Monday, December 19, 2011
Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room.
Text: Luke 2:1-7
Introduction:
It is a scene that is unmistakable. This scene is so identified with the birth of our Lord, that is has been banned from display in public places because it might offend those who do not believe it ever happened.
The scene is in a stable. Mary and Joseph and a wooden manger before them in which the baby Jesus is lying. Around them are shepherds with their canes and with some sheep beside them.
This scene touches our hearts, but what our sanitized scene does not present is the fact that the stable would have been dirty and the smells not too appealing. Jesus was actually laid in a feeding trough for animals. The night air must have been cold. Not the kind of place any of us would have liked to have been born in let alone to give birth in. Any hospital inspector would have condemned the room and closed it.
But that is not the major thing that is wrong with this scene. The thing that is wrong is that baby Jesus should not be in the stable in the first place.
I. What’s Wrong with this Picture?
A. Jesus doesn’t belong here.
1. After all - He is the eternal God, the second person of the Godhead,
the one who rules over all.
2. We might argue that He should not even have come into our sinful world at all.
3. But that was His choice - because of His great love for us.
B. But since He did come should He not at least have been born
in a place that would represent who He is - in the inn, perhaps
even in the royal suite or the presidential suite.
C. Something seems very wrong about God being born in a stable.
1. God could have done something about it. He could have arranged things
a little differently - after all He just has to say a word and the world comes into being.
2. With a word he could have made better arrangements.
3. Luke tells us why Jesus was born in a stable.
"...because there was no room for them in the inn." Cf Luke 2:7
II. Why Did God Allow This?
A. The journey to Bethlehem.
1. They came because there was to be a census.
2. Mary and Joseph came to an inn - a place of lodging.
3. Because so many had come for the census their was no room left.
4. What kind of an inn it was we do not know - Bethlehem was no tourist
center so the inn probably left at lot to be desired.
5. We aren’t told of even there being an innkeeper, but someone must
have turned them away.
B. It must have been hard for Mary and Joseph.
1. I think of times when we have been on a journey and couldn’t find a room.
2. It seemed that every motel we went to had no vacancies.
3. Nothing quite as frustrating, but think of what it must have been for them that night.
4. After that journey to only find a stable that may have offered little comfort.
C. God could have changed that, but He choose not to do so.
1. God in Jesus was coming to His people again.
a. God created us in the first place to have fellowship with us
b. And yet we seem to reject that fellowship.
c. He comes to us and we let Him know that we would rather not have Him here.
2. We see it over and again in the OT.
a. We see it in people of Israel who had been in bondage in Egypt.
1) God comes to them thru Moses and thru miracles to rescue them.
2) He leads them thru the desert in a cloud during the day and a fire at night.
3) He has them build an ark to remind them that He is with them.
b. But they reject Him. 1) They would rather not have a God who tells them what is for their own good.
2) Like a rebellious child they refuse to take His advise as to what is best for them.
3) At every turn it seems that they keep rejecting God’s leadership in their lives.
c. The rejection keeps on happening throughout the OT - they had no room for
God in the nation or in their lives. d. How many times would God be rejected before He would stop coming to them?
e. We would have left them to their own destruction long before God did.
3. Yet God makes His plan to send His Son, to come in flesh and bones so that
He can die for their sins and take their place on the cross.
a. Certainly we would not reject someone who would bear the punishment for our sins.
b. They did and many still do today.
c. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Cf Jn. 1:11
4. God knew that Jesus would be rejected
a. Note: Isa. 53:3
b. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised,
and we esteemed him not."
c. The fact that there was no room for Christ's birth was a sign that there was
no room for Him in this world.
d. He was rejected at His birth and He was rejected at His death.
e. Yet silently, as a lamb, He gave His life and he looked out at them and
said "Father, forgive them"
f. After all that, surely there is room for Jesus and God.
III. Is There Any Room for Jesus?
A. Thanks to God through the Holy Spirit many of us have made room.
1. When we say yes to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.../
2. When we accept the finished work of Christ as the atonement for our sin...
3. We can be saved...Jesus enters into our life.
4. But have we given Him as much room as we should?
5. Each of us must consider how much room we have for Him -
how much room in our hearts.
B. There doesn’t seem to be much room for Christ in the world we live in.
1. The world tries to take Christ out of Christmas.
2. The world says that there are too many other things to do at Christmas.
3. Example of woman on a bus tour in England.
4. Many say there is no room for God in this modern, fast-moving, self-sufficient world.
5. They say that they no longer need His law, His love, or His sacrifice for us.
C. Are we among those who have no room for Him in our lives?
1. Things are going quite well and we don't need the extra baggage of Christianity.
2. We don't need His promises because we are doing fairly well without Him.
3. We don't have room for his way of doing things because they don't fit in with our way.
4. We don't have room on the throne of our lives because we want to sit there ourselves.
Conclusion:
God keeps coming back to us even though we reject Him, but we need to warned that there is a limit as to how many times we can reject Him.
We never know when we will breathe our last - then it will be too late.
There will also be a time when God says "enough".
