Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham

Matthew 2:1-12; Where Is the King?

• Adam Shields

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Adam Shields January 4, 2026 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

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SPEAKER_00:

All right, it's time on the church calendar where we transition from the Christmas season into the season of Epiphany. And Epiphany is the Christian season that celebrates the revealing of Jesus as Savior, not only to Israel, but to the nations. And it's the season that reminds us that the child born in Bethlehem did not come for only one people, but he came for the whole world. So the text that we'll look at this morning is a very traditional and a very fitting text for this time of year, a famous and the familiar passage of the visit of the wise men. But familiarity can actually sometimes dull the edge of a text like this. We hear it every Christmas. We picture three wise men, a quiet, stable, neatly wrapped gifts. And yet Matthew's account is actually far more disruptive, far more unsettling, and far more searching than our nativity scenes might actually suggest. So let's take a look at the text together this morning. It's printed in the bulletin and should be on the screen behind me as well. Matthew chapter 2, beginning with the verse 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, saying, 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. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. 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. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And 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. After 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. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Let's pray before we get started this morning. Father, I ask that you would be gracious to me as I deliver this message today. I come before you weak and needy. Please grant me the clarity as I proclaim the truth of your word, which alone can change hearts. I ask that you meet us here this morning, that you would help us to have ears that hear the goodness of your gospel. I ask that you would give us humility, that we might receive what you would show us. We ask that you would move us this morning and cause our hearts to leap with joy as we welcome the king that you have sent, and that we would be moved to joyful worship and faithful obedience this morning. In your name we pray. Amen. I grew up in Columbus, Mississippi. I know that we've got some Columbus folks that are members here at Faith, technically in a place called New Hope. And it would be too generous to call this a suburb of Columbus where I grew up. It was rural enough that there was one grocery store, the Piggly Wiggly. And for those of us that live in Birmingham, this Piggly Wiggly is not like the Piggly Wigglies that we have. Very different. One summer afternoon, between third and fourth grade, after what I felt was an unreasonable amount of time grocery shopping with my mother, I made the brazen executive decision to just wait in the car while my mom finished up her shopping. At nine, almost 10, I certainly knew it all. I would assume my rightful throne. You see, it wasn't just aqua colored. Okay, as if that wasn't already enough. It was aggressively aqua. Like a Capri Sun mixed with the accent wall from a dentist office kind of aqua. It looked like a space shuttle designed for futuristic carpools. Surely this minivan was designed by a committee that had just discovered the internet and ocean-themed gel pens. My parents may have had questionable taste in minivans. Nonetheless, I climbed into my throne and I settled in, but I can't explain it. Something just feels off. And after a few minutes, the driver door opens up. And I am immediately disoriented. Because in steps a woman that I have never seen before. And y'all, I am shook to the core. And I'm quickly flooded with this intense embarrassment and this dread as I realize that I am, in fact, not in my mother's minivan. And I mean, hindsight, my first thought should have been that this woman is doing a favor in stealing my mom's minivan right now. But the truth is, she wasn't doing anything wrong. She's simply assuming the seat that I thought was mine. Because the van actually belongs to her. As it turns out, my parents were trendsetters when it comes to picking van colors. A few months later, I learned that this woman would assume an even greater throne in my life than I had first realized. Come to find out, she would be my fourth grade teacher. And the shock wasn't that the van existed or that someone else knew how to drive it. The shock was realizing that the seat that I had claimed was never actually mine. You see, I wasn't being wronged, I was being corrected. I had mistaken familiarity for authority and comfort for ownership. In much the same way, Matthew 2 shows us that the real tension is not whether the king has been revealed, but how our hearts respond when his rightful authority becomes clear. We live busy, ordered, and often comfortable lives. And while we may not oppose Jesus openly, we often resist him quietly, right? By keeping him in the margins, by compartmentalizing our faith, or by welcoming a version of Christianity that comforts us without commanding us. And the issue is not that Christ is hidden from us, it's that his kingship confronts our desire to remain in control. And if we're honest, we're often more comfortable managing our own curated lives than welcoming the true king that comes to rule them. Yet we desperately need exactly that kind of king. So this morning, let's look at three things together. One, the revealing of a king, two, the response to the king, and three, the rendering of the king. So the revealing of the king, the response to the king, and the rendering of the king. Point one, the revealing of the king. Matthew tells us that after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men, magi from the east arrive in Jerusalem asking a startling question. Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Notice what they do not ask. They do not ask, where is the next religious teacher? They do not ask, where is the future king? And they don't ask, where is a potential Messiah? No, they ask where the king has already been born. In the first chapter of Matthew, he lays out the genealogy of Jesus before telling us about his birth and then this story. And there are a lot of familiar names and some unfamiliar ones, but it's important and certainly not by chance that Matthew covers this first. Scholar and commentator Del Bruner points out that Matthew introduces Jesus' kingship immediately after his genealogy to make something unmistakably clear. That Jesus does not grow into kingship. He does not earn his kingship, and he does not seize his kingship. He arrives as king. From Jesus' first breath, his throne is assumed. And the shock of the passage is who recognizes this? Right? The wise men. What do we know about these magi? Well, a few clarifications that might help us. We don't actually know how many there were. The Bible actually never says three. That idea comes from the number of gifts, not the number of people. It's far more likely that this was a large traveling company, right? A huge convoy of scholars, servants, guards, and attendants. Because a journey this long, coming this far, carrying gifts this valuable, would have required protection, planning, and significant resources. And we know that they came from the East, possibly Babylon, but Matthew doesn't say, so we can't be sure. But we could assume they likely came from a major cultural center. And we know that they were not kings, as we often sing about each year. However, they were wealthy, educated, influential men with status and with means. They certainly had the appearance of kings. We know they studied the stars and would communicate their findings with those that they served. And in this case, we actually see that God uses a star as general revelation to draw them to the king of special revelation. And lastly, maybe most important to today, the Magi are Gentiles. They're outsiders. They're not Israelites, they're not covenant members. God reveals the birth of his son to a bunch of pagans. And if we're honest, that may bother us here this morning. The thought that God chose to unreal the arrival of Jesus to a bunch of superstitious fortune tellers rather than a group of devout do-gooders. But isn't that just like God? God often uses the people that we least expect. A 90-year-old woman to start a family that would change the world, a small, unlikely boy to slay a fearsome giant warrior, a zealous persecutor of the church to be Christianity's greatest missionary. And that's just to name a few. But let's not forget the shepherds here, right? God also announces the birth of his son to a lowly, dirty, look down upon, ragtag bunch of shepherds. And here he is again, but this time with a bunch of outsiders. And I mentioned this briefly at the beginning, but this is a significant part of Epiphany, right? Jesus came for the whole world. By giving this revelation to the wise men, we see that Jesus is presented to the nations. And when something significant happens for these guys, like the appearance of a star announcing a king, they had to do something. The question is no longer whether he is king, the question is what do we do? They had to respond. This leads us to our second point, the response of the king. Matthew tells us in verse 3 that when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. That word troubled is really strong here. It doesn't mean mildly curious or momentarily unsettled. It means shaken, agitated, disturbed to the core. Because something seismic and earth-shattering has happened. Right? A rival king has entered the story. And Herod is not asking theological questions, he's reacting to a personal threat. As the late Tim Keller observes, Herod's fear is not doctrinal, it's existential. There's now talk of another king, the true king, who's close by, and his very existence is being threatened. And Herod is now in crisis mode. Why? Because if Jesus is truly king, then Herod cannot be the king. And here, Matthew begins to expose something deeply revealing about the human heart. We do not resist Jesus because we lack evidence, we resist him because we fear losing control. And this is true of me. I wish that it wasn't. I want to be able to maintain control of everything in my life. Herod's entire identity is built on power, security, and self-rule. He has clawed his way to the throne room, and he will do anything, as we will see, to keep it. You see, a true king has threatened everything that he has constructed. And so Herod responds the way that threatened rulers usually do, with calculation, manipulation, and eventually violence, which we see if we keep reading the next few verses. But notice that Matthew does not only mention Herod here. We continue in verse 3, he adds, and all Jerusalem with him. You see, if Herod represents hostile resistance, then Jerusalem represents comfortable indifference. And