Are we missing Jesus as King in our lives?

Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.

We hope today's message is encouraging to you.

Welcome to all of you, welcome everybody who's watching online.

If you're brand new to illuminate church.

We help people find abundant life in Jesus and I pray that

that happens for you starting today in Jesus name, Amen, man,

Come on. It's the Advent season, which if

you're not familiar with what that word means, it means the

anticipation of the arrival of Christ.

As kids we anticipate with great joy the gifts, but as we grow in

our maturity, we anticipate the giver of gifts.

What are you here? We as believers who hold high

the name of Jesus, fill our hearts with anticipation, not

for the gifts, but for the giver of gifts.

And the church says Amen. Come on, y'all already drinking

too much eggnog? I can tell nobody knows what a

nog is. You don't want to find out.

It's not good. I want to give a huge shout out

to Ronnie Antoine and the Kasen family and all the incredible

volunteers and our staff that made a dream come to life.

We bought this property in 2018, we opened the property in 2024.

And the entire time we have dedicated this part of this land

out here as an advanced space where the community could gather

here. And for the first time ever, we

finally had an event out there on Friday night and nearly 600

people showed up to watch a movie you can watch on your

couch. Like, what is the deal?

The deal is people want community.

People want to be around the church.

We watch the greatest Christmas movie that there is.

Fight me if you want the Grinch, the animated version, such a

salvific salvation story right in the middle of this.

If you have eyes to see some people say Home Alone.

And I say, if Home Alone is your favorite movie, then you need to

go home alone right now. Go ahead.

It is a good movie. OK, but huge deal.

I walked up to the property. I was handing out stickers and I

immediately walked to this one family like, hey, have we met

before? And they're like, this is our

very first time ever to illuminate was to come see the

Grinch with us. And they said we're going to be

here on a Sunday morning. They have a cheer competition

this morning. So they're not here.

I make them stand up when we shout.

But as Kayla Koala, I'm not saying that, right?

Oh man. And Jermaine, her husband and

their kids, Aiden and Elena, and their last name, Ingram.

Hey, never met him before. So my long last brother.

And it's awesome. Anyway, nobody cares.

I also want to make this mention before I jump into the message

today that on Tuesday we sent an e-mail.

Out. If you did not receive the

e-mail, stop by connect Central. They can take your e-mail and we

can make sure you're on the list or you can open up the Church

Center app right now and you can, well, don't do it right now

after the service and you can read the e-mail for yourself.

The e-mail, the entire e-mail is about where are we going now as

a church? What's the future for Illuminate

Church? By the way, I just got to, I'm

having ADD moments right here to forgive me, but Aaron Fabian is

sitting right here and she decorated with Raquel.

I mean, the entire lobby, those gigantic Christmas trees, the

wreaths, all of that. She did that.

I saw her on the top of the trees.

I saw her under the trees. I saw her in the trees.

She was mostly happy. You know how Christmas trees do,

you know, You know, I'll say this on Christmas Eve again, but

if you have a fake tree, anyone means you have a fake Jesus.

If you have a real tree in your house, I know I'm looking at all

these trees. Like what?

All these trees are fake. What?

OK, I'm stepping back. Stepping.

Come back. So I sent out this e-mail,

right? The emails about the future of

Illuminate Church and in it we laid the vision.

Anyone get the e-mail? We have over 2000 people have

opened the e-mail. If you haven't seen this yet, we

have three major initiatives that will be happening in the

next 5 to 10 years. Number one, it is time for

Illuminate Church to open the Illuminate Church Academy, which

is a school that is Christ centered and and affordable

Christ centered. Jesus said everything.

We are going to indoctrinate children with the right thing,

which is. Jesus.

And it'll be affordable, which is incredible for a private

school to be affordable. But this is going to be

affordable #2 we are opening a center and all these names are

placeholders I put. That in the e-mail, we're not

sure exactly, but we're calling it now, Radiant Health and this.

Is a Health Center, not like a hospital, but it's meant for

body, mind, soul and spirit. If you're hurting in any way,

you will know I can go here and I can get help.

If you just want to get healthier in any way, you know,

I can go here and get help for finances, for parenting, for

biblical encouragement, licensed mental health counselors who are

full of the Holy Spirit helping to heal what has been broken.

We're talking about what else am I talking about?

So many. There's going to be a gym in

there. You can actually, wow, go ahead.

I think we're going to make the. Gym as like there's female time

at the gym and then there's man time at the gym.

Just just going to be different. It's going to be modesty because

modest is the hottest. Amen.

You heard it here, 10th. All of these things are coming.

And then thirdly, we want to continue to fulfill the Great

Commission, which is to. Go and make disciples of all

nations, which means if you're not growing as a church, you're

not fulfilling the Great Commission.

