Make Room for the King
Christmas requires more than planning meals and wrapping gifts – it demands spiritual preparation to truly receive Christ. Just as John the Baptist called people to repentance before Jesus’s ministry, we need to ready our hearts to meet the grown-up Jesus, not just celebrate the baby in the manger. This preparation involves reading Scripture, developing consistent prayer habits, and actively sharing the Gospel with others. The joy of Christmas becomes complete when we prepare room in our hearts for the King.
Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:00] good evening we’re in we’re in Luke three tonight kind of and it’s gonna be probably a slightly different sermon to what I was planning and probably what you’re expecting otherwise let me know at the end if you like that’s exactly what I was expecting I’d be thrilled to hear that and extremely surprised I’ve been thinking about Christmas and I got really excited this morning when at the end of the service Nick said something about you should be getting prepared for Christmas because that’s exactly what I’m planning on talking about tonight about how we can be preparing for Christmas and I hadn’t mentioned it to him but I thought that was great and I’m always preparing and thinking about this the the words of joy to the world came to me where it says you know joy to
[00:00:54] the world the Lord has come but Earth receive her King and it says let every heart prepare him room and I thought that’s a good thing for us to do and hopefully tonight you’ll get something that will give you a thought that you can follow and pursue in preparing for Christmas this year. And so to begin with I’m going to read you about 20 verses out of Luke 3 which is not the Christmas story, it’s not before the Christmas story, it’s a little bit of a weird reading I think for this type of a message but that’s where we are and yeah we’re gonna do that. If you’re using the Pew Bible it’s page 858 I believe so hopefully that helps someone out there and yeah we’ll do that and we’ll pray and we’ll hopefully hear something from God tonight. So it says
[00:01:46] in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrarch of the region of Aetu Rea and Trachonitis and Lysenius Tetrarch of Abilene during the high priesthood of Anas and Caiaphas the Word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. So this is John the Baptist and he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make his path straight every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be
[00:02:30] made low and the crooked shall become straight and the rough places shall become level ways and all flesh shall see the salvation of God and he said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him you brood of vipers it’s pretty cool way to start a sermon who warned you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruits in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, god is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good food is cut down and thrown into the fire. And the crowds asked him what then shall we do? So they were being convicted, and he answered them, whoever has two tunics is to share with
[00:03:15] him who has none and whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, teacher what shall we do. And he said to them, spectacle no more than you are authorized to do. And soldiers also asked him and we what shall we do. And he said to them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. Well as the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ. John answered them all saying I baptise you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming. the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
[00:03:56] His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people, but Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison. Alright, I’m going to presume at least some of us
[00:04:24] are a little confused. But let’s pray. Dear God, we thank you for your goodness and your grace, and we thank you for your word, and we ask now that you would honour it, and that you would be glorified in the next period of time that we spend here. We pray that you’ll speak to our hearts and minds, and bless us in our endeavor to hear from you and to honor you with our lives going forward.
[00:04:47] We ask that you would be here, convict, challenge, change, and encourage us. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen. Okay, so in our house, we like Christmas. We’ve got three girls, and then there’s Christine, my wife, and I’m fairly fond of Christmas as well. I’m not an ultra-grinch, okay? So at the moment, one of my ambitions is to add Christmas lights every year to our place, and I think what we’re doing is the most home brand version
[00:05:16] of good Christmas lights you’ve ever seen, so they’re not actually good Christmas lights. It’s just more lights, I think, is really what we’re doing. But that’s you’ve gotta have a hobby, and that’s at the moment one of mine. But Christmas reminds me of happy times, of fun things, of joking, of lots of food, and of having family together. I’m the youngest in a large family, and this is one of the times that every second year
[00:05:40] family still meets up. But it reminds me every year about what it was like when I was a kid. And maybe that’s the same for some of you. So growing up, my dad was a pastor. And so most of the time he would preach Christmas morning. In fact, possibly every year until at least my mid-teens, I was trying to think of when he didn’t and I couldn’t think of one. And I, so maybe every year. And sometimes we would go to church and then as a special Christmas surprise, not surprise, but as a special treat, we would then get in a car and drive from Cairns to Rockhampton. So if anyone has done that trip, it was a lot of fun during a childhood in which my dad did not believe that air conditioning was necessary. So we lived in Cairns for six years with no air conditioning in a car. That’s a whole other thing. And maybe some of you just went, aha, that explains a few things. But so we would
