Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
Welcome to all of you, welcome everybody who's watching online.
If you're brand new to illuminate church.
We help people find abundant life in Jesus and I pray that
that happens for you starting today in Jesus name, Amen, man,
Come on. It's the Advent season, which if
you're not familiar with what that word means, it means the
anticipation of the arrival of Christ.
As kids we anticipate with great joy the gifts, but as we grow in
our maturity, we anticipate the giver of gifts.
What are you here? We as believers who hold high
the name of Jesus, fill our hearts with anticipation, not
for the gifts, but for the giver of gifts.
And the church says Amen. Come on, y'all already drinking
too much eggnog? I can tell nobody knows what a
nog is. You don't want to find out.
It's not good. I want to give a huge shout out
to Ronnie Antoine and the Kasen family and all the incredible
volunteers and our staff that made a dream come to life.
We bought this property in 2018, we opened the property in 2024.
And the entire time we have dedicated this part of this land
out here as an advanced space where the community could gather
here. And for the first time ever, we
finally had an event out there on Friday night and nearly 600
people showed up to watch a movie you can watch on your
couch. Like, what is the deal?
The deal is people want community.
People want to be around the church.
We watch the greatest Christmas movie that there is.
Fight me if you want the Grinch, the animated version, such a
salvific salvation story right in the middle of this.
If you have eyes to see some people say Home Alone.
And I say, if Home Alone is your favorite movie, then you need to
go home alone right now. Go ahead.
It is a good movie. OK, but huge deal.
I walked up to the property. I was handing out stickers and I
immediately walked to this one family like, hey, have we met
before? And they're like, this is our
very first time ever to illuminate was to come see the
Grinch with us. And they said we're going to be
here on a Sunday morning. They have a cheer competition
this morning. So they're not here.
I make them stand up when we shout.
But as Kayla Koala, I'm not saying that, right?
Oh man. And Jermaine, her husband and
their kids, Aiden and Elena, and their last name, Ingram.
Hey, never met him before. So my long last brother.
And it's awesome. Anyway, nobody cares.
I also want to make this mention before I jump into the message
today that on Tuesday we sent an e-mail.
Out. If you did not receive the
e-mail, stop by connect Central. They can take your e-mail and we
can make sure you're on the list or you can open up the Church
Center app right now and you can, well, don't do it right now
after the service and you can read the e-mail for yourself.
The e-mail, the entire e-mail is about where are we going now as
a church? What's the future for Illuminate
Church? By the way, I just got to, I'm
having ADD moments right here to forgive me, but Aaron Fabian is
sitting right here and she decorated with Raquel.
I mean, the entire lobby, those gigantic Christmas trees, the
wreaths, all of that. She did that.
I saw her on the top of the trees.
I saw her under the trees. I saw her in the trees.
She was mostly happy. You know how Christmas trees do,
you know, You know, I'll say this on Christmas Eve again, but
if you have a fake tree, anyone means you have a fake Jesus.
If you have a real tree in your house, I know I'm looking at all
these trees. Like what?
All these trees are fake. What?
OK, I'm stepping back. Stepping.
Come back. So I sent out this e-mail,
right? The emails about the future of
Illuminate Church and in it we laid the vision.
Anyone get the e-mail? We have over 2000 people have
opened the e-mail. If you haven't seen this yet, we
have three major initiatives that will be happening in the
next 5 to 10 years. Number one, it is time for
Illuminate Church to open the Illuminate Church Academy, which
is a school that is Christ centered and and affordable
Christ centered. Jesus said everything.
We are going to indoctrinate children with the right thing,
which is. Jesus.
And it'll be affordable, which is incredible for a private
school to be affordable. But this is going to be
affordable #2 we are opening a center and all these names are
placeholders I put. That in the e-mail, we're not
sure exactly, but we're calling it now, Radiant Health and this.
Is a Health Center, not like a hospital, but it's meant for
body, mind, soul and spirit. If you're hurting in any way,
you will know I can go here and I can get help.
If you just want to get healthier in any way, you know,
I can go here and get help for finances, for parenting, for
biblical encouragement, licensed mental health counselors who are
full of the Holy Spirit helping to heal what has been broken.
We're talking about what else am I talking about?
So many. There's going to be a gym in
there. You can actually, wow, go ahead.
I think we're going to make the. Gym as like there's female time
at the gym and then there's man time at the gym.
Just just going to be different. It's going to be modesty because
modest is the hottest. Amen.
You heard it here, 10th. All of these things are coming.
And then thirdly, we want to continue to fulfill the Great
Commission, which is to. Go and make disciples of all
nations, which means if you're not growing as a church, you're
not fulfilling the Great Commission.
