Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
Series: Joy to the World
December 8, 2013 - Brad Bailey
INTRO
The most popular hymn of Christmas... "Joy to the world."
The words are by English hymn writer Isaac Watts, based on Psalm 98 in the Bible. The song was first published in 1719 and as of the late 20th century, "Joy to the World" was the most-published Christmas hymn in North America.
Among those who have recorded version of the song...The Supremes in 1965, Andy Williams, Mariah Carey, Hoyt Axton, Clay Aiken, Whitney Houston, and more recently The Jonas Brothers. [1]
What we gather around announces JOY.
Our culture has developed a common phrase of what we wish someone..."Merry Christmas."
Great greeting. there's noting wrong with being merry.
But when we think of being merry...it can miss something deeper at hand. Merry often carries the sense of being able to check out. "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." But joy is not about checking out...it's about the discovery of something...that we can check into.
Joy is... more transcendent.
The first verse of that great Christmas song declares to us:
Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
This first verse declares that joy was coming to the world in the coming of the Lord... and calls all to receive our king.
The central call of this verse says,
"Let every heart prepare Him room."
> That is the calling we are going to take up toady...and over the next couple Sundays... to make room to receive him.
When it comes to preparing for Christmas...so often times people express feeling frustration and tension in this season... a conflict between consumption and contentment... between activity and adoration... between rushing and reflection.
Common challenge heard is how busy everyone can feel.
Christmas... can be a challenge to be as focused as we'd like to be.
There's a lot of activities that this season can bring:
• Get a tree, decorate the tree.
• Get out the lights...put up the lights.
• Decorate the house...the outside...the lawn.
• Baking
• Shopping for gifts, wrap the presents, attach the tags and put on the bows.
• Time to make plans for the out of town trip.
• Get cards...address cards...mail cards.
An elderly widow decided it was too much trouble to get all of her kids and grandkids Christmas presents, so she decided to send them a check with a card. A few days after she mailed all the cards, she discovered she forgot to include the checks in the cards. Imagine all those kids opening a card from grandma with a note inside that says, “Buy your own presents.”
> When we're busy...it's easy to forget something.
I don't think that our challenge is primarily activity... busyness.
I've found that it's these very activities that hold something rich within them.
• The giving of gifts can be a beautiful way of connecting with God's giving nature...WHEN we focus more on giving than getting.
• The lights can be a beautiful way of seeing light amidst darkness.
• Time with people and sending cards can be a beautiful part of loving others.
All of these can connect me with God's heart.....IF my heart is open to Him.
I think the bigger challenge is a matter of the space within our hearts.
We need a voice that calls out...
I believe we need to hear the voice of Isiaiah...[2],
Isaiah 40:3-5 (NKJV)
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; 5 The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
God has just declared that the day of ultimate freedom is coming... a pardon for sins...for the waywardness of his people. And now he declares that it's time to PREPARE for the coming of the Lord. Preparation is the first word God so often set out...it was the word he gave the people as Isiaiah spoke...and the call which precedes God's coming.
While these words related to the nations freedom from exile...they clearly spoke of the coming of one unlike any other.
It was a prophetic promise that grew in God's promise of a Messiah.
And so it is...when the Christ comes...a voice rises up with these words:
Luke 3:4-6 (NLT)
Isaiah had spoken of John when he said, “He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the LORD’s coming! Clear the road for him! 5 The valleys will be filled, and the mountains and hills made level. The curves will be straightened, and the rough places made smooth. 6 And then all people will see the salvation sent from God.’”
There is a voice that call us to get ready.... to make room...to become receptive. He who was born would die and rise again... for he is everlasting. And he said he was to live in us...as we receive him by his Spirit. So we too have an element of making room.
And the first thing that we see in this calling is that the voice is shouting in the wilderness...the desert.(v. 3)
The Israelites were familiar with the desert or wilderness areas that bordered their nation on two sides.
And the word “desert” in the Bible does not simply refer to a geographic location, but to some aspect of the desert itself and the effect this land has on people [3]
> The desert is a barren and terrifying place where people cannot live easily.
It’s a dry place, where water is rarely found and people grow thirsty. It is lonely, sometimes characterized by a solitude that is threatening and frightening. It’s desolate, often used to symbolize the desolation that has come through the sins of the world...or even our own sin.
We all can face and feel aspects of life's wilderness...and desert... times in our lives are dry and barren.
You may feel like today that you are in the desert.
The desert of your life may feel like a spiritually barren wasteland. Your soul is dry and parched. You are weary and thirsty – in need of living water. You may find yourself disconnected from God... without any significant time for prayer
Or maybe you feel like you’re in the desert all alone. Wandering around trying to find your way home. At times it’s a frightening place – a place that’s difficult for you to live on your own – and where is God? The climate of your life is extreme – intense heat and pressure by day – bone-chilling icy cold by night.
