In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the true cost of Christmas and compares it to the immense cost that God paid to come into the world. The speaker emphasizes the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and his willingness to bear the weight of humanity's sins. The sermon also highlights the transformative power of knowing Jesus and the freedom that comes from a relationship with him. The speaker uses the story of a boy born without ears to illustrate the importance of Jesus giving us everything we need for life and salvation.

It's Luke chapter 2. Let's read a few verses down through here. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife being great with child. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, oh that we would have room for you in our life. And what a sad story it would be for our life to be finished and there would be the voice saying there was no room for Jesus in the inn. And if there's no room for Jesus in the inn, then there was no room for Jesus in the beginning. And all in between, we bow our hearts before you, humble ourselves before you, but in no way do we come anywhere near humbling ourselves before you like you humbled yourself before us. Almighty God to come down, God with us, Emmanuel, to be born into this world in a lowly stable. Thank you for coming into this world. Thank you for coming to die for our sins, to be buried and then rise again the third day. And we pray that this morning the Holy Spirit would open up our eyes to see and our ears to hear what you have for us. In Jesus' name, Amen. There is a statement in here made that they brought Jesus and they came to a place called Bethlehem. God just was putting a message in my heart last night and I got up this morning and tried to put it together about something about Christmas. You know, Christmas is a time when it's expensive, it costs, because of our traditions of giving gifts and it's a good time, it's a fun time. And the world makes a lot out of it, makes a lot off of us because of all of this. But it's nothing compared to what it cost God to come into this world and we have no idea of the cost it was until we look at Calvary, until we look at the garden of Gethsemane, and when Jesus looked into the cup and He saw all of our sins and He said, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Our sins are so wicked and terrible, but our God was willing to pay the price to come down into this world. And those that know Jesus understand what He did for them on the cross. And we love Him. Many years ago there was a boy, little boy, little baby boy, born into this world. Boys and girls, listen, I'll tell you a story. And he was born into this world a nice looking little boy. There was only one problem. He was born without ears. He didn't have any ears, he just had holes in the side of his head. And as he grew up through the years, he kept wanting some ears. He wished he had some ears. Because other children, you know what they would do? They would make fun of him. And they would laugh at him. And they would call him different names. And so as he grew up, he wished he could have some ears. He really did. And sometimes he would try to cover up the holes in his ears so people wouldn't see, but he couldn't do it all the time. And so he was laughed at. And it really made his mother feel bad. She would cry. He would cry. But then there came a day when something happened. And it looked like he might get some ears. That the doctors might give him an ear transplant. And before I finish the story, I want to get back and tell you a little bit more about Bethlehem. And when I come back to the end, if I forget to tell you about how this story ends, you raise your hand. Okay, John? You all let me know if I forget. But I want to tell you something else about what Bethlehem meant. You see, Bethlehem was a place of expense. You know what Bethlehem means, by the way? Bethlehem means the house of bread. And if we could go another direction, I would take you and show you all the things that happened in Bethlehem. Last week or what, a couple weeks ago, I shared with you a story about David and his mighty men and a story about Bethlehem. But Bethlehem meant the house of bread. And bread means what? Life. I was looking over in John where Jesus said, For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven. Here is God coming down from heaven, being born into the stable in the town called the house of bread. Bread is the stable of life. If you have bread, you can stay alive with just bread and water for quite a while. If you have the bread that hasn't gone through the processing where they've taken out most of the main ingredients of it, you can stay alive on it. I don't know if you could. I don't think you could off a loaf of bread in the store, most of it. But he was born into this town called the house of bread, life. And the Scripture says, For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. A lot of people have gone to churches, religious leaders or whatever, and they stay hungry within their soul. But once you find Jesus, you'll find satisfaction within your spirit. And so, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. And he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Another verse, if I might read you another verse on this, where Jesus just said this, I am that bread of life. John 6.48, I am that bread of life. And He said, This is the will of Him that sent Me that everyone which seeth the Son... Have you seen Jesus? ...that seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. That's what kind of life Jesus gives you. Do you have everlasting life? And I will raise Him up again at the last day. If you miss Jesus, you've missed life. If you miss Jesus, you've missed it all. Jesus said, What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul? He that has the Son, he that has Jesus, has life. He that has not the Son does not have life. So if you don't have Jesus, you've missed it all. For Jesus, then Bethlehem was a special time. But you know, in order for you to have bread, a grain of wheat, a kernel of wheat, has to be crushed. As it says in Isaiah, Jesus was bruised and crushed for us. He was actually broken. That grain of wheat, in order for it to become bread, has to be crushed. And actually, for that grain of wheat to multiply, it has to die. It has to go into the ground. And a little miracle happens there. When it dies, life springs out of that death. And it's a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Every time you will... We've been around for many years up where they would plant wheat. And it's always fun in the fall when they plant the wheat and the farmers wait to see how good a crop they're going to get in about seven days. You'll see these little blades come up, and you drive down the road, you can see the glitter of green. That's life, evidence of life coming from the dead. Well, Bethlehem was for the purpose of giving us life, not for the purpose of us just having a good time at Christmas, but to give us life. And if you miss Jesus, you miss life. And you've missed the whole purpose of being alive, is to find Jesus. And so Bethlehem was for the purpose of giving us life, and also for the purpose of setting us free. Because Jesus says when you have life, you'll be set free from the bondage of sin and yourself. You know, Bethlehem's always cost. We read here it cost Mary and Joseph something. It was costly. And in a few minutes, I'll just talk to you a little bit about Mary, what it cost her. But Bethlehem's always cost somebody. That life, that life may be given. A dying must take place. Did you know that in order for God to give us life, God being three persons in one, and we don't understand Him fully, but one of the persons of the Godhead agreed that He would sacrifice His position. He would not cease to be God, but that He would take a vacation for 33 years and come down and tabernacle among us, dwell among us, live among us. And Jesus was God in the flesh. And He kept up His communion with the Father by prayer. He lived in the Spirit as we can when we become born again and know Jesus. But when He died on the cross, and He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? That was the horriblest time in all eternity because He'd never known a moment of separation, of fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. That's what our God was willing to pay for us. For all eternity, He'd never known any separation and communication with God the Father and God the Son. When He bore our sins on the cross, He became sin for us. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit turned His back on Jesus. That's why He cried out, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He didn't really forsake Him in that sense, but He just lost that fellowship. And He went through that. He came through the stable and went to the cross that we might have life. Oswald Chambers has a statement that he said that will bring it down to us now. You see, in order for you and I to experience the abundant life, first of all, we must receive Jesus as our life, our sin-bearer. We receive Him as our life. We recognize He died on the cross for our sins, and He comes into our life when we invite Him in. And we're born again. We have this wonderful experience that the testimony worldwide for hundreds and thousands of years has been, I've been born again. All kinds of different ways and all kinds of different places. But the testimony is that something changed. Jesus came into my life. And then He came in to give you abundant life. The type of life where He lives His life through you. But in order for that abundant life to be present and the power of God to be on your life, we have to go through our Bethlehems. Many know Christ, but yet they have never experienced the abundant life because they will not go through their Bethlehems. Oswald Chambers said, Have I allowed my personal human life to become a Bethlehem for the Son of God? Have you allowed your personal human life to become a Bethlehem? A place where life can flow out through you. And for life to come, there always has to be a dying to self. Now let's look at Mary, just a little bit. Here's Mary. And we just read the story about Mary in Luke 2, Luke and Matthew 1. God came to her and He asked if her body could be a Bethlehem. Could be a place. And of course she had a submissive spirit. Where was it? Luke 2? Where she said, Be it unto me as you have spoken. I'll find it here in a minute probably. But yes, in Luke 1, Mary said in 38, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. Isn't that good? God wanted her body to be a place that He could use. He wants you and I to be a place where He can use. I was looking in Luke 2, 34 when they brought Jesus in to the temple. Jesus had been born. They came into the temple. There was an old prophet there. And He came to her in Luke 2, 34 and Simeon blessed them. And then he looked at Mary and he said unto Mary, his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. You