Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Male): You are now listening to an inspirational message from Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, where Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr. is the pastor. Please join the service in progress.

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: It was a silent night, but at the same token, it was a holy night. That's the good part about it. It was a holy night. Who would have thought that God would have given us such a wonderful, wonderful son that He gave us. King of the world. Light of the world. Come on over here.

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The first Christmas certainly had to have been something. I think now that we're in the middle of the season, I guess it's just appropriate to talk a little bit about it. So today I want to talk a little bit about it. After we've had a moment of prayer, we're going to take us to the scriptures, and then we'll learn a few things, if you will.

Father, we thank You for blessing us. We thank You for coming into the earth for the purpose of giving Your life on the cross that we might be included in Your family, taking care of our sin debt which none of us could pay on our own. We thank You for this great season of celebration. We pray for all of those, Lord, who are going through the various challenges and trials. For many, Lord, it might not be so fun because of the deep pain that they might find themselves in.

We are consciously aware of that, and we pray that You would be merciful to every one of us. We thank You for loving us. We thank You for the worship opportunities that we have. We pray that You would help us to make the most of every day and use the time wisely. We thank You for the opportunity that we have right now to stand in Your presence. We pray that You would lift again Your hymn out of self as we open together Your Word. Speak to us so clear. Speak to us so deep. Let none of us escape. Bless now the words in our mouth and the meditations on our heart that it may be acceptable in Your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. We ask it in Jesus' name, and for His sake we pray. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters, this morning I want to take us into the gospel. We'll use the Gospel of Luke Chapter Two to be the introductory kind of place, but we'll look at a couple of other places in the scriptures as well. Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two, the first seven verses. Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two, verses one through seven. And there the Word of God says, "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 Judaea, 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." This is the Word of God for the people of God.

I want to talk this morning about six ways that you can miss Christmas. You're going to always miss Christmas if you don't include Christ. That is the thesis of the text of what I want to speak to you about today. Because, you know, you would raise the question, how can people miss Christmas with all of the advertisement that goes on? I mean, the merchants started before Halloween. Christmas displays were everywhere. Songs that were so out of season and so out of touch were already booming.

Through the holidays, through the Thanksgiving, people couldn't even hardly get their family little meals together. It was already Christmas. My grandkids made sure I had that list early because they didn't want me to miss Christmas. I remember when I was a kid people used to miss Christmas, but they missed it for another reason: because they started drinking early, and by the time Christmas came the lights would be out, and they would miss it.

There are a number of ways that people miss Christmas, but I think that it is all because we have become so commercial and we have lost, even the church has lost its feel for what God's design is. I want to be honest with you that while there's a lot of good that comes in Christmas, and maybe I'll talk a little bit more about it next time, there's an ugliness about Christmas too. There are a lot of people who are just not feeling it because they are so hurting.

For many of those, I remember two Christmases that I really missed. I remember the Christmas that my mother went to be with the Lord. She went to be with the Lord on December the 10th. We did the funeral on December the 13th. That year Christmas had no touch for me whatsoever. There was another Christmas when I had surgery. I went through three major surgeries and the second surgery was two days before Christmas. That year Christmas day I hardly knew that I was in this world.

I remember the little Christmas tree at the head of my bed and I remember two visitors. One of them was Brother Neighbors, Leo, who came to see me Christmas morning after the Christmas service. That's all basically I remember about Christmas that year. So it is possible to miss Christmas, and I think it's because we don't understand what it's really all about.

So I want to start with a little bit of a history. To be honest with you, scholars really tell us that December 25th had nothing to do with it. Many people believe that was the day that the Lord came into the world. That's not the day the Lord came into the world. That actual date was not the date of Christ's birth, and there's nothing in the scripture. When I read the text right here that I put before you this morning, there's no indication whatsoever that it was December 25th.

As a matter of fact, if you read all of the scriptures together, you'll find more arguments against it than you will for it. I'm not trying to destroy anybody's understanding, but I do want to help you to get the right understanding. I want you to understand that it was the church, the Roman Catholic Church, as a matter of fact, that brought this into existence in the fourth century. It was during the fourth century that they had a specific reason for doing it.

And that was because the celebrations were all pagan. They wanted to try to put a Christian spin on it. Most of those celebrations were during the winter times, and so they decided to add to this particular thing. You've got to know that most of the early worshipers were idol worshipers. They worshiped the sun gods, and because the sun god during the winter did not seem to have the strength to put out enough sun, they would build bonfires to help strengthen the light.

