Transcript
Luke chapter 2. And beginning to read from verse 1. Luke 2 verse 1:
And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth 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.
Life is full of surprises. Just ask Chris White and Chris Yerby. Chris White and Chris Yerby met each other for the very first time last year. Both of them played basketball for Carroll High School in Corpus Christi. Yerby was a senior and White was a sophomore. Gradually they became friends off of the basketball court and they began to hang around with each other. They were both tall. They resembled each other. And so they fell into the little habit of jokingly telling the other students that they were brothers.
Of course nobody believed them because everybody said, “How can you be brothers? Both of you are named Chris.” But one day as they were talking to each other, Yerby said to White, “I’m adopted.” And White replied, “Wow, I’m adopted too.” And then Yerby told White that he had been born in Austin. And for a few minutes White couldn’t say anything. It was just too hard to believe because he had been born in Austin too. And now they began to suspect that maybe their little joke was true.
And so this past January they asked their adoptive parents to try and find out who their natural parents were. And Mrs. White and Mrs. Yerby agreed to try to find the boy’s mother. Although they were not going to reveal her identity. It took about eight months for the search to be made. But at the end of August the word came through that Chris Yerby and Chris White had both been born in Austin, Texas to the same mother about two years apart. And that they had been given up for adoption at birth.
By this time people were not unusually surprised by this. And Mrs. White said, “The first time I saw Chris Yerby I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. There was no doubt they were brothers. There was no doubt at all.” Last month the Dallas Times Herald ran their story and it ran a picture of Chris White and Chris Yerby side by side. And the picture showed two tall, slender young men, neatly groomed. And it was obvious that they looked like brothers.
At first I hardly knew how to think of it, said Chris Yerby. Now it seems a little weird that I have a little brother. And Chris White was quoted as saying, “People think we look alike and even walk alike.” Yes, at Yerby now my mother thinks we even laugh alike. Chris White is now a junior in high school and Chris Yerby is attending Texas A&M in College Station. But they assured the Dallas Times Herald that distance was going to be no problem for them. You see Chris and Chris definitely plan to see a lot of each other in the months and years that lie ahead.
Now folks, don’t you just love a story like that? I know I do. You ask me it’s a terrific story. And you see it’s always beautiful when two brothers turn out to be real good friends. But there is something very special about a story in which two real good friends turned out to be brothers. And this morning I have a birthday message for you from a wonderful friend who also happens to be your brother. A wonderful friend who also happens to be your brother.
After all if you are a born-again Christian, if you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of eternal life, if you’re saved and on your way to heaven and you’re sure of it, then you already know that Jesus Christ is the best friend that you have ever had. For greater love has no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends. And we who have believed understand when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, when He bought our eternal salvation so that all that we needed to do to get to heaven was believe, that that was the greatest act of friendship that has ever been performed for us.
And that is why as Christians we are delighted to sing with other Christians, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” But I’m wondering this morning if you understand that this splendid friend is also your brother. That this splendid friend is also your brother. For in the book of Hebrews we read that both He that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all of one. Therefore He is not ashamed to call them brothers. And the Bible tells us that if we are saved God has planned that we should be like His Son, that His Son might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And today because Jesus Christ is our brother I want you to return to your roots. I want you to take a trip back to the place where it all began. And I want you to try to capture all over again something of the excitement of brotherhood with Jesus Christ. And I wish that you would be challenged to live in this world so that you resemble your brother. And so the title of my message this morning is a little bit unusual and it’s in the form of a question which I would like each of you to ask yourself. And here is my question, “Do I look like my brother’s brother?” Did you get that question? Here it is again, “Do I look like my brother’s brother?”
Of all of the lovely stories that came out of the Christmas season last year I think one of the nicest is about Yamika Marie. Yamika Marie was a little nine-year-old child. She had lived in a series of foster homes. But shortly before Christmas her real father read a newspaper story in which Yamika Marie expressed her Christmas wish for a permanent home. Her father had not known what had become of his little daughter. And through the newspaper story they were reunited. And Yamika Marie got more than she had wished for. She not only got a permanent home. She got a permanent home with her natural father.
