Star of Wonder Matthew 2:1-12

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Some of the most majestic moments we experience in life
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Come from what from when the Sun is down The sky is clear and the stars are shining
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King David wrote in Psalm 19 1 the heavens declare the glory of God the skies
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Proclaim the work of his hands What we see in the sky at night is truly breathtaking
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I Have a few memories of looking at the night sky that I will never forget During my freshman year of college.
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I was going to crown which was close to my home in mound This close proximity meant that I often went home on weekends one weekend to my dad and my brother
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Who was also living at home? Decided to set our clocks to 2 a .m..
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Because there was a meteor shower that was coming through and And this was one of those once -in -a -lifetime events
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We went out that night, and we saw the glory of God in the heavens as the meteors flew through the sky
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Above it was truly amazing The second experience I had took place in northern,
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Minnesota Where my brother and I had a friend who lived? What we often did is we would drive north of town a few miles away from the city lights
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And we would lay out on the road and then look at the night sky One particular night stood out above the rest because we experienced the phenomenon known as Aurora Borealis Also known as northern lights
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It was as if God put on this show just for us to see
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To see his glory displayed in the universe that he created Observing the night sky is truly a wonderful Experience and certain experiences stand out above the rest, and I'm sure you can think of times in your life
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When you had one of those moments where you're thinking this is truly remarkable
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Now the experience that I had pales in can in comparison to the experience of astrologers 2 ,000 years ago
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There was a group of astrologers who noticed an unusual star in the western sky
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These were people who were experts on formations of stars and planets in outer space
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But this star they noticed in the western sky was something they had never seen before This star in the
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West was brighter and larger than other stars, and they were mesmerized by it so much so that they came to believe
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This saw this star was a sign in the heavens and they needed to travel to the location where?
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It was leading them What I'm referring to of course is the story of the
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Magi from the east also known as the wise men visiting a very very important baby that was born and This child that they visited is of course
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Jesus This child is one whom they would give honor to when there was another king in the region who wanted all of the honor for himself
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We are going to see this story today, so at this time. I encourage you To turn in a
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Bible with me to Matthew chapter 2 We will be looking at verses 1 through 12, and if you're using a red
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Bible in the pews is on page 960 This sermon is titled
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Just as the stump as the famous song says star of wonder and our big idea
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What the sermon is calling each one in this room to do is to worship the only one who is worthy
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And what we are going to see is that every person has two choices Praise the
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God man or praise the creature Now before we jump into our text this morning, let me give you a little recap of where we were last
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Sunday we looked at the virgin birth of Jesus in Chapter 1 verses 18 through 25 and what we saw is that Joseph found out
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Mary was with child Since he did not want to disgrace Mary he planned to divorce her quietly
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But before he could do that the angel Gabriel appeared to Joseph and explained to him that Mary was with child from the
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Holy Spirit This led Joseph to remain with Mary and become one with her in marriage
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What we zeroed in on most in the sermon was what the angel told Joseph in verse 21 He told him she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name
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Jesus Because he will save his people from their sins the
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Messiah Who would come? Was not just one who would reign but also be one who would save his people from their bondage to sin
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The Christ is a rescuing King who specifically rescues his people from sin
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And what I explained is that everyone in this room who knows Jesus has been rescued not only from sin but also from bondage to Satan and the world and And and to be in this position of being free in Christ You can't even put words to how incredible it is to be in this position
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Now this leads us to our text today in Matthew to the story of the Magi from the east
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Visiting this unknown child King in the West So let's begin by reading verse 1 and what
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I'm gonna do here is we're gonna go through this passage slowly as we as we normally do and Dig apart here and see what the
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Lord wants us to see. Let's start with 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 Okay, let's stop right there
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The first thing that we see is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea Now the gospel of Luke helps us understand why he was born in this place
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Luke 2 2 4 And 5 says and Joseph also went up from Galilee From the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David Which is called
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Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary His betrothed who was with child
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During this period of history in the Roman Empire a census was called and What a census was is that people would they were trying to figure out how many people there were in what towns?
