Let me ask you a question. What do you think the wise men and you and me have in common? I've been thinking a lot about my lesson I'm going to give today titled, "What happens when you follow a star and find a stable?
" What happens when you have high expectations? I mean, this is a majestic star and we followed it for days and then to have it stop and shine on a a cow shed. You talk about disappointment.
Disappointment is the the gap between expectation and reality. And the thing that we have in common with wise men, as I was kind of working on this, tweaking this lesson earlier this morning, I I thought to myself, well, there are things that we could say we have in common with the wise men. Uh, for example, um, we all have stables in our life.
Every one of us have had times in our life where our expectation was high and and we found a stable. We found a cow shed. He thought, I I was looking for something bigger.
I was looking for something better. So, let's look at the stable and the wise men's lives and then apply it to ourselves. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory.
This was during Herod's kingship, a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the east, and they asked around, "Where can we find and pay homage to the new king of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth, were on a pilgrimage to worship him. " When the word of their inquiry got to Herod, he was terrified.
and not Herod alone, but most of Jerusalem as well. Herod lost no time. He gathered all the high priest and religion scholars in the city together and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?
" They told him, "Beth, Judah territory. " The prophet Micah wrote it plainly, "It's you, Bethlehem, in Judah's land, no longer bringing up the rear. From you will come the leader who will shepherd rule my people, my Israel.
Herod then arranged a secret meeting with the scholars from the east, pretending to be as devout as they were. He got them to tell him exactly when the birth announcement star appeared. Then he told them the prophecy about Bethlehem and said, "Go find this child.
Leave no stone unturned, and as soon as you find him, send word, and I'll join you at once in your worship. " Instructed by the cane, they set off. Then the star appeared, the same star that they had seen in the eastern skies, and it led him, and it led them on until it hovered over the place of the child.
They could hardly contain themselves. They were in the right place. They arrived at the right time.
They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneelled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts.
Gold, frankincense, myrr. In a dream, they were warned not to report back to Herod. So they worked out another route, left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own country.
Think about the surprise and the disappointment of the wise men who took this incredible journey knowing that the star was significant that that they were going to see the new king of the Jews. Think about how when they lost the star, they wondered what what has happened and they're go to Jerusalem thinking obviously if there's going to be a new king of the Jews. We'll go to King Herod.
We'll go to the palace because that's where the king would be born only to find that the king wasn't born in a palace. Think of the joy they had when they kind of took their journey towards Bethlehem and again saw the star and the hope again of we're going to be able to see the king of the Jews. And and and then think think of what happened when they got to the cow shed, the stable.
Certainly, there had to be some conversation. I mean, as they were outside the stable, don't you think they looked at each other and said, "There's something not right about this. It's it it just doesn't fit.
It's I mean, a a king a king wouldn't be born here. " Wow. You see, these wise men had such great hopes and they came and found a stable.
And the difference between wise men and most of us is they take disappointments and turn them into divine appointments. They take something that was small and insignificant and they find something that is huge and very significant. They find something that is quite disappointing and find out that it is incredibly enlightening.
And and how do we do this? How how do we like the wise men, how do we in our stable experience? Because every one of us in this room, we have a stable story.
I've got stable stories in my life. Every one of you, if I had time to come off the stage and if we could walk around and we could have conversations, every one of you could talk about stable stories in your life where you had high hopes and then they were dashed. You had an opportunity and it vanished.
It it it was kind of like we were set up and then we were set down. So, let me give you three things that wise men do that every one of us can do. And and let me ask a question before I give you these things.
How many of you would like to be a forget wise men for a wise person? Huh? How many like to be wise?
Yeah. I'm just looking at you. Okay.
How many of you wish the person that beside you would have raised both hands because they just desperately need Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be wonderful if they could get some wisdom? Okay. Okay.
So, look at your neighbor and and say to them at this moment, take good notes and you can become wise. Go ahead and tell them that. Okay.
In fact, you can say to them, "This is so important to me. I'll take notes for you. " So, how do we turn disappointments into divine appointments?
Number one, wise men look for God in the stable. Let me talk to you about God perspective. Now, God perspective is what we as Christ followers should have.
A God perspective is the ability to see God in every situation. It's the ability to to see him in the palace, but it's also the ability to see him in the stable. Because when I look for God in every situation, guess what?
If I look for him in every situation, I find him there. We see what we're looking for. There's a difference between looking at something and looking for something.
I'm not talking about looking at. I'm talking about looking for. You see, when you look at, you can be a very casual observer.
When you look for, you're very insistent. and intentional in seeing God. We see things not as they are.
