Away in a Manger TLOC
The Lyrics of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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So happy you are here this morning, as we walk through these famous Christmas Carols. If you missed last week you missed our conversation about the hymn O Come All Ye Faithful, and we talked a bit about how many of us don’t feel like the lyrics of the hymn, we don’t feel Joyful and triumphant, but the exact people that Jesus are calling are those with pain, or are depressed and hurting and what his plans of to get us through that. Next week we will look at what I would call a heartfelt message as we look at O Come O Come Emmanuel. I just want to go ahead and give you fair warning about next week. All throughout my ministry there have been times after you preach a message where someone will say, man I wish I knew you were going to preach THAT message, because I would have invited my friend/sibling/coworker who doesn’t know Jesus and I would have made sure they were here. Here is the thing, this is the Christmas season and I have told you for a couple weeks now how people who wouldn’t normally come to church are more willing to come to church than any other time and this is your opportunity to get them here, because the Gospel will be shared clearly and this is your opportunity, so think about who you want to invite and make sure you get the word to them this week. Pick them up and get them here you will be so happy that you did.
Today is one of those messages where when God gave it to me, you know its going to hurt just a little bit, but you have to be willing to just say just give it to me a little bit and be okay with it.
When we look at the history of this hymn, Away in Manger, there is a bit of controversy surrounding the writing of this song as well. For many years this song was thought to be written by Martin Luther and thought the original title to be “Luther’s Cradle Hymn.” However, it turns on the origin is completely American. It was published originally in 1885 Lutheran Sunday School Curriculum. The first two verses were written in Little Children’s Books for Schools & Families. The third verse was added by Charles Gabriel in 1892. While the actual origin of the lyrics and music may be a mystery, what is clear is this song touches the hearts of many. If you know this song, I invite you to stand and sing as the worship team leads us.
Play Song
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How many of you love that song? I think one of the reasons we love this song is because of the words used over and over again in the hymn, the Little Lord Jesus. I often hear that line in my head and I think of the little Lord Jesus, the little 6lb, 8 oz baby Jesus, the little Lord Jesus. There is just something about the baby in a manger picture that we love, but instead of focusing on the size of Jesus in the song what I want to focus on is the statement made over and over that Jesus is Lord.
Did you know that in the NT the term Jesus is Lord is used about 740 times,
JESUS IS LORD. (740x in NT)
This morning, as we look at this hymn, I want to start with a classic Christmas verse, for certain one of the most commented on verses at Christmas time. In this part of Luke the Shepherds are out watching their flocks at night an angel of the Lord comes to talk to speak them and says this in Luke 2
10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;
11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
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The important thing for us to ask us what does Jesus being Lord mean for your life; you marriage; your Money; your Xmas shopping? What does it mean that Jesus is Lord of your life?
Greek word for Lord is
kurios (koo'-ree-os); supreme in authority, controller, Lord.
I know when you hear that definition it easily can cause some issues for some of you - you hear the controller of your lives, and your whole body chills, it wants to rise up and push back. As the controller of our lives, he is also the controller of our destiny.
The problem we have is we want to be in control, it is something we like to have but don’t necessarily want to give up. So we don’t want to hand over control of our lives to him.
We like to have control of all the things, we want to be in control when we drive; we definitely want to be in control of our days, we want them to go exactly the way we planned. You know we want to wake up for our work day completely rested, adn have breakfast and hot coffee waiting on us, and then on our way into the office we want the gates of heaven to open and we hit every light without have to stop. Once we are there we want that awful coworker to have the day of and be at home, healthy mind you, not sick. When we come home want our spouse to be waiting to greet us at the door, you know, we just want to be in total control; of the people, the circumstances, the responses, all of it.
I just want to bring something to our attention, we say we need to make Jesus Lord of our life, and I have said that a few times this morning, but that is not really what we mean; we don’t need to make Jesus Lord, because God made him Lord LONG ago, Jesus already IS/WAS/WILL BE Lord. We can’t make him Lord, because God did that so long ago. On the same measure we really aren’t make him the Lord of our lives, because he already is, in essence what we are really doing is just surrendering to his Lordship. And do you know what happens when you surrender? You relinquish control.