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They lived in and what their lineage was and all the Jews were required to go to the place of their ancestors to register and Since Joseph came from the line of Judah the place to register for him was
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Bethlehem You can see the providence of God at work here and we'll see that in a little bit
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Now what we read in the second half of verse 1 are two Important characters in this story two important parties
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One is an individual and one are several people. The individual is King Herod The group of people are known as the
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Magi also known as the wise men I want to give a little bit of a biographical sketch of these two parties
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First we will look at King Herod Here Herod ruled
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Judea which was in Israel from 37 BC To his death in 4
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BC. He did not have absolute authority since the Roman Empire Was was in power at this point, but he was a sub ruler under them
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He was also known as Herod the Great and he's one of the most interesting characters from this point in history
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One historian has said that there is more Historical of documentation on his life than any other person from this time
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He was well known for his building projects. He built a palace at Jericho the fortress of Herodium and The harbor and city
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Caesarea, which was which was located on the Mediterranean He was a man who thought very highly of himself.
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So he built all these palaces for himself But his finest project is probably his renovation of the temple in Jerusalem He made an already impressive structure that much more impressive but not only was
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Herod a Master builder. He was a ruthless ruler He murdered his own wife several sons and other relatives
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He was very insecure and saw everyone as a threat It has been said of Herod the
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Great. It was it was better to be one of his pigs than one of his sons Because he killed so many of them
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This background about his character helps us understand why he was threatened by Jesus as we will see in a little bit
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This was not a man. You wanted to cross the wrong way Now the other biographical sketch we need to we need to see here is the
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Magi or the wise men The text tells us that these people came from the east and what we will read is that they were
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Star Watchers They were most likely astrologers now astrology was very popular in the region of Persia and Babylon at this point in history, so it makes sense that these people came from this region and in a little bit
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I will explain Why I think they specifically came from Babylon So this background on Herod and the wise men is important as we read what we are about to read
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Now when we when these wise men arrived in Jerusalem from the east, this is what they tell the locals verse 2
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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
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The wise men See the star and ask where is the king of the Jews?
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They're not asking for Herod. They're asking for someone else This is where it's important to understand why these are a
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Babylonian astrologists about 600 years before this The Jews were taken into captivity
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By the Babylonians during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar During this time the
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Babylonians would have been familiar with the Old Testament They especially would have been interested in Old Testament prophecies these prophecies that told the future
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Astrologists were in the business of looking for signs that would tell them the future
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They thought that the position of the Sun Moon planets and stars
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Would tell what someone's life would be like You maybe you've heard of a horoscope.
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That's where this that's where this Comes from and it's fascinating What we know about astronomy today so many things come from these people they knew about planets like Jupiter and Saturn and it's remarkable to think that this this is 2 ,500 years ago when these people were were noticing patterns in creation
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So these Babylonians they were they were interested in the stars because they were so interested in This belief that if you understood these formations of stars at specific times during the year we would know future events for people
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The problem is the Babylonians Failed miserably at this because we know that the stars don't tell us anything about the future of people's lives in fact in the book of Daniel King Nebuchadnezzar called for these
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People not the wise men here, but but people 500 years before them who were astrologists He called for them and said would can you interpret my dream and of course none of them could but then he calls
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Daniel Who was a follower of the Lord and because the Lord knows the future the Lord gave
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Daniel the supernatural knowledge And so Daniel was able to tell this powerful King the interpretation of his dreams only
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God Can tell the future? But one can see why the Old Testament prophecies were appealing to these astrologists from the east when these men saw the star in The West an
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Old Testament prophecy may have come to their mind numbers 2417 says this a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel So when they see the star
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They know that a king Has come into the world and they want to see him
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So you can see the background information of why these people ended up where they ended up Now let me take a second to explain this star
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This probably is not a natural phenomenon, but a supernatural one Some have said that the light of an angel shined over Jerusalem it could have been that or it could have been that God just supernaturally put a star in that location
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But these wise men from the east would have seen this as some kind of formation in the sky
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They wouldn't have been thinking about an angel or anything like that They were just saying okay This is a star that we haven't seen before and this appears to be fulfilling this prophecy from numbers in the
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Old Testament Now Babylon would have been about 800 miles from Jerusalem. This is this was the days before airplanes
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They couldn't they could not have just jumped on the plane. The only travel was on foot riding animals like camels
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This journey would have taken at least a month Now it's very important for us to see what the end of verse 2 says they tell the locals that they have come to worship him as they arrive in Jerusalem and This emphasis on worship is what this sermon is focused on We know what the
