Why no Room in the Inn - 12

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Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au Today, Dr. David Jeremiah considers its significance. Listen, as David shares today's message, why no room in the inn? I want to wrap my thoughts today around one very simple verse of Scripture found in the second chapter of Luke. Luke chapter 2 and verse 7. Luke chapter 2 and verse 7. Let's read together.

And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Something very incredible is going to happen, happen right here, right here among us all. Every store in America is going to close for 24 hours. Only emergency workers will be at work. Families with small children will get up earlier than any other day of the entire year.

The streets and the freeways will be empty. Over $233 billion worth of gifts will be exchanged among the people of America. And all of this is explained by something that happened 2000 years ago in an obscure village described in the Bible as little among the thousands of Judah. Whatever you may think about Christmas, you have to admit that this is an amazing story. Even people who don't claim to believe in God will celebrate Christmas as described in Luke chapter 2. They will give gifts to one another without even realizing that in the very doing of that, they are honoring the Christ who many of them claim not even to believe in. There's really nothing like it in all of history and in all of culture.

Christmas is truly a magnificent occasion. One of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, tells about a situation that happened one time in New York in 1947. He said there was a snowstorm that year that seemed no different than any other snowstorm.

The flakes floated gently down without any wind to drive them and all day the snow fell. Gradually the sidewalks and the parked cars and the buildings were covered with a blanket of white and the streets became slushy and the shopkeepers were out with their shovels trying to clear a path for folks to walk to their doorway and the snow just kept on falling. And the plows couldn't keep ahead of it and consequently the traffic nearly came to a standstill and businesses closed and people did their best to get home before nightfall. By the next morning, bustling New York was a totally different city.

We were in New York and I tried to imagine what this would have been like seeing all of the incredible commerce and traffic that goes on there during this season of the year. Buechner continues, he says, abandoned cars were buried. People just got out of them and walked away from them and left them in the middle of the street.

Nothing on wheels could move. About midday, skiers were gliding down Park Avenue and the most striking transformation of all, he said, was the absolute incredible silence. The only sounds were muffled voices and ringing church bells and people listened because they couldn't help themselves. Our world today, he wrote, rarely listens anymore unless there's a crisis of significant magnitude that thrusts a wrench in the wheels of our high-speed technological society. But Buechner said on that day, in New York at least, the world stopped for a moment to listen. And there is an annual illustration of this silence that we all experience.

Have you ever gotten a toy for your children or grandchildren that needed batteries and the batteries didn't come with the toy? It's the only time of the year when we all salute 7-Eleven because it's the only place you can find. And when you go, I've done this more times than I can remember, and you go out and it's just such an eerie thing because nobody is on the street. When Christmas comes, even without any biblical information, the whole world stops for a moment to listen.

And there is no explanation for it except for the fact that an event happened 2,000 years ago from which we have still not been able to recover. People ask me why we fight for Christmas and what difference does it make if they would just stop and observe, they would realize this is a magnificent occasion. I am a little boy at heart when it comes to this time of the year and I hope it never changes. The excitement and the mystery of the season begins to build up in me to the point where, yeah, I'm the one who said, okay, we can have an ice skating rink in front of our church, you know.

Christmas brings all of that out of us and where does it come from? It goes all the way back to that little verse of Scripture that we read at the beginning of today's message. And Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling claws and laid him in a manger. If you think what you're to experience is a magnificent occasion, friends, let me tell you it doesn't even come close to the magnificent occasion that started all of this.

For that magnificent occasion brought together two worlds that had never intersected before. On that night when Mary brought forth her firstborn child who was the son of God, for the very first time ever, deity invaded humanity. Colossians tells us the story like this. It says that Christ is the image of the invisible God. For it pleased the Father that in Christ all the fullness of God should dwell.

Colossians 2, 9 says, for in him, in Christ, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Never before in all of the annals of history had God ever so visited man that he would deign to come and be born into a human flesh and become one of us. Deity literally came to be humanity.

