Missing Christmas

If you have your Bibles with you, turn with me if you would to Luke chapter 2 and we're looking at one verse to begin with in verse 7. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, today is Christmas, the day that we celebrate the physical, glorious, miraculous birth of the Son of God. Jesus was born of a virgin. He, unlike us, was born sinless.

He, unlike Adam, stayed sinless. Last night in our Christmas Eve service, we looked at gifts that were given to Jesus. But in this morning's message, we look more at the gift that Jesus gives to us, that is eternal life through a substitutionary atonement.

Jesus died to take our sin and to give us his righteousness, to take our misery and give us his joy, to take our hell and give us his heaven. Today, we're going to focus on people who missed Christmas. Our prayer is that that might not be true of us. Help us to not just focus on food, family and football this Christmas, but that our primary focus will be on Christ. We love you, Lord. We thank you for loving us. And it is in the precious holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Christmas Day came on Sunday this year. And I want to start this sermon with reading you a letter. It was written by a man named Kevin DeYoung. He is a pastor over at Christ Covenant Church, PCA Church in Matthews, North Carolina. He wrote it to the Gospel Coalition, but it's a letter that was written to pastors. He had a title for it. A plea to pastors don't cancel church.

I couldn't agree with Kevin more. This is his letter. Dear Brother Pastor, I hope it's not too late to make you reconsider your decision to cancel church on Christmas. I know that December is crazy busy for you and for everyone else. I know you probably have Christmas Eve businesses, maybe even one that bumps up against midnight. I know that families like to gather Christmas morning to open presents. I know that many of your people may be traveling and others won't come to church on Christmas after coming on Christmas Eve. I know that canceling church for one Sunday will not send all your people slouching to Gomorrah. I know that getting volunteers for the worship team and for the sound system and for the nursery might be challenging. I know that you'd rather not have to work on Christmas when you've already had to work on Christmas Eve.

I know that you may have places to go and families to see. I know that when Christmas falls on Sunday, it's an all around big pain. Why couldn't leap year do us a favor and skip over this problem? But don't do it. Don't cancel all your services on Christmas. Scale back on the nursery perhaps. Take the week off from Sunday school. Make things closer to an hour than an hour and a half. Skip the life groups or even the second service for a day, but don't close the church up on Christmas. You need reasons?

Here are a few. Number one, most people will come back. Even if half of your people don't show up, and I imagine far more than half will be there. In most churches, most of the people will still come to church on Christmas.

And let's not kid ourselves to think that we can encourage everyone to have a meaningful, thoughtfully prepared, do it yourself service at home. Number two, visitors will be looking for a place to worship. Family members from out of town, neighbors, non-Christians, twice a year churchgoers. They may venture into your church on Christmas out of habit, out of curiosity, or just to hear some Christmas songs. Will anyone be there when they show up?

Number three, family is a gift, not a God. I love, love, love waking up on Christmas, doing the advent wreath with the kids, having a big brunch and opening presents with the family. Yes, it will be hectic, get everyone out of the house for church.

Thank you to my wife. Yes, it will mean a delay in all the formal normal festivities, but maybe the normal festivities would not be deemed more important than the festival itself. I want my family to know that we rearrange our schedule for corporate worship. We don't expect corporate worship to be rearranged for us. Number four, it's Christmas for crying out loud. It's the day we celebrate the incarnation, the birth of the Messiah, the entrance into our world of the second person of the Trinity. Don't we want to sing? Don't we want to celebrate?

Don't we want to preach and praise and pray? Number five, it's Sunday for crying out loud, for crying out louder. I don't have a problem with Advent and Christmas. In fact, I love this time of year. I'm not a huge church calendar guy, but I'm not bothered by focusing on the incarnation once every 12 months, especially when the world around us may, by God's kindness, be tuned into some of the same spiritual realities at the same time. But I'm enough of a Puritan to think that December 25th is the Sunday before it's Christmas. It's the Lord's day. It's a resurrection morning. It's the day on which Christians have gathered for 2,000 years to sing the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, and see the Bible in the sacraments. It's the day of the week given for rest and worship. Why would we cancel church on Sunday just because that Sunday is extra special? Maybe you've already printed the Advent schedule.

Maybe the plans are already set, but it's not too late to change your mind. Will your church's ministry crumble without church one Sunday? I doubt it, but might it say something good and healthy about your convictions and your priorities if you gather for corporate worship on December 25th just like you do every other Sunday?

Something to think about. I could not agree more with Kevin DeYoung, but the truth of the matter is there are many churches that did close up for this particular Sunday because it's Christmas. Folks, the lure of our modern day Christmas has absolutely overshadowed what the first Christmas was all about. Now, today what I would like to do is to share with you some of the people and some of the groups of people that had the opportunity to revel in the joy of Christmas, and they totally missed it. They didn't revel in the joy. They missed the joy of Christmas.