We see things as we are. How we view things is how we do things. If I could do anything for any of us, I would help us to have what I call a a God perspective.
The ability to look at the stables in our life and see God in every situation. to look at something but to look for something. Let me give you examples.
Jews Joseph as a as a young brother he looked at the mistreatment of his brothers. They mistreated him. He looked at the mistreat but while he was looking at how he was being mistreated he was looking for the God who gave him the dream.
In fact, at the end of his life, he would say to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. " How would he know that? Because in his stable experience, he was looking for God in it.
Look at Job. As he sees the total loss of his family, as he sees the he's looking at loss of family, loss of possessions, he's looking at those things, but he's looking for God to give him strength. That's why he could say, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. " How can he say that? He can say that because he's looking at what's happening to him, but he's looking for God in every situation.
Look at David who lives in a dark, cramped cave. He's looking at the cave that he's living in as he's a refuge, but he's looking for God as he quotes the Psalms. Paul is looking at prison bars as he's writing letters of encouragement to the saints.
How can he do that? How can he be surrounded by prison bars? How he's in a stable.
How can he do this? Because he's looking at his surroundings, but he's looking for God in his surroundings. Even when the wise men when they came to the scholars in Jerusalem, isn't it interesting?
They were looking at the prophecy. They were looking at the scripture, but they were not looking for the king. It's possible to even be in God's word and miss him.
Where the wise men, they were looking for the king. Here's the problem. Here we go.
When we are looking at our stable, the stable, that's our circumstances. Sometimes they're not what we want them to be. Sometimes we're disappointed.
When we're looking at the stable, but we're not looking for God in the stable, we have a challenge. We have a problem. So, when we look at our stable experiences, our difficult experiences, we have to ask ourselves, I know I'm looking at this situation.
It doesn't look good. I don't even like it. But it's okay because I'm looking for the God in the stable.
That's the That's what Let's just put it this way. When you come up to your stable experience, don't walk away from it. Okay?
Don't look at say, "Oh my gosh, that's not what I want. That's not what I I'm out of here. " Don't don't don't don't let your disappointments cause you to lose the treasure in the stable.
And by the way, while you're thinking about it, when when you when you when you see your stable, don't walk around it. No. No.
Don't Don't say, "Well, you know, I I'm disappointed, but I don't understand what's happening, so I think I'll just kind of I'll hang close to it. I'm not going to go into it, but maybe if I just kind of hang close to it, I'll I'll understand it after a while. " Listen, when you have a stable state, don't walk around it.
Don't walk away from it. And by the way, when you have a stable experience, don't wait on it. Don't don't hang back and say, "Well, it's not what I wanted, so maybe I'll give God an opportunity to come and change it.
You've already missed it. " He's in the stable. He's in the stable.
You're waiting on him. You're waiting on him. And he's not knocking at the door.
He's on the inside. You're missing it. I loved our worship this morning.
It was all about a God that doesn't fail us. It was all about a God that can be tested. Yes.
It's all about a God that's already been proven. I love what Todd said a little bit earlier. The fact that if he never gave us anything else the rest of our life, we're already incredibly indebted to him.
Listen to me very carefully. Don't walk away from the stable. Walk in it.
Don't wait. Walk in it. Go there.
How many of you have had at least two or three stables in your life this year? Come on. Now, here's the question.
Not have you seen and have stables. We all have st. I have stables.
You have stables. All God's children got stables. That's not the question.
What separates us and helps us to be wise is how many of us when we saw the stable instead of walking away from it, instead of being disappointed by it, looked for God in the stable. Wow. Don't miss it.
[applause] You want to put God before you and you want to put the stable behind you. But most people do the opposite. They put the stable before them and they put the put God behind them.
You see, immature Christians, they only see God when things are good. Yeah. Well, yeah, God's good.
God's blessing. Woo. Isn't God amazing?
Yeah. He opened up that parking place for me. Oh, that's just amazing what God does.
Mature Christians see God not only in the good, in the palace, but he they see him in the stable, the bad. The mature Christians [sighs] really understand and they see the big picture. It it it's nothing is more limiting than when we try to fit God into our expectations.
But the most limiting thing I can do is to plan for God. You know God I you know we when we pray don't we plan for God because he's so busy? We not only have our prayer requests but we give him suggestions.
Come on. How many of you have ever helped God? Come on.
Talk to me. We all help God. We all [laughter] God you know.
Yes. I mean, you're so busy. Let me Here's two thoughts.
Three. And God said, "Oh, thank you. I I had no idea how I was going to handle that until you came along.
" You see, what happens is that most of us, we want a God to fit our expectations. Listen to me carefully. If you have a God that fits your expectations, your God is too small.