However, churches get so large that they're no longer a local

church. They're an event that people

attend. And we don't want that.

We never set out as a church to become a mega church.

Amen. So here's what we're doing as we

grow and continue to fill these seats.

You'll see it Christmas Eve, every seat will be full, right?

We're going to unload people from this campus and say, hey,

we're going to launch a church down in Haines City or over in

Loftman or up in winter Garden. Who knows where the Lord is

going to lead us. Some of you are sending the

emails like, but what here that where are they going to launch

churches or we're going to launch campuses of illuminate

church, but every one of those campuses will have a live

preacher. We won't ever do the screen kind

of preaching where the guys up there on the screen because the

Lord said in a season of screens, be authentic, be real

in front of people. So that's what's happening.

A lot of you open the e-mail, but not enough of you are

responding. At the very bottom of the

e-mail, it says, click this link and tell us that you're in.

Say I'm in with you. It encourages the staff.

It gives life to the vision. It gives agreement between us

that you're believing with us for God to do these incredible

things. So look at the e-mail, get the

e-mail. If you need help, go to Connect

Central. They can help you download the

app and sign up. So you get on our e-mail list

and get those emails. Are we all good?

All right, let's turn it in. You good mezzanine.

I love you. Today we start our Christmas

series, Jesus the one and only. It's been a theme you've already

been singing this morning here, Pastor Kim sharing he is the one

and only. There's no one above him, beside

him, beneath him. He stands alone as the singular

king. And we're going to discover what

that means today through this series.

And I'm really glad you're here. Just.

So glad you're here. Christine and I, we have three

kids, Owen, Audrey and Eli. And I want to tell you, this

won't shock you. And it's probably similar to you

if you have kids or if you're in a family and other people got

kids running around at the beginning of their life, even

before they're born. You begin to wonder, what will

this kid become? What will they achieve?

What will be? Academically, athletically,

relationally, and you kind of make all these guesses,

prognostications in your mind of what your kids might become.

But really, the truth is parents, you can agree you got

no clue of the journey and the adventure and the incredible

life giving thing that it is to parent kids, but you really?

I mean most of my parenting life, that's how I felt.

Just clueless. I have no idea where this is

going. God, we're just trusting you.

No clue. I want you to know today that

God in His sovereignty, never, ever, ever ever felt this way

about His Son Jesus. From Jesus very first breath

until his last breath, God knew it All in all of its detail,

100% of it, Everything that we now know as biblical history in

the past. God knew his biblical prophecy

before it happened and he spoke to it and then watched it become

fulfilled one after the other, after the other.

God knew the entirety of the life of His Son.

As this Christmas season starts the celebration of the beginning

of Jesus story, I want to take you to the end of the story so

that we can get a picture of who this baby Jesus is and forever

will be what God knew Jesus was the entire time.

And I'm not talking about the cross because for many of us

that's where the story of Jesus ends.

The moment that he took my sins upon the world and he saved me

because the story is about me. So the end of the story is the

cross or the resurrection. I'm not even talking about the

ascension. I'm talking about the Book of

Revelation, of something that has yet to happen.

When a cataclysmic battle occurs on the earth, in Israel,

northern Israel, in Megiddo, the valley, the Jezreel Valley, you

can go. There and stand there and see it

by the wayside. Note, I just met this week with

a guy named Avishai in my office.

He lives in Jerusalem. He leaves the Tour Company that

we had partnered with to go. Earlier this year but we had to

cancel because of safety reasons.

We're starting to replan a trip to take the church to Israel, so

get yourself ready. Come on.

So I get to say in the message all the time, you can go see it

with us in Israel, because you will see it with us in Israel.

So this battle is happening, the battle that ends all battles and

the battle is between the beast and his legions that are

partnering together. The beast and the legions are

partnering together. Now the beast you might think is

like a dragon or a mythical beast.

It's actually a person that the Bible calls a beast and the

beast overseas the evil empire, which in the end is A1 world

government with one world currency.

And everyone is following deceived by the beast.

And it says the legions are with him.

And these armies are the armies of every nation, led by the

kings of every nation. So the kings of all nations at

the end of time will be aligning themselves with this one world

leader who is the beast. And they've come to wreak havoc

and destruction on the earth to put into bondage all of those

inhabitants of the earth. It looks like victory for them

is assured, and defeat for humanity is also.

Assured. No hope.

Very stark place, very dangerous place to be.

But then, in a scene that many war movies try to capture the

essence of, when defeat seems certain, suddenly on the

horizon, a hero emerges, his army standing by Revelation

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

Chapter 19 this is. The story of Jesus I saw heaven

standing open and there before me was a White Horse whose rider

is called Faithful and True name #1 There's going to be 4 names

in this passage. With justice he judges and wages

war. His eyes are like blazing fire,

And on his head are many crowns. Like are they stacked up or they

sprout? I don't know.