Or maybe you feel like you live in a world that is threatening and frightening.... the world around you seems barren and desolate. Signs of spiritual life are pretty hard to find anywhere around you.
And yet the voice cries out. To you and to me. In the desert. In the wasteland. Where it’s dry. Where we’re tired. Where there is little sign of any life. Where we feel abandoned. Where we feel distant. Where we feel lost or discouraged or confused.
We need to understand that
1. It's a call into the wilderness...the desert.
God was and is meeting us in the wilderness...the desert...the darkness.
This is what the prophets declared... God was entering the darkness.
Isaiah 9:2, 6 (NIV)
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. ....6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
A savior is born...a light amidst darkness. Yes...that's the reality I want to stop and engage.
There is God coming in the midst of the most rough and raw of life.
It declares that our God is the God who is in the midst of every circumstance.
God in the midst of life's hardness and harshness.
Roman oppression - politics isn't new
• Zechariah and Elizabeth.... they were the first...and they were living in the pain of barrenness . To them God would bring forth a son...John...who we know as John the Baptist... the one who prepared the way for Christ the Messiah. But they would face the loss again...as John would be beheaded by the puppet King Herod.
• King Herod is recrded to have been a paranoid man who killed family just to protect his little control. And we know that he ordered all children under the age of two to be slaughtered just to be sure that the one who was born to be king of Israel would not threaten him. You won't find this on any Hallmark Christmas cards...but it is the darkness that God entered.
• Tax census - greed and money woes aren't new to Christmas.
• .And God himself would enter the world with "no crib for a bed."
We need to listen to the voice...because it's crying out in the wilderness and deserts and darkness of life
We may feel that the wonder of Christmas is richest for children...and wish we could have that child-like joy again when we were little. There is certainly something special about the wonder that comes with childhood....but I think the more I have to face the reality of this world...the more I need the reality of what Christmas represents.
We need to listen to the voice...because it's crying out in the wilderness.
Similarly...I think it's important to realize that bemoaning that Christ is often not central in our cultural celebrations is the same as making room in our hearts. Seeing the way Christmas is celebrated can certainly bring some moments of sadness...but that itself will not prepare him room in our hearts.
It's for us to make room...even when few others do. Mary and Joseph...and only a few others made room for Christ that first Christmas...and it grew.
So how are we to prepare for him?
2. It's a call to make ourselves receptive... to remove all that can lie between his coming and us.
We are to remove all that can lie between his coming and us.
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
this language referred to the way in which when a king was coming to a city... preparations went ahead to make a straight and easy route. Low places would be filled in...high places lowered...and debris cleared.
Because a straight path was a receptive path. There’s no mystery about the word, “straight.” Even in an ordinary dictionary it means, or can
mean, “honest,” “candid” or “direct.” In the original Hebrew and Greek of the Word it clearly
means “upright” or “correct.” Of course it can just mean physically not crooked, but even then
the spiritual sense of it is right there, too. An old saying reminds us that “streams, like people,
become crooked by following the path of least resistance.” We also talk about former criminals
“going straight.”
The point is that even in our wilderness or desert-like states, or perhaps especially because of
them, we are instructed to make a commitment to the truth and live according to it. We have to make some preparations.
You may recall in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus specifically blessed the pure in heart, for, He said, “they (and not others) shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).
It's a time to humble ourselves...and to repent. Simply put, “to repent” means “to change.”
(As you know, this is the same thing that John the Baptist taught as he also urged people to
“prepare the way of the Lord.” Therefore he condemned the Pharisees and Sadducees, calling
them “a brood of vipers,” and he warned them to “bring forth fruits worthy of repentance” (Matt.
3:9). For “even now,” he said, “the axe is laid to the root of the trees... (and) every tree which
does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 3:11). We are taught in the
Writings that if John had not come to preach repentance no one would have been able to receive
the Lord at all, for there would have been no basis to comprehend His teaching, moral and
spiritual corruption having become the accepted way of life. Truth is received and nourished in
good, just as seeds are received and nourished in the earth, but if the earth is hard or rocky or full
of weeds then the seeds cannot grow. Thus John’s first recorded words, and the first words of
the Lord’s public ministry were “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”)
Jesus Christ comes to take up residence in our lives. Born as a baby in humble, exalted to the right hand of God the Father, he waits for us to invite him into our hearts as Savior and Lord.
Until we sorrowfully change our sinful habits, we are not ready for the Lord to come.
What is ultimately at hand?
> The coming of the Lord...in which his glory will be revealed.
3. It's a call to see God's glorious goodness revealed.
As the voice calling out continues to declare:
"The glory of the LORD shall be revealed." - Isaiah 40:5
God promises that the sign of his presence and power will be visible and experienced and that is what ultimately came through the sending of his son.