Because the God that we serve is way beyond anything that we could ever ask, believe, think, consider within our life. Wow. I've had December disappointments.
Back in 1978, Margaret and I had gone through 16 months of adopting a little boy, and we were going to receive him at Christmas. And the very first of Christmas, I was speaking at a large staff retreat and had a call and in between speaking, I answered the phone and I found out that we weren't going to get this boy that we'd been for 16 months planning on and already prepared the house for and we lost him. We just lost him.
And and I remember Margaret and I going to a side room and kind of like a green room and crying and holding each other. And then I go back out and I had to talk to the pastors again and continue the conference. And it was a stable.
I we had already expected and and and and we lost it. Little did we realize that our son Joel was going to be born 3 months later. the the young man that we just spent Thanksgiving weekend with in Virginia and with his three children and his lovely wife and family and had so much joy.
And don't miss this. Don't miss this. In life, we connect the dots.
We can connect the dots looking backward, but we can't connect them looking forward. That's why trust and obedience is essential in our Christian walk. It doesn't make sense on the front end.
The stables don't make sense. Don't try to make don't try to make sense of the stable. Don't even try to explain it away.
In fact, embrace the stable. Embrace it in your heart. We were born for stables.
Yeah. We got bad news the 1st of December and we lost a boy. And in March, we got great news.
We got the boy that God had for us. Wise men, what do they do? Wise men very carefully, they look for God in the stable.
Number two, wise men offer their best to God. Look at the scripture verse here. They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary the mother.
Overcome, they kneelled and worshiped him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrr. Now, let me just say this.
This were these were some fine Christmas presents. Okay, this is not a I mean, it's not bad. You know, what did you get for Christmas?
Well, got some gold, got some frankincense, got some, you know, not not this is this is not a bad Christmas. Now, let me give you the temptation. Here's the temptation.
Don't miss it. When we come to a stable in our life, something that disappoints us. It's not what we expected.
The tendency is for us not to give our best. When we're disappointed, there's a tendency for us to kind of withhold. Not like we're trying to be nasty.
It's just kind of like, well, I wow, that that wasn't what I expected. And so, and so we began to pull back. When I was when I was watching today and listening to Todd and Julie talk about the Christ birthday offering, I I thought to myself, what a beautiful opportunity I have as a member here.
What an opportunity we all have to bring our our first Christmas gifts to Jesus. I I love this. I I love this.
Margaret and I have been practicing this for almost 40 years now of our married life when we we had just been married maybe a dozen years when all of a sudden it hit us that the first gift every year that we should give is not to each other but we should give it to Jesus. And and and the and then what I love is how we do it here is is we give it we bring it to the church who literally then distributes it to hurting people and people that Jesus loved and died for around the world. I mean they don't even keep it.
They're like a river that we just bring it and then it's gone. It's out and it's it's they're not like a reservoir. They're not hoarding it.
But think of the wise men when they came to that stable. I mean, honestly, I would have been tempted. Would you have been tempted?
I I would have been tempted at the stable to say, "Wow, I don't know if we ought to put gifts of gold in a cow shed. " I'll tell you what. do.
Here's the way we normally celebrate Christmas. We go outside the stable and say, "Look, I've already got these gifts. Let's exchange them among ourselves.
Let's Hey, let's have a gift exchange. Okay. Oh, I hope I get the gold part.
" You know what I'm saying? So, we're outside [laughter] and we're having this gift ex Jesus is on the inside and we're giving gifts to each other. That's kind of warped.
Only diluted Christians could do something like that. Wow. No.
No. When they came to that stable, they said they were so overcome because they saw God in the stable that they that they gave their very very best. I I have another stable story along this lines.
when I was when I was making my change from pastoring of 20 years to to going into what I do now and kind of leaving the church world and going into the secular world. This was a this was a real challenge for me. I I had the 10th largest church in America.
I was written up in a book on the most influential church in the country and and and and I for 25 years I've been pastor and all of a sudden I don't I'm not I lost that identity and now I'm going to now I'm going to you know I'm going to write and speak. Somebody said what do you do? Well I I write.
Well good. That's nice. I speak.
Well I do a little that myself you know. So I was talking to God about my stable. My I mean I I was leaving my palace.
I was in San Diego. Everybody knew who it was. We had the most influential church in Southern California.
We were the last church in in California, any church to be able to buy over 100 acres. And that's another story uh to to build it. It was I'm I'm leaving and and and I'm going to something small.
So I'm talking to God about you know I I don't mind serving. I just don't like small. I I I want to serve in a grand way.