And somehow or other it always seems natural to us to connect the subject of Christmas with the theme of home and family. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should make that connection. For you see there is a sense in which on that very first Christmas day Jesus Christ came home. Jesus Christ came home. And we need to remember that before the world was created, before there was anything in the universe except God, we need to remember that God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit planned to create a race of people called men. And He planned to put men on a tiny little planet called earth. And then wonder of wonders God planned to live with men on earth forever and forever.
And that is why when we get to the last book of the Bible the apostle John sees the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. And he hears a loud voice out of heaven that says, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will live with them. He will live with them.” And here is a staggering fact, my friends. Even though it is true that when a Christian dies today he goes right to heaven to be with God, heaven is not our permanent home. Because heaven is not God’s permanent home. And someday God will remake this earth and his city will come down from heaven to earth and God’s tabernacle will be with men and he will live with us.
And don’t you see it? The miraculous birth of Jesus Christ is nothing less than God coming home for the first time to the planet where He will live forever. It is God coming home for the first time to the planet where He will live forever. And on that very first Christmas day Jesus Christ joined the family of humanity. And He became our brother. He became our brother.
What does it mean to go home for Christmas? Well for many years when I was doing it regularly and then going back to a household that was filled with love and warmth, it meant going back to the cold wintry Pennsylvania weather and hopefully to ground that was covered by snow. It meant sipping hot chocolate in front of a brightly lighted decorated Christmas tree, sipping my mother’s hot chocolate while the family sang Christmas carols. It meant getting up early in the morning and opening a bunch of Christmas presents and then sitting down to the hearty, robust Christmas breakfast that my father always prepared. It meant those things to me and a whole lot more. And I’m sure that going home for Christmas means many similar things to you.
But what did it mean to Jesus Christ to come home on that first Christmas day? Well let me tell you what it meant to him. First of all, first of all it meant entering into an experience of submission. It meant entering into an experience of submission. For it came to pass in the days of Caesar Augustus that they would have a decree that all the world could be taxed. And this decree was first made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everybody went to be registered each man to his own city.
And with these familiar words, my friends, we are reminded that Jesus Christ was not born into a democratic society. He was not born into a country where everybody was screaming bloody murder about their constitutional rights and suing people who infringed them. When Jesus Christ was born the entire civilized world was under the dominion of a great empire, the Roman Empire. And not only that, when Jesus was born that empire was ruled by one of the greatest rulers in the history of the world, a man known to us as Augustus Caesar.
And as if that were not enough, when Jesus was born on earth Augustus Caesar was engaged in the very process of exercising one of his greatest powers, the power of taxation. And he had issued a decree that everybody in the Roman empire should be enrolled on the Roman census rolls for taxation purposes. And at least in Palestine everybody was required to go back to their native city to be entered on the tax rolls. And that is how it happened that when Mary reached the end of her pregnancy, when the Son of God was about to be born into the world, that the parents of Jesus Christ were engaged in an act of obedience, an act of submission to the Roman authority and to Roman power.
Now please don’t think this is all one big coincidence. Please do not think this has nothing to do with what Luke wants us to get out of this story. You see Luke knew that almost nothing aroused the anger and hostility and the rebellion of Jewish people more than the thought of paying taxes to a pagan Gentile emperor. And Luke also knew a man named Judas from Galilee who incited a rebellion against a Roman taxation, perhaps the very taxation that we are talking about this morning. And Luke understood that the Jewish nation was not a particularly submissive nation, that just below the surface there boiled a spirit of rebellion and hostility and resentment of Roman control.
And a very few years after this book was written that spirit of rebellion burst out into a Jewish war with Roman power that led to the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple and the death of something like a million Jews. And it is striking, it is striking that in describing the birth of Jesus Christ Luke describes it as taking place while his parents are in the very act of submitting to Roman control. And let us never forget that never once, never once during his earthly life did Jesus Christ ever break a Roman law. Never once did He speak against the power of the Roman emperor. But He said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
And when He got to the end of His life and He was sentenced to unfair execution by a Roman governor He submitted to that outrage. And He died on a Roman cross. Maybe you haven’t thought of it before but from the moment He was born to the moment He died Jesus Christ was a submissive subject of the Roman Empire. And why? Why did He do it? Well the answer is very simple and the answer is this, that one of the great themes of the first coming of Jesus Christ is submission. One of the great themes of the first coming of Jesus Christ is submission.