So what you really need to know isJesus is already Lord—the question is Have you surrendered to him? Have you handed it all over to him; have you said You are the controller?
When it comes to surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus there are really two different ways we can do that. The first,
THE PARTIALLY SURRENDERED LIFE.
Honestly, this is where I feel many Christians live their lives we believe in God but live our lives as if he doesn't exist. This is what Craig Groschel writes about in his book, Christian Atheist. We say there is a God, but we live like he doesn’t exist, we live as if he can’t change things, as if he doesn’t see us in the dark, as if he isn’t moving amongst his people. In essence, we say we trust him, but we keep all control to ourselves.
Look at what we read in Luke 6:46
46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
So we can’t just talk the talk and not walk the walk, our lives and our holiness are not a game to be played, it needs to be handled in the manner he expects, in the manner that we say we believe. Yet, I know there are people who say, I believe in the Lord, but we have areas in which we do not trust Him. I believe in the Lord, but not with that. Or there are those that say, I believe in the Lord, but I am going to do whatever I want I mean Jesus obviously would understand. Or we say we believe in the Lord, but we are going to keep control over everything, we know best after all, there is no one who can understand my situation better than me.
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Many of us Give him some things—not everything! RIP BIBLE
Give you my Sundays—but not Friday & Saturday nights. RIP
Trust you with my salvation—but still worried about my children. RIP
Jesus is my Lord—not forgiving that person who hurt me. RIP
I’m a Christian—go youth group—my parents will never know what happens when they are not around. RIP
And some of you are so offended right now you're thinking about walking out of the church. You're scared that lightning is going come from the Heavens and strike me dead this morning. But let me remind you that what I did was rip pages with ink on them out of a book, and this is what some of us are doing to the actual word of god EVERY sinGlE day. Not only that, this isn’t even a real Bible, this is just a cover over a different book.
But much like Thomas Jefferson tried to do, we pick and choose what we want to keep and throw the rest away. And Jesus says why do you call me Lord Lord and not do what I say, and the reason is that we are living this partially surrendered life.
So this next verse comes from the PSV version of the Bible... that is the Partially Surrendered Version of the Bible..
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Proverbs 3:5–6 (ESV)
Trust in the Lord with some of your heart, lean on your own understanding, in some of your ways, acknowledge him, and you can make your own paths straight
We must remember, Jesus is no part time Lord, he doesn’t want any part time lovers, we must give it all up, we cannot pick and choose what we want to surrender, we have to give it all to him. What I want you to do this morning is ask this question very prayerfully, and then be open to what it is that God is trying to tell you, “what area am i still trying to control? what area am I unwilling to give to God?”
WHAT HAVE I NOT SURRENDERED TO THE LORD?
It could be our children's lives; I know God gave me these kids but things aren't going the way that I think they should. God isn't going to draw them to him, I have to take care of it all on my own. Don’t try to tell me how to live, I’ll worry about them when I want to.
Or perhaps its my future. I have to get it all lined up - get it all figured out. I know I am going to go to school and I’m going to graduate from UI. Then I'm going to do such and such for a living and I’m going to move to this part of the country - I've got this all figured out. I can tell you from experience if what you want for your life and what God wants for your life aren't the same, if you do what you want, instead of what he wants, then it takes you much longer to get to where he wanted you to be once you finally decide to give up. The truth is when you look through the Bible it is very normal in the lives of the believers to not know exactly what is coming next but to just TRUST in God and believe he will guide you with each step. That is why he taught us to pray give us this day our daily bread.
OR maybe there is a relationship we haven’t surrendered to the Lord. We think, I know that I am dating the wrong person, I know I shouldn’t be dating them because they aren’t drawing me closer to God, but I love him baby and I can change him. This is my first missionary journey I am going to change his life and bring him to God.