I got five of them that I want to share with you. Number one is probably the most obvious, and that is the innkeeper. Let's look at our verse again, verse seven. And she brought her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Now, the picture doesn't specifically mention this man's name, but that night in Bethlehem, an innkeeper was approached by a man with a very expectant wife, and they asked if he could allow them to come in to his inn and stay there with them. And he turned them away and said, absolutely not.

I can't do that. There's no more room. Now, this innkeeper was Jewish, and when he saw that this woman expecting a baby, he knew that was a problem because if a woman had a baby in the place where she was, there was a seven-day time of purification. And nobody could come in to that particular room or that particular inn if that baby had been born because it had not yet been purified. So he was deeply concerned about this.

This was a time when it was very, very busy. He'd had an unbelievable amount of people coming in to stay with him in his inn, and if this happened, he would lose all kinds of money. So he wanted to get Mary out of there as quick as he possibly could. Not only did he turn them away, but he didn't even offer to show them where a midwife could be found or where a doctor could be found. The innkeeper had no room for Jesus, had no time for Jesus either.

So Jesus was born in a stable, laid in the straw of a manger. Joseph had no experience in helping deliver babies. Mary was probably 14, 15 years old. She didn't have much experience either.

This was highly unusual. The Jews were not a barbaric people at all. They were people who had doctors, who had midwives, who had medical supplies. If you go all the way back in their history, remember back when they were in Egypt, the Egyptian women were helping them to deliver their babies, and so there were midwives there.

I think they learned well, and the Jews knew how to deliver babies and how to take care of newborns. But Mary had her baby, and then after the birth had to clean the baby up, put the baby in swaddling clothes, and Joseph was her only help. If this innkeeper had had just a modicum of compassion, then he would have pointed them very quickly or maybe taken her to a midwife, or he would have shared with her where one of his friends lived who might have had a spare bedroom. But the innkeeper missed Christmas because he was preoccupied. It was census time in Bethlehem, and so Bethlehem was filled with people, peoples whose ancestry went all the way back to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem was called the City of David, and the people who were of the house and lineage of David had to go back and sign the census so the taxes could be paid. The town was crowded. The innkeeper was very, very busy. Now, we're not told that he was hostile or that he was unsympathetic to Mary, but it's just busy. Like thousands and probably millions of people in our world are today, they're busy.

They have a lot of activity. It might not be sinful activity, but just busy. How many in today's world miss Christmas because they're busy? All right, the second one who missed the first Christmas was Herod. Go back into Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 2, verse 1 through 8. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who's been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child.

When you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. King Herod was very different from the innkeeper. The innkeeper had no idea who he was rejecting. Herod knew exactly who he was rejecting. Herod pretended that he wanted to worship the new, this newborn baby. He wanted to worship him. That's the indication he gave, but it's not really how he felt. He was being motivated completely by fear. He did not want competition for his throne. The scripture says that he was troubled.

That's a Greek word, terrazzo, that means to be agitated, to be stirred up, to be shaken up. He was panicked. So the innkeeper was preoccupied, but Herod was moved by fear. Herod was a consummate politician.

He did everything he could to get the favor of Rome. He called himself the King of the Jews, and he kept that title until the day of his death. No wonder he panicked when the Magi came into town.

And the first question they asked was where is he who was born King of the Jews? Jesus was just a baby at that time, a newborn. Herod was an old man at that time. He would have been dead long before Jesus became an adult, yet he's still filled with fear.

The paranoia of Herod was legendary. He was afraid that one of his two eldest sons might, might try to take his throne. So what did he do? He had both of them executed. He had another one of his sons executed five days before his own death because he thought he might be after his throne.

One of the most evil things that he ever did was this. On the day before he died, he had several of the most beloved and well-known people in Jerusalem thrown in jail. And he said, when I die, I want you to bring them out of jail, and I want you to execute them quickly.

He said, because I know nobody's going to cry over my death, but they'll certainly cry over their death, and then there will be tears shed on the day that I die. So even at his death, there was a great slaughter. The order that he gave to his soldiers when the Magi did not return and come back to him with a message of where the newborn baby was, that was, that order was one of the most wicked orders that the world has ever seen. He ordered that all the male babies in Bethlehem that were two years old or, or younger, that they all be slaughtered and killed. It was a prophecy that was given by Jeremiah 500 years before it actually happened, but it created unbelievable heartache for the people in Bethlehem. Mothers had their babies ripped out of their hands, and those babies, those male baby boys were, were murdered, slaughtered right before their eyes.

Fathers were trying to protect their little baby sons, and they would get knocked down by the soldiers, maybe knocked out, maybe even had their own lives taken. For what? For Herod's absolute paranoid jealousy.