Lots of them up there. He has a name, a second name

written on him that no one knows but he himself.

I wonder what that is? Verse 13 He is dressed in a robe

dipped in blood and his name is the word of God.

Third name. The armies of heaven were

following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine

linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is the

only weapon that's used during this war.

This war is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nation.

He will rule them with an iron scepter.

He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God

Almighty on his robe. Look at this.

And on his thigh he has written this name.

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Come on.

Some of you in your mind are seeing Gandalf coming over the

hill. I'm seeing the King of the

universe. The general of the Angel army is

descending upon the beast and his legions.

And the. By the way, the battle's quick.

The beast, the false prophet, or thrown into the eternal lake of

fire. They go there before Satan

himself eventually goes there, and with the sword out of his

mouth, he destroys those who are seeking to destroy the people he

loves. King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The whole world will see it. But the first time Jesus came,

nobody saw it. Almost everybody missed it.

A king was among them. Not just a king, but the king.

This is who Jesus was and ISM forever will be.

This is who God knew Jesus to be before he breathed his first

breath. He is King of kings.

He is Lord of Lords. He is leader of leaders, the

reigning ruler of all. That's why the Bible says that

one day every knee will bow and one day every tongue will

confess. Whether they're believers or not

believers, they will be under the authority of God and say he

is Lord. There is no higher authority.

This is the king who was able to deliver.

This is the king who was able to conquer.

This is the king who is able to overcome all sin, all death.

This is the King who is coming to establish his Kingdom of

peace and unity. His name is Say it one more

time, you better. Believe it and the people missed

it this series. What I'm wondering is, are you

missing it too? And to put it a better way, I

hope that this series, at the end of it, you can say I'm not

missing the King. You may know I'm a Savior.

And I hope that you do. If not, make today your day that

you receive him as Savior when he takes away the penalty of

sin, the penalty of death, spiritual death, and gives you

eternal life. I hope you know I'm a Savior.

I know you know him as baby Jesus away in a danger.

No, whatever. But do you know him as king?

Do you serve him as a sovereign one?

That's what we're going to wrestle with together in this

series. The one and only.

Some did during Jesus day recognize him as king.

Very few, in fact, I want to read to you.

The part of Scripture where the first people to really

understand that he's king arrive.

If you have a Bible, you want to open it to Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

If you also want to flip to the left and have a finger, a pencil

or somebody, somebody's money, whatever, you stick something in

your Bible to let you know. We're also going to 1st Kings

10. Raise your hand if you need a

Bible. We'll be glad to bring those to

you. You can also follow along in the

Church Center app. The message notes all the

scriptures are there. Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

We're coming right down to the front.

We're coming. Here we come.

Bibles. Once you get a Bible right.

There we go, man. Love it.

Have we got one to you yet? No.

No. That's why you're raising your

hand. Like, no duh.

Coming to you. Thank you so much.

Ushers. 2 claps of the ushers. Let's try that again.

Two claps of the ushers. Yes, Matthew, Chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Are you ready to say yes? Now I got to tell you this.

I'm going to be reading and teaching a lot.

You're going to feel like whiplash and you be like settle

down and just read the scripture.

Pastor will. I will.

But are you are you are we OK? OK, good.

Matthew chapter 2 verse one after Jesus was born in

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod Magi,

everyone say Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.

Magi. This is not a word we use

anymore. It feels like Yoda.

We like what is this magi in week 3 on December 21st, 2 weeks

from the day I'm going to teach you about the Magi.

It is fascinating that God picked them to be the ones to

come and announce the King but for dead today.

What you need to know are these are ancient astrologers very

studied and looking to the sky. Because God does speak in the

sky, He sent his *. For Jesus, the sun stopped and

stood still in the Old Testament.

And there are these ancient astrologers, meaning that what

has been learned by their ancestors has been passed down

to them over generation as tried and true practices.

And something that they have studied and known and prophecies

that have come together makes them realize a king has been

born in Bethlehem. And we're going.

Verse 2 and ask these magi asks where is the one who has been

born king of the Jews? He was not born Prince of the

Jews. This is important.

Most kings aren't born kings. They are born Princess and then

they grow up and one day eventually become King or Queen

Jesus from his birth. From the very beginning, there

was no time that he was not. King.

Amen. We saw his star when it rose,

and I've come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he

was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.

Meaning, wait a second, Herod is saying what's going on?

The people are saying you mean to tell us a king has arrived in

Jerusalem and we had no idea. Yeah, that's exactly what's

happening. The king has arrived in

Jerusalem and you all completely missed it.

