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The Lost Christ of Christmas
Luke 2:41-50
"Stolen Baby Jesus
Syndrome". It happens every year. Baby Jesus is stolen out of nativity sets
all around the country. In fact, it has happened several places this year,
including one place which put GPS on their Jesus and the police quickly
tracked down His perpetrator.
Who would steal the baby
Jesus? Well, 3 kinds of people come to mind:
1. There are the
pranksters. They often don’t mean to do anyone any harm, they’re just out
having what they consider to be a fun time. They regard it as the Christmas
equivalent of “TP”ing someone’s house. We put one of those motion reindeer
in our front yard this year and told my wife I wonder how long it will last.
I mean, some people will even deface your own front yard! [so I hear/pic]
2. There are the angry
ones. They hate Jesus and Christmas and everything associated with them. The
atheists have their billboards up again this year.
Last year the “American Humanist Association” spent $40,000 on an ad
campaign in
3. Then there are the folks
who feel a need to have Jesus as their own personal possession. They take
the baby because there is something powerful about the idea of God loving
them so much that He’d send His only Son to them. These are often lonely
people who don’t realize they don’t need to take a plastic baby out of a
manger to have Jesus with them. The beauty of God’s Christmas story is that
you don’t need to steal Jesus… Jesus is a free gift from God.
But when it comes to
Christmas, without Christ, there is no mas! We've been Xing Him out of
Christmas for years, and need to remember that X marks the most important
spot! Centuries ago the X was
the Greek letter Chi, like the C in Christ.
But to people today, it's just a lazy way of writing the word or
worse, an erasing of the Christ!
It’s been my observation
that rather than Christmas drawing people closer to Christ, there’s a very
real sense in which people are drawn away from the Lord Jesus in the midst
of the celebration. Their eyes are turned to parties and gifts and many
times there’s a let-down in church attendance and giving. It seems like in
the very midst of the celebration we lose the Lord Jesus.
A very interesting thing
happens here in the book of Luke, right after the Christmas story, right
after the events that took place around His birth. The Bible tells of Jesus
who, being twelve years of age, went with His parents to Passover, and while
Jesus was with His parents there at Passover, after the celebration, His
parents headed back home, and had gone an entire days’ journey when they
realized that Jesus wasn’t with them. They had lost Jesus in the midst of
the celebration, Passover, which was all about Jesus by the way. I wonder if
the same thing might happen to you.
So we’re going to ask and
answer five questions and I want you to get these, not only in your head,
but down in your heart.
Number one, in what sense
may we lose Christ?
Number two, who may lose
Christ?
Number three, where may we
lose Christ?
Number four, how can we
lose Him?
Number five, how may we
find Him again?
vv. 41-50
In what sense may we lose
Jesus? Well, Mary and Joseph were related to Jesus, Joseph is His foster
father. Thank God for the spirit of Joseph. Mary was His literal, actual
mother. Now how did they lose Jesus? They did not lose Jesus in the sense of
relationship. Mary was still His mother, Joseph still His earthly father. It
was not in the sense of relationship that they lost Jesus, it was in the
sense of fellowship that they lost Christ.
If you’re saved,
twice-born, you can never ever lose that relationship.
John 10:27-28
27
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28 And I give unto them
eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand.
Now you don’t get eternal
life when you die, you get eternal life when you believe. If you have
eternal life, it can never end; whatever you have, if you ever lose it,
whatever it was, it wasn’t eternal. If you had it for ten years and lost it,
then you had a ten-year life. I'm glad I don't have a term life policy, it's
whole life that goes 'til death and then it is only just begun! My policy
starts now but it's universal and the benefits are out of this world!
Jesus said, “I give unto
them eternal life and they shall never perish.” Not every once in a while
some will perish, but they shall never perish, “neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand."
John 10:29
My Father, which gave them
me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out
of my Father's hand.
The word man is in italics,
that is, it’s not in the original, it’s italicized so you know it’s not in
the original. What He says, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. Any
what? Any man, any event, any thing. Some people have the idea that the
devil can take you out of the hand of God. That’s ridiculous. If you’re
still saved and the devil could take you out, why hasn’t he done it? No, the
only reason he hasn’t is, he can’t.
Can you think of a power
that is strong enough to open the mighty hand of Jesus and encased in the
mighty hand of God the Father and take one of His own out? You cannot lose
the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of relationship.
Psalm 37:23-24
23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and
he delighteth in his way.
24
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD
upholdeth him with his hand.
Now, if you’re trying to
teach your child to walk, he may fall and get up and fall again and get up.
But if you’re in a particular situation where you don’t want him to fall,
suppose you’re crossing the street. You don’t just give him your finger like
you might do ordinarily. No, you put his entire hand in your hand and he’s
not holding you this time, you’re holding him and you start across the
street and his little knees buckle but he can only go so far. “Though he
fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His
hand.” Has he ever done that for you? He’s done that for me many times. My
knees have buckled but thank God I was not holding on to Him, He was holding
on to me.
