In 'The Magi's Gifts of Gratitude,' Peter Allison explores the historical and biblical significance of the visit of the Magi to Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 2. The sermon delves into the background of the Magi, explaining their roles as advisors and scholars from the East, possibly from Persia, and their connection to Daniel's influence and Jewish presence in Babylon. The Magi's gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are analyzed for both their symbolic and practical value, reflecting Jesus' roles as King, Priest, and the one who would suffer and die. Beyond these material gifts, the sermon also highlights the Magi's commitment, presence, and joy as offerings of worship, emphasizing the importance of wholehearted devotion to Jesus. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to emulate the Magi's gifts of presence, joy, and worship in their own lives.

Please turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 2. I'd like to read for our scripture reading this morning through the first 12 verses. Hear God's word. Hear God's word. 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 have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.' And when Herod had secretly called to the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared, and He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the young child, and when you have found him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship him also. And when they heard the king, they departed.

And behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, They saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshipped him And when they had opened their treasures they presented gifts to him gold frankincense and myrrh Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way." Thus far, the reading of God's Word, may He write its truth upon our heart, may He be praised at its reading and hearing. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for giving to us your Word, for preserving it, though many have tried to destroy it or corrupt it, or steal it away. We thank you that you have preserved it to us, that we can read it this morning, and we ask that you would give us hearts that can understand.

We ask that your spirit might work through the reading and the preaching of your word this morning. To bless us, to speak to us, grant us ears to hear, and sanctify, Father, these sinful lips of a vessel of clay that they might proclaim the riches of the glories of your grace. In Jesus' name, Amen. I'm indebted to Phil Kiser for some of the insights in this message. This is a message, a narrative that is very well known and like many things that are very, very well known, there are many additions to the narrative that have been added to our cultural understanding of this passage.

Some that have good grounds, many that don't have any good basis in fact. These are often pictured, these wise men are often pictured in nativity scenes as coming in three. They are often pictured right with the shepherds and the angels in a manger. And a number of these details that are burned into our psyche around this story are simply not really in the Word of God. Who are these wise men?

And why did they give these gifts? I think there are three that are listed as objects, tangible objects, but I think there are a few other gifts in this text that they gave as well. And so this morning I wanted to look, we had looked last week at all of the prophecies or some of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled as Messiah. And how many times throughout the Gospels it is said that something was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken or written of him. Prophecies that went back thousands of years.

And so we come this morning to this narrative of this visit. Jesus is born And we know from the greater detail that is given in the Gospel of Luke, he was born in a stable because there was no room in an inn. He was laid in a manger, and a manger is simply where the animals eat. It's the plate, if you will, the serving dish for the animals that live in a barn as a manger. It could be a very clean place, It could be a relatively messy place depending on what what is being fed to them in that manger.

I remember as a young child Filling the cattle manger with hay. It was actually a fairly nice place It had bars on the side that the cows could get their head through, but not much more, or get their nose through and be able to pull the hay out. And so it was a relatively clean place. It was up off the ground and it was actually, it had a hole at the top into the attic of the barn where you could dump the hay right down into it. It was a rather nice place to jump down in there and play in the hay, but I don't imagine all mangers are that nice to play in.

So Jesus was born in a stable and placed in a manger. But in this text it talks about a house a little later. And so this is probably a little bit later. We don't know exactly how much later, but it could have been a year later. It could have been several months later.

They're no longer in the stable anymore. The shepherds have gone back to the fields. The angels are no longer in the sky. But These wise men saw star. Now, this word is translated, wise men, is a transliteration of the Greek word, magos.

Transliteration means you just take the same sounds and you put them in the English language. You haven't translated the word, you say it's transliterated. So it really doesn't explain what that word means. And actually the Greek word magos is simply a transliteration of an Aramaic word, a borrowed Hebrew word borrowed in Hebrew borrowed from the Aramaic, mag. And we find that word once in the Old Testament, actually it's used twice in the same verse, to refer to an official of Nebuchadnezzar's court that came to Jerusalem at the time of the captivity.

He traveled with the army. There were several officials that were mentioned as part of Nebuchadnezzar's court that traveled with him and this word is used to describe one of those people. It's used with the word meaning great. So it's a great Mog. And what is a Mog?