know what Jesus Christ means to you? Shows God what you think of Him. How you treat Jesus is how you treat God. And your life will be exposed. You may hide it from me or from each other, but it is exposed to God. But the old prophet Simeon, who had waited and the Holy Spirit had told him he would see the Messiah before he died, he had this message for Mary. Your life, it's going to be hard. This Bethlehem, bringing Jesus into the world, in Bethlehem itself physically, was hard, but nothing hard compared to the piercing that's going to go into your very soul in order that life may come into this world. And so she was warned that she would one day watch her only son that was born by the Holy Spirit. Now she had other children, but this son was special because she received him from the Holy Spirit. Watch him be crucified and her own soul would be pierced. Are you and I willing to let God be made known to others and go through a Bethlehem where even our own soul can be pierced? You know what? Mary had a reputation because in John chapter 8 it says at one point when Jesus was haggling with the scribes and the Pharisees they put in a low blow, a dirty remark to Him when they said unto Him, when they said, we be not born of fornication. In other words, your mother was a harlot. That was part of her Bethlehem, of her cross that she had to bear. They called his mother a harlot, a pure Mary. Now, to go through the Bible, we don't have enough time to go all the way through, but it would be interesting and someday I'm going to do this. I don't know if I'll get to do it on earth and then I'll do it in heaven. But I want to go through the whole Bible and preach the cross from Genesis to Revelation. But this morning we'll just pick out a couple. You remember when Abraham had Isaac and he waited a hundred years for him? And he was an old man. He was too old to have a child and Sarah was too old to have a child. You remember when God came and He gave Abraham this little boy, Isaac. Laughter. They laughed. They were so full of joy. Then there came a day when God said to Abraham in Genesis 22, God came to Abraham and He said, Take now thy son, listen, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee thereof. And you know the story. How Abraham obeyed. He obeyed immediately and explicitly. He did everything that God said. And when he came up to plunge the knife into Isaac, God stopped him. Abraham didn't understand everything but Abraham knew God. And Abraham was listening to God. Abraham, his example of faith is just flabbergasting. You and I will never make a mistake obeying God. We'll make mistakes obeying ourselves and our conscience, our feelings and things because these things get affected. Our emotions get in the way and things. But obeying God never gets us into trouble. And that's what he did. And because he obeyed God and that was the most painful thing he'd ever gone through in his life, God gave him back his Isaac. And there was the death and burial and resurrection of Isaac right there. You know what Isaac said to Abraham as they were getting ready and they were doing this? Isaac said, Where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? Well, where is the lamb? Verse 7, Genesis 22, 7. For a burnt offering. You know what Abraham told Isaac? A lot of people don't understand this. But here's what Abraham told him. God, he said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb. You know what he's saying? God will provide... Abraham was a prophet. God will provide himself a lamb. Meaning God will provide for the need. Years later, the old John the Baptist saw Jesus walking. He said, Behold, what did he say? Behold the lamb of God. That's what Abraham was talking about prophetically. Did you know that? There was a prophetic utterance that God would provide himself as the lamb in the person of Jesus Christ. Abraham was willing to pay the price. Where is the lamb? The lamb is now on the throne. But the lamb was designed to be a sacrifice. The lamb was born into the world in Bethlehem and went to the cross. Now, are you and I willing to be a little lamb? A sacrifice daily for Jesus? You know, one other one. And I'll just bring this up in passing. To see the cross in the life of Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham was Jacob's grandfather. To see the life of Jacob from the perspective of the cross. The first few years, he was a 100% pure old rascal. Like we are. But once he met Jesus. And he had a night of wrestling with the Lord. He was never the same after that. Because he walked away with a limp. The hollow of his thigh was touched by God. And he had the limp. Everywhere he went, he limped. But something else the Scripture tells us that he had the power of God on his life from that point on. Because he was willing to let God be the Lord in his life from that point on. Now, I say that for you. You and I, when we become Christians, have the tremendous privilege of letting God be glorified in our life. But He will give us the option. And you may walk with a limp. You may have something that has been very hard to bear. But if you will give that area to God, the power of God will flow through your life. And there will be the radiance of Christ in your life. But there will be an emptiness. There will be something missing in your life if you refuse to let God use your life as a Bethlehem. There won't be any testimony of the reality of Jesus. So what does Christmas mean to you? I don't even like the word Christmas. That's