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New Testament says concerning Jesus He is not only a man, but he's also fully
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God The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2 9 that the fullness of deity dwells bodily
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Would the Magi have known this? probably not But at minimum they understood that he was some kind of deity and it's important That what the wise men do here foreshadows the fact that Jesus would be worshipped
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After Jesus was raised from the dead Matthew 28 17 tells us that his followers worshipped him these men
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These astrologers these wise men believers or not are to be commended in this text and their example followed
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And we will see that more as we go deeper into this passage Now the worship that Jesus would receive during this time on earth is worship that he received he didn't tell them
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I'm just a man don't worship me. No when he was worshipped he
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Received it showing us that it is right to worship him as God and every
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Sunday at Eureka Baptist We worship Jesus Christ Jesus is the only man who ever lived who deserves to be worshipped and in our culture
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How many people want to be worshipped? And frankly, we have a celebrity culture where we worship
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Celebrities and when they die People pay do you know people light all the candles and Thousands and thousands of people gather and people more not just the week and month and year, but they mourn forever right,
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I remember I was talking to we heard men's breakfast and and Elvin was like why is everyone so sad that Prince has got
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His Prince more important than anybody else, right? I mean nobody's grieving, you know, my great -aunt when she passed away like this
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It just tells you that we elevate some people to the status of to an unhealthy place of worship
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When worship is only meant for Jesus Christ Jesus has a fully divine nature.
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He is equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit Now we are going to look at the flip side a man who desired to be honored and Worshipped but would not be and that of course is
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The character I've already mentioned King Herod, let's see what verse 3 says When Herod the
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King heard this when he heard that They had came to worship him. He was troubled in all
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Jerusalem with him What the text tells us is that Herod and all
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Jerusalem were worried at the news that a king had Come into the world when it says all
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Jerusalem. This isn't referring to every person in Jerusalem It's referring to the leadership of Jerusalem. This would have been the the
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Sanhedrin the the teachers of the law and the chief priests King Herod and These powerful people in Jerusalem feared this coming
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King would overtake them and rule in their place We can already see the tables being set for Jesus to be crucified right here
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People already see him as a threat. These people had this cushy position in Israel and and they didn't want their leadership to be taken away from them and King Herod is the first one who is threatened by Jesus coming into the world
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Now what Herod is about to do is what he did throughout his life whenever he had a threat
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We've already seen this right? He tries to eliminate the problem, but he would not do this immediately
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Next Sunday, we will see what he does as he attempts to remove the threat But before he does this he tries to get information about the birthplace of this
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King let's look at verses 4 through 6 and Assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people he inquired of them where the
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Christ was to be born They told him in Bethlehem of Judea For so it is written by the
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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
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Israel Even though King Herod was a Jew. He probably didn't know the
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Bible very well. I think we can assume that Herod is your classic person from history who loves power who loves earthly pleasures
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Probably didn't think much about the afterlife right he want he tried to have heaven on Earth and he didn't know the
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Old Testament very well so in order to understand the birthplace of the Messiah He talks to the people
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Who know the Old Testament? He asked the chief priests and scribes where he was going to be born
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The chief priests were responsible to oversee the temple while the scribes were were the interpreters of the
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Old Testament And what they told a Herod is that Bethlehem this little town is
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The birthplace and they point to the prophecy in Micah 5 to this prophecy from hundreds of years before that said the precise location where Jesus was going to be born and It's worth stopping to praise
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God for his precision in telling us how things would come to pass One of the reasons
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God Tells the future is so that we would praise him for his greatness in being able to do such a thing it shows
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God's Omniscience, which means that he knows Everything last
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Sunday. We saw the virgin birth was predicted and now we see the location of Christ's birth and God providentially made this happen earlier
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I read the Gospel of Luke that told us Joseph took Mary down to Bethlehem Before the birth because of the census that was going to be taken
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The Lord made it That Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem their hometown was
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Nazareth But because Joseph came from the lineage of the tribe of Judah, he had to register in Bethlehem Now that Herod has this information as to the birthplace of the
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Messiah. He tries to get more information So that he knows how to proceed to eliminate the problem
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So now he talks to the to the Magi these people who have come 800 miles to see the child
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King Let's look at verses 7 and 8 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them
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What time the star had appeared and he sent them to Bethlehem saying go and search diligently for the child
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And when you have found him bring me word that I too may come and worship him
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Herod Asked the Magi when the star had appeared And why does he do this?