Well, it's a name that's been given by the Babylonians and and the Chaldeans, the Medes, the Persians and others to to what we might call today cabinet men, secretaries of the cabinet in our country. That might be the closest analogy that we have. These were men of importance. They were wise men. They were soothsayers.

They were astronomers. They were astrologers, they studied the stars, they were advisors to kings. They lived in the palaces and in the courts. They served there. And we don't know how many there were.

It just says, it's just plural, wise men from the east. Could have been a pretty good crowd. After all, this got the attention of Herod and the whole city. So it might have been more than just two or three. There may have been quite a large crowd of them coming.

They came from the east. It doesn't say exactly where, but probably Persia, Babylon. Maybe possibly the Arabian desert, but I think more likely they came out of Persia. The book of Daniel refers to these wise men on a number of occasions. In fact, Daniel himself was one of the wise men of Nebuchadnezzar's court.

Daniel, remember, and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were taken from Israel, they were brought to Babylon, they were given that special training, They were given the diet of the king and remember Daniel said no we don't want to eat all your fine food just give us essentially vegetables and and the keeper of the one in charge of their training was afraid for his own life if he presented people to the king who didn't look good and so Daniel said well just give us a test you know try it for a few days and see if we don't look as good as everybody else and you remember that story well Daniel there was being trained trained as a young man to be a wise man in the king's court. It says in Daniel that God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. That's what these men were for. They were to solve the king's problems. And remember Nebuchadnezzar had this dream of a large statue And it had, you remember, the head of gold and the neck of silver and so on, on down the body.

Then it was bronze and then it was iron and then iron and clay in the legs and the feet. And those represented the four empires of the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar was, in his kingdom, was the head of gold. Well he had this dream and remember nobody could answer it, Nobody could tell him the dream. He wanted his advisors to tell him the meaning of this dream and and none of them could interpret it.

And he was going to have them all killed. All of these wise men in his court because they couldn't tell him the dream. And Daniel hears about this and he says, well, give us a chance. And He calls upon the Lord and the Lord gives to him the understanding of this dream. He tells it to the king and the king says to Daniel, truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the Lord of Kings and the revealer of secrets since you could reveal this secret and then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and here is the interesting part the chief governor administrator over all the wise men of Babylon.

So Daniel was the chief, the one who was responsible for over all of the wise men in Babylon. So here we have these men. They're obviously then men of learning, men of nobility, men who are used to being around kings, they're advisors to kings, they're, if you will, kingmakers coming to visit coming to visit Jesus. Makers coming to visit Jesus. They came because they said they saw a star.

They saw a star. Now how many times have you looked up into the sky and saw a star and decided to take a trip? How, what was to take a trip. What was this star that they saw? But how did they know what this star meant?

How did they know to go to Jerusalem when they saw this star in the sky? They saw it in the east. And the star, remember, the star did not guide them to Jerusalem. They saw the star. We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.

Now the star guided them a little later in our story, but at this point all they saw was the star. How did they know What that star meant and how did they know where to go? The Bible doesn't say for sure, but one possibility is Daniel. Daniel was the chief administrator of all the wise men in Babylon. And he was there for a long time.

He served not only Nebuchadnezzar, but he served all the way up until Cyrus became king of the Medes and the Persians. And we know that he served in under the Persian kings, the Medes, kings of the Medes and the Persians, because that's when he was thrown into the lion's den. That was after the fall of Babylon and into the reign of the next king, the Medes and the Persians. So it's very likely, it's very possible, I think, that this knowledge of these prophecies and what the meaning of this star was may have originated with Daniel. There were also many Jews that were in Persia because of the captivity.

Nebuchadnezzar took thousands and thousands of Jews out of Judah and distributed them in Babylon. And so there are Jews there. In fact, in Acts two, At the time of the Pentecost, Acts 2.9 records that some of the Jews that were in Jerusalem were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and those who dwelt in Mesopotamia. Those are the first three countries listed. Now, it's because it was generally going east to west.

The author of Acts described all the people there starting in the far east. And so he starts with Parthians, Medes and Elamites. Elamites are Persians. That's the Persian Empire. So this is the Medes and the Persians and the Parthians.