However, churches get so large that they're no longer a local
church. They're an event that people
attend. And we don't want that.
We never set out as a church to become a mega church.
Amen. So here's what we're doing as we
grow and continue to fill these seats.
You'll see it Christmas Eve, every seat will be full, right?
We're going to unload people from this campus and say, hey,
we're going to launch a church down in Haines City or over in
Loftman or up in winter Garden. Who knows where the Lord is
going to lead us. Some of you are sending the
emails like, but what here that where are they going to launch
churches or we're going to launch campuses of illuminate
church, but every one of those campuses will have a live
preacher. We won't ever do the screen kind
of preaching where the guys up there on the screen because the
Lord said in a season of screens, be authentic, be real
in front of people. So that's what's happening.
A lot of you open the e-mail, but not enough of you are
responding. At the very bottom of the
e-mail, it says, click this link and tell us that you're in.
Say I'm in with you. It encourages the staff.
It gives life to the vision. It gives agreement between us
that you're believing with us for God to do these incredible
things. So look at the e-mail, get the
e-mail. If you need help, go to Connect
Central. They can help you download the
app and sign up. So you get on our e-mail list
and get those emails. Are we all good?
All right, let's turn it in. You good mezzanine.
I love you. Today we start our Christmas
series, Jesus the one and only. It's been a theme you've already
been singing this morning here, Pastor Kim sharing he is the one
and only. There's no one above him, beside
him, beneath him. He stands alone as the singular
king. And we're going to discover what
that means today through this series.
And I'm really glad you're here. Just.
So glad you're here. Christine and I, we have three
kids, Owen, Audrey and Eli. And I want to tell you, this
won't shock you. And it's probably similar to you
if you have kids or if you're in a family and other people got
kids running around at the beginning of their life, even
before they're born. You begin to wonder, what will
this kid become? What will they achieve?
What will be? Academically, athletically,
relationally, and you kind of make all these guesses,
prognostications in your mind of what your kids might become.
But really, the truth is parents, you can agree you got
no clue of the journey and the adventure and the incredible
life giving thing that it is to parent kids, but you really?
I mean most of my parenting life, that's how I felt.
Just clueless. I have no idea where this is
going. God, we're just trusting you.
No clue. I want you to know today that
God in His sovereignty, never, ever, ever ever felt this way
about His Son Jesus. From Jesus very first breath
until his last breath, God knew it All in all of its detail,
100% of it, Everything that we now know as biblical history in
the past. God knew his biblical prophecy
before it happened and he spoke to it and then watched it become
fulfilled one after the other, after the other.
God knew the entirety of the life of His Son.
As this Christmas season starts the celebration of the beginning
of Jesus story, I want to take you to the end of the story so
that we can get a picture of who this baby Jesus is and forever
will be what God knew Jesus was the entire time.
And I'm not talking about the cross because for many of us
that's where the story of Jesus ends.
The moment that he took my sins upon the world and he saved me
because the story is about me. So the end of the story is the
cross or the resurrection. I'm not even talking about the
ascension. I'm talking about the Book of
Revelation, of something that has yet to happen.
When a cataclysmic battle occurs on the earth, in Israel,
northern Israel, in Megiddo, the valley, the Jezreel Valley, you
can go. There and stand there and see it
by the wayside. Note, I just met this week with
a guy named Avishai in my office.
He lives in Jerusalem. He leaves the Tour Company that
we had partnered with to go. Earlier this year but we had to
cancel because of safety reasons.
We're starting to replan a trip to take the church to Israel, so
get yourself ready. Come on.
So I get to say in the message all the time, you can go see it
with us in Israel, because you will see it with us in Israel.
So this battle is happening, the battle that ends all battles and
the battle is between the beast and his legions that are
partnering together. The beast and the legions are
partnering together. Now the beast you might think is
like a dragon or a mythical beast.
It's actually a person that the Bible calls a beast and the
beast overseas the evil empire, which in the end is A1 world
government with one world currency.
And everyone is following deceived by the beast.
And it says the legions are with him.
And these armies are the armies of every nation, led by the
kings of every nation. So the kings of all nations at
the end of time will be aligning themselves with this one world
leader who is the beast. And they've come to wreak havoc
and destruction on the earth to put into bondage all of those
inhabitants of the earth. It looks like victory for them
is assured, and defeat for humanity is also.
Assured. No hope.
Very stark place, very dangerous place to be.
But then, in a scene that many war movies try to capture the
essence of, when defeat seems certain, suddenly on the
horizon, a hero emerges, his army standing by Revelation
Chapter 19 this is. The story of Jesus I saw heaven
standing open and there before me was a White Horse whose rider
is called Faithful and True name #1 There's going to be 4 names
in this passage. With justice he judges and wages
war. His eyes are like blazing fire,
And on his head are many crowns. Like are they stacked up or they
sprout? I don't know.