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He does this to find the age of Jesus Herod believed that the time the star appeared would have been about the time when he was born
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So when we look at the birth narrative The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke remember we talked about how
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Matthew and Luke Described the birth of Christ while Mark and John do not when we look at Matthew and Luke We notice that two different groups came to visit
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Jesus It helps us to understand the Quran the chronology of these visitors the gospel of Luke explains that shepherds these
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Jewish shepherds Visited Jesus Well Luke 2 16 tells us is that the shepherds in the field visited
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Jesus shortly after his birth While he was still lying in a manger however
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The appearance of the wise men from the east happened later so here is questioning to figure out the date of the birth would have helped him determine the age and This is not a baby.
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Jesus would not have been a baby at this time He's looking for a child what we are going to see in next week's sermon is that Herod is going to order the slaughter of all the little children in Bethlehem two years old and Under So the wise men must have told her that the star appeared quite a while before this because They decided to take their journey from the east at a later point
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To see this child King. There was a
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New Testament scholar by the name of Harold Hohner Who did a chronology on the life of Christ trying to trying to figure out when it precisely each?
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event in his life took place According to his calculations. He believes that Jesus was about a year old when the wise men visited him
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This knowledge helps us understand the setting So all of those decorations now where you have the
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Magi visiting the manger, they're wrong So if you have that I you could keep it.
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I don't care but but just just so you know, they're not accurate And now by the way, there's another a few things out there that are wrong
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You know the song we three king is we sing that in our church, but technically it's not right No, where does the text ever say that they're kings, but we but the song says we three kings and then another problem, too
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Is that we don't know that there were three the text never tells us that there were three People assume that there were three because they gave them three gifts
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But so just a few corrections there from things that get added in just from what? What culture influences?
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Now Herod is a very deceptive and manipulative man And that's probably maybe it may be his best virtue
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I mean compared to his ruthless murder I'm being facetious when I say but this was not a good man
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He knows that these wise men are his only hope to find this child king And what he tells the wise men in verse 8 is to report to him when when the child
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When they see the child so that he too can go and worship him and in verse 2 we read that the reason the wise men came on this journey is to worship
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Jesus and Herod heard this So he tells them that he desires to go also in worship
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Jesus But we know that Herod has no intention of worshiping this child king remember
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Herod feels threatened by him He wants to eliminate him and not worship him
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He desires to be honored as king alone and not have another receive honor and glory over him
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So we see the tension in this text. Who are you going to worship? the two choices that the wise men face
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Who is worthy of worship is it Herod or is it Jesus? Herod has this desire to be the only one to receive honor and so he wants to eliminate the problem
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It's interesting That if you study history and you even see it in the
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Bible Herod is Herod comes from a long dynasty a long dynasty comes from this man
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And so he had sons and grandsons who were also kings in this region
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And there was another Herod his grandson That later on in the New Testament describes him as one who had the desire to be worshipped right, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and He received worship and let's just say things didn't go well for him
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Here's the account of Herod Agrippa the first the grandson of Herod the Great This is this comes from the book of Acts on an appointed day
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Herod put on his royal robes took his seat upon the throne and delivered an oration to Them and the people were shouting the voice of a
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God and not of a man Immediately an angel of the
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Lord struck him down Because he did not give God the glory and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last
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And we can we can conclude right there things did not go well for him Sounds like a bad way to die
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It's interesting by the way Josephus the famous Jewish historian also records that in his history that he died from being eaten by worms
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And so you see the Bible is accurate historically and we should always trust everything it says
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Herod the Great's grandson wanted worship and honor and praise and God struck him dead
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The praise that Herod was receiving only belongs to God and what we see in our text is that his grandfather
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Herod the Great Was no different He wanted the honor of being the sole king of the
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Jews And he was jealous to hear that the wise men were traveling to worship this child king
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Throughout history world world rulers have loved worship We have seen this
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Many world rulers have called for worship when worship is meant for God alone and a lot of these eastern countries.
