Well, hey everybody, I'm Adam Schell, the pastor of Albert Heitzen. Welcome to our sermon podcast. And I just want to start out by thanking you for spending part of your day with us. And if you're blessed during our time together today, let me invite you to come and worship with us live on Sunday mornings at 10.30am Eastern time.
You can worship with us live on our church website at mhbcleuable.com slash live, or if you're in the Louisville, Kentucky area, we would love to have you come and join us in person. With that, let's get right into this episode, sermon. Well, Christmas is just a few days away now. And that means that by now, all of us have some of our own ideas, our own expectations about what Christmas is going to be like this year.
So right now, you may be expecting that you're going to get on the road before it gets too dark on Christmas Eve so that you could have your kids settled in at your parents' house before Santa comes to visit. Right now, you may be expecting that your family is going to start arriving at your house early on Christmas morning so that you can have a little breakfast before it's time to start opening up presents. Right now, you may be expecting that you're going to spend at least a couple more hours scrolling through Amazon or other online shops trying to finish all of your Christmas shopping and that you'll spend the next two or three days with your fingers crossed that all of your purchases will show up before it's time to open those presents. Right now, you may be expecting that you're finally going to be able to receive that gift that you have been hinting at all year long when Christmas day comes.
But whatever it is that you are expecting, it's safe for us to say that all of us have expectations at Christmas. And the biggest thing that we expect at Christmas is that Christmas will live up to our expectations. The biggest thing that we expect at Christmas is that Christmas is going to live up to our expectations. But we've all celebrated enough Christmases at this point to know that that's probably not going to happen.
At some point over the next few days, somebody's going to get sick and they're not going to be able to make it to the family Christmas celebration. At some point over the next few days, somebody's going to burn the last batch of Christmas cookies and it's going to be too late to do anything about it. Maybe even on Christmas morning, somebody's going to open up that present that they have been hinting at all year long, only to find that somebody bought it for them in the wrong size. Things just go wrong this time of year.
So no matter how lofty our expectations are, how low they may be, something goes wrong. And Christmas never lives up to our expectations. And there's actually a scene in the classic Christmas special, a Charlie Brown Christmas that shows us what happens when our expectations don't match our reality. And it involves Charlie Brown's famous Christmas tree.
Now in case you don't remember in the movie, while the rest of the Peanuts gang is rehearsing for their Christmas play in the auditorium, Charlie Brown, who's directing the play, decides that they need to have the right tree to set the right mood for their Christmas play. But before Charlie Brown and his best friend Linus can go out to find this Christmas tree, another one of the Peanuts Gangs makes it abundantly clear that they have certain expectations for what they're doing. This tree is going to be like Linus's sister, Lucy is the one who steps up and this is what she tells Charlie Brown before he leaves. She tells him that she wants him and Linus to get a great big shiny aluminum Christmas tree.
And she doesn't stop there. She goes on to tell them, get the biggest aluminum tree that you can find. Maybe painted pink. So this is what the Peanuts gang was expecting Charlie Brown to come back with.
They were expecting that they were going to have a big shiny aluminum Christmas tree and that maybe just maybe that tree would even be pink. But that's not what they got. Because when Charlie Brown shows up on the Christmas tree live, he sees this little pine tree sitting there in an automatically catches his eye. And it causes his friend Linus to remark that he didn't even know it's no made wooden Christmas trees.
But in spite of that, Charlie Brown decides this is the right tree to set the right mood for the Christmas play. So he gets the tree, but when he returns to the auditorium where the Peanuts have been rehearsing, the rest of the gang let Charlie Brown know exactly how they feel about the Christmas tree that he picked out. One of the members of the Peanuts gang says, boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown. You were supposed to get a good tree.
Can't you even tell a good tree from a poor tree? Another one, Johnson, and says, I told you he goofed it up. He's not the kind that you can depend on to do anything right. You're hopeless, Charlie Brown.
And then just so there's no doubt whatsoever how the Peanuts feel about Charlie Brown in this moment. Another one says, you've been done before, but this time you really did it. So there's Charlie Brown holding his little pine Christmas tree that nobody wanted and nobody expected. And the rest of the Peanuts gang, well, they're feeling upset.
They're feeling disappointed. They're feeling let down because they didn't get what they were expecting. And the same thing has happened to all of us at one Christmas or another. At some point we have all felt let down at Christmas.
We've all felt let down at Christmas. But none of us want to feel that way. None of us want to feel upset at Christmas. None of us want to feel disappointed at Christmas.
None of us want to feel let down at Christmas. So throughout this Christmas season, we have been talking about some of the reasons why it is we end up feeling this way in Christmas. And sometimes we end up feeling like that at Christmas because we fill our lives with so many other things this time of year. From shopping, to baking, to decorating, to planning our travel itineraries.