These are all the people that came from this very area where these wise men came from. So there is not only Daniel there, who was a revealer of dreams, who God revealed many things to, who was the chief of the wise men, but then there was a continuing Jewish presence there, such that even in Pentecost there were Jews from those lands that were in Jerusalem. So It's very possible then that through Daniel and through the Jewish culture that was established there because they didn't all come back to the land of Israel at the end of the captivity. A number did, but not all. We have Esther and Mordecai who were in Susa.

That's the Persian capital down on the down off the Gulf there. And so I think it's from these people then that these wise men knew the meaning of this star and knew to go to Jerusalem. We saw last week the prophecy in Numbers 24 that Balaam gave that a star would come from Judah. And so they come to the east, sorry, they come from the east to Jerusalem. And when they get there, They say, where is he who is born king of the Jews?

They start asking around, where is this king? Obviously for them it was a big thing. I think they probably came to Jerusalem expecting to find the city in a great state of rejoicing, in a great state of welcoming this great King that had been prophesied for so many hundreds of years. Of course, what they found wasn't anything of the sort. They found a city that was just living as if nothing had happened.

And so they're asking around, and where is this who was born the King of the Jews? Where is he? They didn't know his name, just he, who was the king of the Jews. And Herod heard it, and he was alarmed. Now Herod was the king of the Jews.

This is Herod the Great. He reigned as King of Judah for about 37 years and that this is at the end of his life He's probably in his early 70s at this point. He he lived to be maybe He lived to be maybe 72 or roughly And so this is right near the end of his life. Somebody, now he's hearing about these wise men, we don't know how many, but I'm guessing there were a number of them to create this big of a stir. If one person shows up and asks, where is he who's born king of the Jews you might think he's just a kook but if a crowd of people come of people who are obviously important and begin asking where is Jesus king of the Jews that might get the attention of a whole city.

We don't know for sure, but it came to Herod's attention. Now Herod was a very ruthless ruler. Herod had actually been given the title King of the Jews by the Senate. His father was a ruler under Rome and he was actually an Edomite. Herod was a descendant of Esau.

But he was very loyal to Rome. His father had been loyal to Rome, and so he was initially made a tetrarch, but through a lot of political intrigue and Herod's own ambition, he had gone back to Rome and secured for himself through, obviously, help of other people and so on. But from the Roman Senate, he had secured specifically the title, King of the Jews. They had made him King of the Jews and he guarded that title. And so you can imagine his concern that there was somebody else born who was king of the Jews who was going to steal his title.

He was such a ruthless man that he actually executed his own family. His wife at one point and two of his sons were executed. So this is a very ruthless person and it is a great threat for him that somebody should come looking for the king of the Jews. And so he goes to them. He asks where he himself gathers all the Jews together.

And he asks them where the Messiah was to be born. And they tell him in Bethlehem. And so he secretly called the wise men and said, go to Bethlehem and go search for this king. And then when you find him, come back and let me know because I want to go worship him too. Obviously, he had no...

He wanted to do nothing of the sort. And so the wise men heard the king, they departed. And now we see that the star, the star which they had seen in the east, went before them and led them right to the very house where Jesus was living. They departed and the star which they had seen in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. What was this star?

There are a lot of theories about what it is. Some people have theorized it's a certain alignment of the celestial bodies to create a cross or just a special something of special significance in the heavens something that doesn't happen very often and then that might have happened at this time, but I But the Bible doesn't say exactly it's it says a star so it's something it's a ball of light in the sky. But a ball of light, stars that are so far away, would not really be able to go over and point out a particular house. And this identified the house. It went before them and it stood still over where the young child was, over the very house.

So they were able to know exactly which house Jesus was living in. So I think it was more of something that God did, a sign that God gave. He put a light in the sky. It might have been an angel, we don't know, but it was somebody, something, some light that God did, just like the pillar of light that led the Israelites in the wilderness, it went before them, it told them where to go. And remember that pillar of light was visible to the Israelites, but not visible to the Egyptians initially when they were trying to follow them.

So this was something that God did, and I think this is what we have here, something that God created, a star, a light in the sky that was able to lead them exactly to the house where Jesus was. And so they, they, and when they saw the star then, they came into the house. And they gave these gifts. They gave, they gave gold, frankincense, and They gave gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold was, all of these gifts were unique to Christ as our Messiah and practical.

