Joy Worth Pursuing

Joy is not something we stumble into by accident. In this message, Pastor Chris Teien walks through the story of the Magi in Matthew 2 and shows how true joy is found by those who intentionally pursue Jesus, even when the path is uncertain. This episode invites listeners to step out in faith, follow the light God gives, and offer Christ their very best.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18395519

Key Points:

1. Take the first step toward Jesus
    The Magi acted on what they knew, not on what they could fully see. Faith moves forward with limited information, trusting God to guide each next step. Scripture: Matthew 2:1–2, Psalm 119:105
2. Do not let fear or comfort keep you from Him
    Fear, insecurity, and comfort can quietly keep us from obedience. While Herod resisted Jesus and religious leaders stayed comfortable, the Magi kept moving. Joy grows when faith turns knowledge into action. Scripture: Matthew 2:3–6, James 4:8, Isaiah 55:6
3. Follow the light God gives you
    God often reveals direction gradually. As we respond faithfully, He provides clarity along the way. Remaining close to Christ keeps us fruitful and steady even in uncertainty. Scripture: Matthew 2:9–10, John 15:4–5, James 1:22
4. Offer Jesus your best, not what is left over
    True worship costs something. The Magi brought their treasures, bowed in humility, and trusted God with their resources. When we place Christ first, God uses our surrender to accomplish His purposes. Scripture: Matthew 2:11–12, John 5:24, Romans 15:13

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
 Pastor Chris shares his own journey of stepping away from career security to pursue full-time ministry, reflecting on the joy that comes from trusting God with the unknown and moving forward in obedience.

Notable Quotes:
 Joy is rooted in God’s presence, promises, and purposes.
 Faith moves forward with the light it has.
 You experience joy when obedience turns belief into action.

Actionable Takeaways:
 Reflect on where fear or comfort may be slowing your obedience.
 Identify one step God is prompting you to take toward Him.
 Commit to following Scripture even when the future feels unclear.
 Offer your time, resources, and heart to Christ intentionally this week.

Scripture References:
 Matthew 2:1–12 – The Magi pursue and worship Jesus
 Psalm 16:11 – Joy found in God’s presence
 Nehemiah 8:10 – The joy of the Lord as strength
 Psalm 119:105 – God’s Word as guidance
 James 4:8 – Drawing near to God
 Isaiah 55:6 – Seeking the Lord
 John 15:4–5 – Abiding in Christ
 James 1:22 – Living out the Word
 John 5:24 – Crossing from death to life
 Romans 15:13 – Hope, joy, and peace through trust in God

Keywords:
 joy worth pursuing, Magi, Christmas faith, spiritual obedience, following God, Christian joy, faith journey, worship, biblical encouragement

Challenge:
 Ask God what step of faith He is calling you to take, then move forward this week trusting Him with the outcome.