So, there can be a loss of
fellowship, not a loss of relationship. In this passage of Scripture Mary
and Joseph said, We sought you sorrowfully. Their hearts were filled with
sorrow. May I tell you that if you are out of fellowship with the Lord, I’m
absolutely certain that you have no joy. You might have happiness, you may
have fun, but you don’t have joy.
I’ve often said, and I
believe this with all of my heart, the most miserable person in the world is
not an unsaved person. The most miserable person in the world is a saved
person out of fellowship with Jesus. Far more miserable than an unsaved
person. Mary and Joseph said, Look, we have sought thee sorrowfully. You
want to know whether or not Christ is lost in your heart and in your life?
Not in the sense of relationship, but in the sense of fellowship. Take the
joy test. Is there joy in your heart right now? Joy unspeakable and full of
glory? Well, Pastor, nobody’s supposed to be joyful all the time. I disagree
with you. The Bible says, “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say
rejoice.” And the only way you can rejoice always is to rejoice in the Lord.
He never changes.
And so, in what sense may
we lose the Lord Jesus? Not in the sense of relationship, but in the sense
of fellowship. Mary was still His mother, Joseph still His foster father,
but there was not that connectivity. Jesus was not in their midst.
Number two, who may lose
Jesus, who may lose Christ?
Well, it may surprise us to
see that it was Mary and Joseph that lost Him. Look in verse 43, the Bible
says, “And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned, the child
Jesus tarried behind in
It is in the times that we
least expect to lose the Lord Jesus we may lose Him. Now you may be a deacon
in this church. You may be a teacher or paid staff. It could be the man
behind the pulpit who’s in danger of losing the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’ll
study the Bible you’ll find out that God’s choicest of saints got out of
fellowship with Him from time to time.
Noah, David, Moses, Samson,
Peter, all of these and others in the Bible, got out of fellowship with the
Lord. The Bible says that, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall.” Oswald Chambers has said that an unguarded strength is a double
weakness. Do you think you’re beyond getting away from God? Do you? Mary
did, Joseph did, the great saints of the Bible have at one time or another
gotten away from the Lord. Sometimes people think, You know, if I were just
a pastor, if I just lived in a holy atmosphere, I’d never have any
temptation. Nobody knows what I face out there in the dirty old world.
Friend, don’t you know that the devil aims his biggest guns at God’s
servants? Don’t you know that no matter who you are, you’ve never come to a
place where you’re not in danger of slipping away from the Lord.
Now, here’s a third
question we want to ask and answer. Where did they lose the Lord Jesus?
Look if you will in verse
41, “Now His parents went to
Could it be this Christmas
that rather than you getting closer to Jesus that come New Year’s you'll
have to repent and draw back to the Lord because you’ve gotten away from
Him? Do you know what I found out when I was going to seminary? I found out
that a great number of seminary students would backslide with a Bible under
their arm, in Bible college, I mean, in the midst of studying about the
Lord, somehow they lost that fellowship with Him. As a matter of fact I was
reading about that church at
I heard about a man who had
a princess that he loved very much. He was a prince, fabulously wealthy, but
his beautiful princess died and he was heartbroken. He determined that he
would build for this princess the most glorious shrine, a burial place, that
had ever been built. It would make the Taj Mahal look pitiful in comparison,
so he got the architects of the kingdom and drew the plans for this
beautiful shrine, this temple. It was to be magnificent because of the great
love that he had for her. No plan was quite good enough as he studied all
the options until finally he thought he’d come to perfection. There was no
amount of money that he would not spend, and so every day he would come to
watch this building that was being built for his princess. And the spires
would go up and the marble would gleam and the gold overlay would flash in
the sun. And it was coming together, it was more and more beautiful. He
would watch it, he was obsessed with it, it had to be perfect, it had to be
just right. It was nearing completion, he was up in one of the high minarets
there in that palace and he looked down and it was perfect, except for one
thing. There was something there that just didn’t seem to fit. It seemed a
little out of place, it seemed to mar the whole thing and he called the
workmen, he said, Look, you see that down there, it just somehow doesn’t
fit. Take that out and it will be perfect. And the workmen went down and
removed ... the tomb of the princess.
Today we have this
elaborate Christmas. It's
supposed to be all about Jesus and we say, You know, He’s kind of messing it
up a little bit. Jesus is kind of cramping our style a little bit at
Christmas time. I wonder if we’ve done that, I wonder if somehow we have let
the very celebration of Christmas take from us the Christ of Christmas.
Next, how may we lose
Jesus? How did they do it?
Chapter 2 and verse 44.
“But they, supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey.”
Supposing Him to have been in the company. How did they lose Him? By
presumption, by supposition, they just assumed He was with them and they
didn’t check up. Now they didn’t lose Him by getting drunk, they didn’t lose
Him by opposing Him or denying Him, they went a day’s journey, they went one
step at a time and every step they took, they were getting further from Him,
supposing the whole time He was with them. I wonder if that’s true about
you. I had to ask myself this question before I could preach this message.