Lots of them up there. He has a name, a second name
written on him that no one knows but he himself.
I wonder what that is? Verse 13 He is dressed in a robe
dipped in blood and his name is the word of God.
Third name. The armies of heaven were
following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine
linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is the
only weapon that's used during this war.
This war is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nation.
He will rule them with an iron scepter.
He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God
Almighty on his robe. Look at this.
And on his thigh he has written this name.
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Come on.
Some of you in your mind are seeing Gandalf coming over the
hill. I'm seeing the King of the
universe. The general of the Angel army is
descending upon the beast and his legions.
And the. By the way, the battle's quick.
The beast, the false prophet, or thrown into the eternal lake of
fire. They go there before Satan
himself eventually goes there, and with the sword out of his
mouth, he destroys those who are seeking to destroy the people he
loves. King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The whole world will see it. But the first time Jesus came,
nobody saw it. Almost everybody missed it.
A king was among them. Not just a king, but the king.
This is who Jesus was and ISM forever will be.
This is who God knew Jesus to be before he breathed his first
breath. He is King of kings.
He is Lord of Lords. He is leader of leaders, the
reigning ruler of all. That's why the Bible says that
one day every knee will bow and one day every tongue will
confess. Whether they're believers or not
believers, they will be under the authority of God and say he
is Lord. There is no higher authority.
This is the king who was able to deliver.
This is the king who was able to conquer.
This is the king who is able to overcome all sin, all death.
This is the King who is coming to establish his Kingdom of
peace and unity. His name is Say it one more
time, you better. Believe it and the people missed
it this series. What I'm wondering is, are you
missing it too? And to put it a better way, I
hope that this series, at the end of it, you can say I'm not
missing the King. You may know I'm a Savior.
And I hope that you do. If not, make today your day that
you receive him as Savior when he takes away the penalty of
sin, the penalty of death, spiritual death, and gives you
eternal life. I hope you know I'm a Savior.
I know you know him as baby Jesus away in a danger.
No, whatever. But do you know him as king?
Do you serve him as a sovereign one?
That's what we're going to wrestle with together in this
series. The one and only.
Some did during Jesus day recognize him as king.
Very few, in fact, I want to read to you.
The part of Scripture where the first people to really
understand that he's king arrive.
If you have a Bible, you want to open it to Matthew chapter 2.
If you also want to flip to the left and have a finger, a pencil
or somebody, somebody's money, whatever, you stick something in
your Bible to let you know. We're also going to 1st Kings
10. Raise your hand if you need a
Bible. We'll be glad to bring those to
you. You can also follow along in the
Church Center app. The message notes all the
scriptures are there. Matthew chapter 2.
We're coming right down to the front.
We're coming. Here we come.
Bibles. Once you get a Bible right.
There we go, man. Love it.
Have we got one to you yet? No.
That's why you're raising your
hand. Like, no duh.
Coming to you. Thank you so much.
Ushers. 2 claps of the ushers. Let's try that again.
Two claps of the ushers. Yes, Matthew, Chapter 2.
Are you ready to say yes? Now I got to tell you this.
I'm going to be reading and teaching a lot.
You're going to feel like whiplash and you be like settle
down and just read the scripture.
Pastor will. I will.
But are you are you are we OK? OK, good.
Matthew chapter 2 verse one after Jesus was born in
Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod Magi,
everyone say Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.
Magi. This is not a word we use
anymore. It feels like Yoda.
We like what is this magi in week 3 on December 21st, 2 weeks
from the day I'm going to teach you about the Magi.
It is fascinating that God picked them to be the ones to
come and announce the King but for dead today.
What you need to know are these are ancient astrologers very
studied and looking to the sky. Because God does speak in the
sky, He sent his *. For Jesus, the sun stopped and
stood still in the Old Testament.
And there are these ancient astrologers, meaning that what
has been learned by their ancestors has been passed down
to them over generation as tried and true practices.
And something that they have studied and known and prophecies
that have come together makes them realize a king has been
born in Bethlehem. And we're going.
Verse 2 and ask these magi asks where is the one who has been
born king of the Jews? He was not born Prince of the
Jews. This is important.
Most kings aren't born kings. They are born Princess and then
they grow up and one day eventually become King or Queen
Jesus from his birth. From the very beginning, there
was no time that he was not. King.
Amen. We saw his star when it rose,
and I've come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he
was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.
Meaning, wait a second, Herod is saying what's going on?
