No Room For Christ Series

“No room for Christ”

Pastor Allan Kircher

Luke 2:7

December 18, 2011

Introduction

Isn’t it needful for us to know that beyond all dispute, that our Lord sprang out of Judah?

 Spoken/words/prophet Micah.

 It was necessary/be born in Bethlehem/Ephratah

But how could public recognition/lineage/obscure carpenter and an unknown maiden be procured?

• Mary lived in Nazareth, in Galilee.

• Didn’t it seem probable that the birth take place there?

• How could she make/long journey so late/her condition?

• How are these two matters to be arranged?

It can be done! It shall be done!

A little tyrant named Herod offends a greater tyrant Augustus.

Augustus shows/displeasure/orders/census/taken/allJewish people.

It was done in readiness for a contemplated taxation mind you…

Which, however, was not carried out till some 10 years later.

Our Lord our God has a bit/wildest war horse, a hook for the most terrible Goliath.

You see, Autocratical Caesars are but puppets moved with invisible strings, mere drudges to the King of kings.

 So Mary is brought to Bethlehem

 Jesus Christ is born as appointed.

 So all/people/house of David are driven to Bethlehem.

 The minute accommodations/little town/exhausted.

Friends entertained/friend’s till/houses were full, but Joseph had no such willing kinsmen in the town.

o All rooms occupied, there remained no better lodging

o Not even for a woman in travail.

o The stall of a donkey, the only place where/child could/born.

Hanging a curtain in the front and tethering the animal on the other side to block the passage, the only seclusion that could be obtained.

• In that stable, the King of Glory born, in the manger/he laid.

My hope this morning is to lead your meditations to the stable at Bethlehem, that night, that you may see this great sight—

• The Savior in the manger

• To think over and reason this lowly phase—

• “Because there was no room for them in the inn.”

I. There were other reasons why Christ was born in the manger.

1. I think it was intended to show forth his humiliation.

 He came, according to prophecy

 to be “despised and rejected of men

 a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”

Would it be fitting that Jesus who died naked on the cross be robed in purple at his birth?

• Jesus is to wear peasant’s cloths throughout his life;

• He is to associate with fisherman;

• the fishermen are to be His disciples;

• the cold mountains are often to be his only bed;

Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”

Nothing, therefore, could be more fitting than in the state of humiliation,

• he laid aside all His glory

• took upon Himself the form of a servant

• and lay in a manger.

2. By being in the manger, He was declared to be the king of the poor.

I believe it excited feelings of the lowly shepherds when the angel said—

“This shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger.”

o In the eyes of the poor, imperial robes excite no affection in their hearts.

o But a man in their own clothes attracts their confidence.

With what pertinacity will working men cleave to a leader when he gets dirty with them?

• They will believe in him because he knows their toils,

• sympathizes in their sorrows

• And feels an interest in all their concerns.

You see, the King of Men, born in Bethlehem,

 Was not exempt to the common calamities of the poor

 He was even worse in condition for our cause.

 I can hear the shepherds talking of the manger birth.

Saying to another,

o “He will not be like Herod the tyrant;

o He will remember the manger and feel for the poor,

o The oppressed, the lowly.

o He will save the children of the needy.”

3. Being born in the manger, He gives an invitation to the most humble to come to Him.

o We might tremble to approach a throne

o But we cannot fear to approach a manger!

If we would have first saw our Master riding through the streets of Jerusalem with garments laid in the way, and the palm-branches stretched out, and people crying, “Hosanna!” we might have thought He was not approachable.

But even there He was so meek and lowly, that children clustered about Him with their boyish “Hosanna!”

o Never could there be a being more approachable/Christ.

o No body guards pushed away poor sinners from Him.

No array of officious friends stopped the man who clamored to Jesus that his son might be restored of his life.