WHAT THE STABLE AND YOUR HEART HAVE IN COMMON
Lk.2:1-7
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Strange Illness
1. It was the doctor's last patient consultation on Christmas Eve. A mother came in with her young daughter and asked if he would examine her because she had been showing some strange symptoms: increase in weight, sickness most mornings and a number of strange cravings.
2. He checked her out very carefully and eventually told the mother that her daughter was unquestionably pregnant. At which news she protested very strongly.
3. 'Don't be ridiculous, my daughter has never been with a man.' The girl affirmed that this was true and added that she had never so much as kissed a man.
4. The doctor studied the girl very carefully, then quietly stood up, walked to the window & stared out of it.
5. Suspecting the worst the mother asked if there was something wrong.
6. "No, not really" replied the doctor, as he looked up in the darkening sky. “It might just be a coincidence, but the last time this happened a bright star appeared the East.”
B. TEXT
1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register. 4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
C. THESIS
1. The birth of Christ is celebrated throughout the world yet little or nothing is known of the exact place where He was born. We talk about a room in the Inn, but Jesus never got into the Inn.
2. Some say it was a cave, a barn, or perhaps a stable – whatever – it must’ve been around livestock because of the use of a manger for his cradle.
3. However, it makes little difference WHERE Christ was born if he is not born in your heart!
4. This morning I’m going to draw a comparison between the stable or cave Jesus was born in and our hearts.
5. The title of my message is, “What the Stable and Your Heart have in Common.” The Question is:
6. WHAT DO THE STABLE AND YOUR HEART HAVE IN COMMON? BOTH THE STABLE AND OUR HEARTS…
I. ARE PLACES CHOSEN BY GOD FOR HIS SON TO BE BORN
A. WHY A STABLE?
1. How many of you men would want your wife to give birth to her first child in an unlighted barn with no doctor, nurse, or midwife present? With no nursery, no incubator, no crib, no sanitation?
2. Oh, and did I mention that she would be in a cattle stall with the stench of cattle manure and urine – plus the dirty beasts -- all around her and the new baby? No, we pick the best hospital we can afford!
3. When was the last time you heard of a donkey born in a palace, in the King’s bedroom? That’s preposterous! Kings are born in palaces; donkeys are born in stables. Yet God allowed His Son – the King of Kings – to be born in a lowly stable.
4. Why? Because He wanted everyone to know they
could come to the Savior. Many of the world’s poor would feel unworthy to enter a palace. But everybody feels welcome in a barn.
5. ILLUS.
a. A rodeo chaplain met a big-time horseracing jockey who rode in the Kentucky Derby. At the Churchill Downs track, the chaplain went into the stables to talk to the jockey about giving his heart to Christ.
b. The jockey said, "This is no place to talk about religion, so there’s an end to it!" "Oh, no, that's not the end of it," said the chaplain.
c. "Christianity began in a stable. Jesus Christ was born in a stable and you can be born again in one." He then talked to the man until he kneeled in prayer and accepted the Savior. (Christian Herald)
B. WHY OUR HEARTS?
The choice of the human heart is just as baffling as a stable!
1. Now it may seem like an odd thing that God would want Jesus to also be born in your hearts, but that is what the Bible teaches.
2. In John chap. 3, Jesus was talking to a Jewish leader named Nicodemus and said, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You [plural] must be born again.'” John 3:3-7.
3. Jesus even said, “Behold, I stand at the door [of your life, your heart] and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” Rev. 3:20.
4. Having Jesus Christ in your heart is what makes you a Christian. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” 1 John 5:11-12.
5. Carol Leet told of an incident that happened to her granddaughter.
a. Four-year-old Amanda went to the doctor’s office with a fever. The doctor tried to ease the little girl’s obvious nervousness.
b. When he looked in her ears, he said, "Who’s in there? Donald Duck?" She said, "No." He looked in her nose and said, "Who’s in there? Mickey Mouse?" Again she said, "No."
c. He put his stethoscope on her heart and said, "Who’s in there? Barney?" Amanda replied, "No, Jesus is in my heart. Barney is on my underwear."
II. BOTH ARE PLACES NEEDING TRANSFORMATION
A. THE STABLE
1. Stables aren't known for their cleanliness! During the winter, animals are frequently confined to stables around the clock for months. Large animals don't get a bath, ever! They are messy when the eating and just go to the bathroom right where they're standing, and they step in it and sleep in it, without any thought about it.
2. That's why there's the old country saying, "It smells like a barn in here!" Why? Because barns stink! Proverbs 14:4 mentions that we should overlook the mess in the stall because of the contribution of the ox. One of the greatest feats of Hercules was his cleaning out the stables of King Augeas that had 1000 cattle in them and hadn't been cleaned for 30 years!
3. But stables aren't supposed to stay dirty. They must be cleaned regularly for the health and safety of the animals.
B. TRUE OF OUR HUMAN HEARTS
1. SCRIPTURES. “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” Mk. 7:21-23. “The heart is
deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jer. 17:9.