Gold is a sign of wealth and power. Gold is associated with Solomon's reign more than any other king. He had a lot of gold. It's really the most valuable metals of those that are used for money, gold, silver, and bronze. Psalm 45 mentions gold a couple of times in reference to the adornment of the queen and the garments of the king's daughters.

They're said to be wrought of gold. The queen is adored in the gold of Ophir. And Isaiah speaks of and prophesies of the camels of Midian, Ephah and Sheba that would bring gold and incense. Gold was what covered the mercy seat over the ark. It covered the altar of incense.

The lampstand was pure gold. The table of showbread. This gold in the temple spoke to Christ as a royal priest and a priestly king. Phil Kiser has pointed out that this gold covered wood in the case of the Mercy Seat, in the case of the Altar of Incense, and the other furniture, not the lamp stand that was made out of pure gold, but this gold covered wood. These things are made of wood covered in gold, symbolizing both the divinity of Christ, the divine king, but also his humanity.

He's the god man. And so gold then speaks to Christ as King. Whether the magi understood that or not, we don't know, but I think they did. They understood this star. I think they would have understood the significance of the gift they were giving and the symbolism that gold played in the Old Testament tabernacle temple.

So they gave gold, they also gave frankincense. Now with the resurgence of essential oils in this era, that word has come back into more common usage, but for many years it wasn't in common usage. But this had also a special significance, a symbolism in the Old Testament, because Exodus 30 describes the anointing oil that was for the priests. It gave directions, specific directions. Sorry, not the anointing oil.

We'll get to that in a minute. It gave directions for the incense that was burned on the altar of incense. This frankincense was one of the things that was put together to make this incense that was offered on the altar of incense morning and evening. So this was a continual offering. There was incense being burned in the temple.

Being burned in the temple. The people of Israel were forbidden in Exodus 30 from making any of this incense for themselves. This is a special compounding of the incense. Exodus 30, 24, Moses was to take certain spices and pure frankincense and equal parts of each and he was to make an incense compounded according to the art of the perfumer salted pure and holy and that was to be what was offered what was burned on the altar of incense but You shall not make any for yourselves according to its composition, for it shall be holy, it shall be to you holy for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people." This was a special compound, this incense, which this frankincense was a part of.

So in a sense, what is being given here is represented here of something that was special and unique to the Old Testament temple. Something that represented the prayers of God's people coming up to him. In Revelation, the prayers of God's people are described, symbolized with incense. And in the altar, in the temple, this incense rose continually, burned continually. Morning and evening the priest would add to the incense.

So this is the prayer. So this is speaking then of Christ's work as our intercessor, as our high priest, interceding for us in bringing our prayers before the Father. And so this then is one of the gifts. There are a number of references in the Old Testament associating prayers and incense. David said, May my prayer be set before you like incense in Psalm 41.

And in John as I alluded to, the elders around the throne were holding the golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of God's people, " Sran says. And Zechariah, as the priest, was offering a member incense in the temple in Luke 1 when he saw the angel, as all the assembled worshippers outside were praying. And so incense then is very closely associated with the prayers of God's people, especially as our High Priest. Jesus is our High Priest. They also, these Magi, wise men, also gave Jesus myrrh.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Now in the exact same chapter that talked in Exodus that talked about this incense that was made, It also describes the anointing oil that was used to anoint the priests. And the first and primary ingredient in that oil is myrrh. And just like with the incense, the Israelites were forbidden from making any of this oil for themselves. It was holy.

It was something that was unique for the priest and to that office as priest. Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be, again, cut off from his people. This was not an ordinary thing, this was a holy thing. Holy is that which is set apart." And so these are three gifts then that uniquely represented Christ's work as our King and as our Priest, our priestly king and kingly priest. But also there's more to this myrrh.

You remember that Jesus was anointed with myrrh before his death. Mary anointed Jesus with myrrh. And there was a prostitute that also had anointed Jesus with it. And the disciples were upset at this costly, very costly and precious oil being poured out on Jesus. But Jesus said, no, she has anointed my body for burial.

Jesus connected His being given myrrh with his burial and it was also used for embalming. Joseph of Arimathea bought a large quantity and with Nicodemus they used myrrh for Jesus' body. But these were also, not only were they significant in pointing to Christ's work as our King and priest and Messiah, but there's also a very practical importance to these gifts. They're very practical. In the very next verse, Joseph and Mary have to flee to Egypt and Jesus.