The people are saying you mean to tell us a king has arrived in
Jerusalem and we had no idea. Yeah, that's exactly what's
happening. The king has arrived in
Jerusalem and you all completely missed it.
Verse 4, when he had called together all the people's chief
priests and teachers of the law, he asked them, where is the
Messiah, where the Messiah was to be born?
And then the people quote back to him, Micah the prophet Micah
in the Old Testament, this is where you find this prophecy in
Bethlehem, they say in Judea, for this is what the prophet has
written. But you, Bethlehem and the land
of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
For out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people.
Israel, the Savior will be born in Bethlehem just.
A few miles from Jerusalem you can walk between them.
Verse 7. Then Herod called the Magi
secretly. And found out from them the
exact time the star had appeared.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully
for the Child. As soon as you find Him, report
to me so that I too may go and worship Him.
He lying, he no speaketh the truth.
If you're familiar with the story of King Herod, he is
threatened by the arrival of another king and so he sends
these magi as his spies to find out where the new king is so
that he. Can go and destroy him.
In fact, later in the scripture we read that King Herod sends
out a decree. Any child 2 year, any male child
two years and younger must be executed in his Kingdom.
This is why Jesus and Mary and Joseph flee down to Egypt for a
little bit. To get out of that, this also
tells us that the that the magi came later than we think.
You know, we see them in our nativity scenes.
The Magi are there, the wise men are there with their gifts, but
they were not there. The day that Jesus was born,
they came up to two years later. That's why Herod said I got to
kill everybody two years and later.
By the way, how many Magi were there?
Not three. I set you up again.
I apologize. We say 3 because there's three
gifts, but really there was probably more like 12 magi that
showed up bringing these three kinds of gifts.
You'll understand that they came later too, when we read in just
a second that they didn't come to the Manger.
They went to the house where Mary and Joseph were living.
Verse 9, Let's pick it up. After they had heard the king,
they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it arose
went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the
child was. When they saw the star, they
were overjoyed. I'm coming to the house, this
house. Notice house.
They saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down
and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures
and presented him with gifts of gold.
Everyone say gold. Frankincense.
Say frankincense and myrrh. Yeah.
The wise men, the Magi, brought gifts to Jesus because he's a
king. This is not a new practice.
It's what you did when you visited a king.
You brought gifts to celebrate the wisdom and the royalty and
the power of these great kings. It's an ancient practice.
King Solomon, who is King David's son, also experienced
this. He, according to God, is the
wisest man other than Jesus to have ever lived.
And this wise king experienced this practice of people bringing
gifts. First kings chapter 10 flipping
your bibles way to the left first kings when the king of.
Sheba had heard were in verse one when the queen of Sheba had
heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the
Lord. She came to test Solomon with
hard questions, arriving at Jerusalem with a very great
caravan with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold
and precious stones. She came to Solomon and talked
with him about all that she had on her mind.
She brought gifts of gold to the one that she thought was wise,
she knew was wise she knew was in relationship with the Lord.
And by the way, she wasn't the only one.
Solomon is the known king of Splendor was used to the so many
gifts brought because they recognized his wisdom and his
relationship with the Lord. Gifts brought constantly.
Mostly it was gold. I got me some gold right here.
Pure gold. 1 ounce of. Gold.
This little coin in my hand is worth $4200.
Look at that, isn't it pretty shiny?
They brought this. To Solomon.
Let me read more. You're going to see a lot of
gold here. First Kings chapter 10, verse
14. The weight of the gold that
Solomon received yearly every year was 666 talents.
And like I is that a lot? I don't.
Know that could be 666 pennies for all we know. 666 talents of
gold is 25 tons of gold worth in American dollars. 3.2 billion.
I'm getting a little over emphasis, aren't I?
Calm down, $3.2 billion of gold brought to him annually.
Every single year. You're going to hear a whole
bunch of gold now reading on verse 15, not including the
revenues from merchants and traders from all the Arabian
kings and the governors and the territories.
King Solomon made 200 large Shields of hammered gold, 600
shekels of gold with into each shield.
He also made 300 small Shields of hammered gold with three main
menas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the palace
of the forest of Lebanon. Then the king made a great
throne covered with ivory and overlay with fine gold.
The throne had 6 steps and its back had a rounded top on both
sides of the seat where the armrests and lions standing
beside each of them. 12 lions stood on the 6 steps.
Each one had one at one step, or I'm sorry, one at either end of
each step. Nothing like it had ever been
made for any other Kingdom. All King Solomon's goblets were,
you bet, gold, and all the household articles of the Palace
of the Force of Lebanon were also pure gold.
Nothing was made of silver because it was trash.
Silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days.
The king had a fleet of trading ships watch this at sea during
along with the ships of Hiram once every three years.