And God gave me this incredible little poem. I'm it's it's it's it's on your screen. Don't miss it.
It's called Little Places. Father, where shall I work today? As my love flowed warm and free.
And he pointed out a tiny spot and he said, "Tend that place for me. " And I I answered him quickly, "Oh no, not that. " Well, no one will ever see, no matter how well I do my work, not that little place for me.
The word he spoke then, it wasn't stern. He answered me tenderly. Bethlehem was a little place and so is Galilee.
That's God's way of telling me, "Shut up. Stop complaining. You can't moan and lead at the same time.
Get over it. Get over it. And one of the things I did as I got over it is I made a commitment to privately serve 10 leaders that I admired.
And I made a commitment that I wouldn't even tell them I was going to serve them. I would just be available if they needed me. And I So I I'm serving these people.
They don't even know I'm serving them. I'm just I'm just serving them. And they just think I'm really a nice guy.
I am a good friend. And and one of the people that I made a commitment to serve was our own founding pastor here, Tom. I made a commitment to serve.
He didn't have a clue. He honestly, he still doesn't, but that's that's issues I can't help you with and explain. He didn't have a clue.
But I was just doing my best to serve him. I'd come down when you were small and I I'd talked to him about church growth and leadership and and and I just served him and we we were in Africa doing some stuff together and he told me that he was a little flat plateaued. He wanted to see the church kind of be spiked up and I could still remember we were outside by a a pool in the hotel in the afternoon before the evening session.
I said, "Tom," I said, "You [snorts] know what? If you want me to, Mark and I, we'd maybe move down there and if you want me to, I I I'll ever once a while teach for you. If if you'd like that, you just think about it and pray about it.
And he didn't pray at all. I've never seen anything like it. He just grabbed a hold of me like I was a recruit for a football team or something.
There was no prayer. There was no talking to God. He didn't even discuss it to the Lord.
I don't even think the Lord knew about it. Now I'm leaving my identity and everything. I'm in the stable of the unknown.
And look, God was in this stable and look at us today and where we are because of that stable experience. Isn't it beautiful? Wow.
[applause] The third thing that wise men do is wise men when they come to the stable, they change direction in their life. it it the stable changes them. Look at the scripture again in a dream.
This is after they had worshiped the Lord. They were warned not to report back to Herod. So they worked out another route and left the territory without being seen and returned their own country.
In other words, this experience even changed the direction the direction of their life. Just just one more quick stable story. I mean, you've got hundreds.
We all have stable stories. The question is not do we have stable stories. The question is, do we see God in the stable?
Don't miss this. Don't miss it. So, I'm still very young in my ministry, and I had an invitation to to go to the University of Illinois and speak to almost 20,000 college students.
And they wanted me to challenge them to answer the call to full-time Christian service. And I was so excited about the invitation, and it was bigger than anything I'd ever done and more grand I'd ever done. And so I worked real hard on the sermon and and I'll have to tell you I developed a phenomenal sermon.
I mean it was really good and I polished it and kept polishing it and finally the day came went to Urbana that literally the day afternoon before I supposed to speak to this huge crowd of kids and talk to them about full-time service. God spoke to me. I'm just working on that sermon, getting it ready, and I I can hardly wait.
God said, "John, by the way, I don't want you to preach that message. " Now, this was a stinking stable. What?
What? What do you mean, God? I want to show up without you.
All I want you to do is go out on stage and look at those kids and say, 'I know God's already been talking to you in this two-day conference, and you're ready to answer the call, and if you want to go into full-time ministry, I want you to come forward and give put your ID cards on the stage. He said, "Really, that's all I want you to do? " And I said, "Oh, God, you don't understand.
You don't understand. Have you have you taken time to look at this message God? Awesome.
Yeah, I've looked at it, John. I I don't need don't need it. Don't need you.
Just do what I say. Now, I would like to tell you that I said, "Oh, thy sermon heareth. " But this servant heardth but didn't doeth.
And I can still remember walking out on stage almost 20,000 kids and trying to preach a message that God asked me not to preach. It was the most devastating, humbling, [snorts] horrible experience of my communication life. For three minutes, I stammebered and got up there and tried to say things and they weren't coming out right.
Finally, I just looked at the kids and said, "You're seeing a living example of disobedience to God. " He didn't want me to preach this message, but I wanted to preach this message. He wanted to receive glory, but I wanted to receive glory.
And you're going to have to forgive me. And I'm going to tell you now what God said to me. And I shared with those kids what God said to me.
And they began to break out in applause. They began to weep. They began to come forward.