That there's no room left in our lives at Christmas for Jesus. And sometimes we feel let down at Christmas because we get so focused on what we want. We get focused on the gifts that we want to receive, the kind of celebrations that we want to attend, the kind of food that we want to eat, the kind of picture perfect decorations that we want to put up, that we make Christmas about us instead of Jesus. And sometimes we feel let down at Christmas because even though we know this is supposed to be a happy and joyful time of year, even though we know it's supposed to be a time where we feel loved and appreciated, sometimes we can't help but feel alone during the holiday season.
But today we're going to be talking about one last reason why it is that we often feel let down at Christmas. And this one might just be the biggest reason of them all. And sometimes we feel let down at Christmas because we're expecting the wrong things Christmas. Sometimes we feel let down at Christmas because we're expecting the wrong things at Christmas.
And that's what happened to the Peanuts game. The Peanuts had a very vivid picture in their mind of what the perfect Christmas tree was going to look like. They wanted a big tree, they wanted a shiny tree, they wanted a aluminum tree. Maybe even they wanted a pink tree.
But that's not what they got. When Charlie Brown showed up with that scrawny little pine tree, the Peanuts felt let down because they didn't get what they were expecting. And the same kind of thing actually happened that very first Christmas as well. See leading up to that very first Christmas, the people of Israel had been waiting for centuries for God's Messiah to finally come.
And since they had been waiting so long for the Messiah to finally come, there were people in Israel who had some pretty specific expectations for how the Messiah would come and what kind of person the Messiah would be like. But then when Jesus comes, when God sends his Messiah into this world, Jesus isn't exactly what they were expecting. So some people would have felt let down because of it. But what kind of things were some people in Israel expecting from the Messiah before Jesus came into the world?
Well, the answer to that question we need to spend some time looking at some passages in the Old Testament. People commonly believe, contain prophecies or predictions about what the Messiah is going to be like. The first one of these passages that I want to take a closer look at today is found in Isaiah chapter 9. In Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, this is what we read.
We're told, a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and authority will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be vast authority and endless peace for David's throne in Forest Kingdom, establishing and sustaining it with justice and righteousness now and forever. So if there were people who believe that this was a prophecy, that this was some kind of prediction about what the Messiah was going to be like, then what would they have expected of a Messiah based on what we just read in Isaiah chapter 9?
Well, they would have expected that not only would authority rest on the shoulders of the Messiah, but they also expected that the Messiah would have a vast amount of authority. The Messiah would have so much authority that he would be able to bring about an endless peace. Now, who would have had that kind of authority back in the first century? God, a person who would have had that kind of authority would have been the most powerful people that the people in Israel could have thought of.
So they would have expected the Messiah would be some kind of king, because kings were the only ones who would have had that kind of power. Of course, this isn't the only passage that we find in the book of Isaiah. The people think contains prophecies about what the Messiah would be like. We find another one of these passages a couple of chapters later in Isaiah chapter 11.
This is what Isaiah writes there. He writes, A shoot will grow up from the stump of Jesse. A branch will sprout from his roots. He will strike down the violent with a rod of his mouth.
By the breath of his lips, he will kill the wicked. Based on those verses, what were the people of Israel expecting from the Messiah? Well, again, this time we're told that they expected that the Messiah is going to come from the same lineage as Jesse. And Jesse, of course, is the father of the greatest king in Israel's history, King David.
But here we see that they're not just expecting that the Messiah is going to be a king who comes from David's lineage. They also expect that the Messiah is going to be someone who will strike the violent down, someone who will kill the wicked, and what kind of person would strike the violent down and kill the wicked in these days? Would have been some sort of warrior. So people of Israel, people of Israel who expected that the Messiah was going to be either a warrior, some kind of military leader who would defeat their enemies.
But I say it's not the only book in the Old Testament where people think we find prophecies about who the Messiah will be. There's other passages that we find in books like Micah, in Micah chapter 5. This is what Micah tells us. Micah writes, As for you, Bethlehem of Ephritha, Though you are the least significant of Judas forces, one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you.
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. Based on those verses, what were some people in Israel expecting the Messiah to be like? Well, again, when you see them, they're expecting that Messiah is going to be a great and powerful king. But that's not all.
They also expected the Messiah is going to be like a shepherd who watches over and protects their people. And just so you're aware of this, that comparison of a king to a shepherd is something that happens fairly often inside of the Old Testament. But when you take these passages, and there are more that we can look at, but when you just take these passages and you start putting them together, you start getting a pretty vivid picture of what the people in Israel were expecting the Messiah to be like. There are people in Israel who were expecting that the Messiah was going to be a great king who came from the same lineage as their greatest king, King David.