This fleet returned carrying gold and some silver, ivory and
apes and baboons, which is fun. Don't know why.
Hey king, we brought you about. Boom.
I would have preferred a. Giraffe OK, whatever. 23 King
Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other
kings of the earth. There was no king greater,
wiser, or richer than Solomon. Think of that.
The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom
God to put in his heart. Verse 25.
Year after year, everyone who came before the king brought a
gift. Articles of silver, gold, robes,
weapons, spices, and horses and mules, and apparently apes and
baboons. Now watch this.
Remember, Solomon's the wisest man other than Jesus to ever
live, and he's used to this practice of people bringing him
the gold, people bringing to him tribute.
And then the wisest man to ever lived writes something.
If the wisest man to ever live write something, do you think we
should pay attention to it? OK, let me ask the people over
here if the. Wisest man to ever live wrote
something. Do you think we should read it?
Y'all y'all y'all online? Solomon wrote a song.
We have it in our Bibles, in the book of Psalms.
It's a Song of Solomon. He writes it.
It's not about himself. He writes it about one who is to
come. Psalm 72, verse 10.
May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tributes to
him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba
present him gifts. May all the kings bow down to
him, and all nations serve him, for he's a different kind of
king. Watch what he'll do, for he will
deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to
help. He will take pity on the weak
and the needy and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for
precious is their blood in the sight.
Long may he live. May gold from Sheba be given
him. May people ever pray for him and
bless him. All day long as Solomon had gold
laid at his feet because of his royalty and his power.
So one day Solomon is saying a new and greater king will come
and gold will also be laid at his feet.
His name, of course, is Yeah. Jesus is the new Solomon.
Jesus is the greater Solomon. I want to show you a picture of
a nativity, a crush. Here it is.
I'm going to ruin. Nativities for you for the rest
of your life right now. And I for that I apologize, but
at least as far as I know, every nativity that's ever been made,
or maybe ever will be made has something missing.
Now it's rhetorical so don't answer out loud, but what is
missing from this nativity scene?
I'm sorry for the trees if you can't see them.
You can move to the middle if you what's missing?
We got Jesus and Mary and Joseph.
You got a few hamburgers, or they're hamburgers to be in the
back cows. You got the shepherd's notice.
This is accurate. There's no wise men there, no
magi, just the shepherds who are there.
What's missing? You ready to know?
Where are all the people? Where are they?
God and his infinite wisdom and grace, mercy to us says I'm
going to grand open the Kingdom of heaven on earth and to do
what I'm sending my Son. I've been telling you for
generations, prophetically and in the stars, that my Son is
coming. Here's the grand opening.
And that's all that showed up. That's it.
Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 12 speaks of this.
He says the queen of the South, which is the queen of Sheba, the
same same lady will rise at the judgement with just this
generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the
earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom.
And now something greater, the one that Solomon prophesied
about, the greater 1 is here. And everybody missed it.
Few shepherds came. The magi came with their gifts.
Maybe we call them wise men not because they're great
astrologers, but because they were the first to recognize
Jesus as king. And you guys are wise, you Magi
and. In their wisdom, perhaps
inspired by God, these magi brought Jesus three significant
prophetic gifts. And in this series, what we want
to do is say What did each of these gifts mean about Jesus?
And what do each of these gifts call out to us, from Bethlehem
all the way here to Kissimmee, asking us, pleading with us to
do and how to live? Maybe this is a better way to
say it. If he is your King, then what
gift to him are you bringing the match?
I brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh today as it was the
first gift and I've already been talking about a lot of it.
I want to consider the gifts of gold.
Two things with the gift of gold signifies about Jesus #1 gold
signifies the royalty of Jesus. Gold was the gift brought to
kings. Gold, though it's rare now, was
very rare in Jesus's day. I have some gold coins, literal
gold coins in my pocket. In my pocket I have $60,000.
And that crazy, it's right here, here, come look at all this.
Can you see that? I'm afraid to drop them because
they don't belong to me. Can you see the gold?
Can you see the gold mezzanine? Was that a yes?
Because it sounded like $60,000 of gold.
That's more money than I've ever held in my life in one hand.
I don't know where to put them. I'm putting back here.
I want to take one out though. In Jesus day this is $60,000.
I'm sorry. In our day these coins are worth
$60,000. In Jesus day they're worth $1.86
million. That's how rare gold was and a
gram of gold today cost $135. A gram of gold in Jesus's day,
the Scripture says, is 12 days wages, which if you take Florida
minimum wage and take two weeks of five days of work, that's 10
days, and then add two more. Do all the math, it's $1440.00.