When they discovered that the days were getting longer, then they added even more things in celebration. And so the fathers of the church in Rome decided to celebrate Christ's birth during the winter solstice. It was their attempt to popularize some of the pagan festivals that were going on. You'd be surprised to see how closely aligned our celebration is with the pagan traditions of that day.

In Rome, the month of December was the celebration of the festival of Saturnalia, and it was December the 17th through the 24th. One of the most common customs during that festival was the giving of gifts to one another. Hint, hint. Where did gift giving come from with Christmas? It didn't come because God gave, or because the wise men gave the gifts. That was not how the gift giving started. It started out of this Roman pagan process.

Even the decorations, the use of the evergreen wreath and all of that, derives from this Saturnalia festival, in which the homes were decorated with evergreen bows. The Druids of England gathered sacred mistletoe for the institution of the bonfires. Man, it's a lot of stuff. If you go into the history and you begin to pull it out and begin to separate these things from the truthfulness of scripture, you wonder why people feel like they do.

Even the idea of Santa Claus is associated with, again, the Roman Church, Saint Nicholas, who had a love for children. The whole idea of trying to make this be a Christian festival never fully got all the way over into the Christian culture. And so we've got this combination today of secularism, and then we try to put a little Christian spin on it. You wonder why people miss Christmas. They miss Christmas because they don't even understand what it's supposed to be.

And so when we look at the scripture, we can find that there are ways that people even scripturally miss Christmas. The first thing I want to help you see is right here in this text, Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two, verse seven. You know what happened. Caesar Augustus declared that all the world should be taxed, and everybody went to their hometown. Joseph went up to Bethlehem because he's of the house and lineage of David. He took with him Mary, his wife, who was also connected with David's line.

They went there for a Roman census, and while they were there, her time came that she needed to bring forth her child. Now, nothing is said here, but it is implied that they went to an inn. It wasn't Holiday Inn, it wasn't Motel 6, and it certainly wasn't none of the five-star things that we have today. But the Bible says here that there was no room in the inn. Why? Why do you think so? Who missed the Christmas? The innkeeper missed the Christmas because he was so ignorantly preoccupied.

Put a pin right there. Don't miss that. Write that down. Ignorantly preoccupied. He was just busy. If Caesar had sent out a tax and everybody was to go to their hometown, Bethlehem is small. We've been there. If people crowded into Bethlehem trying to find somewhere to stay, then this would have been the busiest time that this innkeeper had ever had. So it meant he wasn't aware of who Mary was, and Joseph, or what she was carrying, or who she was carrying. He was just ignorantly preoccupied.

He was just busy. And that's one of the reasons people miss Christmas: because they are so ignorantly preoccupied. Just busy. Just doing stuff. There are going to be folk who are going to be working and preparing and doing and cooking and decorating and all, and the day would have come and gone, and they would have missed it because they have been so preoccupied with their busyness. People won't even come to church because they are so preoccupied trying to celebrate what they don't even know. Are you hearing me?

I just want you to know that this is real. The text says that Mary, the time came and she laid her baby in a manger and wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Swaddling clothes were blanket strips of cloth, and usually, it was the work that would have been done by a midwife. She had to give birth on her own. Unsanitary as you can imagine, standing almost probably ankle-deep in cow manure. I mean, you just need to understand.

Christmas, it wasn't that the innkeeper was being hostile toward Mary, Joseph, or anyone. It was just that he just didn't know. And because he didn't know, he didn't care. There are so many people who are so preoccupied with everything else that they just don't know what it's really all about. God was bringing the savior of the world into the world. Our sin-bearer was coming. Thank God He came in such lowly conditions that He is now accessible to all of us.

If He had come in a palace, then maybe only princes and kings and queens and others might have felt that they were deserving. But coming unlike any one of us, the most lowest, horrible condition, He came so that we could have access. But you know, we don't know anything about this innkeeper. The Bible doesn't say anything about him. He was just born in a stable. There are some commentators who think that it actually was a cave, and there are people who say other kinds of things.

But the point is that this man missed Christmas simply because he was preoccupied. I think that's why a whole lot of people today miss Christmas, because they are crowded out with worldly thoughts and activities and deeds and pleasure and all kinds of stuff. They never pause to think about what it's really all about.