Verse 4, when he had called together all the people's chief

priests and teachers of the law, he asked them, where is the

Messiah, where the Messiah was to be born?

And then the people quote back to him, Micah the prophet Micah

in the Old Testament, this is where you find this prophecy in

Bethlehem, they say in Judea, for this is what the prophet has

written. But you, Bethlehem and the land

of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.

For out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people.

Israel, the Savior will be born in Bethlehem just.

A few miles from Jerusalem you can walk between them.

Verse 7. Then Herod called the Magi

secretly. And found out from them the

exact time the star had appeared.

He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully

for the Child. As soon as you find Him, report

to me so that I too may go and worship Him.

He lying, he no speaketh the truth.

If you're familiar with the story of King Herod, he is

threatened by the arrival of another king and so he sends

these magi as his spies to find out where the new king is so

that he. Can go and destroy him.

In fact, later in the scripture we read that King Herod sends

out a decree. Any child 2 year, any male child

two years and younger must be executed in his Kingdom.

This is why Jesus and Mary and Joseph flee down to Egypt for a

little bit. To get out of that, this also

tells us that the that the magi came later than we think.

You know, we see them in our nativity scenes.

The Magi are there, the wise men are there with their gifts, but

they were not there. The day that Jesus was born,

they came up to two years later. That's why Herod said I got to

kill everybody two years and later.

By the way, how many Magi were there?

Not three. I set you up again.

I apologize. We say 3 because there's three

gifts, but really there was probably more like 12 magi that

showed up bringing these three kinds of gifts.

You'll understand that they came later too, when we read in just

a second that they didn't come to the Manger.

They went to the house where Mary and Joseph were living.

Verse 9, Let's pick it up. After they had heard the king,

they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it arose

went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the

child was. When they saw the star, they

were overjoyed. I'm coming to the house, this

house. Notice house.

They saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down

and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures

and presented him with gifts of gold.

Everyone say gold. Frankincense.

Say frankincense and myrrh. Yeah.

The wise men, the Magi, brought gifts to Jesus because he's a

king. This is not a new practice.

It's what you did when you visited a king.

You brought gifts to celebrate the wisdom and the royalty and

the power of these great kings. It's an ancient practice.

King Solomon, who is King David's son, also experienced

this. He, according to God, is the

wisest man other than Jesus to have ever lived.

And this wise king experienced this practice of people bringing

gifts. First kings chapter 10 flipping

1 Kings 10 · chapter mention

your bibles way to the left first kings when the king of.

Sheba had heard were in verse one when the queen of Sheba had

heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the

Lord. She came to test Solomon with

hard questions, arriving at Jerusalem with a very great

caravan with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold

and precious stones. She came to Solomon and talked

with him about all that she had on her mind.

She brought gifts of gold to the one that she thought was wise,

she knew was wise she knew was in relationship with the Lord.

And by the way, she wasn't the only one.

Solomon is the known king of Splendor was used to the so many

gifts brought because they recognized his wisdom and his

relationship with the Lord. Gifts brought constantly.

Mostly it was gold. I got me some gold right here.

Pure gold. 1 ounce of. Gold.

This little coin in my hand is worth $4200.

Look at that, isn't it pretty shiny?

They brought this. To Solomon.

Let me read more. You're going to see a lot of

gold here. First Kings chapter 10, verse

1 Kings 10:14

14. The weight of the gold that

Solomon received yearly every year was 666 talents.

And like I is that a lot? I don't.

Know that could be 666 pennies for all we know. 666 talents of

gold is 25 tons of gold worth in American dollars. 3.2 billion.

I'm getting a little over emphasis, aren't I?

Calm down, $3.2 billion of gold brought to him annually.

Every single year. You're going to hear a whole

bunch of gold now reading on verse 15, not including the

revenues from merchants and traders from all the Arabian

kings and the governors and the territories.

King Solomon made 200 large Shields of hammered gold, 600

shekels of gold with into each shield.

He also made 300 small Shields of hammered gold with three main

menas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the palace

of the forest of Lebanon. Then the king made a great

throne covered with ivory and overlay with fine gold.

The throne had 6 steps and its back had a rounded top on both

sides of the seat where the armrests and lions standing

beside each of them. 12 lions stood on the 6 steps.

Each one had one at one step, or I'm sorry, one at either end of

each step. Nothing like it had ever been

made for any other Kingdom. All King Solomon's goblets were,

you bet, gold, and all the household articles of the Palace

of the Force of Lebanon were also pure gold.

Nothing was made of silver because it was trash.

Silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days.

The king had a fleet of trading ships watch this at sea during

along with the ships of Hiram once every three years.