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

Joy that is worth pursuing. Joy that is worth pursuing. We're going to look at the wise men. And I'm sure that you're very familiar with the scriptures, but they were magi. They were not just three kings. They weren't kings. They were very wise. They were wise learners. They had lots of influence. They were respected scholars, advisors, astronomers, students of ancient texts in the ancient world. So they weren't three kings, like the song, and there are probably more than three of them. Some people think there were just three because they brought three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But if you're going to travel in that part of the world and you're going to carry some valuables with you, and you're going to go on a long journey and you've got resources, my guess is you're not going to go alone. You're probably going to take some people with you to help carry the burden, take some people with you to help protect you from others. Those parts of the story tradition twists in our mind. And they didn't, most likely they did not show up immediately at Jesus' birth. It took them a while to get there. But their story is amazing. Their story is admirable, and we can learn a lot from their story. I don't know what types of things that maybe you have pursued in your life to bring you joy. People have lots of different pursuits and different things. There's people that have built their own homes or had homes built, and when it was done, it brought them great joy. There's people that go on long trips to go see sites or to go see other parts of the world, and it brings them great happiness. Sometimes it brings them great joy. But when you think about pursuing something that really matters, these magi, these wise men are a great example for us because they took the information that they had from far away, and I'm sure that God laid upon their heart that they should take a trip, that they should go on a road trip, and they should go see. And God gave them a star to follow, and they did, and so we're going to talk about that today. But I think it's admirable, and this whole series we've been talking about joy, that the joy they experienced wasn't one that just happened while they were sitting at home wherever they lived in the east in Babylon or Persia, which is actually interesting, because in that area there was interaction, maybe from their great-grandparents, with like Daniel in the Old Testament book of Daniel. And so there was probably literature and information and stuff that they had. Maybe they were Jews that were part of the Babylon, Babylonian captivity that were still there, but they were from far, far away. And for them to experience the joy that God had for them, they had to make a long trip. They had to commit to the danger of it. They had to commit to the unknown parts of it, I'm sure, that God laid upon their heart that it was the right thing to do. They could have gone on the whole journey and not known, not seen what they were looking for, but they just moved forward in faith and they trusted in God. And when you look in the stories of the Old Testament, especially, you see a lot of that. Abraham just picked up his family and started heading in the direction that God called him to, towards this unknown place called the Promised Land. And so he just left everything, all the securities of the town that he lived in, and he just went on a journey to follow God. And when we come to Christmas time, sometimes it should motivate us to maybe step out in faith and to move forward in what God is calling us to. And I don't know what that is for you. Maybe it's to be more vocal, sharing Jesus with others. Maybe it's to have some kind of conversation with the person that you have an issue with, a relationship issue, or maybe there needs to be some steps towards forgiveness, or I don't know what God is calling me to. For some people, God is actually calling them to get more serious about serving in ministry. Some people God calls to change careers and to serve God in full-time ministry. They go become pastors or church planters or missionaries, or there's lots of missionaries now in parts of the world where you're not supposed to be a missionary who are business owners, who are tech technology people that God sends into a different culture, and God calls many people in many ways to many different things. Or maybe God is just calling you to be more serious about the things that you know you should be doing, and that maybe you're afraid to do it. And if these magi, if these wise men were afraid, they would have just stayed home and we wouldn't be hearing about them, and they wouldn't have fulfilled God's will and God's purpose. They were afraid. Or what if they were just too comfortable? Like, oh, this would be really fun, but I'm really comfortable and I don't want to lose this. I want to hang on to what I've got, the respect and everything that goes with my hometown. And but they didn't. They went on a journey, they went on an adventure, and it was a joy worth pursuing. On Christmas Eve, I'm gonna talk about joy too. But each week I've tried to remind you that joy in Scripture is not the same as happiness. Happiness is tied to circumstances, and joy is rooted in God's presence, God's promises and God's purposes. Joy is a settled confidence that God is at work even when life feels uncertained. So joy comes from the Lord. Joy is a contentment. Psalm 1611 says, You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand. And the Christmas story is filled with joy. So Mary found joy when she surrendered her life to be used by God to bring Jesus into the world. She said, I'm the Lord's servant, and she fulfilled bringing Jesus into the world and all of the difficulties that went with that, because she mysteriously became pregnant, and many people didn't understand that. And that put Joseph, her betrothed husband, with a problem. But Joseph pursued obedience and found joy as he listened to the angel's direction through the dream and did what's right, even though people would talk. People would have all sorts of things to say. He endured it. And the shepherds pursued joy through their response, leaving their fields, leaving their sheep to go to Bethlehem and to see what God had done to go see Jesus, and then they told everybody about it. Nehemiah 8.10 says, The joy of the Lord is your strength, is my strength. We sing that song, the joy of the Lord is my strength. So number one, take the first step toward Jesus. Take the first step toward Jesus. That's what the Magi did. Another misconception, by the way, is people think, oh, the magi, those were just magicians. And so they knew a lot about astronomy and all, but they weren't like magicians today. They weren't sorcerers, they weren't living on the side of evil or trickery or sleight of the hand or illusion. I think they were serious about wanting to see the Savior, wanting to see what God was up to, wanting to know what God's heart was and pursuing that. And what if you spent 2026 trying to pursue God's heart for your life and what he wants you to do with your days and resources? But take the first step toward Jesus. Matthew chapter 2, verse 1. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who was born, king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. So here in the text we see that the Magi had moved out following the star, but they didn't know all of the details. So they were convinced from the scripture they had and the prophecies in it, maybe Balaam's prophecy in the Old Testament, that there was going to be a kingly Messiah that was born, but they weren't exactly sure where he was. They weren't exactly sure where they were supposed to go. They didn't actually know where Jesus was, so they stopped in at the local ruler's spot at the local office there and said, Hey, we've traveled a long ways. I don't know if it's hundreds or a thousand miles or how long they've traveled. We've traveled a long way, a group of us, and so we want to see this one who's been born king of the Jews. So they didn't question that. They didn't go, well, we see the star. Maybe he's been born king of the Jews. No, they were confident of that. They didn't know where he was, but they were confident of who he was. They had enough details to move forward in faith. And I think that's the way that we're supposed to live our lives too, is we stay faithful and we keep moving forward because we don't know what God is going to do in our lives next. So we could be just around the corner from the biggest financial breakthrough or the biggest relationship breakthrough or the biggest church growth spurt we've ever had. We just never know, but we need to be faithful with today. We need to be content with what we have, but we also should be prepared if God chooses to do more, if God chooses to do more in our life. So the Magi, they didn't wait until they had more details. They didn't sit there and say, once we see the headline that there has been this baby who's been born king of the Jews, maybe we'll go travel and see him. Instead, they went out to be one of the first ones. They made the trip, and like I said in the beginning, they didn't show up as soon as Jesus was born. They were on a journey, maybe it took months or a year or two for them to get there, but they pursued Jesus. They didn't know where it would lead. And we needed to pursue Jesus. We don't know where it will lead. I know that as someone who gave up the job that I had to pursue Jesus in ministry. The company that I worked for said, we'll pay for you to go to school and get an advanced marketing degree, and we'll pay for you while you're at school, and we'll pray for you, pay for you doing your homework and get that degree and come and then work for us. We want to invest in you. And instead, I prayed about it and then said, No, I'm going to invest in ministry. And I did. And one of my thoughts was, when I'm old and my life is spent, when I'm on the rocking chair, sitting in the rocking chair of the retirement home, I don't want to miss out on what God wants to do through my life. And so my wife and I, we prayed about that and pursued that. And almost 30 years of ministry, I'm so glad that we continue to move forward in the unknown, move forward, not knowing exactly what God has for us next, but knowing that what God has for us is good. And I encourage you to do that too. Psalm 119, 105 reminds us that God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. The Lord illuminates our path, that he gives us enough light so that we can know where we're going, the direction we're going, and it is a good thing. And we can trust him through that. James 4.8 says, Come near to God, and he will come near to you. So see how that works? Is God wants you to come near to him, to ask questions. You can even ask me questions, to spend time reading the Bible, to ask questions of the Bible. We have so much technology now, websites like gotquestions.org where you can type in questions and it'll give you Bible resources and information for you to grow and to know more. But sometimes we're just waiting for something. It's like we we want to wait for that perfect class or that perfect seminar. We'll only learn if there's a reward or something like that. But we need to draw near to God and He'll draw near to us. Isaiah 55, 6 says, seek the Lord while he may be found. So seeking implies effort, movement, intention. God honors a willing heart that responds to the light it has. So we find joy when we learn more things about the Lord. We find joy when God answers our prayer. We find joy when we're trying to help someone grow spiritually and they do when they respond positively. We find joy when we share our faith and someone responds, and they say something like, Well, what can I do to have that? What must I do to be saved? How can I have that experience? And then we can show them what we know about how to live the Christian life, and we can show them how they can take their first step towards Jesus and keep moving forward themselves. And joy comes from that. Joy is a result of that. And I went to the Billy Graham evangelistic training stuff. And so they said when they were trying to train counselors for the evangelistic crusades, they would train the people. You don't need to know everything about the Bible, but you need to know just more than the person you're leading. Be out in front of them, help them through the resources, and together you'll grow. And this is what the Magi did. They didn't know everything, but they were convinced that they were on the right path. They were pursuing God, they were drawing near to God, and they were going down this path, expecting great things, expecting to see something amazing, expecting to see something that would make them make their lives have joy. So number two, do not let fear or comfort keep you from him. Do not let fear or comfort keep you from him. It is really easy for those two things to shut us down. Sometimes we're just terrified of what people are gonna do. We're terrified