[00:06:33] have a church, go to church, come home and drive a thousand Ks because you do. So that’s a great way to spend Christmas. But we also had lots of celebration. Okay. So that’s not the main focus here. But my parents actually had a farm about 110 kilometres south of Rockhampton. They actually live there now. But in Rockhampton were my dad’s parents. So my grandparents. And they were like, I really valued these guys, right? So we didn’t have a lot of money. And they were a major source of confectionery to me in my youth. And they were also a very dependable source of $5 notes in birthday cards. And when we visited them, I often would score some coins. So basically, they were financing my entire, you know, childhood. And I appreciated that and I still do to this day. So my granddad and I also shared a love of cricket. And I won’t say that it was Travis Head, not Travis Murphy, or anything like that. But at times we would, you know,
[00:07:34] so Christmas time, I presume you all know that there’s lots of cricket on in Australia over Christmas, right? So not on Christmas Day, praise God yet. But you know, the Boxing Day test and often before it. And so we would watch these games of cricket, whether it be the test matches, which I still love, and I’m indoctrinating some children in that way at the moment. Or if it was the one day which was still huge when I was a kid, but we would sometimes have a different take on things. So for example, we would be watching a game and he would see Craig McDermott as a foolish batsman, right? So Craig McDermott was an Australian fast bowler for those of you who are uneducated. He would bat normally at around about number 10, which is the second last person in the list. Basically means this guy knows which way to hold a bat, but not what to do with it afterwards. And what would happen is he would just, my granddad would get quite frustrated.
[00:08:27] He would just be like, what’s he doing? Whereas I could really appreciate that what Craig McDermott had done out there was he had faced four balls and he had gotten out for 14, but he had gone four, six, four, and then out. And I loved it. And my granddad was like, what are you doing, mate? That’s just a horror show. Okay. My grandma was this fantastic lady also who could get, she could have a hot meal ready from the oven, like no microwave, like microwaves, like, you know, what’s that thing? Regardless of what time we arrived there. Okay. So like, it doesn’t matter if it was like 11 o’clock at night or 12 o’clock at night. It was like, ready to go. Hey, you know, however many of us they were at this time, I’m the youngest, so it dwindled over time, right? But like, it didn’t matter if there was nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, or three of us. Here’s like a full meal ready to go that I just thought,
[00:09:17] you know, at 10 o’clock, why don’t I start cooking? Anyway, and this is when she’s like into, you know, like a 70s or whatever. So that’s the sort of, the sort of people that they were. So we’d make this trek and we’d spend time in Rocky with the family. And when I was younger, there were two of my aunts who lived interstate, one in Adelaide and one in Perth, and they would come back to Rockhampton for Christmas as well. So we’d all meet up in Rockhampton. There was actually another aunt in Rocky as well. So we had this sort of extended family, to some degree sort of thing happening here. So all of this required preparation, right. For it to be enjoyed fully. There was a lot of preparation that went on. So the drive. Just the fact of getting there, that drive was preceded by preparation of the car. Okay, so the oil and tyres were checked, and the car was filled with petrol and I might just add at about 70 cents a
[00:10:07] liter for petrol like toward the end of the 90s and about 30 cents or less for gas for those of you playing at home. So the bags had to be packed as well because it’s not great driving a thousand Ks and realising you’ve got nothing to wear for the next week. Okay? If you’ve ever done that on camp you’ll know that creativity comes into play at that point. Then the kids had to be ready right? So mentally that drive could be brutal. Okay? I’m telling you now thousand Ks with no air conditioning in the middle of the day in the middle of December. Rock on. They were good times to be had there and we we weren’t a stop every two hours kind of family. Okay? You know there’s people that do that I’m like cool so your holiday’s in your car that’s what it that’s what it feels like
[00:10:49] to me. Stops were done because they were essential. Okay? This was strictly fill the tank with fuel, run to the toilet and off we go. Okay? That’s basically how we functioned and it was a great system and wish my kids could understand how much I enjoyed that system now. But on rare occasions we were fortunate enough about roughly three hours out of Cairns there was this place called the Frosty Mango and we would occasionally stop there for their amazing mango thick shakes. A place so good that it was a must-stop both ways recently a few years ago when I took Christine and the kids to Cairns. Anyway that’s actually a side story. That’s just a hint for you if you’re ever traveling there. But the food for Christmas in that whole period had to be prepared and planned for as well.
