Thank you for listening to the river.
Bend Church podcast Reverb in church exists to lead all people
to know love and live New Life in Jesus Christ.
We hope that you enjoy this message.
Ruben Church, good morning and Merry Christmas to you, what an
exciting time to come together and celebrate the birth of
Jesus. The real reason for Christmas
today, I want to share a story with you about the wise men.
The wise men, you probably know these guys.
If you have a nativity set, they're usually three of them.
And they are kind of holding gifts off to the side.
The reason I want to share this today is Christmas is a big time
of giving gifts. A lot of you, maybe you open
gifts this morning or last night, or you will open them
this coming week with friends and family.
But but there's these guys in scripture brought gifts to
Jesus, and he wasn't a baby anymore.
He wasn't probably at the barn at this point.
This is months later because these men traveled, a long ways
away to seek Jesus out. So maybe Jesus is a year old, or
a little over a year old at this point, but here's How The Story
Goes. Matthew, choose says, this the
star they had seen in the East guided them to Bethlehem.
It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the
child was, when they saw the star, they were filled with joy,
they entered the house and saw the child with his mother Mary,
and they bowed down and worshiped him.
Then they opened their treasure chest and gave him Gifts of
gold, frankincense and myrrh. Here's, here's the crazy part of
the story. They probably had no idea that
these gifts were prophetic, what I mean by that is every gift of
represented, who Jesus was even as a baby.
But here's the beauty of it, we get to look back today on the
life and on the death and on the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
2000 years ago. And we understand that these
gifts represented who he was. So, let's look at him.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh. The first gift was gold and in
that culture. And in that day, gold, Old was a
gift that you would give a king without even knowing it.
These wise men travel from far away and they'll a probably a
large amount of gold before Jesus.
Here's what it represents. Jesus didn't become king because
of what he did, he didn't rise to military power while he was
here on Earth, he didn't have to die.
He didn't have to perform miracles in order to become a
king or be enthroned as a king. What this gold represented was
this baby. Jesus had always been a king.
He had Always been the lord of the cosmos.
He chose to allow himself to be wrapped in flesh.
He chose to come down and be conceived by the spirit.
He chose to be born as a baby but the baby was already.
The Lord, the king, the little baby Mary held literally was the
Lord of all the heavens. And so these men, maybe they
didn't recognize him as a king but they knew he was royalty and
they lay this gift of gold before him and not only goal,
they give him a second gift frankincense.
Frankincense. Most likely was A type of
incense that would have been burnt at the temple as the
priest prayed. So you know what frankincense
represented or told us about Jesus that he is priest.
He is a pre. See, in the Old Testament, kind
of Judea static system. You would come to the temple and
you would bring a sacrifice, but you couldn't go sacrifice it for
yourself. The priest would go in for you
and he would sacrifice. He would basically go in and
pray that God would forgive your sins.
And so when Jesus this this in Sense is laid.
Before Jesus, is very valuable costly incense.
What it Representatives, he was going to be our priest that
would intercede for ever for us. The Bible tells us that When
Jesus ascended to Heaven, again, he sat down at the right hand of
the father. You know what he does, he
intercedes for you and I that means he makes prayers for us.
He says, father, that one is mine.
I know they're struggling. I know that they, they fail a
lot. I know that that the guy they
don't act like they should, they don't talk like, they should,
they don't always live, like, they should.
But God, they Surrender to me and they are mine.
And so you have somebody pulling for you in heaven, rooting for
you before the Lord and cheering you on before the heavenly
father. And so the priest this, the
frankincense represented, the priest, but then also the last
one probably probably the one that there's no way that Mary
could have known. What this gift represented.
I don't think that that the wise men would have known but we do
and it's summer seamer was in embalming spice.
Something you would put on a dead a dead body.
We know that Jesus body was quickly, sort of Embalmed with
spices as they took him down from the cross.
But do you know what we look back and see that, even in this
gift of myrrh, there is a savior murder would be a gift for a
savior who would die, who would sacrifice himself.
And we know that he would rise again.
But, isn't it crazy how when you dive into the Bible story in the
Christmas? This Christmas Story in
scripture. What we find is, there's this
prophetic word that this little baby that we celebrate today,
being born, he was king of kings and Lord of lords from the time
he stepped on this Earth. Earth.
He would also be the priest who would forever intercede for you.
And I he loves us that much and then the gift of myrrh, it
represents the fact that he is a savior.
See, there's a sin debt that couldn't be satisfied.
Any other way, God couldn't just Overlook our sin and let us back
into heaven. He couldn't just sweep it under
the rug at had to be dealt with and paid for.
And so Jesus steps Out of Heaven, he comes to be born as a
baby to live a sinless life, the only person to ever do that.
He does about three three and a half years of ministry where
there are Miracles taking place, he's raising people from the
dead. He's giving people back their
sight. And then, he allows himself to
be nailed to the cross. The story makes no sense.
Until you realize that the purpose he came for, was you.
And I because as he took our pain on the cross, he also
satisfied the righteous Judgment of the heavenly father.
So they put him in a grave. He rose again.
He ascended to heaven. And here's what he says, if you
will, just believe that I'm king of kings and Lord of lords.
If you would just accept me as your priest and align yourself
under my lordship, if you will believe, That I am your savior.
If you'll believe in me that I literally took your place on the
cross. You can have eternal life.
I can think of no better way today to celebrate baby Jesus.
Then to come and lay a gift before him.
We can't get gifts and lay them physically.
Before him. One of the things we've done
through project hope and other things this year, we brought
physical gifts and we giving them to other people, in the
name of Jesus. We've tried to Build a Better
Community and bless people and lift people up through project.
Hope this year just be in the hands.
And Feet of the Lord. But how do we bring Jesus a gift
today? We bring Jesus to give today by
bringing ourselves before him laying our hearts before him.
So, if you belong to Christ already today, maybe it's just
the day over a reminder of worship day of, reminder, to say
in Jesus, you are my Lord. Thank you for being my savior.
That's how we lay a gift before him today.
But maybe you're watching and you go, you know, I've never
really surrendered my life to Christ.
I'm not exactly sure that. I'm there, I can think of no
better day than Christmas day for you to give your life.
If to Jesus to give him a gift of you, he wants to give you
salvation. He wants to redeem you and draw
you to himself and make you right with God again but it all
comes through surrender. So, if that's you today, right
here on Christmas, why not just give your life to Christ, open
up your heart right now and just say this prayer from your heart
to the heart of God. Say, say God today, I Surrender
my life to you. And say this Jesus.
I believe that you came for me, I believe that you died for me
and I believe you rose from the dead and I'm asking you to
forgive me, just say this, a I give you my life, this
Christmas. I'm ready for you to be my Lord
and I'm ready to follow you. Thank you for saving me.
Listen God receives you if you gave your life to him today or
maybe you just celebrating in worship, that he is your lord.
He has accepted you. I would love love.
Love to know that you gave. The gift of your life to Jesus
on Christmas day. Would you send me a message?
Drop a comment in the chat right now.
I would love to know and worship and celebrate with you.
Listen, I pray that you have an amazing rest of your day today.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
I can't wait to see you here at Riverbend next week.
God bless. Thank you for listening to the
Riverbend Church podcast. Learn more about who we are as a
church and how to connect you can head over to our website
Reverb in church dot life.