Theme: Where Help Alone Is Found
In this week’s lessons, we focus on the wise men’s route back home, and look at what that means for us today.
Scripture: Matthew 2:12
The question I want to ask at this point is whether you’ve had an experience similar to that of the wise men. Was there a time in your life when you looked for the solution to your own problems from a secular answer? Whether your problem was insecurity, guilt, or lack of direction, you thought that you would find the answer by secular success, wealth, sex, pleasure or whatever it may be.
Perhaps you looked for these things and yet like the wise men, you found them to be unsatisfactory. You thought the answer would be in the world’s offerings, but these things left you empty. Or maybe you sought advice from secular sources, but they could not satisfy the longings of your heart, either. This is because the spiritual needs of the human heart are not provided for in secular ways. Have you had the experience of the wise men, who were directed to Christ and worshiped him?
Jesus makes the glory of this world pale by comparison, and the wisdom that’s revealed in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ makes the wisdom of this world foolishness. What should happen is that you find him who came to reveal God, the one whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. He died for our sin, as a substitute in our place, that we might not have to bear that penalty. He then rose again from the dead to demonstrate that he has power over death, and that his sacrifice is accepted before God. This is the one who has really defined the meaning of Christmas. Just as the wise men went home another way after finding Jesus, so having found Christ as your Savior and Lord, God will not let you return the same way, either.
The Bible says a lot about the way in which God leads us, which is the way of peace. Our way, if left to ourselves, is marked by destruction and misery. Jesus Christ spoke about it in the Sermon on the Mount. He said there is a broad way that leads to destruction, and many go down that road. But the righteous way—the way that leads to life—is narrow, which only a few find.
Study Questions:
What problems are people dealing with today, and how are they trying to solve them?
We know how the gospel of Christ addresses the spiritual needs of the human heart. How does the gospel address other needs we all have?
Key Point: The Bible says a lot about the way in which God leads us, which is the way of peace. Our way, if left to ourselves, is marked by destruction and misery. Jesus Christ spoke about it in the Sermon on the Mount. He said there is a broad way that leads to destruction, and many go down that road. But the righteous way—the way that leads to life—is narrow, which only a few find.
Prayer: Pray for those around you who do not know the peace that only Christ can give, that they would find it during this Christmas season.
