No room for Christ in the inn

‘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.’ Luke 2:7

Suggested Further Reading: 1 Peter 4:1–5

If you have room for Christ, then from this day forth remember the world has no room for you; for the text says not only that there was no room for him, but look—‘There was no room for them,’ no room for Joseph, nor for Mary, any more than for the babe. Who are his father, and mother, and sister, and brother, but those that receive his word and keep it? So, as there was no room for the blessed virgin, nor for the reputed father, remember henceforth there is no room in this world for any true follower of Christ. There is no room for you to take your ease; no, you are to be a soldier of the cross, and you will find no ease in all your life-warfare. There is no room for you to sit down contented with your own attainments, for you are a traveller, and you are to forget the things that are behind, and press forward to that which is before; no room for you to hide your treasure in, for here the moth and rust corrupt; no room for you to put your confidence, for ‘Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.’ From this day there will be no room for you in the world’s good opinion; they will count you to be an offscouring; no room for you in the world’s polite society; you must go outside the camp, bearing his reproach. From this time forth, I say, if you have room for Christ, the world will hardly find room of sufferance for you; you must expect now to be laughed at; now you must wear the fool’s cap in men’s esteem; and your song must be at the very beginning of your pilgrimage—‘Thou from hence my all shall be’. There is no room for you in the worldling’s love.

For meditation: Do you find that you are the odd one out even at Christmas? So was the Lord Jesus Christ—‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not’ (John 1:11). Since sin entered the world, God’s people have always been out of place in it (Hebrews 11:13,38).

Sermon no. 485
21 December (1862)