Introductory Considerations
1. 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.
2. 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. Magi stand before the crib bearing gifts.
3. The scene touches our hearts.
4. But what our sanitized scene does not present is the fact that the stable would have been dirty and the smells not to appealing. Jesus was actually laid in a feeding trough for animals. The night air must have been cold
5. 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.
Teaching
1. 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.
a. After all - He is the eternal God, the second person of the Godhead, the one who rules over all.
b. We might argue that He should not even have come into our sinful world at all. But that was His choice - because of His great love for us.
c. 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.
d. Something seems very wrong about God being born in a stable.
e. 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. With a word he could have made better arrangements.
2. Luke tells us why Jesus was born in a stable. There was no room for them in the inn.
a. After the long journey to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph came to an inn - a place of lodging.
b. Because so many had come for the census their was no room left.
c. 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. Not even told about their being an innkeeper but someone must have turned them away.
3. Must have been hard for Mary and Jospeh. I think of times when we drove from early morning till late in the evening with 3 children and a trailer behind the car - it seemed that every motel we went to had no vacancies. Finally we found one but it had been a frustrating night.
a. After that journey to only find a stable that may have offered little comfort. Try sleeping in someone’s barn on Christmas Eve.
4. Although Luke says it was because there was no room at the inn, God could have changed that but He choose not to.
5. So we take a look at why God let His Son be born in a stable.
6 God in Jesus was coming to His people again - not the first time although this certainly was different.
a. God created us in the first place to have fellowship with us - and yet we seem to reject that fellowship. He comes to us and we let Him know that we would rather not have Him here.
b. We see it over and again in the OT.
i. We see it in people of Israel who had been in bondage in Egypt. God comes to them thru Moses and thru miracles to rescue them. He leads them thru the desert in a cloud during the day and a fire at night. He has them build an ark to remind them that He is with them.
ii But they reject Him. They would rather not have a God who tells them what is for their own good. Like a rebellious child they refuse to take His advise as to what is best for them. Reject promised land. (Num 11:1,20, 14:31; Deut 31:20).
c. The rejection keeps on happening throughout the OT - they had no room for God in the nation or in their lives. How many times would God be rejected before He would stop coming to them?
d. We would have left them to their own destruction long before God did.
7. 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. They did and many still do today.
b. God knew that Jesus would be rejected (Isa 53:3).
8. The fact that there was no room for X’s birth was a sign that there was no room for Him in this world. He was rejected at His birth and He was rejected at His death.
9. The very people that God had chosen to be His own did not recognize Him and did not recognize Him. (John 1:10-11).
10. They had rejected God so long they did not recognize Him when He came in the flesh. They rejected His teaching that we must love God first and then our neighbour as ourselves. They rejected His condemnation of their sin. Even Peter denied Him , Thomas doubted Him, and Judas betrayed Him.
11. Yet silently, as a lamb, He gave His life and he looked out at them and said "Father, forgive them"
12. After all that, surely there is room for Jesus and God.
13. Thanks to God thru the HS many of us have made room. But have we given Him as much room as He wants.
14. Each of us must consider how much room we have for Him - how much room in our hearts.
15. For we may see a world that tries to take Christ out of Christmas - that says that there are too many other things to do for Him to be part of it. A world that says there is no room for God in this modern, fast- moving, self-sufficient world that no longer needs His law, his love, His sacrifice for us.
a.Or we may be amongst those who have no room for Him in our lives - things are going quite well and we don’t need the extra baggage of Christ and His church. We don’t need His promises because we are doing fairly well without Him.
b. We don’t have room for his way of doing things because they don’t fit in with our way.
c. We don’t have room on the throne of our lives because we want to sit there ourselves.
d. We don’t have room for one who tells us to deny ourselves and to give to one another.
16. I said a while ago how God keeps coming back to us even though we reject Him. We need to warned that there is a limit as to how many times we can reject Him.
a. We never know when we will breath our last - then it will be to late.
b. There will also be a time when God says "enough". "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him." (John 3:36) (also John 12:48; Rom 2:8-10)
17. And so X comes to you. You are the innkeeper of your heart, of your life. Is there room for Him? Is the inn is full? Can you make room?
a. Last year read story of boy who played innkeeper but he couldn’t follow script, couldn’t send Jesus away. He said "take my room".
18. There is room in the inn if make the room for Him.
19 Travel thru USA - motels have sign that says "Lincoln slept here". Innkeeper missed chance to say "Jesus was born here". Don’t you miss chance to say "Jesus lives here".