Trouble is we live this, lukewarm, half-hearted, partial surrendered life and not the life that he has called us to live but Jesus is no part time Lord, and doesn’t want any part time followers. So even though many of us are living this partially surrendered life, that is not the life Jesus really wants us to live, the life Jesus is calling us to is
THE FULLY SURRENDERED LIFE.
Not just when it is convenient, not just Sunday Morning, its holding nothing back. I love it the way Paul Said in Romans 14...
7 For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves.
8 If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
NLT
Can I ask a question, “how many of you are alive?” It’s not a trick question, I have a pretty good idea from this vantage point which of you are living, some of you are questionable because I can’t decide if you are just asleep. If you are you living it is to Honor the Lord! If we die it is to Honor the Lord, and if you are in Christ you are his.
Let me give you an example.
This is my Wedding band, I never take this thing off and I don’t care if it causes me to lose my finger at some point; to me its worth it. it shows that I belong to Jennifer and listen, I know that I hit above my pay grade with her. When we first started dating, there was a lady I worked with at Dairy Queen, her name was Mary, and she told me, to my face that Jennifer was too good looking for me. When we first started dating shortly there after I decided I was going to buy her a ring, and listen I knew NOTHING about what she wanted, or about rings in general. So I went to buy her this ring and I had this perfect idea, it was coming up on the time I was supposed to preach my first ever sermon and I had this idea that I was going to preach my sermon, walk off the stage and get down on one knee and ask her to marry me. I was warned if I did that, I would probably kill her, because back then Jennifer was really shy. When I would introduce her to my friends she would kind of hide behind me, it was really the cutest thing. So, what I did is I went to pick her up from her apartment for dinner, and I picked up her guitar and played what is now our song, and after I got done I asked her to marry me. And she said yes, and then she hit me, and let me ask you a question how much did that ring cost her? Honestly, nothing, but when she said yes, and then hit me, it cost her everything, she belongs to me, and I belong to her we are one flesh the Bible tells us, and this little ring I wear is just a way of showing the world I'm hers. But she and I belong to the Lord, and some of you would say she doesn’t belong to you you male chauvinist, but she does, just try to touch her and I'll mess you up. Listen, I belong to her also like how long do you think she going to let me go out table dancing? The answer not very long, Praise the Lord, because I belong to her. So the ring cost us nothing but it also cost us everything as we gave our life and our marriage to the Lord.
I say all that because for Jesus to become your Lord and Savior it is a free gift, but when you accept the gift, it costs you everything. You are no longer yours, you belong to him, your life is no longer your own, you have handed it over to him. You are no longer the controller of your life it belongs to him.
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So often we want the casual approach, and we thinkJesus is my buddy/homeboy; No he is your LORD. He is not just little Lord Jesus in a manger, not just the dying Lord Jesus on cross. He is also the risen, supreme reigning, soon returning King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; he means business.
The real version of Proverbs 3:5-6 is.....
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
Hebrew word Yada—to know! to know is to trust.... Same as Adam and Eve. to know is to surrender
The Reason we don’t trust him—we don’t really know him! It’s all about relationship, thats why Jesus tells us in Mark 12:30
30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
And its all about relationship, and because its about relationship, thats why he tells us.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
Big difference calling Jesus Lord—surrendering to Him as Lord. Have you surrendered your life to Him as Lord? Have you turned your life over to not just the little Lord Jesus, but Jesus the Lord. If you are here this morning and you need to give your life to him we want to give you the opportunity to do so, and this body of believers will celebrate with you this morning.
But maybe you are here and you realize you are living the partially surrendered life, you have called him your Lord but you are having a lot of trouble giving parts of your life over to him and you are keeping control of some of it for yourself, because you just can’t trust him in some area. If that is you this morning, I want to give you the opportunity to come and give those things to him this morning. I would love to pray over you and some of the elders would love to pray over you that you could hand over control to him of all areas of your life.