of people are gonna laugh at us or whatever if we go all out living for Jesus. So there's a fear. But then there's also a comfort that says, my life would be really comfortable and easy if I just don't say anything, especially around your maybe your family or your parents or your boss. I always think those are the ones. The people that have the most influence in your life are the ones that are the most scary, the ones that you want to not upset parents, bosses, people in control of things in your life, those types of things. But Matthew chapter 2, verse 3. When King Herod heard this about the Magi, saying, Hey, where's this one born king of the Jews? So King Herod was placed there by the Romans to oversee the Roman captivity. And so he was very insecure in his kingship. Matter of fact, as a ruler in that area, so he wasn't the ruler of rulers, but he wanted to protect that. He wanted to make sure that no one would get in his way, and from what I read in the commentary, he even had three of his own brothers killed just to make sure that they didn't get in his way. So when King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. What would it mean for Jerusalem if there was someone born king of the Jews? Would that make their life harder? Would the Romans clamp down even more? What is going to happen if this is really happening? Herod, when he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem and Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written. But you, Bethlehem, in 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. 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 that I too may go and worship him. So Herod has no intention of wanting to go worship that child. And so he wants to extinguish anything or anyone that is a threat to him. And so the Magi heard this, and I bet they were discerning. So they were wise men, right? I bet they had some discernment and could just see Herod's heart had no intention of coming to worship Jesus. So when you have someone with a lot of authority and they're threatened, that can get bad for a lot of the people that get in his way. And sometimes that happens with us too. Sometimes when we intimidate somebody, when someone thinks that we need to be, that we're a threat to them or whatever, sometimes they do what they can to get in our way. Sometimes you confront people on their sin and they get really upset. And that can be really uncomfortable and difficult. And people might try to get some form of revenge on you. But the thing that we know Herod's an evil guy, and that's all right. But the thing that I wonder about, and maybe you should too, is how do these religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, how do they know exactly where Jesus is going to be, where this Savior is going to be born? How can they hear that the Magi just showed up and said, hey, we noticed a new star in the sky and we've been following it, and it led us here, and we know that we are looking for the new king of the Jews, this one who has been born king of the Jews. If I was a religious leader that was really serious about wanting to know the things of God, I'd be like, Where? Let me go with you. All right, this sounds awesome. Let's go find him. But it appeared that the religious leaders were so comfortable that they didn't really want Jesus to show up. They didn't want to change their ways. They liked their religious system that they had made. They were really comfortable without Jesus, so they did not move. They were the these magi, these people, these wise men, came, like I said, hundreds or thousands of miles to see Jesus. And the religious leaders that were a few miles down the road didn't think it was worthwhile to go check it out. So Herod's like, if I find them, I'm gonna wipe them out. And the religious leaders are like, yeah, we don't need any of that. Let's keep that one a secret. And sometimes that's what happens too when we get too comfortable, when we get, I don't know, unmotivated to do anything new. We've always done it that way. Why do we want to do it any differently? Some of us resist Jesus like Herod, not with violence, but with control. When obedience feels threatening, we delay. When surrender feels costly, we hesitate. Fear reveals what we are still trying to be in control of. Others of us resemble the religious leaders. We know the truth, we attend worship, we can explain scripture, but movement has stopped. Faith has become familiar, following Jesus no longer disrupts anything. The magi keep walking, Herod plots, and the religious leaders stay put. But you experience joy when you're on the move, when you move beyond the information that you know and put it into practice. When you observe, when you share, when you give, when you put those things into practice, and you see God work, it brings you great joy. Number three, follow the light God gives you. Follow the light God gives you. So we don't know everything about everything. So I know that in our culture and society that we are blessed to have a lot of information, and we can hear the news from around the world quickly. If something happens on the end of the at the other end of the world, we can see it. And so it's easy to hear about the persecution of Christians around the world. It's easy to hear how other countries are trying to remove Christians' rights, and we don't know the future. And it would be easy for us to come to a point someday where we just feel so overwhelmed that we give up. But that's not what true Christians do. True Christians are empowered by the Holy Spirit to not give up, but to serve and to share and to stand up and to live for Jesus no matter what other people think. And I surely hope that persecution isn't on the way for the church, but whatever God brings, we can trust. We can follow the information, we can follow the light that the Lord brings us. We know the scriptures were blessed in so many ways to know how the persecuted church is. Supposed to work, to know how the blessed church is supposed to work, to know how we are supposed to live. And we know that it won't be easy, but we keep moving forward, we keep following with what we know. So Matthew 2 9, chapter 2, verse 9. The Magi, after they heard the king, they went on their way. I like that. So they heard the king, they didn't have all the details. They just said, All right, let's head out, guys. And they went on their way. They did not give up. They didn't say, Well, nobody knows where he is. I guess we should go home. Instead, they're like, let's get back out