From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, you'll better understand what genuine transformation means for the new Christian.

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Here's our question for today. How can you be truly transformed by God from the inside out? How can you see the transformation of salvation take place in your life? 3 steps to take as you follow the wise men, follow the magi, he can heal every scar.

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Well, Merry Christmas and welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve on this marvelous Christmas Day, a day Christians cherish and celebrate. It's celebrated in many different ways around the world. For some, it is a difficult time without the loved ones they've lost or been separated from. For others, it's a quiet day of reflection and contemplation. For some, it's just fun.

But no matter how you celebrate it, if you've gone through a transformation after surrendering to Christ, you then know what it means to draw close to the Lord. It transforms you. And by transformation, we mean a thorough or dramatic change in your spirit.

In the message we're about to hear from Pastor Jeff today, he shares three steps the wise men took that produced in them and will produce in us real transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit. The message today from Pastor Jeff is from his new three-message series, the miracles of Christmas that we've been in this week. We started with the miracle of the incarnation, then the miracle of salvation.

But today, if you're able, open your Bible to Matthew, chapter two, as we begin to understand the blessings of the miracle of transformation.

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The little country in southwest Great Britain is known as Wales. It's known for its rugged coastline, mountainous national parks, distinctive Welsh language, and Celtic culture. It's also known for being the birthplace of actor Sean Connery. And it's known in Christian circles as the place of a great revival that began in late 1904. The Holy Spirit did such a work in that small country. At that time, it only had about 2 million, 2 1/2 million people. The country was swept away in revival, and many, many, many people came to Christ. So much so that it was written about the revival in Wales. The impact of the Lord's hand was noticed, evidently, in the lives of people. Stories of profanity were silenced. Theaters were deserted, and courts abandoned due to a lack of crime. Can you imagine that? Bars were shutting down due to a lack of business. Entertainment such as football matches simply could not compete with the presence of His glorious visitation. Sales of beer and alcohol declined steeply, while pocket New Testaments were snapped up like hot cross buns, as people hungered for the bread of life and the true living waters.

The horses and mules in the coal mines were confused with the revival because they had been trained with profanity and abuse, and the men no longer used that language or beat their animals like that. They had to retrain the horses. The revival so seized the nation that the newspaper in the capital city of Cardiff published revival editions. In these editions, revival news superseded current affairs, and testimonies replaced tabloids, telling of how the Welsh were more interested in God and His kingdom than the affairs of this world. The back of the paper even contained a hymn and a summary of the number of conversions to date. Pretty amazing. One of the greatest revivals in history was that Welsh revival.

Now, what do we see in that? The people began to seek the Lord. They came into a personal relationship with Jesus, and their lives were changed. Today we want to talk about the miracle of transformation. What happens when a person receives salvation? Their whole life has changed from the inside out. It says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. The old things passed away; behold, new things have come." People wonder, and they often ask this question: how do you know that you're truly saved? The way you know you're truly saved is as you look at your life. You know, "I'm different. Something has changed inside of me. I have a different focus, a different direction." Correction: I cannot be the same anymore. That doesn't mean you can't sin. Adrian Rogers used to say, "When you get saved, that doesn't mean you can't sin anymore. It means you can't sin and enjoy it anymore." You're convicted by sin.

The Lord does a work in our lives. As Philippians 2 said, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Work out what God has worked in. The Lord works in salvation, and He works out that salvation through us, through the process of sanctification. So today we want to talk about the miracle of transformation. Has transformation taken place in your life?

Now, there's a passage in the Christmas Story that I believe shows us the miracle of the incarnation, the miracle of salvation, and the miracle of transformation. It's the passage in Matthew 2, a very familiar passage. Matthew is the only gospel writer that tells us about the Magi from the east coming to worship Jesus. The focus of Matthew's gospel is to Jews. It's very Jewish, and it says Jesus Christ is the son of David, and He's the king of the Jews—the rightful king of the Jews.

It says in chapter two, verse one, "Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, 'Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Why? Because Herod's a psycho. If Herod's upset, it's kind of like the old phrase, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." When Herod's troubled, everybody's troubled because they're like, "What is this guy gonna do?"

Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. He knew that the king was the Messiah. They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. When you have found him, report to me so that I too may come and worship him."

After hearing the king, they went their way. The star which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. Coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down to the ground and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi left for their own country by another way.

Here's our question for today: How can you be truly transformed by God from the inside out? How can you see the transformation of salvation take place in your life? Three steps to take as you follow the wise men, follow the Magi.

Number one: You can begin to seek the Lord. That's what they did. They sought the Lord. You can do the same. Now we run into this group called the Magi. Nobody else talks about them except Matthew in terms of the New Testament. But we know about these guys from the Book of Daniel. When Daniel was taken from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, he was put along with many others. His three friends that we know about, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were put into Babylonian graduate school to learn the literature and the language of the Chaldeans, which were the Babylonians, and to become wise men of Babylon. They were the ones who instructed the king.