Herod missed Christmas. Why? Because of fear. Is that true for any of us?

John MacArthur had an answer for that question. Listen to what he said. There are Herod types even in our society. Herod's fear was that someone else would take his throne.

Lots of people are like him. They won't allow anything to interfere with their career, their position, their power, their ambition, their plans, or their lifestyle. They are not about to let someone else be king of their lives. They see Jesus as a threat, and so they miss Christmas.

People don't mind taking off work to commemorate Jesus' birth. They'll even embrace him as a resource when they get in trouble. They might gladly accept him as a spiritual benefactor. They're even willing to add him to their lives and call themselves Christians, but not if he insists on being king.

That might be a threat to their lifestyle or career or whatever else they're hanging on to. They are as fearful and as jealous of losing their own self-determination as Herod was of losing his throne. They will guard at all costs their own priorities, their own values, their own morals. They won't come to Christ if he threatens to cramp their style. They will not accept his right to rule over them. They want to run the show.

The world is full of people who cry out, we do not want this man to reign over us. The third group of people who missed Christmas were the religious leaders, Matthew 2 verses 4 through 6. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the child was to be born. They told him and Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written, and you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Now this is the one that should shock all of us. This group are the so-called theologians. They studied the scripture. These are the theological aristocracy.

These are the religious elite. They knew what the scripture said. They knew what the scripture said about where Jesus would be born, that he would be born in Bethlehem, Micah chapter 5 verse 2. They knew what kind of person he would be, that he would be a prophet as one. For in Deuteronomy chapter 18, we are told by Moses that God was going to raise up a prophet that would be like unto him. They also knew the testimony of Genesis.

In Genesis, after Adam and Eve sinned, we have Genesis 3.15, which we call the proto euangelion, or the first gospel. God was cursing Satan, and God said this to Satan. He said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.

You will bruise his heel, but he shall crush your head. From the day that Rome took power over Israel, the people cried out for deliverance. They wanted to be free. They did not want Rome ruling over them, and they believed that the one who could set them free was the Messiah, that he would be their deliverer. Now, we see the truth of this because so many people came to hear what John the Baptist had to say, huge crowds of thousands and thousands of people. And what was John's message? John's message was this, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent because the Lamb of God has come. Repent that you might know and love this new king.

Repent that you might understand who the Messiah is. And yet, here were these theological experts, the so-called guardians of the truth, who never even bothered to walk five miles down the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem so they could see whether these rumors were true or not, that the Messiah had been born. Why did they miss Christmas? They missed Christmas because they were apathetic. They didn't care. It didn't matter to them.

They had Scripture. They heard the news, but they were indifferent. They just did not care.

They were satisfied with their lot in life. They did not really want a Messiah. What's even worse, they thought they didn't really need a Messiah. Let me tell you something, that's the epitome of self-righteousness.

The root of indifference is pride. They ignored Jesus at his birth. They mocked him when he preached. They mocked him when he healed the sick. They mocked him when he cast out demons.

And then when they couldn't do anything about him, they nailed him to a cross and they thought that would be his end. They ignored Jesus. Folks, indifference is a profound sin against Christ.

I see it every day with people that I come in contact with and that I've talked with. And these people don't really want a Savior because they don't think they need a Savior. They look at their own life and they say, well, I do a lot of good things and I believe that at the end of my life that when I'm judged before God that God will weigh out the good things I've done against the bad things I've done and then he will accept me, bring me into his heaven because I'm actually a good person.

Folks, that's a lie. Paul said there is none righteous, no, not one that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. James said if we've offended in one point then we are guilty of all. I was at a funeral not long ago and I heard a pastor make what I thought was a very interesting statement. He said some people believe in salvation by death.

I thought, what in the world does he mean by that? He means that some people live a life of just debauchery. They don't care a thing about church. They don't care a thing about Christ. They ignore him all their life.

They do what they want to do. They live like they want to live and they just go through life like that. And then all of a sudden when they die, the preacher declares that they're fine. The preacher declares in a funeral service, this person is finally with the Lord. There's no more suffering. There's no more sorrow for him. He is with the Lord. He is with his friends. He's with his family. He's with the Lord.

Man, what a lie that is. Folks, these people not only miss Christmas but they miss heaven as well. Fourth group that missed the first Christmas were the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Look in chapter 2 of Luke verses 8 through 20. In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. Finally there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on peace among those with whom he is pleased. When the angel went away from them into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. They went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. When they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. Out of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, God picked a band of shepherds to be the ones that would go to the manger and worship the newborn king. That's intriguing because shepherds were among the lowest and among the most socially despised people in all of Israel.