[00:11:37] Okay? So you couldn’t just rock up on the day and find things magically done even though as a kid I’m pretty much certain that’s what I thought happened. We just rock up it’s ready to go. You know? Can you relate to that as like a kid you just I don’t know about you but the levels of respiration of Christmas from my perspective pretty much nil let’s be honest. Anyway someone was getting this done in the background. So there’s thought that had to go into the day about what the day is about, what we need, who’s coming. Just basic thoughts. Who’s coming? How many people? The food. What food are we going to eat? How does it need to be prepared? How much do we need? When’s it happening? You know you can’t buy your fruit six weeks in advance. That ends poorly. Watermelon’s not good
[00:12:20] frozen and deep frosted, trust me. You need to think about how much cutlery or what are you gonna do? How you gonna serve it? What are you gonna use? Cups or glasses? Are you using disposable stuff? I don’t even know if you’re allowed to say that. I might get stuff thrown at me for saying that nowadays but you know is there any special stuff that you’re gonna have if you’re going to put things on the tables are you going to have bonbons and of course being the youngest grandchild on that side of the family. A very privileged position I can assure you. There was also the thought that went into the presence. Oh, in true, you know, being truthful with you. A box of chocolates and a pack of lollies probably would have done me, to be honest. That was gonna make me happy. But wow, I
[00:13:01] frequently received these fantastic new clothes. A small library of cricket books that I never read. And I had enough cap guns to play games that you could probably now be cancelled for naming, let alone actually playing. And now, in my adulthood, we’ve actually hosted Christmas a couple of times, right? So now it makes so much more sense to think about what actually goes into this. There is so much work that can be put into these, okay? So Christine has to do all that, like I’m doing nothing, okay? Let’s be honest. I basically have to put out like 10 chairs and we’re done. That’s my job at Christmas. In fact, this Christmas we’re hosting a small crew. And yesterday, right, so I’ve written some of this stuff beforehand, and yesterday when I got home from cricket with Elizabeth, Hannah and
[00:13:48] Christine were planning the food for this year. And I was like, fantastic, we’re onto something here. So it was an impressive list, okay? But they were taking their time, and they thought about what was going on, and they began preparing. So there’s a lot of preparation that goes into these celebrations. So if you’re used to just rocking up on Christmas, by the way, it might be worth just having a quick think about how you can contribute this year because it’s not actually just magic. The fun stuff, right? So this is the preparation that’s just going into the fun stuff. So much preparation, so much organization. Cooking before the day, you know, any like desserts and you know biscuits, because cookies is an American thing, don’t call them cookies. Christmas
[00:14:30] though it gives us this opportunity to take time and prepare ourselves for something that’s bigger than just these great and wonderful, and even important things like spending time with those we love and having food with friends and family and giving and receiving gift. There’s so much more here to be had. But we can and really should take that time then to prepare ourselves for something bigger, something that’s better than all these wonderful things. So what sort of preparation happen before the original Christmas or the first Christmas? And what can we prepare for it, how can we prepare for Christmas and Christ today? Well the first Christmases we know is not some sort of big affair right. There was no huge party and there weren’t these many wonderful choice
[00:15:14] delights that if you’re fortunate enough you might experience a Christmas. There wasn’t some fancy do right. There was no special cutlery brought out there weren’t the pressures to perform that some of us feel at this time of year. But But there were gifts, I mean eventually and there were important gifts and there was a celebration to be had. The Saviour had arrived, right and God had made it clear that He was to be recognized as such, He was to be acknowledged and something different from an ordinary birth and an ordinary baby was going on here. Good news was shared, big announcements made, prophecies were made and fulfilled, they were miracles, angels and specially chosen yet seemingly random shepherds.
[00:15:56] but then the lead up to the big day. People were not being so jolly, necessarily. The Jews had faced oppression for many years. They had seen or heard about how things were better back many years ago. If you think about today, many churches are looking to expand their buildings and add things to them, like the air conditioning poe and at least one other fairly local church to hear added recently, as well, that I know of.
[00:16:19] Whereas these Jews bemoaned how their temple was not like the old one, it was not as big and not as fancy. Their freedom wasn’t quite what it had been. So if you hate paying tax, imagine how much more you’d hate it if you weren’t even paying it to your country but an oppressor who mocked you and had a notable military presence in your country and cities. The people hadn’t heard from their holy men the prophets for many years. One of these guys brought messages from God and he’s seemingly gone silent, not delivering a notable or new message for hundreds of years.