Christ's Mass. Christ's Massacre. But what it means to you personally in your spirit, it means He came to die. He was born to die. What about one other? Joseph. Joseph could have become bitter at his Bethlehem. What was it? It was a pit. They threw him in a pit. He died to his past. Died to his family. Died to his friends. Died to his father's love. For 13 years a slave in prisons. Lied about mistreated and everything. But he just kept his mind on Jesus. He just loved God. He loved Jesus and the revelation that he had of knowing God. And so, his Bethlehem was used to bring forth the power of God. And we could go through others. Moses. And David. You know, David was supposed to be the king, but he was cast out of the throne. He just committed it to God. His Bethlehem was running around in the hills of Judea for years, being chased like a criminal. His Bethlehem was hard. Bethlehems are not easy. And it wasn't easy for Mary. But let's tie this together now. Because we have a story to finish, don't we? Yeah. The devil will lie to you and me about your Bethlehem. He will say, God doesn't know what's going on. God doesn't care about you. He's a liar. If you'll give that area that God has allowed you to carry. It's your cross. Jesus said, take up your cross. That's a Bethlehem. And follow me. If you'll give that to God, there'll be the power of God through your life. You go back and read the story, I think, where was it? On Jacob. In Genesis 32. Genesis 32. Well, maybe I do have it here. Listen. Jacob had the power of God on his life. This is what God said in Genesis 32. And He said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. You'll have the testimony of the power of God on your life if you give it to Him. Now listen. If we will trust God through our Bethlehem, if we will trust God through our Bethlehem, we will come out knowing God. Listen to what the Scripture says in Hebrews 11, 34. About the great Christians. It's a Hebrews Hall of Fame, they call it. But you come down into 34. It says, they quenched the violence of fire. They escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong. Out of weakness were made strong. Waxed valiant in fight. Turned to flight. The armies of the aliens. We are more than conquerors. Out of weakness. Out of our weakness. We'll get, God, I'm just so weak. But I'll just give it to you. This hurts so bad. This trial you've given to me. I can't do it, but I'll just trust you. People will see Jesus. A lot of people will not understand how Jesus is coming out of your life. Because they will not know the burden, the load that you're carrying. Not everyone sees. Not everyone understands. But no one cares for me like Jesus. And if you will trust Him completely, all the way, He will take you all the way. That boy was taken into surgery. And they transplanted some ears onto his head. He came out. They took the bandages off. Showed him in a mirror. And he had ears. I have ears. Where's my mommy? I want to see my mommy. They went and got his mommy. Brought her in. Look, mommy, I have ears. Mom, what's those white things up under your hair? Bend down. Move back her hair. There was bandages where she used to have ears. You see? This is what Jesus did. He came down. That's what Bethlehem was. He came down so that we could have ears. So that we could hear. So we could see. So we could be free. And the devil's busy trying to keep you and me a slave to sin. But Jesus came to set you free. And once you meet Jesus, you'll be free. Once you know His power in your life. You see, you can be saved and a Christian and born again and go into heaven. But yet the devil might still try to keep you down and lie to you that you can't be free. But that little boy could hear with ears now. He had real ears because somebody was willing to pay the price. Nobody, they couldn't find ears for years until his mommy realized that she could give him ears. Jesus gave us everything we need. Eyes, heart. He gave us life. No room in the inn. You know what the inn represents? We'll close with this. The inn represents pride. If there's no room in your life for Jesus, then there's just pride. No room in the inn. The innkeeper said. But there's room in the stable. The stable represents what? Humility. You and I can have Jesus just living His life through us if we'll live in the stable. Be willing to go to the stable. We'll know Him. Let's pray. Oh, Lord Jesus, we love You. I love You. Thank You for coming into this world. Thank You. Thank You for being born in that stable. Oh, how humble our God is that we would be like You. That's our prayer. That we might know You. That we might know a God that's so great and so mighty, but yet You're so humble that You would come down into this world and be born into a stable for us to know You. Thank You, Lord Jesus. And Lord, we pray if there's one here today that has not really ever met You, that they would not go away from here rejecting You one more time. We know, Lord, we know that there is that last time. Help us, if we don't know You, not to be proud and to stay in the inn. No room in the inn. But to humble ourself, repent of our sin, acknowledge You as our Savior, and then also that our life can be a Bethlehem every day. And that we'd turn our Bethlehem into a tower of prayer every time the pain hits us. We'd be praying. We'd be reminded to pray. The hurt hurts us deeply. We would just start praying. Thank You for these folks, Father. I pray that You'd bless. We do need Your blessing, that You'd bless in Jesus' name. Amen.