Remember when you read in Daniel how Nebuchadnezzar would get mad at the wise men? He would tell them, "I had a dream. Tell me the dream and its interpretation, and if you don't, I'm gonna kill all of you." They said, "Well, how are we supposed to do it? Tell us the dream and we'll tell you the interpretation." He goes, "No, you tell me the dream. You prove that you're really wise." Remember that in Daniel, chapter two? God, as Daniel and his three friends prayed, gave him the dream and its interpretation, and he was able to share that with Nebuchadnezzar.

That's where we see the wise men. Daniel was chief of the wise men. He had influence because very few were like Daniel in terms of his walk and relationship with the Lord. He had great influence with those guys, and he told them about a prophecy in the book of Numbers that talked about a star and a scepter. This is what it says in Numbers 24:17 in the Contemporary English Version: "What I saw, this is from Balaam, the false prophet. But he said something true here. What I saw in my vision hasn't happened yet. But someday a king of Israel will appear like a star. He will wipe out you Moabites and destroy those tribes who live in the desert." It's called the star and the scepter.

These guys had been told about the coming Messiah, the king of Israel, and they would notice it because the star would reveal that. They studied the stars and were steeped in medicine and all sorts of sciences, including astronomy. They had been seeing the star and said, "We need to come and worship him. The king of the Jews has been born, the one that we've been told about for centuries." They left their place in the east, probably in the Babylonian area, and made the trip to Jerusalem. They came to Jerusalem because that's the capital, the city of the great king. It's about 900 miles. Can you imagine making a 900-mile walk? It would take you probably four months to do that.

There was some time to prepare, so they probably came to Jerusalem about six months after Jesus was born. The nativity scene that you see with the shepherds, Mary, Joseph, the baby in the manger, and the camels or the sheep, and then the camels and the three wise men, that didn't happen. The Magi came later, probably six months, maybe a year later. The Bible calls Jesus not a baby, not a newborn baby, but a child. It says in verse one, "Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, this is what happened."

These guys are learned men, and they travel a long distance. You know we have that song, "We Three Kings of Orient Are," bearing gifts. "We traverse afar." We travel a long way. 900 miles would be a long way. It says, "Field and fountain, moor and mountain." Moor is uncultivated land, like kind of wasteland. "We went through fields, we went through fountains, springs. We went through uncultivated land. We traversed mountains to worship the king."

Now you can begin to seek the Lord. But know this: seeking takes time and effort. If you're going to follow in the footsteps of the Magi, the wise men, they would tell you, "Yeah, we had to set out on a four-month journey to worship the Christ child." And then it's four months getting back. I mean, they're gone for a better part of a year doing that. It takes time, it takes effort to seek the Lord. Adrian Rogers used to talk about how some people would want to get a word from God, and they would just do a lucky dip. They would just open up their Bible somewhere and say, "God, I need a word today." Open it up and pray, point to a verse. He said, "You don't want to search for the Lord that way. That's not a wise way to do it."

You seek the Lord. I had a caller the other day that was asking, "How do I grow in the Lord?" I said, "Well, you have to spend time in the word of God. One of the things you can do is read a Proverb every day. There are 31 Proverbs. A proverb a day keeps the devil away," I was told in college, just a little thing I've never forgotten. Proverbs is written to give us wisdom. So we pray, "Lord, help me to be a person of wisdom. Teach me wisdom from your word."

Seeking takes time and effort, and seeking comes with a wonderful promise. A wonderful promise is found in Jeremiah 29:13-14, where the Lord says, "And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart, and I will be found by you, declares the Lord." These guys are seeking, and they're not just haphazardly seeking. They're not just half-heartedly seeking. They're obviously all in because you wouldn't make that kind of a trip unless you were all in seeking Him who has been born the King of the Jews.

So they come to Jerusalem. Now that's a problem. I don't think they put two and two together, but they probably didn't know how much of a psycho Herod was. Herod said he was king of the Jews. Herod's not even a Jew. Herod's a descendant of Esau. The line of the Jews goes through Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Jacob and Esau are twin brothers, right? Jacob's firstborn, Esau's firstborn, Jacob's second born. But the Jews come through Jacob. God doesn't choose Esau; He chooses Jacob. "Jacob, I loved; Esau, I hated," the scripture says. Not that He had this thing about Esau, "I just hate that guy Esau." It's that He chose Jacob; He didn't choose Esau.

Herod's an Idumean. He comes from Esau, yet he fancied himself as the king of the Jews. He was a brutal guy, just a horrible person. Herod feared potential rivals, and if he thought you were a rival to his throne, he was going to come after you. He had his wife's brother, Aristobulus, drowned in the swimming pool in his palace. He put to death 46 members in the Sanhedrin. He killed his mother-in-law. He also had his favorite wife, Mariamne. He had ten wives, but his favorite wife, Mariamne, he had her murdered along with a grandfather and two of their sons, Alexander and Aristobulus IV, and his oldest son, Antipater II, because he considered them potential rivals. Augustus Caesar, who was friends with Herod the Great, said, "It is better to be Herod's pig than Herod's son." The reason being was since Herod identified as a Jew, he wouldn't eat pigs. So you were safer to be his pig because if you were his son and he thought you were coming after his throne, he would have you killed. Just a horrible, horrible person.