Joseph is a carpenter. Egypt is not populated with great forests, at least not down near the Mediterranean Sea. It might have been, even if it was, It's not easy to go into a new country and begin a new business. Takes some time to build up a business. And so, Joseph and Mary and Jesus flee to Egypt.

This gold that was given to them right before would have been a wonderful provision of God for Joseph to be able to support his family while they were in Egypt. God provided that for them Because now when they had departed, as soon as the wise men had departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, Arise and take this child and his mother and flee, because Herod wants to kill. And remember that's when Herod issued that decree, that barbaric decree, which was so typical of his whole rule that all of the infants under two years would be killed. So God had provided through the gift of this gold for that trip. But also frankincense.

Frankincense is an adornment. It's a perfume. Solomon speaks of both the bride and the bridegroom being adorned with frankincense. Who is this that comes out of the wilderness speaking of Solomon? Like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant.

And a little later it describes the bride it speaks of the bride as a garden whose plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits campfire sparknards spike nard and saffron calamus and cinnamon with all trees of frankincense myrrh and aloes with all the chief spices." So these were not only were they was there a special significance to these gifts that pointed to Christ's office but also very practical. Remember Joseph did not know Mary until after Christ was born. So in a sense, in a loose sense, you might say, their honeymoon was in Egypt. And God provided the adornment of a bride and a bridegroom for them in the gift of the magi. But also myrrh.

I looked up on WebMD, I didn't think that was any sort of quackery that's I think a traditional orthodox medical site, right? And it said that myrrh is used for indigestion ulcers colds cough asthma lung congestion arthritis pain cancer leprosy spasms and syphilis myrrh is applied directly to the mouth for soreness and swelling inflamed gums loose teeth canker sores bad breath and chapped lips It's also topically used for bed sores, wounds, abrasions, and boils, and myrrh can help decrease swelling and kill bacteria. It's also used for embalming. So myrrh is what you would need on a trip. It's a first-aid kit for young parents with a young baby.

Practical uses for all of these gifts. Gifts of great value, gifts of great significance. But there is more that is given by these wise men that's in our text that I think is also very important. As we look at what do we give, what are our gifts of gratitude to the Lord Jesus for so great a salvation? We see These wise men were fully committed.

They gave their full commitment. This was a thousand mile trip that they had to take. We don't know exactly where they came from. Could have been 700, 800 miles. Could have been maybe a little over, depending on whether they came from Sousa or farther east in Persia or more west in Babylon.

But it's a long trip. It took Ezra four months to make the trip from Babylon to Jerusalem. Now he was probably traveling with families and cattle and so forth. The wise men could have made the trip probably a lot faster. Certainly an army could have made the trip a lot faster, but it's still a long trip.

And it took commitment. These were people who had presumably jobs, work, they were serving kings, families, they had commitments, and yet they took the time, they committed the to the effort, to the sacrifice, to the financial commitment, the planning and so on that was behind making a trip like this. They were fully committed. They also gave their presence. They didn't just send these gifts by the mail or by messengers.

They certainly could have. They were important men. They were men of wealth. They could afford to buy these gifts. They could have easily just sent messengers.

They were too busy to come. But no, they came. They gave their presence. Their presence. If you're spending time with someone and you sense that that person just wants to be somewhere else, you realize that it's not quality time.

That's not really a gift. In fact, some cases can be a little bit offensive. We can feel a little bit hurt if somebody is with us, but we get the sense that they're really not with us. They're not giving their whole presence, their whole attention. These wise men gave their full attention, their full presence.

They sacrificed to make a long trip, to come simply to be in the presence of Jesus. And then they simply turned around and left. There was nothing in it, you would say, for them. They weren't getting publicity out of it. They weren't getting headlines that would help them in their country.

They were in a foreign land. They came to simply offer these gifts to worship Jesus and they left again. They gave Jesus their full presence. Are we committed to worship Jesus as these wise men did? Are we committed to give Jesus our presence on Sunday morning.