So for them is 135. For us it's 1440 and they
brought this gold to Jesus. If you were to bring this amount
of gold to Jesus and lay it at his feet, it's the ancient
equivalent of walking into a hospital room with a briefcase
full of hundreds of thousands, if not $1,000,000 in saying
we've come to give this to your baby and then you lay down on
the floor and worship this baby. That would be interesting if it
was you or I. But imagine like 3 of the wisest
people on the entire planet like Elon Musk, somebody from Europe,
somebody from Asia, somebody from Africa, whatever.
The wisest of the wise gathered together and brought one baby
$1,000,000 briefcase. Because of social media, we
would all take note in Jesus day.
The magic. I did it and nobody knew.
They all missed it. I'm putting this back away.
Yeah, by the way, I will not have with these with me.
After service, somebody sat at my car like, hey pastor.
Kim Yeah, All I'm trying to say is this gold is an extravagant
king level gift. It speaks to the royalty of
Jesus. It would have stunned anyone who
heard it, but nobody showed up to hear it.
One of the magi turned and they're like, we come to worship
Jesus and they're the only ones there.
They're like, where is everybody?
Gold signifies the royalty of Jesus.
Gold also symbolizes the divine presence and glory of God.
In the Old Testament, the New Testament, and what's to come in
the Old Testament, Solomon builds the temple and this is
what we read in First Kings chapter 6.
He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark
of the covenant of the Lord there.
I need to pause because not everybody knows what the temple
is. In Jesus's day they didn't have
tons of churches. They had synagogues and places,
but they only have one major temple on the Temple Mount.
If you come with us to Israel, you will see where this temple
was. And in this place God will come
and meet with them, His divine presence and His glory fully
there. We'll talk more about this in
the coming weeks. And because it's the Lord God
and his divine presence, Solomon decorates it specifically in a
way that's worthy of the king. Verse 20.
The inner sanctuary is 20 cubits long. 20 wide, 20 high.
He overlaid the inside with pure gold.
He also overlaid the altar of cedar with pure gold.
Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and
he extended gold chains across the front of the inner
sanctuary, which was itself overlaid with gold.
So we overlaid the entire interior of this beautiful
massive temple with gold. He also overlaid with gold the
altar that belong to the inner sanctuary.
This gold representing, representing divinity and glory,
the power in the presence of God.
Now consider when the magi bring gold and give it to Jesus.
The magi could be giving a nod to Jesus as the new temple.
He now is the divine presence and power of God, which is a
wrath of claim in Jesus's day. Because the temple to them was
the central feature of their entire culture.
And they're now saying, well, now instead of bringing gold to
the temple, we brought gold to the new temple.
The gold was brought to Solomon to adorn the temple.
The gold was brought to Jesus because he is the new temple.
So in the Old Testament, we've got the temple covered in gold.
In the New Testament, the magi bring to the gold to the new
temple. And in the last of days and
Revelation 21, this heaven and this earth that we're currently
living in will be wiped away along with all of its
brokenness, all of its illness, all of its sin.
And God will establish a new heaven and a new earth, and he's
going to put a city on that earth.
It's called the new. To Jerusalem.
And in Revelation 21 it says that entire new city is made.
The entire city, your houses, the restaurants are made of
gold. The streets are paved in gold.
Follow the yellow brick road. Gold is the recognition of God's
royalty, His divinity, His presence, His glory, His power,
His authority, the end breaking of his Kingdom.
A new king is here and that's why they brought him gold.
So because that's true as the magi saw it, what does it mean
for us? What do we do now?
The better way for me to say it is what, excuse me, are you
bringing your gold to God? Are you bringing gold to Jesus?
We're like, well, how do I do that?
I don't got a pocket full of gold.
Gold coins. Me neither.
This is somebody else's. How do you bring it two ways #1
live as a son or daughter of royalty?
If by bringing gold means that we're recognizing the kingship
of Jesus, then for us to bring our gold means that I will live
as a son or daughter of the King and that.
Way I'll let people know that number one, there is a king and
#2 he's my king. What does that mean?
Well #1 if you want to live as a son or daughter of royalty, walk
in your true identity. What if you were to wake up
every morning and start with this foundation?
Or if somebody spoke a word against you or you got bad news?
Are you going through a troubling time?
What if this is your foundation? I am a daughter.
Of the King. I.
Am a son of the King. What if you actually believed it
to the extent that you lived it? I'm a son of the king.
I'm a daughter of the king. And then because of it, I have
all rights and privileges of the crown, which we here in America
don't really fully understand. Any Brits in the house right
now? You could give us a lecture.
Yeah. Hello, Justin.
Good to see you. I.
Don't know why I did that, sorry.