(John 3:36) He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
(John 12:48) He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
A story is told of little boy who was to play the part of the Innkeeper in the annual children’s Christmas play at his church. Each time during the rehearsal it came time for him to tell Joseph and Mary that there was no room, he couldn’t say his lines. The director finally asked him why he was having so much trouble. He told him, "I just can’t send Jesus away! He can have my room!" There is room in the inn if we will make the room for Him. The inn was too full for Christ to come in. Throughout Scripture we see that there is no room for God. Is there room in your home, your life and your heart for Him?
Taken from Sermon Index of Pastor D. Robinson...
Introduction:
It is a scene that is unmistakable. This scene is so identified with the birth of our Lord, that is has been banned from display in public places because it might offend those who do not believe it ever happened.
The scene is in a stable. Mary and Joseph and a wooden manger before them in which the baby Jesus is lying. Around them are shepherds with their canes and with some sheep beside them.
This scene touches our hearts, but what our sanitized scene does not present is the fact that the stable would have been dirty and the smells not too appealing. Jesus was actually laid in a feeding trough for animals. The night air must have been cold. Not the kind of place any of us would have liked to have been born in let alone to give birth in. Any hospital inspector would have condemned the room and closed it.
But that is not the major thing that is wrong with this scene. The thing that is wrong is that baby Jesus should not be in the stable in the first place.
I. What’s Wrong with this Picture?
A. Jesus doesn’t belong here.
1. After all - He is the eternal God, the second person of the Godhead,
the one who rules over all.
2. We might argue that He should not even have come into our sinful world at all.
3. But that was His choice - because of His great love for us.
B. But since He did come should He not at least have been born
in a place that would represent who He is - in the inn, perhaps
even in the royal suite or the presidential suite.
C. Something seems very wrong about God being born in a stable.
1. God could have done something about it. He could have arranged things
a little differently - after all He just has to say a word and the world comes into being.
2. With a word he could have made better arrangements.
3. Luke tells us why Jesus was born in a stable.
"...because there was no room for them in the inn." Cf Luke 2:7
II. Why Did God Allow This?
A. The journey to Bethlehem.
1. They came because there was to be a census.
2. Mary and Joseph came to an inn - a place of lodging.
3. Because so many had come for the census their was no room left.
4. What kind of an inn it was we do not know - Bethlehem was no tourist
center so the inn probably left at lot to be desired.
5. We aren’t told of even there being an innkeeper, but someone must
have turned them away.
B. It must have been hard for Mary and Joseph.
1. I think of times when we have been on a journey and couldn’t find a room.
2. It seemed that every motel we went to had no vacancies.
3. Nothing quite as frustrating, but think of what it must have been for them that night.
4. After that journey to only find a stable that may have offered little comfort.
C. God could have changed that, but He choose not to do so.
1. God in Jesus was coming to His people again.
a. God created us in the first place to have fellowship with us
b. And yet we seem to reject that fellowship.
c. He comes to us and we let Him know that we would rather not have Him here.
2. We see it over and again in the OT.
a. We see it in people of Israel who had been in bondage in Egypt.
1) God comes to them thru Moses and thru miracles to rescue them.
2) He leads them thru the desert in a cloud during the day and a fire at night.
3) He has them build an ark to remind them that He is with them.
b. But they reject Him. 1) They would rather not have a God who tells them what is for their own good.
2) Like a rebellious child they refuse to take His advise as to what is best for them.
3) At every turn it seems that they keep rejecting God’s leadership in their lives.
c. The rejection keeps on happening throughout the OT - they had no room for
God in the nation or in their lives. d. How many times would God be rejected before He would stop coming to them?
e. We would have left them to their own destruction long before God did.
3. Yet God makes His plan to send His Son, to come in flesh and bones so that
He can die for their sins and take their place on the cross.
a. Certainly we would not reject someone who would bear the punishment for our sins.
b. They did and many still do today.
c. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Cf Jn. 1:11
4. God knew that Jesus would be rejected
a. Note: Isa. 53:3
b. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised,
and we esteemed him not."
c. The fact that there was no room for Christ's birth was a sign that there was
no room for Him in this world.
d. He was rejected at His birth and He was rejected at His death.
e. Yet silently, as a lamb, He gave His life and he looked out at them and
said "Father, forgive them"
f. After all that, surely there is room for Jesus and God.
III. Is There Any Room for Jesus?
A. Thanks to God through the Holy Spirit many of us have made room.
1. When we say yes to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.../
2. When we accept the finished work of Christ as the atonement for our sin...
3. We can be saved...Jesus enters into our life.
4. But have we given Him as much room as we should?
5. Each of us must consider how much room we have for Him -
how much room in our hearts.