I think there's a second reason people miss Christmas, and there's another character. We have to go to Matthew's Gospel. I'm coming back to Luke, too, so don't go nowhere. But in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter Two, there was another fellow. The Bible said wise men came from the east and they came to Jerusalem. They said, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him." And there was a man there whose name was Herod.

Herod met with the wise men and he asked all the religious leaders, "Where is this thing supposed to be?" And they find out Bethlehem. Herod pulled the wise men aside and he said, "Y'all go and see him, and when you find him, come back and tell me about it." And the wise men went on their way and the star appeared. You know the story. It led them to where the child was. Now, he was a child by this time and he was in a house. He wasn't still in that stable by this time.

The Lord warned the wise men in a dream, "Don't go back and see Herod," and they went back into their own country another way. Herod got mad. I want you to see this. I want you to see that he became angry and he did something dastardly. He ordered all of the children two years old and younger, male, to be killed. Why? Because he was fearfully jealous.

People miss Christmas because they are fearfully jealous. The news story that's sweeping America is about the black coach at Michigan State, University of Michigan. He's going to miss Christmas because of fearful jealousy. Are you hearing this? I mean, there's nothing different about this man's sin than many others, but what it is, it's being enjoyed by the media because it's another example of a lynching of a black man in public.

I'm not going to call nobody else's name, but there have been others who have other positions that are more prominent and their stuff was just kind of swept through. I mean, they even had a trial where woman after woman came forward and said, "Oh yes, oh yes." But nobody cared. But because of the jealousy, now here comes this situation. I just wanted to put that in so that you could understand that this is current.

We're not just talking about Herod because Herod is not alone. There are a lot of folk who are going to miss Christmas because of jealousy. You know what jealousy does? It causes people to become upset and envious because they think somebody else is going to take their throne. When people feel threatened, they will go to all kinds of lengths. Herod could not enjoy the fact that the savior of the world had come into the world because he was afraid that a king had been born and that he was going to lose his throne.

Herod was just that kind of fellow. You just got to know, his daddy was Antipas. Herod Antipas got him appointed to be the tetrarch over all of Jerusalem, should I say Israel, in that way. But he wasn't a Jew. He actually was an Edomite. The Edomites had been enemies of the Jewish people coming out of the land of Egypt and they had always been enemies. So he married a girl who was of Jewish descent so that he could have a relationship with the Jewish people.

He came in as a warrior and he drove out the factions that were rising up against Rome and he solidified his kingship. But after he solidified his kingship, Herod had his wife killed. Then Herod had two of his sons killed. Then later on Herod had a third son killed. The commentators said it was better to be Herod's pig than to be Herod's son because he was a murdering, jealous, insecure person.

Anytime you have a murderous, insecure person, they cannot enjoy Christmas. You've got a whole lot of folk who are jealous and a whole lot of people who are fearful. As a result, they're going to miss Christmas. Oh man, help us. I hope and pray that it's not you, but you can be jealous. People look at somebody else, they see what toys this kid got, and they can't enjoy whatever it is that they have because they're so upset because somebody else got something that they didn't get.

People miss it that way. Don't get no ring, girls, and show it off. You're going to make somebody hate you because they'll look at your finger and think, "What you doing with that? I didn't get no ring." They won't speak to you for another year. It's all because of what? Jealousy. You know it's the true truth. You just never thought about it like this. But Herod panicked when the wise men came and said, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? We've seen his star in the east and come to worship him."

Herod thought, "Wow, another king? Somebody else competing with me?" And he tripped out and he went off. But he becomes jealous, tearing up the White House to build a ballroom because he says people come from India and these men are princes and kings, and I want to have something like what they have. Maybe I'm in the wrong place, preacher.

There's a third character. Matthew's Gospel, too. There was a group of people when Herod heard the wise men say that they had come from the east and come to worship him, he called all of the scholars, the wise men and the scribes, the religious men who knew the scriptures. He said, "Where is this that this is supposed to happen?" And they said, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus saith the prophet."

These men missed Christmas. They were the scholars, they knew the Word, they understood where everything was supposed to take place, but they missed Christmas because they were pridefully indifferent. They didn't even think they needed to go see, to even check it out to see if a prophet or a savior had been born, because they didn't think they needed a savior. They were the scholars. People came to me and asked me, "Where would he be born?" So why do I need a Messiah?

And there are so many people who are just indifferent. They just don't even care that it is this celebration of the fact that God entered into the world. The Bible said Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not. And here we are at this great time, and we still got so many folk who just don't care. Christmas is just another day, just another time, just another season.