Forgive me, better don't as I understand it with my limited
understanding of kingship and royalty.
The. Sons and daughters of the Crown
are bestowed with wealth, status and protection.
Prince William waiting to become King.
He is bestowed with wealth and status, His Royal Highness and
protection. And all of this, the wealth,
status, and protection of an earthly Prince or Princess, is
bestowed upon them by a limited monarch, one who has limited
power, limited resource, and 0 power in the supernatural.
And that's what they get. If you're an earthly Prince of
Princess, but if you are an heir to the throne, which when you
become a believer in Jesus, the Bible says you're an heir to the
throne, you're a Prince and a Princess.
You get your rights and privileges from an unlimited
infinite king, which means the rights and privileges of a son
or. Daughter of the.
King means you have infinite wealth.
Believe it, you have infinite status.
Believe it, you have infinite protection.
No weapon formed against me shall prosper.
Not even death shall threaten me because of my king.
That would be terrible if you had a wealthy king who was
stingy. And this is typical in most
kingships. They have all the wealth and
everyone else is suffering. It'd be all equally terrible if
you had a very generous king who happened to be extremely poor.
He's ready to give us everything, but he got nothing.
How great is it that you have a king who is both wealthy and
generous, and everything that he has he gives to you?
It's why Peter writes that his divine power has given us
everything for life and godliness, for the knowledge of
Him who called us according to his own glory and goodness.
He has given us everything we need to have a mindset shift.
Mindset shift. Careful.
Because the mindset of one who does not see themselves as a
daughter or son of the King is scarcity.
And Jesus didn't say I've come to give them life and life more
scarce, more striving. He said I've come to give you
life and that abundantly. I have a heavenly Father who is
wealthy, I have a heavenly Father who's generous, and I
have a Heavenly Father who's pouring out his blessings on me.
It may not look like financial, in some ways it can be, but
typically the most generous, godaciously, audaciously, not
godaciously, well, we can say godaciously generous thing
that's ever happened is him giving his his Son.
Has anyone ever been more generous than giving us that
everything else is extra everything else?
Is blessing walk in your true identity?
By the way, if you're a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom, that
is what you are, meaning you're not any.
Other thing than that, whatever you said to yourself in the
mirror what others others have said to you, we should not
diminish our true identity in any way.
You are a Prince or a Princess of the Kingdom period in Jesus
name. So if we want to bring our goal
to God to signify to the world that he is a king and he is my
king, the first thing I'm going to do is live as a son or
daughter of royalty, which means to walk in my true identity, but
also it means I need to walk in obedience.
Everyone say obedience, Hallelujah.
We love obedience, don't we? When we obey God, what's
happening is he has set up a perfect Kingdom rule.
Perfect Kingdom order. This is how things will work in
the Kingdom. When you live like this, people
will see that I'm the king. We teach in life, Step 2 that
you are a brand ambassador for the king and we want to be the
kind of brand ambassadors that give glory to our king.
Says he has given his life for me.
He has replaced my rags for his riches and I want my life to
give him glory. And the way that I do that is by
obeying his Kingdom order. And people will look and see
why, and they give. Glory to your Father in heaven.
And when we don't obey and they say.
Wow, that's your God. That's what following God looks
like. Like.
No, no, it's not. I'm, I'm right now in a
disobedient phase of my life and everything that's happened in my
life is this toxicity and the sin and this brokenness.
Instead, I want to start obeying the Lord and allow His goodness
and His blessing to flow. Which by the.
Way We obey Him to give Him glory, but we secondarily obey
Him because it benefits us every time you obey God.
I don't know what the outcome will be, but I know it'll be
good. You may heard me say this
before, but you never know what's on the other side of the
door of obedience until you. Walk through it.
The door of lust is here, and sexual promiscuity and
drunkenness and ego and idolatries and angers and fits
of rage. You name it, they're all here.
And God says walk through this. Door to give me glory.
And by the way, when you get to the other side, you're going to
love it. Follow me, follow my word, obey
these commands. Therefore your good and people
will know I'm your king. This is how we bring them our
gold. I'm going to live in my
identity. I'm going to walk according to
His word. And here's the last part.
If we want to show people He's our king that will embrace
yourself, then we need to give God our treasure.
You're like, oh, there it is. Church is talking about money.
I'm telling you the reason people don't like talking about
money in churches, because a lot of churches have abused money.
A lot of pastors have taken the money and run, right?
And here's the shame of it all. Jesus talked about money more
than he talked about anything else, More than heaven and hell
combined, more than prayer, more than faith.
The Word of God speaks about this because God knows it's a
struggle for us, and so he wants to give us freedom.
And the church needs to speak about what Jesus speaks about.
I'm going to speak about it here.