Well, he is upset at the news. "King of the Jews? You're coming here? King of the Jews?" And these guys. Now we get the idea that it's just three guys on a camel. We give them names, Gaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior. Where do you get that? The Bible doesn't say how many kings; it doesn't give their names. Tradition just kind of builds up, and there are three kings on three camels. They're not kings; they're Persian king-makers. They were involved with the king, and nobody really ascended to the throne without those guys being involved. That's why they're there. "We saw his star in the east; come to worship him. He's the king of the Jews."

Well, Herod said, "I'm the king of the Jews. How dare you?" He's upset. Israel's upset, or Jerusalem's upset with him because it's like, "Oh, what's he going to do? This guy that kills his own kids? He could start whacking people because of this." Well, Herod finds out from the scribes, from the Pharisees, from the religious leaders, "Where's the Christ to be born?" He knew there was a messianic fervor going on in the land of Israel at that time because Jesus came at the fullness of time. People were talking about the Messiah, and he recognized that the Messiah is the son of David; he's the king.

So he says to the religious leaders, "Hey, what does it say in the scriptures about where the Messiah is to be born?" They quote from Micah chapter five, "Hey, he's to be born in Bethlehem." Bethlehem, which is the home, birthplace of David, the son of David, born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread. It's very fitting that the bread of life be born in a city called the house of bread. So he finds out, "Bethlehem." It's only about 5 or 6 miles south from here. You're real close; you're getting real close. When you find the child, then report back to me so that I too may come and worship him. But we know that was a lie. He wants to come and kill him.

When the Magi don't report back to Herod, he gets very upset and says, "Okay, I need to kill all the babies in Bethlehem, all the little babies, two years old and under." Now, if Jesus had been a newborn, he wouldn't have probably gone to the age of two. He ascertained about what time. They said Jesus is six months to a year.

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Old.

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And he said, well, let's go just to make sure. We'll go two years old and under, kill all the baby boys. And this is soon before he dies. He's not going to live real long. He dies in 4 BC and Jesus was born either in late 5 BC or the early part of 4 BC. It wasn't very long after Jesus was born that Herod died.

And he died such a gross, painful death. He had gangrene below the waist, as one writer put it. He had maggots growing inside of him. In this gangrene, the pain would have been unbearable. I think it's poetic justice because this man was so brutal and so terrible and so horrible that he would die a brutal, terrible, horrible, painful death. That was Herod.

And so tell me where he is. Well, he sends the Magi away. They don't know all that Herod has done, probably. They don't know how awful he is. And so they say, okay, and they go and they don't know where to go. They just set out toward Bethlehem.

And it says, when after hearing the king, verse 9, they went their way and the star which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. There wasn't any guesswork; this star, and it's not a regular star, you can't find it in the sky. It's something that God put there just to lead these guys.

And you know you'll seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. These guys were searching with all their heart. And the Lord says, boom, this is where you go. And they come into the house where the child is, they see the star, they rejoice exceedingly with great joy.

Hey, you can begin to seek the Lord as they did.

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Well, this has certainly been an eye-opening study about those wise men so long ago, but there's much more to learn through their experience with the miracle of transformation. And next time, Pastor Jeff will continue the lesson to close out this series, the Miracles of Christmas. This series is available in multiple formats from our resource center online at fromisheart.org; you can just click the Listen link.

Well, this is Christmas Day, and on Christmas Day, most people spend time relaxing. Activities vary a lot, but mostly focus on the four: family, food, faith, and fun. And maybe that includes opening presents, family meals, playing games, volunteering, calling relatives, reading, watching football, and just being grateful. For many, church attendance is the highlight of their day, attending a morning, midday, or evening service celebrating the birth of Christ.

But if we get all caught up in whatever it is and haven't taken a significant amount of time being grateful for what God did for us by sending His Son to be born of a virgin, to live, to work miracles, to suffer, to die, and to take on our sin, and then be raised again from the dead so that we might too have the gift of all gifts—the gift of eternal life with Him in glorious heaven—we've missed so much. Our prayer is that you have or are doing that today, giving God the time in your heart and in your activities to honor Him.

We'd like to help you wrap your life and heart around God. Pastor Jeff has participated in writing a brand new year-long devotional book for every day of next year. It's a treasure of a book. It's beautiful, it's a high-quality book, and it's called *The Heart is God's Home*. It's also our Christmas gift to you for your support to From His Heart this month, a very important month as we plan how much we can reach out next year.

To get your copy, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromisheart.org to request the book *The Heart is God's Home*. When you make your best gift today, again call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromisheart.org.

Well, I'm Larry Nobles, and on behalf of all of us at From His Heart, we want to first say Merry Christmas. We want to thank you for joining us today for part one of the message, *The Miracle of Transformation*. It's from the series *The Miracles of Christmas*. Join us on Friday as Pastor Jeff will again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart here on From His Heart. Merry Christmas.

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There is tremendous true there is bless There is hope that you always dream love he can heal every scar. From his heart.

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From his heart is the listener supportive Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth and love to a lost and a hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more about that when you go to fromisheart.org.