there, get back on this journey, keep following what God has called us to do. So they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they were overjoyed. So they got back out there, and then the star moved and directed them where they were supposed to be going. So many times in our life, God moves us forward as we respond to what we are knowing we're supposed to be doing, to what we are supposed to be doing. In John 15, Jesus says, Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. So abiding in Christ, to remain in Christ, is a clear command that we are to do. Sometimes, though, people want to do their own thing and not think about the way they're supposed to be living in and serving Jesus. And but if you want to bear fruit, if you want to be successful, you need to do what you need to do. You need to do what you know you need to do and confess any of those sins that are hindering your blessing from the Lord to move forward and to act on what you know is right. And through that you pray continually. So to pray honestly, to tell the Lord about what you are concerned about, what you need to know, questions that you have, all these different things. Thank Him, praise Him. Just keep in constant communication, almost like you are communicating with, if you're at an airline pilot, if you're communicating with the tower as you're coming in for a landing, to pray about all of those things, to pray about the concerns that you have as you walk, as you're about to walk into the Christmas gathering at a family member's house, and there's tension over different things to pray about that and to pray that God would give you the right things to say and help you not to say things that you shouldn't say, but just to trust the Lord as you move forward and to put God's word into practice. James 1 22, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. And that's what the Magi did is they moved forward, knowing not every detail, but knowing enough, knowing what they needed to do, knowing how they could follow the Lord. So I was blessed when I was a kid to go to a Christian camp in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I actually lived in Colorado back then, but so at this camp, if you woke up really early in the morning, it was summertime, you could hike up the mountain and in the darkness, and then when you got to the top of the peak where this was, you could watch the sunrise in the mountains. And it was really cool. But when you first started out on the journey, you needed your flashlights because you couldn't see anything if it wasn't a great moonlit night. It was really dark. And all you could do is follow along on the path with your flashlight. You didn't really see much around you, a bunch of pine trees. But then as you got up the hill, then to the top of the peak, you could see the sunrise, and it was really cool. And then when you came back with the sun, you could easily see everything you needed to. And sometimes that's what it's like in our life is we are just moving forward. We don't know all the details, we don't know everything, but our light, the God gives light on the path and shows us the direction we're trying to go that we need to go. And sometimes it is so hard for us to get moving because we're like, oh, it's just too difficult, it's too hard, oh, it's so hard. So I remember back when I was a kid, those old cars, like the old jeeps and old station wagons and stuff, they didn't have power steering. And it was so hard to turn the steering wheel when it wasn't moving. But when it was moving, you could turn the steering wheel, you could have control over it. And in our lives, we need to be moving, we need to be moving forward, and that's when we'll start to see God work. I think the Holy Spirit's power shows up when you step out in faith and you start doing things, not when you're sitting on the couch looking for motivation to go serve Jesus. And number four, offer Jesus your best, not what is left over. Offer Jesus your best. When you think about your time, your talent, and your treasures, put him first. Yes, you need to work to provide for your family, and there's things you need to do, but put God first in your life and see how he provides the magi. On coming to the house, so they weren't in the stable, times had changed. You had to roll forward the clock. It wasn't baby, little infant, baby Jesus in the manger anymore. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. And they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And so they brought these gifts and they bowed. So these were respected people that were usually bowed down to, but they showed up and they knew that this baby was of God, and they just knew from what they read and what they knew and what God put on their heart that this was the Messiah, the Savior, and they bowed down and worshipped him, and then they opened. And I don't know how much the treasure was, because like I said, Herod's gonna kill all the baby boys under two, and Mary and Joseph are gonna be told to flee to Egypt. So this might have been the resources that they needed to fund the trip to go to another country to hide Jesus from Herod. But gold was a universal currency, good in any place. Frankincense was used for worship in the temple, used to worship the Lord, and myrrh was something, a spice, a hard-to-get spice that was used in burial. And it showed that Jesus was king, that Jesus was worthy of worship, and that Jesus had come to die for our sin and rise again. That was his purpose. So their worship, they did not know what was going to happen with their resources when they came to bring it to Jesus. But God had a plan to use those worship, to use those resources to become provision. So, verse 12, having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. So these Magi worshiped Jesus, and then they went back home. And I'm sure they shared the story with everyone, and they experienced great joy. And we can experience great joy too when we know Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Jesus said, Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life. And that is so exciting to have that knowledge, to have that experience, to have that transformation, that we become a new creation for those of us who have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And if you don't know what that means, please come talk to me or one of us. We want to tell you why you need to be saved, how you can be saved, and then what that means in your life afterwards. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.