Now these particular shepherds were a little bit different because the sheep that they shepherded were sheep that were going to be sacrificed in Jerusalem at the temple on the Passover time and other special days. But yet, they were still lowly shepherds. They lived out in the pasture. They slept in the caves. They socialized with pretty much nobody but other shepherds.

They were in the pasture seven days a week, 24 hours a day. But the shepherds were the ones that the angels came to, to proclaim to them the birth of the Son of God. The angel came not to King Herod. The angel came not to the high priest.

But the angels came not to the learned rabbis, but to the shepherds, to the shepherds. The shepherds were led to the stable where they got down on their knees before the newborn king and they bowed before him and they worshiped him. Daniel had prophesied the time of Jesus' birth. Micah had prophesied the place of Jesus' birth.

Everyone in Israel was talking about it. But when Jesus was born, the only ones that were there at the stable were the shepherds. So why did Jerusalem miss Christmas?

I think they missed Christmas because of religion, because of religion. The people of Jerusalem were very religious. The temple was there in Jerusalem. If you were going to sacrifice to God, you had to go to Jerusalem and you had to worship at the temple. The people were so busy with religious ritual that they missed the reality. They were so preoccupied with washings and legal minutia and other externals that they missed the whole message. So when Jesus came, he just didn't fit their system.

He didn't fit what they thought was important. Folks, religion is a deadly trap. Rituals and rules enable people to feel spiritual when they're really not. Religious activity is not the same as genuine righteousness.

How many people do I know who've been in the church for years and years and they think that what's really important is just going through the motions of church? I want you to know that's not all that's important. I want you to know that what's important is hearing the gospel and responding with brokenness to the gospel. I want you to know that what's important is that your ears be opened and your heart be opened and that your eyes be opened to the truth of what God did 2,000 years ago by sending his son to be born in a manger, to live a perfect and sinless life, to die on a cross, to be resurrected from the dead.

That's what's important that you submit your life to the lordship of that Messiah. Jerusalem missed Christmas because they had religion but they did not have a relationship. Fifthly, the people of Nazareth missed Christmas. Mark chapter 6 and verse 6, Jesus went into Nazareth where he grew up. He preached the word of God there.

He did miracles, some miracles there, not as many as he did in other places. But the scripture tells us about his reaction to the response of these people. These were his hometown people. He grew up in Nazareth. And in Mark 6, 6 the scripture says, and he marveled because of their unbelief. The people who Jesus knew best, these people grew up with Jesus.

They watched Jesus and you can rest assure this, they never saw him sin because Jesus never sinned. They rejected him. They tried to kill him.

I call that missing Christmas. What was their problem? Their problem was familiarity. They thought they knew him but they did not know his heart. They did not know his character. And they did not know his true identity. They thought, oh, this is Jesus.

Yeah, we know him. He is the illegitimate son of Joseph and Mary. They did not understand that he was the virgin born son of God. In John chapter 1 verse 11, John said that he came into his own but his own received him not. John MacArthur said this, familiarity mixed with unbelief is a deadly thing. Whenever people tell me that they were raised in a Christian home but have rejected the faith, I cringe at that. Familiarity strangles conviction. Perhaps the most tragic sin of all is the unbelief of a person who has heard all the sermons, sat through all the Bible lessons, knows all the Christmas story but still rejects Christ.

There is no gospel, no good news for such a person because he already knows and rejects the truth that would set him free. What a sad, sad way to miss Christmas. What about you? Have you been missing Christmas? I'm not asking you if you got presents or not. I know you probably did. I'm not asking if you're going to have a big dinner.

I know you probably will but you know in your heart if you're no different than the innkeeper or Herod, the religious leaders, the people of Jerusalem or the people of Nazareth. What was wrong with these people? Why did they miss Christmas? They were busy. They were fearful. They were apathetic.

They were religious and they had familiarity but not knowing the true identity of Christ. You don't have to miss Christmas. You don't have to miss another one. You say, Doug, what do I do not to miss Christmas? You come to Christ. You trust him as your Lord and Savior. Well, what about him do you trust? You trust that he died on that cross for you, that he died in order that he might take your sin and give you his righteousness and then he rose from the dead to break the power of death over you so that you would never die, so that you would die and physically and immediately go into the presence of the Lord.

Friends, you do that today. You bow before him and submission to him. He will forgive your sin. He will change your life and you will have the greatest Christmas that you've ever had.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for Christmas. It's the day we celebrate the incarnation, the day we put aside the unnecessary and focus on the truly necessary. Today we saw people who missed the first Christmas, the innkeeper, Herod, the religious leaders, people of Jerusalem, the people of Nazareth. We pray that you will keep us from doing the same thing. We give presents to each other. We celebrate with our families. We take a break from work, but may the over and above all focus on Jesus, for it's in the precious and holy name of Jesus that I pray. Amen.