This fleet returned carrying gold and some silver, ivory and

apes and baboons, which is fun. Don't know why.

Hey king, we brought you about. Boom.

I would have preferred a. Giraffe OK, whatever. 23 King

Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other

kings of the earth. There was no king greater,

wiser, or richer than Solomon. Think of that.

The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom

God to put in his heart. Verse 25.

Year after year, everyone who came before the king brought a

gift. Articles of silver, gold, robes,

weapons, spices, and horses and mules, and apparently apes and

baboons. Now watch this.

Remember, Solomon's the wisest man other than Jesus to ever

live, and he's used to this practice of people bringing him

the gold, people bringing to him tribute.

And then the wisest man to ever lived writes something.

If the wisest man to ever live write something, do you think we

should pay attention to it? OK, let me ask the people over

here if the. Wisest man to ever live wrote

something. Do you think we should read it?

Y'all y'all y'all online? Solomon wrote a song.

We have it in our Bibles, in the book of Psalms.

It's a Song of Solomon. He writes it.

It's not about himself. He writes it about one who is to

come. Psalm 72, verse 10.

Psalms 72:10

May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tributes to

him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba

present him gifts. May all the kings bow down to

him, and all nations serve him, for he's a different kind of

king. Watch what he'll do, for he will

deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to

help. He will take pity on the weak

and the needy and save the needy from death.

He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for

precious is their blood in the sight.

Long may he live. May gold from Sheba be given

him. May people ever pray for him and

bless him. All day long as Solomon had gold

laid at his feet because of his royalty and his power.

So one day Solomon is saying a new and greater king will come

and gold will also be laid at his feet.

His name, of course, is Yeah. Jesus is the new Solomon.

Jesus is the greater Solomon. I want to show you a picture of

a nativity, a crush. Here it is.

I'm going to ruin. Nativities for you for the rest

of your life right now. And I for that I apologize, but

at least as far as I know, every nativity that's ever been made,

or maybe ever will be made has something missing.

Now it's rhetorical so don't answer out loud, but what is

missing from this nativity scene?

I'm sorry for the trees if you can't see them.

You can move to the middle if you what's missing?

We got Jesus and Mary and Joseph.

You got a few hamburgers, or they're hamburgers to be in the

back cows. You got the shepherd's notice.

This is accurate. There's no wise men there, no

magi, just the shepherds who are there.

What's missing? You ready to know?

Where are all the people? Where are they?

God and his infinite wisdom and grace, mercy to us says I'm

going to grand open the Kingdom of heaven on earth and to do

what I'm sending my Son. I've been telling you for

generations, prophetically and in the stars, that my Son is

coming. Here's the grand opening.

And that's all that showed up. That's it.

Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 12 speaks of this.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

He says the queen of the South, which is the queen of Sheba, the

same same lady will rise at the judgement with just this

generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the

earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom.

And now something greater, the one that Solomon prophesied

about, the greater 1 is here. And everybody missed it.

Few shepherds came. The magi came with their gifts.

Maybe we call them wise men not because they're great

astrologers, but because they were the first to recognize

Jesus as king. And you guys are wise, you Magi

and. In their wisdom, perhaps

inspired by God, these magi brought Jesus three significant

prophetic gifts. And in this series, what we want

to do is say What did each of these gifts mean about Jesus?

And what do each of these gifts call out to us, from Bethlehem

all the way here to Kissimmee, asking us, pleading with us to

do and how to live? Maybe this is a better way to

say it. If he is your King, then what

gift to him are you bringing the match?

I brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh today as it was the

first gift and I've already been talking about a lot of it.

I want to consider the gifts of gold.

Two things with the gift of gold signifies about Jesus #1 gold

signifies the royalty of Jesus. Gold was the gift brought to

kings. Gold, though it's rare now, was

very rare in Jesus's day. I have some gold coins, literal

gold coins in my pocket. In my pocket I have $60,000.

And that crazy, it's right here, here, come look at all this.

Can you see that? I'm afraid to drop them because

they don't belong to me. Can you see the gold?

Can you see the gold mezzanine? Was that a yes?

Because it sounded like $60,000 of gold.

That's more money than I've ever held in my life in one hand.

I don't know where to put them. I'm putting back here.

I want to take one out though. In Jesus day this is $60,000.

I'm sorry. In our day these coins are worth

$60,000. In Jesus day they're worth $1.86

million. That's how rare gold was and a

gram of gold today cost $135. A gram of gold in Jesus's day,

the Scripture says, is 12 days wages, which if you take Florida

minimum wage and take two weeks of five days of work, that's 10

days, and then add two more. Do all the math, it's $1440.00.