And who can forget, who can forget the splendid words of the apostle Paul which he wrote in the second chapter of his epistle to the Philippians, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant by coming in the likeness of men.” Think of that. Here is someone who had a position of absolute equality with God his heavenly Father. He was surrounded by the privileges and powers of heaven itself. He was worshiped and served by angels. And He turned His back on all that. He laid aside the exercise of His divine authority and He took the form of a servant by coming in the likeness of men.
And if you will look closely into the face of your elder brother you will see unmistakably the features of submission, submission to God, submission to earthly authority, and submission to the needs of mankind, to your needs and to mine. And how about you this morning, my Christian friend? What do you look like? What do you look like? Is submission one of the outstanding characteristics of your life?
Let’s be honest this morning, shall we? Submission is not exactly the great buzzword of the 1980s. In fact if a poll were taken of popular words in our culture I suspect that submission would be way down the line. Do you realize that every year millions of Americans cheat on their income tax forms by not reporting outside income because they don’t think the government will be able to trace it? Do I have to tell you that we live in a society where children are increasingly unsubmissive to their parents and to their teachers and to duly constituted authority?
Ladies, forgive me for saying this but in our age of feminism isn’t it true that there are women who won’t even have the word “obey” in their marriage vows because they have not the slightest intention of submitting to their husbands as the Word of God enjoins them to do? And even in the Christian church we have a lot to learn about submitting our interests and our needs to the interests and needs of other people. But be sure of this, you cannot resemble your elder brother apart from submission.
There was a Scottish woman one time who used to sell at country houses. She sold buttons and threads and shoestrings. Whenever she came to an unmarked crossroad she had a little stick that she would toss into the air. And whichever way the stick pointed when it landed, that was the direction that she would go. And one day she was observed tossing the stick into the air several times. And so someone said to her, “Why are you tossing the stick into the air several times?” Well the woman said, “Every time it is falling down and pointed to the right but I want to go to the left because it looks smoother.” So she kept tossing the stick into the air until she got it pointing that way.
Now that’s the way many Americans engage in the decision-making process. We work with the decision and we work with a decision until we have developed the reasons and excuses for doing what we wanted to do in the first place. And we have an awful lot to learn about submission to God and the will of God. It is said that the oriental philosopher Luqman was once a slave. And that on one occasion his master came to him with a bitter melon. And much to his master’s surprise Luqman ate the entire bitter melon immediately. And the master said to him, “How is it possible for you to eat such a nauseous fruit like that?” And Luqman replied, “I have received so many favors from your hand. Is it any wonder that for once in my life I should eat a bitter melon which your hand has given to me?”
And the story is that the master was so impressed by that that he released Luqman from his servitude. And my dear friends this morning let’s agree that sometimes submission is a bitter melon. Let’s agree that it tastes sour and unpleasant. But we have received so many favors from the hands of God. We have been loved by the Lord Jesus Christ so richly, so deeply, so generously today that we are glad to eat the bitter melon of submission to God and to men.
And therefore Christian friends pay your taxes. Pay all of them. And Christian children submit to your parents even when your parents are not looking. And Christian wives submit to your own husbands in the Lord. Yes says the Bible and all of you submit to one another. Let this mind be in you. Let this spirit of submission be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
So there they were thanks to the decree of Augustus Caesar. Joseph and Mary were a long way from the comforts of home. They were a long way from the help and assistance that loving relatives and friends could give to them at the moment of birth. And it was there in that distant little village crowded with people that Mary’s labor pains came upon her. And of course there was no question of being in a maternity ward under the watchful eyes of doctors and nurses. There was even no question of having rented one of those little uncomfortable rooms that might have been available on other occasions in the local inn.