2300 students answered the call to full-time Christian ministry that night. Everywhere I travel, there is not a month in my life that goes by I don't have somebody look at me and say, "I was Erbana. " And I came forward and answered the call to preach that night.
Thank God they never called me Jonah. But that experience literally changed my life. Do not miss this.
The stable experiences in your life are good for all of us because God is in the stable. When you go into the first when you go to the book of Genesis, in Genesis chapter 15, it's so interesting. There's a phrase that opens up that chapter that says after these things, now God has been in the last three, four chapters has been taking Abraham on this incredible journey to be the father of nations.
And he's taking them on this incred and it says after these things and so when you open up chapter 15 of Genesis after these things you got to say well I got to go back to see what these things are and after these things meant after what things after after Abraham had lied about Sarah saying that he was he was his sister instead of his wife. A after there was a famine after he had family troubles and problems and squables and issues with Lot. after going years without children that were promised to him so that he could be a father of a nation after all of these things and finally Abraham is coming to God and he God is saying he's saying God is the deal still on I mean let's talk God how can I become a father I don't even have a kid and and and by the way I can't my life's getting been filled with stables my life has been filled with things that were disappointing and and I've never really been where I expected to be and I've never kind of done what I expected to do.
God is the deal still on. And after Abraham is looking into the stables of life, God takes him outside and he shows him the stars. The sermon is, "What happens when you follow a star and find a stable?
with Abraham. God said, "You've been in the stable too long. I want you to look at the I want you to look at the stars.
" Listen to me. We cannot We cannot connect the dots looking forward only backward. We cannot connect the stables.
We cannot connect the stables looking forward. We can only connect the stables of our life looking backward. So if we cannot connect the stables of our life looking forward, what do we need to do?
We need to have the God perspective as I spoke in the early part of the lesson, we need to see God in every stable. When I had a beautiful friend who literally his wife was going to deliver a child, their first child, she died, his wife died in childbirth and the child died too. lost it all.
I spent some time with him. And he looked at me and said, "John, here's what I've said to myself a thousand times. God is too good to be unkind.
He's too wise to be confused. If I cannot trace his hand, I can always trust his heart. We all we all have stables in our life.
That's not the question. The question is do we see God in the [music] stable on all the campuses? Pastors, you can come forward and you can have prayer with each one of the campuses now.
But I'd like to pray with you. How many of you'd raise your hand and say, "John, I've learned something today. What I've learned is that I've got to see God in my stable.
" And you just raise your hand. I got to see God in the stable. I got to see God in the stable.
I I've been I've been looking I've been looking at the stable way too long. I I've been looking at the stable, but I haven't been looking for God. God bless you, Todd, Julie.
[applause] Let's just [music] pray with this word. Father, we thank you for this word today that has reminded us that you are in the middle of every situation [music] that you're waiting for us there. Even in the places that seem disappointing in life and we all have those things, [music] God, I we are sorry for the times we've looked around the stable.
We've been disappointed to even go in the stable. We felt frustrated in the stable [music] moments of life. Today, we're reminded that you're there.
And I pray that you'd open our eyes spiritually [music] to see you more clearly, to see what you want to say to us. Give us ears to hear. I pray for those that find themselves in that stable situation even today, this morning, I pray that you would bring revelation of yourself.
I [music] pray and as we continue to pray with every head bowed, if you're here today and you would say, [music] um, Todd, I I need to find God personally. I need to have that relationship with him that will help me find peace in the middle of whatever I'm going through. my friend, it's only found in a relationship with God, not in religion, not in joining a church, but in a relationship.
And if you don't have that relationship today [music] with God, Jesus came. That's what Christmas is all about to bring us into right relationship. [music] And I'd like to pray with you.
And if you would say, Todd, I I need to get my relationship with God right this morning. If that's you, I'm [music] going to pray this prayer, but if you would say, Todd, include me in that prayer right where you're seated, would you just raise a hand up and just say, "Yes, that's me. " Yeah.
Hold it up high. Let me see it all across the room. All the way in the back.
Yeah. Yeah. Those of you online.
Okay. We're going to pray this together out loud. If those of you with your hands up, this is your prayer today.
So, you pray it a little bit louder after me. Just pray this. Say, "Dear Lord Jesus, Dear Lord Jesus, [music] I need you in my life.
I need you in my life. Forgive me of my sin. Forgive me of my sin.
[music] For going my own way. Going my own way. Today, I turn my life over to you.
Today, I turn my life over to you. You are my Lord. And my Savior.
and my savior. And I will follow you. And I will follow you the best I know how.
the best I know how. For the rest of my life. The rest of [music] my life.
In Jesus name I pray.