He never lost his deity but he was God in the flesh. And that night when Jesus was born started this celebration that we're all experiencing right now when God, who loved us so much, sent his only son to be one of us. And God became a man and he walked around and I've said it over the years, Jesus Christ is nothing less than God walking around in a body. He came to be one of us.

In Christ, in Jesus, in the baby dwells the fullness of the Godhead in the body. This was the moment when God became a man. Suppose it hadn't happened. Suppose we lived in the generation prior to its happening. And suppose that we could get some advance notice that on some particular day in some particular place Almighty God was going to condescend from heaven and become a man and walk among us so that we could understand who God is in human terms. We would celebrate his coming in the biggest party of all time. We would probably gather in a place like New York or Los Angeles or Paris or some place around the world that is notable and a huge celebration would be prepared because God was coming to be one of us. God was leaving heaven to come and be one of us and we would celebrate that event. Well, I'm here to tell you God has come.

The party's already started. God has become a man. On that day, when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, deity invaded humanity. But something else happened. On that night, when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, eternity invaded time.

Let me set it up for you. We understand life in terms of days and minutes and hours and months and years. God in his experience knows nothing of that. God does not live in time. God created time. God lives outside of time. In God and in his perspective, everything is in the present. Everything is in the now.

It is only humans who are linear. We see things looking back and looking forward. God does not see that. God sees everything in the eternal present. God, who is eternal, on that particular day determined for his eternal being to be confined for a few years in time.

It's an amazing thought. Eternity becoming time. God, who eternally existed with the Father, chose for a few years to come down and be confined in the boundaries of time that pressure us every day of our lives. We know that pressure perhaps more during this season than any other time of the year. We're mindful of schedules and times and events and parties and deadlines.

And when the stores finally close for the last time, it's an eternal scar in the minds of men all over the country. But God knew nothing of that. God lived above time. God lived beyond time. But on that night, God was willing, as the eternal Son of God, without giving up his eternality, to come and be born into humanity. And for the years he walked upon this earth to live in the boundaries of time. Micah the prophet, who gave us the prophecy concerning the birthplace of Jesus in Micah 5-2, says it this way. Yet out of you, Bethlehem, shall come forth to me the one who is to be the ruler in Israel, now watch this, whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting. Please hear me, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he did not begin.

He had always been. On one occasion as an adult, Jesus spoke to some leaders and he said an astounding thing. He said, before Abraham was, I am. And they were confounded by that. How could he, Jesus in his thirties, be older than Abraham?

But they missed the whole point. What Jesus was saying was that before he was born in Bethlehem, he eternally existed. Jesus did not come to begin his existence in Bethlehem. He came to begin his existence in humanity, having had existed for all eternity. There never has been a time when Jesus did not exist, nor will there ever be a time when he ceases to exist. He is the eternal Son of God. But listen to me, the eternal Son of God determined for our benefit, for your benefit, for all of our benefit, to come down here in his eternal being and confine his activities to the days and months and hours and years of time as we know it. What a magnificent occasion when deity invaded humanity and eternity invaded time.

And then thirdly, not only did deity invade humanity and eternity invade time, but royalty invaded poverty. How rich is God? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and wealth in every mine.

How much richer can you be? He created it all. He owns it all. We may think we have a piece of the action, but we're just stewards for a short period of time. The ultimate owner of everything in all the universe is Almighty God. If you believe you own some of it, somehow we need to connect in the next 150 years and see how you're doing.