Jerry, are you just supposing that you’re right with God? Are you just
supposing that Jesus is a reality in your life? That’s easy to do. I mean,
you can preach, you can sing, you can be a leader, you can come to church,
you can teach your class, you can sing in the choir, you go from day to day
and say, Well, I, I, I’m fine.
Read in the Old Testament
about Samson. The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord departed from Samson and
he never knew it, he never knew it. They went a day’s journey, a step at a
time, just simply supposing that Jesus was with them. I wonder, are you
willing tonight to look into your own heart and see--is the presence of
Jesus a reality or mere supposition?
You know, the Bible says
when your eye is single, your body is full of light. Have you ever come to
that place, where your eye is single? What does that mean, when your eye is
single? That means that you have no side issues but Jesus Christ, you have
nothing that you’ve withheld. There’s no unconfessed, unrepented of sin.
There is no love that is greater than your love for the Lord Jesus Christ
and that’s not an easy place to come to. The devil will try to keep you from
coming to that place.
May I suggest that we take
a spiritual inventory, that we don’t go just one step at a time, every step
further away from Him, supposing He’s with us. It’s an easy thing to do.
Now, here’s the last
question. How can we find Jesus again?
Well, look if you will
again in verses 45 and 46, “And when they found Him not, they turned back
again to Jerusalem, seeking Him and it came to pass after three days they
found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing
them and asking them questions.”
Question: where did they
find Him? Right where they left Him, right where they left Him. They found
Him by going back to where they first lost Him. If Jesus Christ is not real
to you as He was once real to you, if you do not have that conscious
awareness of His presence, just go back to where you first left Him. You
say, Well, I don’t know where that was.
I believe if you open your
heart to the Lord, He’ll show you where it was. If you pray that prayer
we’ve been given in the Psalms, “Search me, oh God, and know my heart, try
me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me,” God will
bring you to the spot. Take a guess and I promise you'll guess right the
first try!
Maybe you’ve just been
neglecting your quiet time, it's no egregious sin. Maybe you’ve loved the
laptop and the television more than you’ve loved the Bible. Maybe you’ve
stopped attending services like you used to. Or maybe you’ve gotten some
bitterness, some grudge in your heart. Maybe there’s some inordinate
affection or maybe it’s just carelessness, going on day after day without
tuning your heart to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Where will you find Jesus?
Right where you left Him.
And you can’t plow around
that error, you have to confess that sin. Another story that I heard was of
a father and a son who were living together. The wife and mother had died
and the father and the son had sweet fellowship as they lived in a little
cottage. It was a chilly night and the father said to his son, Son, the
fire’s going out, will you go get another piece of wood and put it on the
fire? The son said, Dad, I’m busy, you get the wood. The father said, Son,
I’m asking you if you’ll go get the piece of wood to put on the fire. I’m
your father, I’m older than you are, that’s not an unthinkable thing that I
would ask you to do. The son said, I’m busy. The father then said, Son,
listen, I’m sorry it’s come to this. I’m not asking you now, I’m telling
you, go get another piece of wood and put it on the fire. The son said, Well
since you’re telling me, I’m gonna give you the answer, No, I will not do
it. It got cold in the room, not only physically, but there was that clash
between two wills. Then the father said to his son, Now son, this is a
serious matter, more serious than a piece of wood, you’ve defied me, you’ve
refused to do what I’ve asked you to do and then told you to do. Now, son,
this is my house, you’re a grown man, you’re living under my roof. The least
you could do would be to obey your father. He said, I’m not gonna do it.
Well, son, it’s come down to this, either you obey me or you cannot stay
here anymore. Very well, he said. I’ll not stay here anymore. And he jumped
up, walked out of the room into the night and slammed the door behind him
and walked away from his father and from his home, leaving behind the
broken-hearted, perplexed father. The days came and went. The son began to
think to himself, I have been a fool. Why was I so selfish? Why was I so
stubborn? How can I treat my own dear father that way? How can I fail to
obey him? I’ve been wicked. I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I want to be
and I’m going to humble myself and go back to my father. And he went back,
very much like the prodigal son. He said, Dad, I’m so sorry. I don’t know
what got into me. I’m sure it’s just sheer wickedness, sheer pride, sheer
selfishness. Daddy, you’ve been a wonderful dad to me, thank you for taking
care of me, thank you for loving me. Forgive me, Dad, for my arrogance, for
my selfishness. Dad, I’d like to come back and spend my days with you. Can I
come in? The father, with tears, reached out his arms and said, Son, that’s
an answer to my prayers. I’m so glad you came home. Thank you for doing
that, come on in. But son, before you sit down, would you put another piece
of wood on the fire?
You know where you left
Him, you know where you got away from God. How are you gonna get back with
Him? Just go right back to where you left Him. Whatever it was, go back to
that spot, go back to that place, go back to that disobedience and deal with
it. Until you do, you cannot have that fellowship with our Lord Jesus
Christ.
How's the relationship?
Are you saved? If so,
how's the fellowship? Let's not
lose Christ this Christmas.
[from Adrian Rogers sermon of same title]
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