So for them is 135. For us it's 1440 and they

brought this gold to Jesus. If you were to bring this amount

of gold to Jesus and lay it at his feet, it's the ancient

equivalent of walking into a hospital room with a briefcase

full of hundreds of thousands, if not $1,000,000 in saying

we've come to give this to your baby and then you lay down on

the floor and worship this baby. That would be interesting if it

was you or I. But imagine like 3 of the wisest

people on the entire planet like Elon Musk, somebody from Europe,

somebody from Asia, somebody from Africa, whatever.

The wisest of the wise gathered together and brought one baby

$1,000,000 briefcase. Because of social media, we

would all take note in Jesus day.

The magic. I did it and nobody knew.

They all missed it. I'm putting this back away.

Yeah, by the way, I will not have with these with me.

After service, somebody sat at my car like, hey pastor.

Kim Yeah, All I'm trying to say is this gold is an extravagant

king level gift. It speaks to the royalty of

Jesus. It would have stunned anyone who

heard it, but nobody showed up to hear it.

One of the magi turned and they're like, we come to worship

Jesus and they're the only ones there.

They're like, where is everybody?

Gold signifies the royalty of Jesus.

Gold also symbolizes the divine presence and glory of God.

In the Old Testament, the New Testament, and what's to come in

the Old Testament, Solomon builds the temple and this is

what we read in First Kings chapter 6.

1 Kings 6 · chapter mention

He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark

of the covenant of the Lord there.

I need to pause because not everybody knows what the temple

is. In Jesus's day they didn't have

tons of churches. They had synagogues and places,

but they only have one major temple on the Temple Mount.

If you come with us to Israel, you will see where this temple

was. And in this place God will come

and meet with them, His divine presence and His glory fully

there. We'll talk more about this in

the coming weeks. And because it's the Lord God

and his divine presence, Solomon decorates it specifically in a

way that's worthy of the king. Verse 20.

The inner sanctuary is 20 cubits long. 20 wide, 20 high.

He overlaid the inside with pure gold.

He also overlaid the altar of cedar with pure gold.

Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and

he extended gold chains across the front of the inner

sanctuary, which was itself overlaid with gold.

So we overlaid the entire interior of this beautiful

massive temple with gold. He also overlaid with gold the

altar that belong to the inner sanctuary.

This gold representing, representing divinity and glory,

the power in the presence of God.

Now consider when the magi bring gold and give it to Jesus.

The magi could be giving a nod to Jesus as the new temple.

He now is the divine presence and power of God, which is a

wrath of claim in Jesus's day. Because the temple to them was

the central feature of their entire culture.

And they're now saying, well, now instead of bringing gold to

the temple, we brought gold to the new temple.

The gold was brought to Solomon to adorn the temple.

The gold was brought to Jesus because he is the new temple.

So in the Old Testament, we've got the temple covered in gold.

In the New Testament, the magi bring to the gold to the new

temple. And in the last of days and

Revelation 21, this heaven and this earth that we're currently

living in will be wiped away along with all of its

brokenness, all of its illness, all of its sin.

And God will establish a new heaven and a new earth, and he's

going to put a city on that earth.

It's called the new. To Jerusalem.

And in Revelation 21 it says that entire new city is made.

The entire city, your houses, the restaurants are made of

gold. The streets are paved in gold.

Follow the yellow brick road. Gold is the recognition of God's

royalty, His divinity, His presence, His glory, His power,

His authority, the end breaking of his Kingdom.

A new king is here and that's why they brought him gold.

So because that's true as the magi saw it, what does it mean

for us? What do we do now?

The better way for me to say it is what, excuse me, are you

bringing your gold to God? Are you bringing gold to Jesus?

We're like, well, how do I do that?

I don't got a pocket full of gold.

Gold coins. Me neither.

This is somebody else's. How do you bring it two ways #1

live as a son or daughter of royalty?

If by bringing gold means that we're recognizing the kingship

of Jesus, then for us to bring our gold means that I will live

as a son or daughter of the King and that.

Way I'll let people know that number one, there is a king and

#2 he's my king. What does that mean?

Well #1 if you want to live as a son or daughter of royalty, walk

in your true identity. What if you were to wake up

every morning and start with this foundation?

Or if somebody spoke a word against you or you got bad news?

Are you going through a troubling time?

What if this is your foundation? I am a daughter.

Of the King. I.

Am a son of the King. What if you actually believed it

to the extent that you lived it? I'm a son of the king.

I'm a daughter of the king. And then because of it, I have

all rights and privileges of the crown, which we here in America

don't really fully understand. Any Brits in the house right

now? You could give us a lecture.

Yeah. Hello, Justin.

Good to see you. I.

Don't know why I did that, sorry.