Because we only have it for a short period of time, and then it goes back to the owner or back to the next steward. God owns it all. He owns everything. And heaven is the place that is significant of his wealth. The Bible says to us in 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 9 that because of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, he became poor for our sakes, that we through his poverty might become rich. Wrap your mind around that verse for a moment, that not only did deity invade humanity and eternity invade time, but royalty invaded poverty. On that day, the God who had lived in the unrestricted confines of heaven, adorned in the royal robes of deity, came to be born as one of us in a stable, in a manger. He became poor, says the scripture, that through his poverty one day we might be rich. The unmeasured word of creation was coming to talk with shepherds and fishermen on Galilean hillsides and shores, and the light that once had blinded a wandering people in the wilderness was reduced to the little flicker of life in the breast of a baby. Heaven's throne was about to be removed and turned into a wooden manger, and the one who sat upon the throne would shortly know hunger and cold and would assume the life of a servant. God was about to be born in Mary, and because he was willing to humble himself and become a man, because he was willing to become a man even to die, because through his death we have life. He who was once in the throne room of heaven, surrounded by the accouterments of wealth, came to be born to a peasant woman. So poor were Joseph and Mary that when they went to the temple to offer their sacrifice, they had to bring a turtledove, which was the least sacrifice anyone could bring to worship. And in his birth he found as his bed a trough for the feeding of animals, and his first guess, the despised, shepherds from the hillside.

Think of his wealth and think of his poverty. He came down here to be one of us, and he didn't start in the middle class nor in the upper class. He started at the lowest echelon of human experience so that no one would ever feel that they were too insignificant to come and receive him as their savior. And then this magnificent occasion in this little verse of scripture we read at the beginning of our message is set off against the most amazing thought in the whole story. The eternal one who invaded time, deity who invaded humanity, royalty who invaded poverty, came to be born, and the scripture says there was no room for him in the inn.

There was no room for him in the inn. The eternal God, the wealthy one, the rich one, came to be born and they could find no place for him. As you know, because of Herod's decree, everyone should go to their own town for a census. The little town of Bethlehem was overrun with aunts and uncles and cousins, many times removed.

The scene was a cross between a great family reunion and a business convention. Even with the makeshift inns and hotels that had sprung up overnight, there just wasn't enough room for everyone to have a bed. Late-coming travelers coming to Bethlehem would surely see the no-vacancy sign flashing off and on. Someone has suggested, you think there were crowds in Bethlehem? Just suppose they knew what we now know. What would the crowds have been like then?

If they had known what we know, that this one who was being born in their midst was the eternal son of God, you talk about no vacancies. We're into split-screen images in our culture today. Put this up on the screen of your mind. The Lord Jesus in heaven seated next to his father in royal regalia. A baby in a stinking feed trough, born to a peasant woman, surrounded by sheep and shepherds. Only God could have written a story like that. We would never in our wildest dream have ever imagined this magnificent story and this missed opportunity. Why was there no room in the inn?

I wrote a little book for Christmas called, Why the Nativity? And one of the questions in the book is, why was there no room in the inn? I mean, let's face it friends, if Almighty God could create a unique star from a distant galaxy to invite wise men from the east, if he could do that, I mean, couldn't God find just one vacant room for his son to be born? You would think so. Or God build a new hotel.

Whatever. We don't know all the reasons, but there's some things we can say. The Lord of Creation chose to enter this world quietly. It was by heavenly design that he came into the world, not in the relative comfort of the inn, but in some farmer's seedy shed.

A homeless birth was part and parcel of a homeless life. One day, many years later, when Jesus was an adult, someone had come to him and said, Lord, we'll follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said, in Luke 9, 58, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

His words bear a touch of sadness. The life of Jesus was a long road that began in the stable and led to the cross and finally, of course, to an empty tomb. Accepting humanity's rejection, even in his birth, Jesus sent a message of love to the world. We would not afford him as much as a cramped closet. We had no room for him, no time to stop and worship, no interest in a peasant child. But that same child, for whom we had no room, came here to find room for us. He would one day reserve accommodations for each of us who would put our faith in him in the inn that awaits us on the eternal shores of heaven. And before leaving on that final journey, Jesus one day said to his disciples, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Where is Jesus now? He is in heaven making rooms for us who found no room for him. He is the magnificent Savior of Christmas. And he asks us now, who listen to this story and experience it every year, if we will find room for him. Let's don't be too hard on the innkeeper.