B. There doesn’t seem to be much room for Christ in the world we live in.
1. The world tries to take Christ out of Christmas.
2. The world says that there are too many other things to do at Christmas.
3. Example of woman on a bus tour in England.
4. Many say there is no room for God in this modern, fast-moving, self-sufficient world.
5. They say that they no longer need His law, His love, or His sacrifice for us.
C. Are we among those who have no room for Him in our lives?
1. Things are going quite well and we don't need the extra baggage of Christianity.
2. We don't need His promises because we are doing fairly well without Him.
3. We don't have room for his way of doing things because they don't fit in with our way.
4. We don't have room on the throne of our lives because we want to sit there ourselves.
Conclusion:
God keeps coming back to us even though we reject Him, but we need to warned that there is a limit as to how many times we can reject Him.
We never know when we will breathe our last - then it will be too late.
There will also be a time when God says "enough".
(John 3:36) He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
(John 12:48) He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
A story is told of little boy who was to play the part of the Innkeeper in the annual children’s Christmas play at his church. Each time during the rehearsal it came time for him to tell Joseph and Mary that there was no room, he couldn’t say his lines. The director finally asked him why he was having so much trouble. He told him, "I just can’t send Jesus away! He can have my room!" There is room in the inn if we will make the room for Him. The inn was too full for Christ to come in. Throughout Scripture we see that there is no room for God. Is there room in your home, your life and your heart for Him?
Taken from Sermon Index of Pastor D. Robinson...
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Perfect Harmony
But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.1 Corinthians 12:1
Becoming a part of the body of Christ does not mean that we lose our individuality. Everyone is different, God created us that way; we are the ones who create the separation by thinking that we all have to talk the same, dress the same, etc. We are who God created us to be, and have our perfect position in the body of Christ. We have a responsibility to share the love of Christ and the Gospel with others, but it is not our duty to create clones of ourselves in them, and then shun them if they do not meet our expectations. It simply does not work that way. Can you imagine a body with all the same parts? It would be quite ridiculous. We a ll have to be ourselves. God is the one who creates the permanent changes from within our hearts. He gives gifts, talents, and ability as He chooses to do so, and He is doing a work within each of us that is preparing us for that purpose. He orchestrates each part of the body, and causes them to work in perfect harmony together.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Leaving Their Comfort Zone...
If our vision of the Lord’s birth is confined to looking at nativity figures and watching sentimental Christmas movies, we can easily fool ourselves into believing that this was a very cozy event for all involved. When we reflect on the facts more deeply, however, we can see that the journey to Bethlehem was difficult for everyone involved. Mary and Joseph had to leave the security of their home and travel to the city in order to register for taxation. Mary was about to give birth and the couple had nowhere to sleep, but they needed to make the trip in order to fulfill the prophecy (Micah 5:2) that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem. The shepherds were at work, watching their sheep, when the angel appeared to them and announced the birth of the Lord. Ignoring their fear, they left the familiarity of their workplace and traveled “in haste” to visit the newly born Savior. Upon their return, Scripture tells us that they “glorified and praised God for what they had seen” (Lk 2:20). 
We can each prepare for the arrival of Jesus in different ways, but our ultimate goal should be that we end up with Him “in Bethlehem” instead of somewhere else. As with all spiritual activities, we will “reap what we sow”. We can leave our “comfort zones” and journey to Bethlehem or sit back and remain secure…the choice is ours. However, just like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and wise men, what better way could there be to express our love for Jesus than to honor Him in those ways which we find difficult? If we listen carefully, the Lord frequently provides opportunities to visit Him by traveling roads that we would otherwise choose to avoid.
It is often said that God will not be outdone in generosity. When we offer sacrifices to Him, we always get back an abundance of graces. When the apostle Peter asked Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” (Mt 19:27), Our Lord’s words were very clear:
“Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19:28-29)
In a way, our entire life is a journey to Bethlehem. By following God’s commandments and leaving our sinful ways behind, we look forward to one day seeing Christ in all His glory. There we will join Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men in kneeling before Our Lord and Savior. Why not use this Christmas season to leave your “comfort zone” and explore new ways to follow Jesus? We have no guarantee that we will have another Christmas to prepare, so let’s do our best right now to make sure we’re ready…and don’t settle for being comfortable!
We can each prepare for the arrival of Jesus in different ways, but our ultimate goal should be that we end up with Him “in Bethlehem” instead of somewhere else. As with all spiritual activities, we will “reap what we sow”. We can leave our “comfort zones” and journey to Bethlehem or sit back and remain secure…the choice is ours. However, just like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and wise men, what better way could there be to express our love for Jesus than to honor Him in those ways which we find difficult? If we listen carefully, the Lord frequently provides opportunities to visit Him by traveling roads that we would otherwise choose to avoid.It is often said that God will not be outdone in generosity. When we offer sacrifices to Him, we always get back an abundance of graces. When the apostle Peter asked Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” (Mt 19:27), Our Lord’s words were very clear:
“Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19:28-29)
In a way, our entire life is a journey to Bethlehem. By following God’s commandments and leaving our sinful ways behind, we look forward to one day seeing Christ in all His glory. There we will join Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men in kneeling before Our Lord and Savior. Why not use this Christmas season to leave your “comfort zone” and explore new ways to follow Jesus? We have no guarantee that we will have another Christmas to prepare, so let’s do our best right now to make sure we’re ready…and don’t settle for being comfortable!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
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