Matthew places them side by side here. In verse 4, so Herod gathers the chief priests and the scribes. Pastor and Professor Dan Doriani makes an important distinction here that we should note. The chief priests and the scribes are two very different groups of people. The chief priests were often more willing to accommodate Roman authority or Greek culture so that they could retain their power and their wealth. While the scribes are viewed as conservative teachers of scripture who sought to preserve traditional Jewish culture. But still, these are the Bible experts. And they actually agree here, which probably didn't happen very often. They know exactly where the Messiah is going to be born. And together in verse 6, they quote Micah 5:2 with confidence and precision. Where is he? Bethlehem. Case closed. Done. And then what do they do? They do nothing. There's no journey. There's no worship. There's no curiosity. Brunner captures the chilling irony here. The religious leaders can give exact directions to the savior they refuse to seek. They know the text. They know the text, but they miss the king. Doriani puts it more bluntly that religious people are often the farthest from the kingdom. You see, Jerusalem is not hostile, but it is unmoved. And indifference can be just as deadly as opposition. Both protect the self, both avoid surrender, and both of them keep us from kneeling. This is why indifference is just as dangerous as hostility. Because it presents as faithfulness, but lacks a willingness to change. And Keller actually presses this even further in his book, Hidden Christmas. And he says that the full teaching of the Bible is that the source of the world's evil is every human heart. So what does that mean? It means that King Herod's reaction, in this sense, is a picture of all of us, every heart in this room, yours and mine. It stems from our self-centeredness, our self-righteousness, and our self-absorption. So then in every human heart, there's this little King Herod that wants to rule and to reign and is threatened by anything that may compromise its omnipotence or sovereignty. You see, we want to be the captain of our own soul, the master of our own fate. Keller goes on to say that we want the gifts, but not the giver. And this is where the text presses directly on our lives. You see, you can oppose Jesus aggressively like Herod, or you can ignore him politely like Jerusalem, but both are forms of unbelief. Both say that I decide where Jesus belongs in my life. And then Matthew introduces a third response, a surprising one from the Magi. Here we go again, talking about these guys. You see, they don't have the law or the prophets the way that Jerusalem does, the way that Jerusalem does. They don't have centuries of covenant history. They don't have temple access or a religious pedigree, but still they respond. And you see, this is a simple but a crucial observation. We all respond to major events. We respond to current events in the news. We respond to natural disasters, to graduations and retirements, to the loss of a loved one or to a diagnosis, to births and engagements and weddings. The question is not whether we respond, but how. They sacrifice much and they bow low. Meanwhile, Jerusalem, overflowing with scripture, saturated with religious knowledge, they don't move an inch. And you see, this is one of Matthew's great reversals. That those with the least religious privilege displayed the greatest spiritual hunger. How do we seek Jesus? We often look for him in all the wrong places, right? We look for him in personal successes, promotions, raises. We look for him in political victories. We look for him in moral improvements. We look for him in comfort, stability, and control. But Jesus is not found where power is preserved. He is found where humility kneels. And when the star finally reappears and leads the magi to Jesus, Matthew tells us that they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. In preparation for this passage, I listened to an episode of 30 Minutes in the New Testament. It's a podcast with Daniel, Daniel Emery Price and Eric Sorensen. And they couldn't help but agree with Matthew's recording of the Magi's response. They go on and on about how that phrase is intentionally over the top. The redundancy is important. It's not just polite religious happiness. They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. This is an all-caps, bold, underlined, backlit kind of joy. It is explosive joy. Why? Because revelation has become encounter. The search is over. They found the king. We've heard Jason say this from the pulpit that we can be too big for God, but we can never be too small for God. And that was certainly true for the Magi. They weren't too far away, they weren't too proud. They weren't too busy, and they certainly weren't too late. But Jerusalem was too comfortable. And so the question that Matthew leaves hanging, and the question pressing on us, is this how will we respond to the king? Will we resist him like Herod? Will we ignore him like Jerusalem? Or will we seek and rejoice like the Magi? And that question leads us to our third and final point this morning: the rendering of the king. What kind of king has been given to us? Well, the magi sought him out to answer that question. But the question we might be asking today is what kind of king has he come to be? When the magi finally arrive at the house, Matthew tells us that they fell down and worshiped him. And that sentence is brief, but it's loaded with meaning for us. You see, these men, influential as they may