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There's Emperor worship For example Daniel Got thrown into the lion's den
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Because he would not bow the knee to the Persian king and placed over him from recent history, of course
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Hitler Made people give allegiance toward him and he wanted allegiance over any religious belief they had
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And that was just in the 1940s and this still happens in the present day Think about Christians in North Korea and what they have to face the choice of showing allegiance to God or King Jung -un this evil a dictator that rules that country
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And maybe more than anybody in the world today Maybe that this North Korean leader is probably most like Herod the
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Great so that might give you an idea of how how ruthless and how How bad this man is because what the
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North Korean leader has done is he's eliminated people Who have who have threatened his power?
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and Herod the Great was able to do whatever he wanted the Romans who had who had authority over him
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Maybe because they were afraid of him wouldn't they wouldn't even touch him. And so it was as if Herod had unlimited power at this point in history
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Now the wise men did not bow their knee to Herod the text mentions no such thing
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But they did bow their knee to the rightful King Let's now look at the encounter between the wise men and the child
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Jesus in verses 9 through 11 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
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Where the child was when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy and going into the house
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They saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshiped Jesus then opening their treasures
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They offered him gifts gold and frankincense and myrrh And let's stop right there
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What we see is that the wise men see the star again and the star leads them to the precise location of the child in Bethlehem and they are filled with joy that they are going to see the child king that was foretold in the
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Old Testament and Once they go into the house They see Mary and the child and you will notice that they are in a house which suggests once again
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That this is not the manger scene But Jesus is a little older at this point and when verse 11 tells us is that when they saw
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Jesus They fell down and worshipped him. I Kind of imagine this right now. My son is eight months old
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Jesus is probably about a year old here. So kind of gives you I mean, can you imagine a little child to sit on the floor?
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They walk in and they just bow down and worship him and In order to show him the honor that he is due they offered him the gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh
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These wise men came from pagan nations, but what they did here was exactly right
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They did not honor Herod as King or give him the greatest honor, but they did honor the little boy
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Jesus this little toddler by worshiping him and We don't know what happened
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Concerning the wise men. It may be that they it's possible that from this point forward they worshipped
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Jesus and Followed the Lord. We don't know that but it could be that but but no matter what they did
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What we need to see here is that what they did should be commended these the worship that they gave him was right
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Revelation 512 says as I read this morning concerning Jesus worthy is the
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Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing this praise in Revelation toward Jesus comes from thousands upon thousands of angels in heaven who knew he was worthy to receive all the praise and later on in Revelation John Bows down to the to the angel who was who was giving him all these visions of the future and what what does
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John do? He bows down to worship the angel and the angel tells him don't do that Do not worship me, but worship
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God alone And what's interesting is that throughout Revelation the God -man Jesus is being worshipped so you can see that the
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Bible is crystal clear that Jesus is divine and worthy of all of our worship
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He's he's a man who's worthy of worship because of his divine nature that that's that's that's the key
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Aspect of this that we need to see right? He's fully man. He's fully God. And so we worship
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Jesus Just in the same way. We worship the Father and the Holy Spirit the triune
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God now what we see in our text is just the beginning of the worship that Jesus would receive right throughout his ministry and Forever We will always worship him
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With the honor that he is due and the wise men bow down and give the child this honor
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Here the great was not worthy of worship and honor and even though he thought he was he thought he was something special And he thought why would anyone want to worship me and yet?
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What he what what history would tell us And what the man the magic magic
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I demonstrated was that he was not but Jesus was What the sermon has called you to do today is worship.