Let's don't be too judgmental on someone who was just in the course of life as he knew it, carrying out the merchandising of his day. When we apply that to our own hearts, we have to ask ourselves this question, do we have room for him? One of the favorite hymns of the young people of our church and of young people across the nation is, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It was written by a man named Robert Robinson, who accepted Christ and to his life at the age of 17 under the preaching of a great evangelist by the name of George Whitefield. Robinson was deeply in love with the Lord and he entered the ministry to give his life to Christ in service. But Robinson was an honest man and he had to face up to the fact that while he had a great love for Jesus, he wasn't a very dependable follower of Jesus. He would go off into long periods of sin and rejection and then he would feel guilty and he would be broken about it and he would come back to the Lord.

We all know what that's about, don't we? Many of us have been on that journey at one time or another. Perhaps some of you in that journey right now, you love the Lord, you know the Lord knows that you love him, but somehow your life just hasn't measured up recently to all of the things you know are a part of your walk with Christ.

Well, that's the way this man was. Sometimes he felt nothing at all for the Lord, even though he knew that in his heart he had accepted Christ. One day he began to write out his thoughts about his life as you would write in a journal and he ended up writing out the words to this hymn, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And part of the words to the second stanza of that hymn go like this, Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. He was saying, Lord, I have this propensity to wander and to get away from you. All of us understand that.

We know that even though we love God and we worship Christ, that we get caught up sometimes in the cultural pressures of every day and they pull us away from the intimacy that we desire with our Lord. That's what he was going through. And he wrote all those words down over a period of time. He really got away from God to the point where he came to the conclusion that he had sinned away the day of grace in his life and that God wouldn't want anything to do with him anymore because of the way he was living and he was so terrified by it all and it was so internalized in his spirit that he just decided to run. You have to stop for a moment and ask about the intelligence of anyone who thinks they can run away from God but this is what he tried to do.

He just ran. He just filled his life with travel and he would just go from one place to the next barely having enough to sustain himself but just not ever wanting to stop long enough to think about what was wrong between him and God. One day in his journeys he found himself on a stagecoach and there was only one other passenger on the stagecoach. It was a young lady. And of course if you've seen the old western movies you know that in the stagecoach you don't sit in rows facing the same way. You sit together, one person here, one person here and you have to sit looking at each other wherever you're going. Well this young lady was so full of the joy of Jesus she just couldn't keep quiet about it and it was the last thing in the world that Robert Robinson wanted.

He did not want any of that. If you've ever been out of fellowship with God you know you don't want to go to church, you don't want to be with Christians, you don't want to read your Bible, stay away from me, leave me alone. Well she couldn't help it. She was so filled with the joy of the Lord she just bubbled over and over the trail he couldn't shut her up. Back in those days they used to have their devotional times not only in the Bible but in hymn books. And she had her hymn book with her and she was reading this hymn and she said to him, Robert I want you to look at this hymn that I found that's meant so much to me and tell me what you think of it. And she turned the hymn book around and gave it to him and it was the hymn he had written. Come thou fount of every blessing prone to wander Lord I feel it. And she noticed the tears coming down his cheeks and she thought he had just gotten blessed by the hymn. When in reality Almighty God had used the hymn to once again say to Robert Robinson, you may have walked away from me but I have never walked away from you.

And the message of Christmas is that very message. He came from heaven to be one of us. He loves us, he forgives us, he welcomes us back. No matter where we've been or what journey we've been on away from him if he is our savior and if God is our father his arms are eternally extended outwardly to us telling us to come home. And I happen to believe that Jesus is the hound of heaven and he will send a woman to a stagecoach with the right hymn at the right moment to bring somebody back to him who he loves. Has the thought ever crossed your mind that perhaps this message, this moment is just for you?

If you feel it in your heart it's probably true. We hope you enjoyed today's Turning Point weekend edition with Dr David Jeremiah. To hear this and other Turning Point programs or to get more information about this ministry simply download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smart device or visit our website at davidgeramiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidgeramiah.org slash radio. You can also view Turning Point television on Frida Air Channel 7 too Sunday mornings at 8 and on ACC TV Sundays at 6 30 a.m. and Friday afternoons at 1. We invite you to join us again next weekend as Dr David Jeremiah shares another powerful message from God's Word here on Turning Point weekend edition.