MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
A. This is the first Sunday, the first day of a brand new year. I think that an appropriate scripture this morning would be Isaiah 61:1 3. In many of your bibles it is sub titled, "The Year of the Lord’s Favor." And that comes right out of the text itself. Listen to these words that God caused the Prophet Isaiah to write:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives & release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor & the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, & provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, & a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."
"The year of the Lord’s favor." What will 2012 be for you?
The apostle Paul wrote, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) Will this year really be that for you? Oh, I pray that it will be!
B. Now let’s turn to another scripture, one that is more familiar to most of us. It is Matthew 2:1 11. Listen as I read those verses to you.
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem & asked,
‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east & have come to worship him.’
"When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, & all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests & teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written: "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’
"Then Herod called the Magi secretly & found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem & said, ‘Go & make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go & worship him.’
"After they had heard the king, they went on their way, & the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, & they bowed down & worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures & presented him with gifts of gold & of incense & of myrrh."
C. That is a familiar story to us. But there are two things that really jump out at me each time that I hear it again.
1. The first is a sense of amazement & awe as I realize again that God worked in a special way to lead these Magi, these wise men, over hundreds of miles & weeks of travel to find Jesus.
I am particularly amazed because these Wise Men seem to be completely out of place in the story of Jesus. They didn’t belong in Bethlehem. They weren’t of the right nationality. Jesus was born King of the Jews, & they weren’t Jews.
They didn’t have the right religious background. They didn’t even believe, perhaps, in the right God. And yet, led by God’s star, they made their way to the baby Jesus.
I imagine that the Wise Men expected to see banners waving, trumpets blowing, & dignitaries coming from around the world to bow before the new king. But nothing like that was happening in Bethlehem.
By the time they arrived, Bethlehem had returned to normal. The Roman census was over. The people had paid their taxes & most had gone back to their hometowns. The inn now had empty rooms, & the streets were quiet once again. No one seemed to be aware that a king was living among them there in Bethlehem.
But in spite of all that, God still led the Wise Men to Mary & Joseph & the baby Jesus. And even though no one else seemed to care, they bowed down & worshipped Him, presenting their gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh.
2. Something else that bothers me is the absence of the chief priests & teachers of the law. Of all people, they should have been the very first ones there to worship Jesus. After all, they were the religious leaders.
They were the ones who led the people in prayers each day in the Temple, begging God to send the Messiah now. They were the scholars who knew exactly where Jesus was to be born, & when King Herod asked them, they didn’t hesitate to pass that information on.
But when God answered their prayers, when Jesus actually came, they didn’t go to see Him. Even though they knew that the Messiah was to be born just 6 miles away in Bethlehem they didn’t even bother to go & welcome Him.
Think about that. When God sent His Son, the long awaited Messiah to earth, the ones who should have been there welcoming Him were not there.
Instead, He was greeted by common people, shepherds who watched the flocks at night. And then later, by foreigners, strangers from a far away land.
The people who should have been there were not there, & the people who were there, most people would have thought didn’t belong there at all.
PROP: As we look at the life of Jesus we see that same thing happening over & over again. So consistently does it happen that we begin to wonder, "What is God trying to tell us?"
I. WHAT IS GOD TRYING TO TELL US?
A. The 19th chapter of Matthew tells about a rich young ruler. If anyone belonged, he certainly did. He says the right words, & he comes to Jesus asking the right question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus could have used him. With his wealth & prominence, his backing of Jesus could have made Jesus a celebrity overnight. Yet, when it comes to the showdown, he is nowhere to be found.
He could make a good talk about dedication & service to God, but he wasn’t willing to put it into practice. He sounded so good, but we don’t see him following Jesus.
Then there are the Pharisees & Sadducees. They are very religious. They are always there when the doors of the synagogue are open. They obediently drop their tithes in the offering each week.
When it is time to pray, when sacrifices are being offered for sins, they are there, so humble, so pious, so looking the part & playing the role & going through the religious motions.
SUM. If anybody is going to be standing faithfully by Jesus’ side, it looks like it would be these people. And yet, they’re not there at all.
B. But when you look at Jesus & the people surrounding Him, listening to Him, following Him, these people don’t look like they would fit in at all.
Look at His disciples & you’ll find fishermen with fish scales beneath their finger nails, smelling of the sea. You’ll find a Zealot with beady eyes, who once might have taken you into a dark alley & stabbed you to death.
You’ll find a tax collector who might once have willingly taken your last penny. These are the people who surround Jesus, & with whom He will build His kingdom.
Jesus spent so much time with sinners, misfits, that He is criticized for that. He is eagerly welcomed by the poor, the lonely & the hurting; by the blind; by the lepers; by those who are never allowed to participate in the mainstream of society.
These people, the hurting & the hungry & those who are crying from the depths of their hearts - they don’t belong. They don’t fit in. Yet, they are the ones who listen & benefit so greatly from what Jesus has to say.
II. WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH US?
A. But what does all this have to do with us? You see, there is something that really bothers me. As I look at myself, & then at you, we all look so nice & respectable on Sunday morning.
Our faces are clean. There aren’t any holes in our clothing. We look like what we think a church ought to look like. We come here & we pray & we give our offerings & we listen to sermons. It is all so nice, & we fit in together so neatly.
