses on and says that it's real.

’Well, how much is it worth?’ ‘I think at auction, this would probably go for $150,000.’ ‘Whoa.’ So then Rick asks, ‘Well, how much do you want for it?’

He wants $150,000; that's all he wants. Rick says, ‘I have to resell it.’ So, they

start finagling. What I like about that story is that he sees what its real value is. It's just been a little coin that his grandfather gave him. But now this thing's worth $150,000, right?

It's worth a lot. Have you looked at Jesus? Have you recognized His worth?

Jesus came and took on our sin, our suffering. The Son of God stepped down the ladder of love and became a baby, a child who was nursed at his mother's breast. He took on all the pain and problems. He walked the dusty streets of the Via Dolorosa and carried that cross, shed His blood, overcame sin, death and the grave, and ascended to the Father. Have you looked at what He's worth? Oh, it's matchless. There's no one who comes close.

How could you give Him the gift of gold and call Him King this year? How could you give the King of the universe who flung the stars and set every planet in motion by just saying, “Let there be light.” How could you give Him, the one Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the earth and the people thereof are His? How could you give Him anything?

What do you give the one Who owns it all? He might not have you. How could you give gold to Jesus this Christmas? Have you given Him you? Have you given Him your heart; yourself?

Have you called Him King, Lord of your life? That's how you give Him the gift of gold. That's how you bring that gift of worship to Jesus. You recognize what He's worth. You give him what He's worth.

We see Paul say in
Romans 12:1 (ESV) “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Give Him your whole life. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word.

Thank You for the Christmas story;

the shadow of the cross overshadows the cradle. This baby came to die and so we repent of our sins. If you're here today and you've never given your life to Jesus, you can pray with me right now, ‘Dear Lord, I repent of my sin

and I recognize that You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. I declare You king of my life. Come into my life. Forgive me.

Make me a child of God. I want to follow You all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. He'll adopt you into His family. Others are here and you're a follower of Jesus,

but you've been distracted by the glittering lights. You've taken your eyes off of the value of King Jesus. Would you just set them afresh, upon His face and upon Him and remember who He is. Then give Him your all, afresh. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.