They expected that the Messiah was going to be powerful, that he was going to have vast authority, that he was going to be some kind of warrior or military leader who could strike down all of their enemies. They expected that once all of their enemies were defeated, that the Messiah would watch over them and protect them and bring about an endless peace. Those were the kind of things that people in Israel were expecting from the Messiah. But that's not what they get when the Messiah finally arrives.
So what do they get when the Messiah arrives? Well, let's take a look at it. If you've got a Bible close by your Bible on your phone, encourage you to go ahead and open it to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2.
And as you're finding it, which is quickly pointing out the book of Luke is essentially a biography of Jesus. It's one of four accounts of Jesus' life that we find in the Bible. And in Luke chapter 2, we're going to read Luke's account of Jesus' birth. So let's see what Luke tells us happens when the Messiah finally arrives.
Starting in Luke chapter 2 verse 1, we read, These verses that we've just read, they tell us how the Messiah came. This is how Jesus entered into the world. Instead of being born in a palace like some future king, Jesus was born in some sort of stable. Instead of having his arrival welcomed with fanfare and great with some kind of royal proclamation.
Jesus was born far from the place that Mary and Joseph called home because they were forced to leave their home to participate in a government census. And when Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, there was no room for them there. This is why Jesus gets wrapped up in strips of cloth and his first bed is a feeding trough. Instead of being born into royalty where he would enjoy a lavish lifestyle as he grew up, Jesus was born to a teenage mother named Mary and a carpenter named Joseph.
And we know that Mary and Joseph couldn't afford to give Jesus anything resembling a lavish lifestyle. And we know this because after Jesus was born when Mary and Joseph take him to the temple to dedicate him, they bring two birds, two dubs with them as an offering. Those two dubs are what the Old Testament prescribed for poor people to bring as they're offering. If Mary and Joseph had any financial means at all, they would have come with a lamb instead of two birds.
Instead of growing up in Jerusalem, which would have been the center of both religious and political power in Israel at the time, Jesus grows up in a backwoods place called Nazareth. And Nazareth was so insignificant, it was so unimportant that when a man named Nathaniel later finds out that the Messiah has come from Nazareth, his question that he asks is, can anything good come from Nazareth? That's how much people look down on the place that Jesus called home. As Jesus got a little bit older instead of being trained and taught so that he could become a religious leader or a priest instead of learning how to become a military commander at the very least a soldier, Jesus learned how to become a carpenter from Joseph.
He worked with his hands. He was a blue collar kind of guy from a nowhere kind of town. And when Jesus reached the point where he was ready to start his earthly ministry instead of assembling an army or instead of aligning himself with important and powerful people in Israel, the first people that Jesus calls to follow him or fishermen and text collectors. Jesus does his ministry, he lays his hands on people that you're not supposed to touch, people like lecturers.
Jesus goes about his ministry, he welcomes children. He sits and he talks with Samaritans. He eats with outsiders. And instead of working to overthrow the Roman Empire, Jesus becomes a victim of the Roman Empire.
So Jesus was not at all what a lot of people in Israel were expecting when it came to the Messiah. The truth is that if you were able to go back to the first century in Israel, you were to tell anyone that was living in Israel at that point in time that their long-awaited Messiah had been waiting for is a people for hundreds of years. When he finally arrived, he was going to be a carpenter from Nazareth who hung out with sinners and tax collectors and who ended up being executed by the Roman Empire. When people heard that, they would have felt upset.
They would have felt disappointed. They would have felt let down because Jesus was about the last thing they would have been expecting. Jesus just didn't match the picture that they had in their minds of what the Messiah was supposed to be like. The people of Israel were looking for a big and powerful Messiah, but instead they get a small humble baby when Jesus enters into the world.
So they wanted that big, shidy aluminum Christmas tree, but God gives them small little pine tree instead. But God's choice was perfect. You see, the people in Israel were looking at things the same way that we continue to look at things today. When the people of Israel were thinking about what they hoped their Messiah would be, they wanted someone who was powerful.
They wanted someone who was strength. They wanted someone who was impressive. They wanted a Messiah who would not only look good himself but a Messiah who would make them all look good as well. They wanted a Messiah that would come and defeat their enemies and help re-establish the kingdom of Israel.
For good. But God wasn't looking at any of those kind of things. Instead of thinking about what people wanted when the Messiah came, God was focused on what we needed. And even though there were people in Israel who wanted God to send a Messiah who would destroy their enemies, bring it in to the Roman Empire, God knew that we needed a Messiah who would bring an end to our separation from God.
Even though there were people who wanted a Messiah who would sit on the throne and rule as King, God knew that we needed a Messiah that would bridge the gap between us and God. Even though there were people in Israel who wanted God to send a Messiah who would defeat their enemies and re-establish the kingdom of Israel once and for all, God knew we needed a Messiah who would invite us to be a part of the kingdom of God. And that took a different kind of Messiah than what everyone was expecting. That required a Messiah who was willing to come down and enter this earth at our level.