We don't have to travel thousands of miles, but we have this opportunity to gather as God's people, and God is present in a special way in this service at this time as we are gathered in His name. Are we willing to give our presence to worship Jesus? Are we willing to give our presence every day? To give our undivided attention to worship Him? To be at His feet?

To be in His presence? To be before the throne of grace, to be listening to His voice in His Word and in prayer. I think those are questions that we should ask ourselves. Is our commitment like the commitment of these Magi to worship Jesus? But they But they also gave him a gift of doing all this with great joy.

When They saw the star over that house, so they got there. It says, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they come into the house, they saw the child, and they worshiped, and they gave them these gifts. Exceedingly great joy. Their travel, their visit, the money that they spent on these gifts was not just a matter of pure duty.

They didn't say, well, we need to go. Let's do this. They didn't do this just out of a sense of duty that they needed to. They had to do this because if they didn't bad things would happen or people would look down on them. No, they did these things because they wanted to.

They did these things with exceedingly great joy. It was the longing of their heart to be able to be in the presence of Jesus. Paul tells us that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. When we give of our wealth, we give our tithes and we give our offerings, do we give them because we have to? When we'd rather spend them on something else or Do we give them because we have to?

When we'd rather spend them on something else? Or do we give them because we want to? Do we give with exceedingly great joy? Because it's the delight of our heart. It's the yearning of our soul to be able to offer into Jesus Christ the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords our devotion, our presence, our praise, and the wealth that He's given to us.

And when they came into the house and they saw the young child with Mary, His mother, they fell down and they worshiped Him. They worshiped Him. That's another gift that they gave, their worship. Worship is words that ascribe to God His worth. It's words.

Just get a concordance and look up the use of worship and then look how many times the scriptures say, worshiped God and said. Worshiped God. And here's the words that they used to ascribe to God the glory and the worth that is due to him. John Piper says quote True worship is a valuing or treasuring of God above all things. The inner essence of worship is the response of the heart to the knowledge of the mind when the mind is rightly understanding God and the heart is rightly valuing God." The inner essence of worship is the response of the heart to the knowledge of the mind when the mind is rightly understanding God and the heart is rightly valuing God.

You could use words like treasuring or praising God or delighting in God or reverencing God or being satisfied with God. All of these inner responses to God reflect His infinite worth and His beauty. That's the end of His quote. This inner treasuring of God in our heart results in a mouth that gives expression to these thoughts with words, speaking words that ascribe to the Lord reverence, the beauty and the holiness that is rightly the Lord's. These wise men came and they fell down and they worshiped.

They worshiped. They treasured what was in front of them. They rightly valued what had happened. A king had been born. A king who was born to die.

Their gifts reflected that. This element that he was born to die. They gave him a gift of myrrh that would be used for his embalming, that would be offered to him as a painkiller which he refused because Jesus as our great high priest suffered fully all of the wrath of God for our sins. He didn't escape any of it, not even a little bit that could be alleviated by taking a painkiller like myrrh. Psalm 29 speaks of this worship.

It says, ascribe to the Lord, O you mighty, give to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord that glory do his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Psalm 116 says, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now, in the presence of his people." This is that inner worship, the worship in the presence of his people, and the worship in words, of ascribing to the Lord with words, the glory and the honor that is due to him.

These are the gifts that the Magi, the wise men gave to Jesus. These are the gifts that we ought to as his people give, gifts that we ought to give with exceedingly, exceedingly great joy. This whole scene was foretold by Isaiah in the 60th chapter when he describes these camels of Midian that would come to Jesus bringing the offerings of gold and frankincense. The wise men coming did exactly that. Maybe that's where, even though they're not in the text of Matthew, maybe that's where the idea of camels came from let's pray Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word.

We thank you for the beauty that you have created. The beauty in gold and in frankincense and myrrh. The beauty in the heavens that declare your glory, and the beauty of the holiness that was Christ. But also Father, for the beauty of holiness that You create in us as fellow heirs with Christ of Your redemption. The beauty of the work of your Holy Spirit, the beauty of the life, lives that are set apart for your service, the beauty of worship that is empowered by the Holy Spirit, wherein He leads us and enables us to offer up to you true worship in spirit and in truth, To praise and to glorify your name and to do so with abounding and exceeding great joy.

Oh Father, may this be the testimony of our heart. May this be the practice of our life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.