be, they don't arrive with demands. They don't arrive with leverage. They don't arrive with conditions. No, they fall down and they worship. And this is not worship born out of fear. This is worship born out of recognition. They have finally seen the king for who he truly is. But the most astonishing thing at this scene is not what the magi do, it's who Jesus is and what kind of king he proves to be. You see, the magi they bring gold, a precious metal for kings. But this king is born into poverty. And they offer frankincense, likely signifying his deity, his priestly role. But this king is going to grow up without honor. And they present myrrh, a known traditional burial spice. Because even now, the shadow of the cross stretches out across the cradle. You see, from the very beginning of Matthew's gospel, Jesus' kingship is inseparable from his suffering. The child who receives myrrh is the king who will later receive nails. The child who is honored by foreign dignitaries will one day be mocked by soldiers. The king whose life is celebrated here will later be condemned by the very world that he came to save. And Matthew is showing us something crucial. You see, the king does not become merciful later. This is who he is from the beginning. The cross is not an interruption of his mission, it is the fulfillment of it. You see, the other king in this story uses power to protect himself. Herod preserves his throne by taking life. But Jesus establishes his kingdom by giving his. Herod kills to remain secure. But Jesus is killed to make us secure. Herod is threatened by his rivals, but Jesus welcomes the rebels. Herod clings to control, and Jesus willingly lays down his life. You see, the true king does not use his authority to distance himself from sinners. He uses it to draw near to them, even at an infinite cost to himself. And here is the heart of the good news, right? This king does not wait for us to improve before he loves us. He does not demand loyalty before he offers mercy. He does not require gifts before he gives grace. Yes, the magi bring treasures, but their treasures do not make Jesus worthy. The gifts do not complete Jesus. The treasures do not earn the wise men a place. You see, their gifts are not a transaction, they are a response. And that distinction matters deeply for us. Because if we are honest, many of us still live as though Christianity is about what we bring to Jesus rather than what Jesus has already brought to us. We measure our faith by our consistency, we measure our standing by our performance. And we quietly assume that God is pleased when we are the strongest. But Matthew will not allow that misunderstanding to stand. You see, before we ever offer Christ anything, he offers himself entirely for us. Before we serve him, he serves us. Before we obey, he obeys in our place. Before we suffer for his name, he suffers for our salvation. You see, this king renders himself for the people. He renders his obedience, his righteousness, and he renders his life. You see, that means that the foundation of the Christian life is not effort, it's rest. It's not striving, it's trust. It's not adding, but receiving. And that brings us right here to where many of us are today. It's early January. Carl said it earlier. New year, new you. Am I right? A season filled with resolutions, fresh starts, and quiet pressure to become better versions of ourselves. And our church is entering a new season with a new sanctuary, new opportunities, new visibility. And see, the danger in moments like this is subtle, but it's real. Because we begin to think that growth comes primarily through doing more rather than abiding more deeply in Christ. We think it's about us and what we can do. But this text, it gently recenters us here. Before we ask how Christ fits into our plans, we should remember that he is not an accessory king or an add-on for occasional use. Before we wonder how his kingship will bless our year, we should remember that his kingship has already saved our souls. Before we worry about what faithfulness will require of us, we should remember what faithfulness has already required of him. Lastly, I want us to notice how Matthew ends the story here. They departed to their own country by another way. You see, that is not a command to obey, it is a consequence of an encounter with grace. Because grace always redirects us. When you encounter the king, this king, the king who leaves heaven, the king who trades glory for humility, the king who gives his life as a ransom for many, you do not go home the same way. Not because you have resolved to be different, but because you have been loved by someone greater. And here is the comfort that Matthew wants us to carry with us. You do not worship this king to secure his favor. You worship because his favor has already been secured for you on the cross. And you do not offer your life to earn his love. You offer your life because his love has already claimed you. Not with fear, but with worship. Not with pressure, but with peace. Because once you have truly seen this king, there is no other way to go home. Let's pray. Forgive us for the ways that we resist him, ignore him, or try to manage him rather than worship him. Give us hearts that are quick to seek, quick to rejoice, and quick to bow. Help us to resist in what Christ, help us to rest in what Christ has already done for us, to abide in his finished work, and to walk in joyful obedience as those who have been loved by grace. Send us out change this morning, going home by another way for the glory of the King. Amen.