Someone who was willing to experience everything that we experience. Someone who was willing to be born into poverty, to grow up in obscurity, to live a life where he got used to being overlooked and underestimated. It required a Messiah who knew what it would be like to be rejected, who knew what it was like to suffer, who knew what it was like to die. And that's why Jesus comes the way that he comes.
Jesus doesn't enter into the world the way that he enters into this world because God couldn't come up with a better idea. Jesus doesn't come into the world the way that he comes into this world because God had to go with Plan B. Jesus came into the world the way that he came into this world because that's exactly how God wanted him to come into this world because God knows that's exactly how we needed the Messiah to come. Think back to Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.
When Charlie Brown first brought that Christmas tree back to the rest of the Peatets gang, everybody mocked that tree. Because that tree looked so sad and so pathetic that they couldn't imagine that it could ever be a good tree. But then Charlie Brown's best friend Linus says something important. Linus says, I never thought it was such a bad little tree.
It's not bad at all really. Maybe it just needs a little love. And when the Peatets gang showed that tree a little bit of love when Linus wraps his blanket around the base of it and they cover it with decorations, that tree became more than any of them ever expected it would be. The same kind of thing happens with Jesus too.
The world looked at Jesus and they saw someone disappointing. Someone who didn't live up or measure up to their expectations. Someone who was not what they expected. Not what they wanted.
But God knew that Jesus is exactly what we needed. And when we stop demanding that Jesus be what we want him to be and accept who Jesus actually is, well that's what we discover. That Jesus is everything that we've needed. Everything that we've been looking for, all along.
And this is why we end up feeling let down at Christmas so often. The Christmas we end up feeling let down so often because we expect the wrong things at this time of year. We expect that the Christmas season is going to make us happy. We expect that the presents that we get are going to satisfy us.
We expect that the decorations we put up are going to create some kind of Christmas magic around us. We expect that our family gatherings are going to fulfill us. We expect that if we do Christmas just right, then it will finally feel the way we're supposed to feel at Christmas. But this season, this holiday was never meant to give us any of those things.
Instead, Christmas gives us the one thing that we actually need. And it's not presents. It's not decorations. It's not even an excuse to get together with our family.
Now the one thing that Christmas gives us that we actually need is Jesus. So we need to stop looking for shiny aluminum trees and conquering the sias. We need to realize that Jesus is still exactly what you need, even if he's not what you expected. Jesus is still exactly what we need, even if he's not exactly what we expected.
So if you don't want to feel let down when this Christmas season is over in just a few more days, here's my challenge for you. Stop expecting Christmas to do something that Christmas was never meant to do. Stop demanding another aluminum tree. Stop looking for that conquering king.
Instead, take the time to look at who Jesus actually is. Look at that baby. There's lying in a manger. Look at that baby that there was no room for that first Christmas day.
Look at that baby who spent his first night sleeping in a feeding trough. But more importantly, look at who that baby grew up to be. Because when we make this time of year about who Jesus really is, instead of trying to make Jesus into who we want him to be, that's what we discover. That even if Jesus isn't what we expect, even if he isn't always what we want, Jesus is exactly what we need.
But you'll never realize that if you keep trying to turn Jesus into something else. Jesus is never going to be that big shiny aluminum Christmas tree. But he can be that perfect tree we've all been waiting for. Let's break it together.
God, as we come to you in this time of prayer, you know that with Christmas, just a few days away, we all have expectations of how the next few days are going to go. We've got little pictures in our mind of what our family Christmas celebrations are going to be like. We've got pictures in our head of what our kids or grandkids faces are going to look like when they open up their presents on Christmas morning. We've got pictures in our head about the foods that we're going to get to eat and just the way that we're going to get to celebrate.
But God, even with these vivid images running through our minds today, deep down inside, we know that Christmas isn't going to live up to those expectations. Something's going to go wrong. Something's not going to go exactly the way we want it. God helped us to realize that the meaning of a season is never going to be found in the presents that we give or receive.
The kinds of celebrations we have, the foods that we get to eat. Now, what the season is about is what it has always been about. And that's Jesus. And God, if we don't take the time to focus this time of year, on Jesus, we're always going to feel let down.
Because the presents we receive aren't going to fulfill us. The time that we spend together with family may make us feel love for a few hours. But those feelings go away once everyone walks out the door. So God, turn us to Jesus.
Turn us to Jesus and help us experience Him this Christmas. Let us spend some time reflecting on that baby who entered into our world. We found there was no room for Him. Let us spend time reflecting on that baby who spent his first night in a feeding trough instead of in a royal palace.
Let us spend time reflecting on who that baby grew up to be. And let us find everything that we look for in Him. Let us find hope. Peace, joy, in love, in Jesus and through Jesus.
Because He's the only one that can help us find those things. We pray this all in His name. Amen.