I don't like Christmas necessarily because of the shopping because the truth is I can get what I want to get whenever I want to get it, and it doesn't have to be a special day in order to get a gift. Are you following that? But it is to be a time of celebration. It is to be a time of recognition. It cannot just be an indifferent time. Man, in old days when people were baptized and brought into the church, they would go around the community, they would knock on doors, they would tell people, "I've joined the church, I've been baptized, my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life."

They would celebrate their salvation. We don't celebrate our salvation. We celebrate our criminality. Young people today brag about the number of people that they can hurt. Every day the papers are full. I read this morning of 11 people who were slaughtered at a beach, a Jewish gathering, and a gunman came. I heard yesterday of a murder at Brown University where people were taking final exams, because that's the kind of thing people would rather celebrate and be totally indifferent to the fact that the savior of the world has come.

I tell you, you miss Christmas when you are indifferent, pridefully indifferent, thinking that you're all of that and you don't need God. Then when we go back to Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two, there's another group of people who missed Christmas. It's in the eighth and ninth verses. There were shepherds abiding in the field, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto them and said, "Boys, listen. Got good news. Born to you this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord."

And listen at what these guys did. They got up and said, "Let us go see this thing that the Lord has spoken about." And they got up and they went and they found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. But you've got to understand, the shepherds were the most unlikely folk. They were nasty, they lived in the field, they kept sheep. Shepherds couldn't even give testimony in a court of law because they were believed to be criminals and crooks.

But these were the folk that God revealed the Word to and they got up from where they were and they went and saw. Now, there were two other people who also saw. There was an old man whose name was Simeon who waited around and he saw the Christ child, and there was an old woman whose name was Anna and she saw the Christ child. But look at all of the folk that were in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Bethlehem is just a few miles down the road, and none of them went to see because they were involved in their religious rituals.

Man, who missed Christmas? People who are so hung up in their religious rituals that they can't even know what they are celebrating. They're celebrating the Passover, and here's the Passover here. He was the Passover. He was the Passover Lamb. He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. And the angels and the shepherds and everybody is telling them to sky lit up, glory to God in the highest on earth, peace, goodwill. And all of these folk, oh, they're in Jerusalem for the feast. They're getting their praise on, but they don't even know who they're praising because the one they're supposed to be praising is in Bethlehem.

Are you hearing me? Yeah, we come to church every Sunday and we worship, or do we worship? We come to church because it's Sunday and we want to see who's there and we want to see what they got on and we want to talk about them, but we didn't come to worship. We've got our religious rituals going, but we're not really interested in worshipping the savior.

Oh man, it is, I'm sorry to bring this like this, but it's a sad day. It's a sad day in our world, it's a sad day in our church. Man, you can ask people, "Did you go to church?" "Yeah, I went." "How was it?" "It was good." "How good was it?" "It was good." "What they preach about?" "I don't know, but it was good." "What they sing about?" "I don't know, but I liked the way that boy stung when he squalled and he leaned."

We get lost in our rituals and in our religion. We've got our praise on as long as we've got our praise on, we've got the right rocks and the right antics, then we've got it. And I see so many people, man, who've got all of the religious antics, but get out in the parking lot and all that religion gets left inside. So the masses of people in Jerusalem missed Christmas because they were so hung up on their religious rituals that they didn't bother to go see the savior. Jesus, help us.

There's another group that missed Christmas, and it's right here in Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two. And there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, right, that all of the world should be taxed. And all of those Roman citizens were willing to be obedient to Caesar and to go wherever Caesar said go and to do whatever Caesar said do because they were idolatrous people and they were emperor worshipers rather than God worshipers. They valued the opinion and the word from Caesar more than they valued the Word of God.

I submit unto us today that idolatry is still real. Sunday mornings, man, the football stadium. If this was a football town, a pro football town, I've got friends who pastor churches in cities that they have NFL teams, and they have to structure their services before the games because they know when the games come on, it's over for church. Church folk ain't going to be there. They're going to fill up the stadium, they're going to be in front of the television, they're going to go and worship at their idols.

Man, it's just amazing. All of these gifts, all of these cards, all of these toys, don't misunderstand. I'm not against the commercialism. We need things, but when people choose to worship at those shrines... You know, when I was a kid growing up, you couldn't shop on Sunday. Malls weren't, there were no malls. Downtown was closed. People had time to go to church. But now we've made everything idol gods, and consequently, people find it difficult to worship. They missed the worship because of their own god, their own little G-O-D-S.

