JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<input id="input" type="text" />
<button id="find">Find messages</button>
<p id="result"></p>

<p>Try this as input: "&lt;div id='wrapper'&gt;&lt;div id='messages'&gt;Messages!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;"</p>

CSS

input, button, p {
    margin: .5em;
    padding: .5em;
}
p#result {
    min-height: 1em;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
}

JavaScript

$('#find').click(function() {
    // Get the user input:
    var user_input = $('#input').val();
    
    // Create DOM node (subtree) from the string (but don't append to the document):
    var node = $(user_input);
    
    // Find the messages div:
    var messages = node.find('#messages');
    
    var result;
    
    if (messages.length === 0) {
        result = "No messages found.";
    } else {
        result = "Messages found: <br />" + messages.text();
    }
    
    $('#result').text(result);
});