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The only one who is worthy in every person has two choices, right? I love that the two ways to live a gospel tract because it really sums it up nice and simply there's two ways to live
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We either praise the God -man or we praise creature And what what
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I mean by worship Because that's the word we can kind of throw around. What's a good definition of worship what
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I mean by worship is To whom is your highest praise directed toward Because of their greatness and goodness
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The one who gives you the greatest joy the one whom you live for Remember my old pastor and I used to talk about you know, they had those shirts right baseball is life
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That's worship What do you live for? I've heard people say, you know, this person wasn't my life wasn't in my life.
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Maybe it's a spouse Life would not be worth living for that's worship
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We should only say that say those things of God, right? He alone Deserves that kind of praise the highest praise
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So do you see Jesus as the sole object of your worship inherit the greats case?
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He was worshiping himself He desired to be praised and when he did not feel he was getting the honor that he was due or he saw someone as a threat he eliminated people or tried to And next week we're gonna see his attempt to eliminate people
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So who are you worshiping? Are you worshiping yourself or someone else or something else and not
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Jesus Christ? To have misplaced worship is called idolatry
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The first commandment that God gives on Mount Sinai is what? Worship the
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Lord your God and serve him only So, how do we know that he is the sole object of our worship?
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We need to look at our life and examine and ask yourself The honest question is
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God first In my heart and this is this is hard because we are sinners by nature and what we do is our hearts
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Are like an idle factory, right? They're drawn to different to different to different things, right?
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Like my heart right now Is is tempted to be drawn towards gopher football, right?
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Because they're 9 -0 But I can't do that. Can't go there. It only belongs to Christ Right so that when they let you down which inevitably they do you won't be
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Depressed beyond belief, okay So our worship is meant for Jesus alone and no one else
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Our hearts are idle factories and in freedom it maybe for you. It's hunting and hunting is coming up or Maybe it's your appearance or maybe it's your children or maybe it's your spouse
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It can be or maybe it's your job. It can be so many different things. Our hearts are drawn and And ultimately idolatry, right it becomes we want we just want to satisfy ourself and really it becomes self worship
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But worship is meant for God alone. And what we find is that when we worship the Lord alone, it just feels right and We have this joy that these other things can't said that these other things could never satisfy us
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So Jesus is truly worthy And my prayer is that everyone here would see that and truly worship him with with with the honor that he
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Is due and you know what when we see him in the future everyone here who knows Christ when we see him in the future
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We're gonna say How glorious he is? We're gonna swim we see him for the first time
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We're gonna say this is what I was created for and we're told that here while we're on earth But when you see it, it's really gonna register home
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Like this is the one we were created to know and to love and to enjoy forever
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So now as we transition to next Sunday when Herod sends his terror upon the small town of Bethlehem We will see
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The wise men's escape from this evil man Let's read that here in verse 12 as we kind of do it do a segue between This week's sermon and next week's sermon verse 12 says this and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod They departed to their own country
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By another way. Okay, so they understood this guy's trouble if we go back to him
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It's not gonna go well for us and God providentially is protecting this child by not having them return to Herod and what we'll see next week is
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That Joseph and Mary are gonna be told to leave To flee danger and to go to a place where they will be safe So I look forward to digging into that next week with you, let's bow our heads in prayer together
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Father in heaven, what a wonderful wonderful God you are Truly Lord.
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You are worthy of our worship and Lord our hearts truly are in idol factory You know
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Herod Was buried in his idolatry So up to his eyeballs in love for himself
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And how much it takes for for that to be broken down and we bow our knee to you and you alone
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And so what I pray for today. I pray that everyone here who maybe is does not have a relationship with you and and is worshiping something else right now that That they would worship you alone that the
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Spirit would do that work in their hearts and And for all of us Lord in here who do know you or we're still tempted to be drawn after other things and and so May our hearts be devoted to you and to you alone
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And may we made these other things to be put in their proper place And we see them as gifts from you, but not idols
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Because Lord at the end of the day we either worship you the Creator or We worship the creature and may we worship you