2.JOKE: It starts early!
a. Jimmy walked home each day by an irrigation canal. Since youngsters drowned in the canals, he had been forbidden to play in it.
b. One afternoon Jimmy came in later than usual. His pants were wet and muddy, and he was carrying his shoes. He obviously had been in the forbidden canal.
c. His mother asked the expected question: "Have you been in the canal?" "Yes ma'am, but I didn't do it on purpose. I just fell in accidentally."
d. "How is it that if you fell in accidentally, you didn't get your shoes and socks wet?" Quick as a wink, he came back, "Well, I just barely had time to get them off before I hit the water!"
3. There’s no place on earth worthy of God’s presence! So why would God want to live in deceitful human hearts? Jesus, by coming into the stable, was saying,
4. “I’m not afraid or above entering a filthy place so that I can clean it up; that’s why I’ve come. No heart is too dirty for Me to enter, but I won’t allow it to remain dirty.”
5. If you invite Jesus in, you must be prepared for radical alteration. You can’t stay as you are; Jesus only enters hearts that are willing to change!
6. DL Moody said, "The Scriptures weren’t given for your information, but for your transformation."
7. Even the Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, rebuked Christians for their lack of letting the Word transform; "You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace to this war-torn world. But you read it [and treat it] as if it were just good literature, and nothing else."
8. NOT RENOVATION, OR REFORMATION, BUT A TRANSLATION! The KEY TO TRANSFORMATION is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit! God promised; “The Spirit of the LORD will come upon you in power…and you will be changed into a different person” 1 Sam. 10:6.
9. Ezek. 36:26, “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” The same power that changed Saul of Tarsus into Paul is promised to you!
III. BOTH ARE PLACES THROUGH WHICH GOD DESIRES TO REACH A LOST WORLD
A. SUCCESS OF THE STABLE
1. How many stables do you know by name?
2. The Great Chicago Fire started in Patrick O'Leary’s barn in 1871, destroying property worth $192,000,000 and 300 people lost their lives, but that’s all I can think of.
3. But nearly everybody on the planet’s heard about the stable at Bethlehem! It’s been successful in getting its news out that the Savior was born there.
4. The Church of the Nativity, built over the site in Bethlehem, is the oldest continuously operating Christian church in the world. It was built by Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena in 339 AD over the cave, or Grotto, in which the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth occurred. It was destroyed by fire 3 centuries later but was rebuilt in its present form in 565 AD by the Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine Empire.
5. Millions travel to that Church yearly to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!
B. GOD WANTS TO USE US TO TELL THE GOOD NEWS
1. JOKE.
a. 2 parents overheard their 5-year old daughter Lindsay witnessing to her friend.
b. She told her that if she believed in Jesus and prayed, he would forgive her sins & she would go to heaven. The little girl was convinced, and prayed.
c. The little girl looked up into Lindsay's face and said, "Will my mommy be in heaven too?" Lindsey thought for a moment and replied, "Yeah, if she believes in Jesus. But if you don't want her there, don't tell her about
Jesus!"
d. That sounds pretty cold, but doesn't that come to about the same conclusion as when we don’t tell others?
2. Amazing: if God can use a stable, how about you and me? The stable had no voice to talk and tell its neighbors; it had no hands to write its story; it had no feet to travel around the world to publish the story of Jesus’ birth.
3. But we have hands, feet, and a voice. We should be able to do a lot better job of telling the story than the stable.
4. I’m not going to let a stable or stones “out-witness” me. Christmas is a perfect opportunity to start conversations about our faith in Christ.
5. Who do you know who needs Jesus? Bring up Christmas. Ask them what traditions they have at Christmas. Then ask them what Jesus means to them. Then tell them what Jesus means to you.
6. Invite them to church or pray with them to accept Jesus. We have a special Christmas communion service. Get them to come!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: BIGGEST NEWS? BABY BORN!
1. Take the year 1809. The international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody cared much about babies. But the world was overlooking some incredibly significant births.
2. For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England’s finest statesmen. That same year, Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner.
3. On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life.
4. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert.
5. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby’s name? Abraham Lincoln.
6. If there had been news broadcasts at that time, I’m certain these words would have been heard: “The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today.”
7. But history was actually being shaped in the cradles of England and America.
8. Similarly, everyone thought taxation was the big news of the day when Jesus was born. But, a young Jewish woman cradled the biggest news of all: the birth of the Savior. [Adapted from Charles Swindoll.]
B. THE CALL
1. Don’t pity poor Joseph and Mary, Jesus’ birthplace was ordained before the foundation of the world (Gal.4:4-5). The Prophet Micah (5:2) had foretold the place of his birth 700 years prior.
2. God has chosen your heart to dwell in (Jn.15:16; Acts 9:15; Eph.1:4; Eph.3:17). Has Christ been born in your heart?
3. Are you letting Christ clean up you heart? Is there a transformation taking place in you?
4. Are you telling others of Jesus’ birth in your life? Who will you talk to this week about Jesus and Christmas?
[This is a reworked sermon based on Bud Martenn’s message of the same name.]