They were, oh, it's amazing, man, it is amazing to me. I was talking a little while ago about this man, and I don't like keep talking about him because I don't want people to misunderstand. I just use him as an illustration. And that's what you need to understand. I respect the President of the United States, but I don't agree with him. Okay? That's just the simple truth. But people jump in line and they go crazy when this man says something or writes an executive order that they know is wrong.

But they bow. And it's just amazing how person after person, all you have to do is say, "I'm going to be in your camp. I'm going to do whatever you tell me to do," and then they can get a position and don't have to know nothing about what they're doing. They're just bowing at that altar. And they're going to miss Christmas. They're going to miss the savior who has come into the world and they can't find a way to love Him and sing praises unto Him.

These people are selling their souls. I'll never forget the man who was from the state of Alabama in the first Trump administration. Mr. Sessions endorsed, and he was happy to say, "I'm the first one to endorse the President." And he became the Attorney General. And as soon as he gave him one of those crooked orders that he wanted him to fulfill, his conscience kicked in and he said, "I can't do it, sir." And because he would not bow, he got kicked out.

Person after person have been put up and pushed down, put up and pushed down. Listen, you don't have to bow at the wrong altar. You've got to know that God is the only one. "I am the Lord thy God, and I am a jealous God, and thou shalt have no other gods before me." And when we understand that, we won't miss Christmas. But when we don't understand that, we will miss Christmas.

And yes, I know time is running, but I need to give you one more, two more, one more. And there are people who miss Christmas, and it was the people in Jesus' hometown, Nazareth. You know, in the latter part of this gospel, Luke's Gospel, Chapter Two, verses 39 through 40, it says that when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to church when he was 12, and they left him behind, when they had finished all of their rituals, then they went back home, and he went to Nazareth with them, and he grew up in Nazareth.

But when the time was right and God was ready for Jesus to assume the role of Messiah, he goes into the synagogue of Nazareth and he says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." And Jesus said, "Today is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing."

And they said, "Get out of here." They picked up rocks. They were ready to stone him and throw him over the cliff. Why? Because they were overly familiar with him. And when you become too overly familiar, you will miss Christmas. They thought that they knew him. "How you the Christ? We know your mama 'em. You're from around here. You're Joseph's son. You grew up in the carpenter shop. How you are the Christ?"

Sometimes people can't hear what they need to hear because they think that they already know. And when you think you already know, you are not willing to open your heart and mind to receive from God. That's why we put different spins on the Christmas account, because everybody knows about Mary and Joseph. We all, when I was a kid, used to love to wear my bathrobe to be one of those shepherds in the Christmas play. Are you hearing me? Overly familiar.

Not thinking about who they were. Not thinking about what they came to do. Loved to be an angel, loved to be any part in the program because I was too familiar. But today is not about familiarity. Today it's about the truthfulness of who Jesus is. Who is He? Not just somebody who lived down the street, but somebody who came into this world to bear my sin, to pay my sin debt, to go to Golgotha's hill so that I could have a right to the tree of life. Someone who was raised the third day from the grave so that I could spend eternity in the presence of God.

That's what Christmas is. And when you don't know what Christmas is about, you will miss Christmas. And it's so easy for people. They might not miss December 25th, but they certainly will miss the meaning of the incarnation: when God became a man and came into this world. Oh, what a wonderful gift, what a great gift. It was the greatest gift to man. It was the best thing that the world could have ever had. But so many people miss it, and we miss it because we don't even know what it's all about.

I thank God. Anybody thank God? I thank God for that special day. And I don't care whether December 25th or June 3rd. The point is, He came. And He came into the earth to be a man to take on the likeness of sinful flesh so that He could satisfy God, so that I could be included in God's family. Doors open. Somebody might be here this morning. Maybe you don't want to miss this year's Christmas. Maybe you want to be a part of the great celebration of the savior of the world. That's what it's all about. Anytime during the song, give God your heart, give one of these your hand. Doors of the church are open. Bless you.

Guest (Male): Hope you enjoyed the broadcast. You have been listening to a message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, where we are reaching the world for Christ, located at 2135 Jefferson Avenue Southwest, Birmingham, Alabama, 35211. For a copy of this message, you can reach us at 205-925-9750 or 925-9751, or visit us on the web at www.greatershiloh.org. For another uplifting message, we invite you to join us for our next broadcast.