[00:17:04] For longer than our nation has been considered a nation. Things were grim. Some would no doubt have seen this as evidence that God had forgotten them. Some might have seen it as evidence that there is no God. Some would have seen it as evidence of their sin and sought to make new stricter rules to make it to God. Some sought, would have sought God pleading with him and faithfully meeting with others to pray and dare to hope that God might turn back to them soon and provide that Messiah that he promised. And then there was the baby.
[00:17:38] So maybe they looked to the prophecies, things like in Genesis, the promise of the one who would crush the serpent. Or Abraham’s seed in Genesis 12, that there would be a prophet like Moses in Deuteronomy, that there would be one from the Lion of David. That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, keep an eye on Bethlehem, keep an eye on Bethlehem in Micah 5.2 in Malachi, that there would be a forerunner or that there would be a healer and Isaiah, some of the passage that we saw from Luke here quoted. Some were awaiting this Jewish, Davidic, authoritative Bethlehemite who would heal them.
[00:18:24] But there was this period of silence for hundreds of years. So what to do? Had they missed him? That seems impossible. Some decided they needed to up their holiness and invented a whole raft of extra rules to try and make their way to God, to prove to him that they were good enough for him to come. But actually, what they were preparing for and what they needed was the grown Jesus.
[00:18:50] The one that they would need to know and that John prepared them to meet. See, Christmas doesn’t end with the baby. The baby’s the beginning of understanding Christmas and we need to be prepared to know Jesus. So, to prepare we see the situation. John comes along and gives his message which is not at all subtle. Repent, turn around, get back on track. He doesn’t give them some subtle hint
[00:19:16] about how it’s nice to be nice to the nice. It’s the quintessential turn or burn stuff really, isn’t it? He calls them vipers, a bunch of snakes. He asks them who told them to flee the wrath to come. It’s quite something to say to a bunch of people who are coming after you looking for answers, who told you to get out of the road of judgment coming. I mean, it’s quite a thing to say, I would venture. He calls them to repentance.
[00:19:41] He calls them to turn back to God and away from their selfishness. So when times are good or bad or just meh, in other words, in all times, in all places, it’s easy for us to become selfish, to be distracted. We can look after ourselves. We can pad our back pocket. We can build bigger houses. We can take nicer trips. We can add that extension.
[00:20:00] We can upgrade the car. We can get distracted from the main things or the main thing or the main person. See John was getting earnest people ready, so he said repent. Turn around and trust God. He makes us aware of our sin and our need for something else. What we find is that the need is not for something, be that a material or physical item or a better possession
[00:20:25] or indeed good things, making a better attitude or having a more giving spirit. What we actually need is someone, we need Jesus. So, maybe you know about the baby, and you’re ready to meet that grownup baby Jesus, or the baby grownup, I should say. So, how are you preparing for Christmas? How are you preparing to meet Jesus this year? For some, it’s going to be meeting him for the first time. For others it’s getting to know him better, and for some it’s about introducing others to him.
[00:20:54] So, one of the ways that I’ve been thinking about preparing is by reading a dedicated advent or Christmas reading each day. It’s just a simple devotional that has verses and directs me to thinking about things related to Christmas, to Christ coming and to today. We should think about what the consequence of not preparing is. That magical Christmas gets pretty funky if you wait until Christmas morning to start thinking about things. Hey, we don’t have ham or turkey or butter or dessert or the cutlery’s dirty. We didn’t do the dishes, we’re out of milk, we don’t have enough. Or, if the car’s out of fuel and the oil needs changing and the tyres are flat, that is not
[00:21:42] something you want to discover about an hour or two into your trip as you rip a tyre to shreds in the middle of nowhere on the Bruce Highway on Christmas day. You don’t want to get to Christmas and only just be starting to think about what it is about. Imagine the situation we talked about earlier, but with no preparation. There’s no food, there’s no presents, there’s no tree, there’s no one coming. You should do your best to get ready and start preparing now. So, have you read the story of Jesus? Have you read the whole of the Gospels right? Maybe pick one of them to read if you haven’t done that before with Matthew, Mark, Luke
[00:22:17] or John. The bonus of reading Matthew of course is that you are going to finish it before Jim does and then you will be ready for next year as he gets to it. Maybe you could read the Old Testament prophecies or you could pick one of the few of the books that they were in okay. Have you read through Isaiah or Micah or Malachi for example? Are you actually invested? Have you found your way of sharing the good news? If you know it, and most of us here are regulars here, so you will know it, how are you sharing that?