John 1:14 (NIV)
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Isaiah's words were truly prophetic when they declare that "all flesh shall see it together"... “all mankind together will see.”
When God came...he would come to all...for Jesus would rise and become available to all by his Spirit.
What is revealed is HIS glory... his perfect goodness.
There comes a point in which we realize the limits of our own glory...our own goodness...that we are fleeting....fragile...and flawed.
It is God's goodness, not ours, that is the basis for blessing.
There was a Dennis the Menace cartoon one time that illustrates these points. Dennis and his friend were walking out of Mrs. Wilson's house with cookies in both hands. Dennis's friend wondered what they had done to deserve the cookies. Dennis explained, "Mrs. Wilson doesn't give us cookies because we are nice. We get cookies because Mrs. Wilson is nice."
John 3:16 (NIV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
> This is a love that we have never known from our fellow creatures...it transcends what every earthly love only hints at... it has not only been the source by which we were created...but knows what we were meant to become.
As most of you heard me share...my mother passed on about 4 months ago...and my father about 3 weeks ago. I know that right now my dad...and my mother... know the Source of life...and what life itself really is...in a way I can't even begin to grasp. I really believe that my mother and father are together again... but it's not her eyes that he first met...but the eyes of the One whose love we cannot even imagine. By the power of those eyes...my mother and father can see each other like they have never seen each other before.
That glory...that goodness of love...is what was revealed. It is the source of Christmas joy.
Do you want to know that love? Then let your heart prepare him room... clear the path.
Do you want to... create space in your heart... want it...ask for it.
CONCLUSION: Lets take a few moments and bring our hearts before God. I will open us in a few moments of prayer...and then allow each of us to take a few moments to prepare our hearts by straightening any ways we have sensed a need for.... clearing any obstacles.
Prayer: God we come as those who you have called out to in the wilderness. As you have called us to make straight paths.... help us to see the obstacles.
(Quiet Prayer)
Closing Song: Joy to the World
Other potential ideas and illustrations:
1. When we hold a party, we want the guests to be able to not only come into our home...but be welcome. We created a time...prepare a place... made sure they knew that they were welcomes.
Do we do the same with God...is Christ welcomed? .
> Have you prepared the room of your heart?
Are you ready for the coming of the Lord?
2. Guideposts magazine once ran a Christmas story about a certain nine year old boy named Wally Purling. Wally was big for his age, and a little bit of a slow learner in school. Although he was big, he wasn’t a bully. Everybody liked him and he was nice to everybody.
They were doing a Christmas program in his school, and Wally wanted to be in it. He wanted to be a shepherd, but the teacher had another part in mind for him. She wanted him to be the innkeeper because he was so big. Wally took the part home and studied it. He practiced hard.
The night came for the play, and everything was going smoothly. It came to the time when Mary and Joseph knocked on the door of the inn and Wally opened the door and said, “What do you want?” Joseph said, “We need a place to stay for the night.” “You’ve got to go find it somewhere else; the inn is full.” “Are you sure,” Joseph asked. “We’ve come a long way and it’s cold.” “No. There’s no place here, go somewhere else.” “But my wife is going to have a baby, isn’t there some corner we can hide in?”
At this point in the play there was silence, one of those embarrassing silences that make you believe somebody has forgotten his lines. Wally stood there, not saying anything. The prompter off stage whispered his line, “No, begone!” So Wally said, “No, begone!” Joseph put his arm around Mary and turned to walk away from the inn.
It was at this point that the Christmas play took an unusual twist. Wally was big, but he had a heart just as big, and he couldn’t stand seeing Mary and Joseph walk away. Caught up in the mood of the scene, Wally couldn’t help himself. He blurted out, “Wait a minute, Joseph. Bring Mary on back. You can have my room. I’ll sleep in the cold.”
There were those who went home that night, saying the Christmas story was ruined. Wally’s self-inserted lines had messed it all up. But think about it. In that little event was caught the whole essence of what we’ve been talking about today. A boy willing to give up his own selfish desires so that Christ would have the kind of welcome he deserved..
3. Video piece for reflection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoDwZNs-K90
Resources: Larry Brincefield, Robert D. Kalis
Series resource - http://media.biblechapel.org/Audio/audio_sermons/12-01-13.pdf
Notes:
1. History about the hymn "Joy to the World" can be found at Wikipedia and http://www.joy-bringer-ministries.org/hymn1.html
2. In the more commonly used NIV translation, this text of Isaiah 40:3-5 reads:
A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
3. Intl. Standard Bible Enc., vol. 1, p. 928.
4. Consider also:
Luke 2:6-7 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and 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.