If the magi were to show up next Sunday with their gold, if they
were to walk down this aisle next Sunday in their ornate
robes, we're all here worshipping.
All of a sudden everyone's like, what is going on?
Who are these people? Where they coming?
And they brought bucket loads of gold and they were to lay it
upon the altar as an offering to the Lord.
Can you imagine this moment? This is what the Magi did.
They brought the equivalent of millions of dollars to Jesus and
laid it at his feet. When they did that, would it
make you think these things? Is is my current giving?
Does it look like I recognize the same king that the Magi did?
Am I giving extravagantly and sacrificially as they did, or am
I giving nothing or my tipping got it, was a good week.
So here's 5 bucks. We'll just give this a little
bit to your Kingdom. Let me tell you this, it's never
about equal amount. Not everybody here has got a
pocket full of gold coins. Me neither.
Not everyone has millions of dollars of gold.
To the Lord Jesus, it's always about equal sacrifice.
In the book of Mark, in the book of Luke, Jesus is standing at
the temple watching what people put into the offering.
Do you think he still does that today?
He's. Watching and people are coming
by, they're throwing in money, and then a little widow comes
over and all she has in her possession, the entirety of her
bank accounts is 2. Pennies, mites, MITES.
And she puts everything that she has into the offering.
This is worth 2 pennies. It's nothing in terms of
financial value. And Jesus says out of his own
mouth, this woman has given out of her poverty and everyone else
has given out of their abundance.
She's given more than anybody else, this woman more.
We think the number matters to God.
It's the sacrifice and the extravagance of the gift that
moves his heart and declares to the world that he is king.
Extravagant means like, I wouldn't do this for myself, but
I will do it for Jesus. It's over the top, but he's
worth. It sacrificial looks like I will
forsake something in my life so I can bring a better gift to the
Lord. Let me tell you, in your tithes
and your offerings, if it's not costing you, hurting you, you
might not be doing it right. And by the way, the hurt only
starts from the beginning. As soon as you learn to be
generous with the Lord, you find out that there's no cost at all.
I said it before, I'll say it again, you can.
It's harder to get us a person who's already tithing to stop
than it is to get a non tither to start.
Because the person who's tithing has seen the goodness of the
Lord in their life as they bring their gold and worship.
Matthew chapter 6 verse 21 Jesus says these famous words about
finances. I hope that you've heard this
before says for where your treasure is, there your heart
will follow after the treasure leads the heart.
The magi knew this before Jesus spoke it.
They come to the Manger with their treasure.
And maybe I read it too quickly and you didn't notice it like,
well, are they just walking around finding kings and tossing
out money? No, with Jesus they laid down
the treasure, and it says they bowed down and loved on Him,
worshipped him, treasure and heart going hand in hand.
The gold wasn't kept, it was surrendered to the king.
I want to tell you this morning, Jesus is still worthy of our
most extravagant, sacrificial, joyful offerings, not because he
needs our money, but because we need to give them to him in
order to say to him and to the whole world, You are my King,
you and none other, you and you only.
And by the way, whatever is your king, whoever is your king will
order your. Life, you want it to be Jesus
last question, then we'll pray. Is he your king?
It's not a yes or no question. Your answer is in the way that
you live and in the way that you give.
That will be your answer. In the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. Would you bow your heads, close
your eyes? Would you just repeat these
words after me saying Holy Spirit everybody?
Holy Spirit, what is it that you wanted me to learn today to do
starting today? Now just be quiet there a moment
and let Holy Spirit speak to you.
Just keep asking the question until you get an answer.
He is faithful. Those who ask will receive an
answer. Is He asking you to rise up in
your identity, to no longer feel like you have to eat the crumbs
of life, but that He has blessed you with wealth and status and
protection? Is He asking you today to walk
in obedience? Maybe you've been out of line
somewhere and He's calling you back into alignment for His
glory and for your benefit. Or maybe, just maybe, money is
an idol to you and you feel it impossible to give.
But today He's touching your heart, saying, I want to bring
my gift to Jesus. Finally today there may be
somebody here who who has yet to join the royal family.
Today is your day to say yes Jesus, I want in.
I want to be your son. I want to be your daughter.
I want to be a Prince, I want to be a Princess.
The Bible says if you believe in your heart and confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.
So let's pray that now together. Every voice saying Father in the
name of Jesus I recognize. That I am a Sinner in need of a
savior and I confess and I believe that Jesus is Lord.
I receive you, Jesus as my Savior.
Come into my life and live your life through me.
Thanks for joining us today. We hope God is speaking to your
heart through this message. If you'd like to connect with
us, you can text Connect to 4:07 588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot
Church. Have a great week.