[00:22:45] You know, the shepherds, the wise men and others all found ways to share it. So who could you invite to something, maybe to attend a church service, maybe the carols on the 22nd? We need to make time. Perhaps you just need to get up earlier? Maybe you need to use a Bible app for a plan to help keep you on track. Do you need to make a habit that you can keep? Now, there’s a pretty, pretty much, most of us are younger than me here. And when I was younger and I had much, much, much more time than I have now, particularly at uni, this is the golden era when you’re at uni, I had this idea that I would set up
[00:23:24] myself to have three times a day when I could read my Bible. So breakfast, lunchtime and before I went to bed. Now I wouldn’t read all three every day, please don’t, I’m not saying that, but I knew what I’m like. And I was like, if I set those three, that’s a foolproof plan to give myself at least one of them I’m gonna hit every day. Okay, so maybe for you that’s something you can do. For a period of time I went through setting an alarm
[00:23:46] that would go off to remind me as well. Maybe you need to make some plans to listen especially to God this Christmas. And maybe being here at church is a good first step. And maybe you just need to commit to coming to church each week. Maybe it’s thinking about how you’re gonna meet with, learn about, or get to know Jesus in the next year. Perhaps there’s a home group, Bible study that you could join if you aren’t already in one.
[00:24:10] Is it that you need to pray consistently or even pray consistently for someone? Is it knowing how to share the Gospel? Figuring out how to go from knowing it in your head to actually be able to say it and share it with those that you know? is it inviting people to something, or even just starting a conversation? Hey, I’ve known you for a while, and I haven’t shared this before,
[00:24:31] but this is really important, and I really wanna just share about how I’m a Christian, why I’m a Christian, what it means. Hey, we’ve known each other for a while, but I don’t actually know. Do you have any spiritual beliefs? So what are you going to do to prepare yourself this year now so that this year you don’t miss the boat
[00:24:50] and the point of Christmas? And not just the main point, but some of those extra blessings as well. It’s great to spend time with people. It really is. It’s a fantastic thing to do. It’s nice to have great food. I love that. It’s nice to give and receive gifts. But if we only think about the real meaning and joy
[00:25:07] of Christmas on the 25th, or even the 22nd, we’ll miss out on some of the great blessings that can be had here, that have been given to us as the people of God this side of the cross in that first Christmas. So John makes this appeal. He tells the people to repent, to bear fruits and keeping with repentance. Not to boast, because they have some heritage or something that they’ve done so for us it means if your family are Christians that’s not a reason to boast. If you come to church every week that’s not a reason to boast, you need to know Jesus
[00:25:46] and we need to make Him known. We need to share this with others that they may too know Him. So if you don’t prepare, Christmas is still going to come, but you might miss a chance. I’ve failed to prepare before in regard to Christmas presents and then regretted it. Late delivery anybody? All those three dreaded words out of stock. If you don’t prepare to meet Jesus, you will engage with His greatness, but in His judgment. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. He’s just setting you up for a massive mistake, both in this life and in the next. So what will you do?
[00:26:26] How will you, like the wise men, like those who were waiting the fulfillment of prophecy, seek Him this year? The Christmas carol says, joy to the world, the Lord has come, the joy because He’s come. Let earth receive her King. He’s our King. It says let every heart prepare Him room. And I think if you do that, then you can relate to the next part, and heaven and nature sing. It’s what you do when you know Jesus, you want to worship Him and you get to enjoy it and you can enjoy all the bits of it, the whole lot if you’re prepared. So what I want to encourage you to do is, if there is something you’ve thought of, hey
[00:27:09] I need to do this, I commit to doing that, but also I’d love it if you would tell someone, It can be me, it can be Andrew, or anyone else here, okay? But just, that’s a great way to give yourself a marker. Someone that’s gonna check up that you’ve done it. Not in a massive lording it over you, but it’s nice to have someone to also share it with, because I’m sure it’ll go well. So what I wanna do is, just before we sing the last song, I think I’m not actually gonna pray tonight. What I’m gonna do is just ask that we take a minute,
[00:27:43] and you just pray silently to God and say, God, is there anything that I can do to be preparing for Christmas this year? Is there someone that I can invite or talk to? Is there something I can do? Just take that moment to do that, and then we’ll finish with our last song in a minute.