But then we look back to Jesus & to His disciples, & a warning flag appears. It says, "Beware, because you may not fit in at all." Is it possible?
Maybe that is the question we ought to be asking ourselves this morning. Why did the chief priests miss His birth? Why were Pharisees & Sadducees so insensitive to Jesus, & so unconcerned about His message?
B. Maybe they weren’t always that way. Maybe when they first started out, they started out as sincere, God seeking people, sensitive to the love of God. And when the doors of the synagogue opened & they came searching for something meaningful in their lives, they found it.
But somehow along the way, those things that once were so holy to them became common place. Now they could handle them & never really even give them a second thought. Maybe the promise of a sacrifice that would atone for sin had lost some of its wonder.
Maybe the fact that God listens to prayer had lost some of its glory. Maybe the promises of God had lost some of their excitement, because it seemed so long since God made them, & He hadn’t fulfilled them all yet.
Somehow, day by day, week by week, some of the excitement & the cutting edge of their faith dulled. It had all become a ritual through which they went each week, until now they could walk past beggars who were crying for alms & never even hear what they had to say.
Now they could smell the stench of the decaying flesh of lepers & never be moved with compassion. Now they could see the hungry & never be moved to feed them. Now they were no longer concerned about other people who were searching for some meaning in life.
As long as they went through the rituals, observing the rules & regulations, they were satisfied, & they felt that was all that was needed.
SUM. So when God came to show His love through Jesus, they didn’t care. There was no sensitivity to what God was trying to do in their lives.
III. HOW SENSITIVE ARE WE?
A. Are we in danger of that, too? How sensitive are we to what God is doing in this world? How sensitive are we to the needs of others?
ILL. Are we sensitive to the woman who hears the doctor say, "I’m sorry, but we did everything for him that we could." Now, along with her grief, she finds herself in a different world. She has always been a part of the world of couples where she neatly fit in. But now she doesn’t quite fit in. Just how sensitive are we to widows & widowers & divorcees?
ILL. How sensitive are we to lonely teen agers who feel out of place? How sensitive are we to visitors who are not part of our comfortable little group? How sensitive are we to people who would never darken our doors because they don’t think that they would feel welcome here?
B. That ought to bother us because how can we say that we fit in with Jesus until we are deeply concerned about those people who do not seem to fit in?
ILL. Leadership Magazine carried a story about 4 young men, Bible College students, who were renting a house together. One Saturday morning someone knocked on their door. When they opened it, there stood this bedraggled looking old man. His eyes were kind of marbleized, & he had a silvery stub of whiskers on his face.
His clothes were ragged & torn. His shoes didn’t match. In fact, they were both for the same foot. And he carried a wicker basket full of unappealing vegetables that he was trying to sell. The boys felt sorry for him & bought some of his vegetables just to help him out. Then he went on his way.
But from that time on, every Saturday he appeared at their door with his basket of vegetables. As the boys got to know him a little bit better, they began inviting him in to visit a while before continuing on his rounds.
They soon discovered that his eyes looked marbleized, not because of drugs or alcohol, but because of cataracts. They learned that he lived just down the street in an old shack. They also found out that he could play the harmonica, & that he loved to play Christian hymns, & that he really loved God.
So every Saturday they would invite him in, & he would play his harmonica & they would sing Christian hymns together. They became good friends, & the boys began trying to figure out ways to help him without him knowing who had done it.
One Saturday morning, right in the middle of all their singing & praising, he suddenly said to them, "God is so good!" They all agreed, "Yes, God is so good."
He went on, "You know why he is so good?" They said, "Why?" He said, "Because yesterday, when I got up & opened my door, there were boxes full of clothes & shoes & coats & gloves. Yes, God is so good!"
And the boys smiled at each other & chimed in, "Yes, God is so good."
He went on, "You know why He is so good?" They answered, "You already told us why. What more?" He said, "Because I found a family who could really use those things, & I gave them all away."
CONCL: But old bedraggled looking men really don’t fit in, do they? Shepherds don’t fit in, nor do wise men.
Jesus should not have come the way He did. The world expected more of God than that. The world expected His ministry to be different, too. The world expected the rich, the important, & the influential to be His companions, people who count, people who fit in. But not so.
So a flag of warning waves before all of us who feel so comfortable here this morning to say, "If you feel you really fit, then maybe you need to take a long look at where you are with God, & how sensitive you are to what God is trying to accomplish through you, & what He is trying to do in the world."
Is it possible that it can all become so mechanical that we handle the emblems of communion without realizing what they represent? Or that we can casually drop our dollars into the offering, never rejoicing because God has given so much?
Can we see the cross & not be moved by the blood that was shed there? Can we hear the cries of a lost world, & yet not hear them, & never realize that as Christians we have a responsibility to them?
The other side of the story is that there were people who did fit. There was Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, & Nicodemus, a religious man, each one there for Jesus when they were needed. And there was Lazarus & Mary & Martha, friends of Jesus, & they fit in, too.
So I plead with you this morning that you’ll hear this message, & then ask yourself, "Where do I fit?" Or do you fit? You are the only one who can answer that. But I know this, God wants us all.
The gospel says that no matter who we are, Wise Men or shepherds, rich or poor, educated or not, there is a place for us, a place where we fit. So God invites us all to listen to His plea & respond to His love as we stand & sing.