Forgive me, better don't as I understand it with my limited

understanding of kingship and royalty.

The. Sons and daughters of the Crown

are bestowed with wealth, status and protection.

Prince William waiting to become King.

He is bestowed with wealth and status, His Royal Highness and

protection. And all of this, the wealth,

status, and protection of an earthly Prince or Princess, is

bestowed upon them by a limited monarch, one who has limited

power, limited resource, and 0 power in the supernatural.

And that's what they get. If you're an earthly Prince of

Princess, but if you are an heir to the throne, which when you

become a believer in Jesus, the Bible says you're an heir to the

throne, you're a Prince and a Princess.

You get your rights and privileges from an unlimited

infinite king, which means the rights and privileges of a son

or. Daughter of the.

King means you have infinite wealth.

Believe it, you have infinite status.

Believe it, you have infinite protection.

No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

Not even death shall threaten me because of my king.

That would be terrible if you had a wealthy king who was

stingy. And this is typical in most

kingships. They have all the wealth and

everyone else is suffering. It'd be all equally terrible if

you had a very generous king who happened to be extremely poor.

He's ready to give us everything, but he got nothing.

How great is it that you have a king who is both wealthy and

generous, and everything that he has he gives to you?

It's why Peter writes that his divine power has given us

everything for life and godliness, for the knowledge of

Him who called us according to his own glory and goodness.

He has given us everything we need to have a mindset shift.

Mindset shift. Careful.

Because the mindset of one who does not see themselves as a

daughter or son of the King is scarcity.

And Jesus didn't say I've come to give them life and life more

scarce, more striving. He said I've come to give you

life and that abundantly. I have a heavenly Father who is

wealthy, I have a heavenly Father who's generous, and I

have a Heavenly Father who's pouring out his blessings on me.

It may not look like financial, in some ways it can be, but

typically the most generous, godaciously, audaciously, not

godaciously, well, we can say godaciously generous thing

that's ever happened is him giving his his Son.

Has anyone ever been more generous than giving us that

everything else is extra everything else?

Is blessing walk in your true identity?

By the way, if you're a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom, that

is what you are, meaning you're not any.

Other thing than that, whatever you said to yourself in the

mirror what others others have said to you, we should not

diminish our true identity in any way.

You are a Prince or a Princess of the Kingdom period in Jesus

name. So if we want to bring our goal

to God to signify to the world that he is a king and he is my

king, the first thing I'm going to do is live as a son or

daughter of royalty, which means to walk in my true identity, but

also it means I need to walk in obedience.

Everyone say obedience, Hallelujah.

We love obedience, don't we? When we obey God, what's

happening is he has set up a perfect Kingdom rule.

Perfect Kingdom order. This is how things will work in

the Kingdom. When you live like this, people

will see that I'm the king. We teach in life, Step 2 that

you are a brand ambassador for the king and we want to be the

kind of brand ambassadors that give glory to our king.

Says he has given his life for me.

He has replaced my rags for his riches and I want my life to

give him glory. And the way that I do that is by

obeying his Kingdom order. And people will look and see

why, and they give. Glory to your Father in heaven.

And when we don't obey and they say.

Wow, that's your God. That's what following God looks

like. Like.

No, no, it's not. I'm, I'm right now in a

disobedient phase of my life and everything that's happened in my

life is this toxicity and the sin and this brokenness.

Instead, I want to start obeying the Lord and allow His goodness

and His blessing to flow. Which by the.

Way We obey Him to give Him glory, but we secondarily obey

Him because it benefits us every time you obey God.

I don't know what the outcome will be, but I know it'll be

good. You may heard me say this

before, but you never know what's on the other side of the

door of obedience until you. Walk through it.

The door of lust is here, and sexual promiscuity and

drunkenness and ego and idolatries and angers and fits

of rage. You name it, they're all here.

And God says walk through this. Door to give me glory.

And by the way, when you get to the other side, you're going to

love it. Follow me, follow my word, obey

these commands. Therefore your good and people

will know I'm your king. This is how we bring them our

gold. I'm going to live in my

identity. I'm going to walk according to

His word. And here's the last part.

If we want to show people He's our king that will embrace

yourself, then we need to give God our treasure.

You're like, oh, there it is. Church is talking about money.

I'm telling you the reason people don't like talking about

money in churches, because a lot of churches have abused money.

A lot of pastors have taken the money and run, right?

And here's the shame of it all. Jesus talked about money more

than he talked about anything else, More than heaven and hell

combined, more than prayer, more than faith.

The Word of God speaks about this because God knows it's a

struggle for us, and so he wants to give us freedom.

And the church needs to speak about what Jesus speaks about.

I'm going to speak about it here.

