Luke 2:1-12
Have Yourself a Humble little Christmas
Introduction
A. How many people have their tree up yet?
B. How many people have gotten there 4932 boxes out of there basement or attic
C. Christmas is by far with not comparison the largest holiday we celebrate.
D. Defiantly the most expensive Holiday (Amen?)
E. Has Christmas become so big that we forgot the humble beginning
F. Lets think about How Christmas began.
I. Humble Face’s
A. Explanation
1. Throughout the Bible God uses every day common people
2. Let’s look at couple of examples
a. Marry
1. Was not fashionable, wealthy or learned
2. She was not a Priestess or a Prophetess
3. Was not from a royal family
4. Was rather a uneventful person
b. Joseph
1. He was not wealthy
2. Not a proud guy, But a simple humble guy
c. The Shepard’s
1. There were consider low class
2. Had no royalty in their blood
3. Were viewed as your basic scum of society
d. A host of Others:
1. David- Remember he killed Goliath
2. Gideon- He Killed all those Medianites using 300 men
3. Moses- the most unfit leader, led the exodus
4. Little lad in Mathew – Gave up his fish and bread.
B. Application
1. God does not care who you are.
2. You want to know why?
3. Because first and foremost you are his child
4. That is all that matters to God
5. That is better then any royalty
6. Better then any position that you could hold
7. God always uses his children!
C. Illustration
1. A couple of years ago several seminary students were studying Billy Grahams sermon’s they came to the conclusion that despite everything that he has accomplished in his life, he is by far not the best preacher. They got to meet Billy Grahams and they ask him why he is so successful. He answered them saying he isn’t successful he is just doing what he God told him to do
8. We need to have the same humble heart as Billy does. God does not want us to be proud.
II. Humble Place’s
A. Explanation
a. Have you ever thought about the town of Bethlehem?
b. After all the savior of the world was born there
c. The town of Bethlehem:
i. Is not a political center or a capitol
ii. Not a great walled city
iii. Not an international place
iv. Not a resort (obviously)
v. This is not exactly Disney World
vi. Don’t even think for a minute this is one of the seven wonders of the world
d. Rest assure this is not the only humble place God used
i. The most famous meal in the whole world, the last supper was held at a rented room
ii. He fed 5000 at a four star restaurant with super waiters…no it was a hillside and 12 disciples
iii. Jesus was buried in his own special tomb, ok actually it was borrowed
iv. You know where many of Paul’s letter’s were written? In a dirty dingy filthy prison
B. Application
a. God is not limited to places
b. You know why?
c. God is omnipresent
d. He is everywhere.
e. God can use my car to reach as many people as he would like
f. God could start a revival that goes around the World in the Church we call our Church Home
C. Illustration
a. God spoke to me in amazing way on August 4, 1992. I’m sure I shared this with you before. I was sitting in the first row…. Let me tell you something about that building, it was 9 years old and already was leaking. It was nothing more then a mettle pole building that people have built for 200 years. The chair was a cheep plastic chair. The prettiest part of the whole building is the Styrofoam CMA logo.
h. God used that place to change me life
i. Had nothing to do with that place it was all God
j. Allow God to do his work wherever he wants!
III. Humble Space’s
A. Explanation
a. Would you like you precious little child to be born were animals ate
i. This manger is not as pretty as we have made it out to be over the years
ii. This is a dirty place
iii. Imagine you have all those animal germs on the manger
b. The ohh so famous swaddling clothes
i. This was not baby Gap clothing
ii. In fact this is not even from the 2nd hand clothing store
iii. This is basically bag-o-rags type clothing
c. Think about other things we would consider to be useless
i. 5 loves 2 fishes – sure that will feed 5000
ii. Old Shepard’s rod – yeah it will move 4932 million gallons of water known as the red sea
B. Application
a. So what can’t god use?
b. God can not use something that has pride
c. A proud object or person God can not use
d. God can use anything that is humble
C. Illustration
a. I’m sure I have told you about my many years of being a counselor at Edinboro. Well one year I came there with the attitude that I have going to save a bunch of kids (have any of you ever saved someone?) of course I did not lead a single kid to Christ that year. The next year I had a more humble attitude and decided I would let God be in control. Sure enough I got to lead 2 people to Christ. Awesome feeling.
e. God can use anything. But not something that is proud.
Conclusion
A. Think about the roots of Christmas, a very humble beginning
B. Christmas has nothing to do with pretty decorations and such
C. Christmas is all about humility
D. This about the humble beginning of our Lord
E. That needs to be our attitude
F. We need to be willing to be Mary or Joseph
G. We need to be willing to be born in Bethlehem
H. We need to be willing to be born in a place were animals eat.
I. Christ was humble, he is the savior of that World
J. WE need to be humble.