And we’re all familiar with this scene from Christmas pictures and Christmas cards. And we usually visualize it as a stable. But there is an ancient tradition that it was actually a cave. And if it was a cave it was a cave that was normally used for the sheltering of animals. And no matter how many times we have read this story, no matter how familiar it is to us, we can never evade its impact. We can never escape the overwhelming impression that it makes on us about the lowliness and the humility of Jesus Christ.
If there was ever a child born in the history of the world who ought to have been born amidst the gorgeous surroundings of the royal palace, this was the child. If there was ever a child born who could have chosen to be born in such royal surroundings, this was the child. But in a display of utmost humility, and lo, He was born in a stable or in a cave in the company of farm animals. And His mother wrapped His little body in swaddling clothes and laid it in a manger.
And if it is true that one of the great themes of the first coming of Jesus Christ is submission it is equally true that another great theme of the coming of Jesus Christ is humility. And after describing for us the One who was equal with God and who laid aside divine prerogatives and took the form of a servant, the apostle Paul goes on to say, “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
And if you think this is lowly, the circumstances in which He was born, look at His death, a shameful death on a criminal’s cross. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death. And if you will look closely into the face of your elder brother you will see the unmistakable features of humility. And how about you? What do you look like?
You know why some Christians are so easily and often offended at home and at work and in the church? It’s because they’re proud. It’s because they’ve got an ego as big as a Goodyear blimp. It’s because their life revolves around themselves. And one of the things we urgently need is to learn the art and spiritual science of humility.
Back in the days of the stagecoach a man was taking a trip. And he was informed that there was a first-class ticket, a second-class ticket, and a third-class ticket. And he looked at the seats on the stagecoach and he decided that all the seats looked about the same. And so he bought a third-class ticket. And he was riding along in the stagecoach and things were going pretty well and he was congratulating himself on saving a little money. And then the stagecoach got to the bottom of the hill and the driver stopped the stagecoach and he said, “First-class passengers keep your seats. Second-class passengers get out and walk. Third-class passengers get behind the stagecoach and push.”
But do you know what we need in the Christian church? We need more third-class passengers. We need people who are willing to get out and push. You see Jesus wasn’t born in first-class accommodation. He didn’t live a first-class life. He didn’t die a first-class death. Jesus said, “I am among you as one who serves.” When James A. Garfield moved into the White House as President of the United States he said to his pastor, “In my church relations I am just plain and simple James A. Garfield.” And happy is the Christian church who has a lot of plain and simple John Does and Mary Smiths whose one ambition is to resemble their elder brother Jesus Christ in the spirit of humility.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Let the spirit of humility be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Mr. Robert Raikes is said to be the individual who founded Sunday schools. And in one of his Sunday schools he had a little girl who was nasty and ill-tempered and misbehaved. And anybody that’s ever taught Sunday school has deep sympathy with Mr. Raikes because you probably had a student like that. And so Robert Raikes went to the little girl’s home and he talked to her as seriously as he could. And he told her that what she needed to do was to get down on her knees and ask her mother’s forgiveness.
The little girl was having none of that. She was not about to get down on her knees and ask her mother’s forgiveness. So Mr. Raikes said he would do it for her. And Mr. Raikes got down on his knees in front of the little girl’s mother and asked the little girl’s mother for forgiveness. And the story is that the little girl was so touched by that that she burst into tears and she got down on her knees and asked her mother’s forgiveness. And that was a turning point in this young girl’s life. And from then on she developed into an obedient and gentle child.
Now folks let’s admit it. Getting down on our knees is not our strong suit. Expressing submission and humility is not the thing we naturally do the best. But it’s the only way. It is the only way that you can resemble Jesus Christ in this world.
Come, O nations, come, fix in us Your humble home. Rise, the woman’s conquering seed. Bruise in us the serpent’s heel. Adam’s likeness now erase. Stamp Your image in its place. Second Adam from above, reinstate us in Thy love. Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”
Shall we pray? Father for this old, old story which is new every time we hear it we thank You. Help us to learn its lessons and to put them into our life for the glory of Thy Son in whose name we pray. Amen.