If the magi were to show up next Sunday with their gold, if they

were to walk down this aisle next Sunday in their ornate

robes, we're all here worshipping.

All of a sudden everyone's like, what is going on?

Who are these people? Where they coming?

And they brought bucket loads of gold and they were to lay it

upon the altar as an offering to the Lord.

Can you imagine this moment? This is what the Magi did.

They brought the equivalent of millions of dollars to Jesus and

laid it at his feet. When they did that, would it

make you think these things? Is is my current giving?

Does it look like I recognize the same king that the Magi did?

Am I giving extravagantly and sacrificially as they did, or am

I giving nothing or my tipping got it, was a good week.

So here's 5 bucks. We'll just give this a little

bit to your Kingdom. Let me tell you this, it's never

about equal amount. Not everybody here has got a

pocket full of gold coins. Me neither.

Not everyone has millions of dollars of gold.

To the Lord Jesus, it's always about equal sacrifice.

In the book of Mark, in the book of Luke, Jesus is standing at

the temple watching what people put into the offering.

Do you think he still does that today?

He's. Watching and people are coming

by, they're throwing in money, and then a little widow comes

over and all she has in her possession, the entirety of her

bank accounts is 2. Pennies, mites, MITES.

And she puts everything that she has into the offering.

This is worth 2 pennies. It's nothing in terms of

financial value. And Jesus says out of his own

mouth, this woman has given out of her poverty and everyone else

has given out of their abundance.

She's given more than anybody else, this woman more.

We think the number matters to God.

It's the sacrifice and the extravagance of the gift that

moves his heart and declares to the world that he is king.

Extravagant means like, I wouldn't do this for myself, but

I will do it for Jesus. It's over the top, but he's

worth. It sacrificial looks like I will

forsake something in my life so I can bring a better gift to the

Lord. Let me tell you, in your tithes

and your offerings, if it's not costing you, hurting you, you

might not be doing it right. And by the way, the hurt only

starts from the beginning. As soon as you learn to be

generous with the Lord, you find out that there's no cost at all.

I said it before, I'll say it again, you can.

It's harder to get us a person who's already tithing to stop

than it is to get a non tither to start.

Because the person who's tithing has seen the goodness of the

Lord in their life as they bring their gold and worship.

Matthew chapter 6 verse 21 Jesus says these famous words about

Matthew 6:21

finances. I hope that you've heard this

before says for where your treasure is, there your heart

will follow after the treasure leads the heart.

The magi knew this before Jesus spoke it.

They come to the Manger with their treasure.

And maybe I read it too quickly and you didn't notice it like,

well, are they just walking around finding kings and tossing

out money? No, with Jesus they laid down

the treasure, and it says they bowed down and loved on Him,

worshipped him, treasure and heart going hand in hand.

The gold wasn't kept, it was surrendered to the king.

I want to tell you this morning, Jesus is still worthy of our

most extravagant, sacrificial, joyful offerings, not because he

needs our money, but because we need to give them to him in

order to say to him and to the whole world, You are my King,

you and none other, you and you only.

And by the way, whatever is your king, whoever is your king will

order your. Life, you want it to be Jesus

last question, then we'll pray. Is he your king?

It's not a yes or no question. Your answer is in the way that

you live and in the way that you give.

That will be your answer. In the name of the Father, Son

and Holy Spirit. Would you bow your heads, close

your eyes? Would you just repeat these

words after me saying Holy Spirit everybody?

Holy Spirit, what is it that you wanted me to learn today to do

starting today? Now just be quiet there a moment

and let Holy Spirit speak to you.

Just keep asking the question until you get an answer.

He is faithful. Those who ask will receive an

answer. Is He asking you to rise up in

your identity, to no longer feel like you have to eat the crumbs

of life, but that He has blessed you with wealth and status and

protection? Is He asking you today to walk

in obedience? Maybe you've been out of line

somewhere and He's calling you back into alignment for His

glory and for your benefit. Or maybe, just maybe, money is

an idol to you and you feel it impossible to give.

But today He's touching your heart, saying, I want to bring

my gift to Jesus. Finally today there may be

somebody here who who has yet to join the royal family.

Today is your day to say yes Jesus, I want in.

I want to be your son. I want to be your daughter.

I want to be a Prince, I want to be a Princess.

The Bible says if you believe in your heart and confess with your

mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

So let's pray that now together. Every voice saying Father in the

name of Jesus I recognize. That I am a Sinner in need of a

savior and I confess and I believe that Jesus is Lord.

I receive you, Jesus as my Savior.

Come into my life and live your life through me.

Thanks for joining us today. We hope God is speaking to your

heart through this message. If you'd like to connect with

us, you can text Connect to 4:07 588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot

Church. Have a great week.