The Search For A King

Date: 14th December 2025

Text: Matthew 2

Preacher: Benedict Allmand-Smith

Please listen below:

The Search for a King

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The Search For A King

Intro

Many people spend their lives searching – for happiness, security, success, or meaning – believing that the next achievement or possession may finally satisfy them. We search because, deep down, we sense that there must be something more. Scripture teaches that this longing exists because we are displaced from God (Isaiah 55:2–3; Ephesians 2:12). Until we are restored to Him, our searching will never truly end.

The most important search any human being can undertake, then, is the search for the King of peace whom God has sent. In the account of the wise men, we see seekers who travel far to find a King worthy of their worship. Their response shows us what we truly need: humble submission to the perfect King. As Baptist Catechism Q1 reminds us, “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy him forever.”

1. The Submissive Searchers

The wise men searched diligently, even though they came from afar. Their journey reminds us that Jesus Christ is for all people – these men were from the East, not Jews, yet they sought and found Him.

When they found Jesus, they bowed. Their posture was one of reverence and submission. Psalm 2 commands us, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way.” The baby born in Bethlehem was the King of glory – the very Son spoken of in Psalm 2 – and such a King demands our allegiance.

Have you bowed in your heart, placing His will above your own and His glory above your comfort? One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11).

The wise men also gave precious gifts fit for a king. These were not casual offerings, but costly sacrifices. In the same way, submission to Christ requires more than words. Romans 12:1 calls us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. Like the woman who broke the alabaster jar to anoint Jesus, we are to give Him our very best – indeed, all of ourselves – because He is worthy.

2. The Satanic Searcher

Herod represents a very different kind of searcher. Fearful of losing power, he sought Jesus not to worship Him, but to destroy Him. Like Pharaoh before him, and Adam in the Garden of Eden, Herod desired God’s power without submission to God’s rule. His chronic fear reveals the misery of self-rule. He was so anxious about losing his authority that his power became a burden rather than a joy.

This satanic search continues wherever people attempt to dethrone Jesus in order to protect their own authority. Yet tyrants always fail. Where Christ is truly enthroned in the human heart, His rule cannot be overthrown.

3. The Searchless Majority

Finally, there is the searchless majority – those who are apathetic and unwilling to seek at all. Many in Jesus’ day rejected their promised Messiah not with hostility, but with indifference, and many today do the same. Many would not even cross the road to bow before the baby Jesus, and many still will not cross the road – or even the town – to gather with God’s people and bow before Him in worship.

Our culture insists that fulfilment is found in absolute freedom, but experience proves otherwise. We were created for submission to our Maker. Like a tool used for its intended purpose, we only flourish when we live as God designed us to live. Jesus promises, “Seek and you shall find,” but true seeking requires humility.

Conclusion

God has given us every reason to submit to this King. The promised King is also the Almighty God who humbled Himself, even to the cross, for our salvation. In His gracious submission, He sets the example for us. What, then, should we search for? We search for the King – to bow before Him, to give Him our best, and to fulfil our chief end: to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.