The King Is Making His Entrance: Make Room for Him in Your Manger

Introduction

January is often the month of resolutions. Sarah Marvane never makes any: she knows herself too well, and she knows they won't last 365 days. But there's one thing she says every year, and very often throughout the year: "Jesus, make your entrance." Make your entrance into my life, into my marriage, into my relationships, into the church, into my relationship with my children. Make your entrance, King of kings, take the place that belongs to you. Because if he truly takes the place that belongs to him in us and through us, then it will be a good year.

That's the theme of this message: the King is making his entrance. This thought has been pounding on Sarah's mind for several weeks. She believes we're on the edge of something extraordinary in the church, in Lyon, in France, in Europe, and that unprecedented global challenges are revealing an unprecedented glory. As she was praying, the Holy Spirit dropped this strong thought on her heart: "You haven't experienced anything yet of what my glory means. Behold, I am at the door and I am coming. I am going to enter. My children, get ready, because you will know my glory."

To understand how this entrance can reach you today, she asks three questions: how does the King make his entrance, where does he make it, and through whom.

Outline of the Message

1. How does the King make his entrance? A shattering entrance (Matthew 1:18)

• "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this: for after his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit." That's how the King made his entrance here on earth: an entrance Sarah calls shattering.
• Why Mary, a young girl barely 16 years old? Why enter this way, against all expectations and against every custom of the time, while she wasn't yet married? Wasn't there another way, waiting a few months until she was officially Joseph's wife and sparing her all the gossip she had to endure?
• One thing is certain: the King's entrance isn't explainable, isn't logical, isn't up for debate. It's supernatural, and above all it's real for everyone who believes it. Whether we like it or not, whether we find it fitting or not, that's how he came.
• This entrance comes to meet you. Whether the circumstances of your life are favorable or not, whether it surprises you the way it surprised Mary, whether it raises questions the way Joseph surely had some: if you open your heart to him, he will make his entrance. Sarah testifies: Jesus's shattering entrance into her own life changed her forever.
• When Jesus enters a life, things change. Mary was never the same again, even her body was transformed. When Jesus makes his entrance, he doesn't do it gently: he makes everything new.
• A question for the long-time believer: maybe the King made his entrance into your life a long time ago, but your everyday reality has nothing shattering about it. In recent years, has Jesus come and shaken something up? There can't be a life with the King of kings inside and a daily grind that has no meaning. Whether you let him in 20 years ago, 50 years ago, or yesterday, there's something new every day.
• The image of the pregnant woman: Sarah had the privilege of carrying three children. The moment she carried them in her womb, she became secondary. Her only goal was their happiness; her only joy, their success; her only motivation, their victories. When was the last time you carried your Jesus that way, where your only purpose in life is his glory, where the reason you get up is to advance his work and his kingdom?
• If you've let the King of kings enter you, he needs to be able to take his place. Are you self-centered? What does your language, your speech, sound like? Have you been going in circles for years over the same problems? A life of faith is a life on the move: something happens every day. Is my life a reflection of his shattering entrance?

2. Where does the King make his entrance? In a manger (Luke 2:6-7)

• "While they were there, the day had come for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn." A synonym for feeding trough is manger.
• After an unusual "how," the "where" is no less unusual. Quite the strange palace for a king. This isn't a clinic in some fancy neighborhood with the best staff to welcome Jesus and support Mary. Sarah likes to imagine that Mary's only midwife was a donkey (and she's not talking about Joseph, of whom the Bible says he was a righteous man). A donkey, an ox, a rooster: no inn could take in a woman about to give birth. Imagine: it's happening, and no one opens the door for you.
• At every stage, the intensity of what this 16-year-old girl was going to live through and feel as a woman is often underestimated. The King's entrance was a violent entrance at every level, shattering, from the pregnancy to the birth all the way to Christ's death on the cross. Jesus wasn't even born yet, and Herod already wanted to kill him. Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt and leave behind everything they had. Are we ready to leave behind everything we have so that the King of kings can fully live in us?
• Mary's response (Luke 1:38, then 1:46-50): "Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word." And: "My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for he has looked at the humble state of his servant." This girl, at just 16 years old, said it all. Sarah would have loved to be capable of such a response at that age, and she dreams that every young person would grasp such maturity by studying these texts. John, one of the twelve disciples, was between 15 and 20 years old at most.
• That's where the King makes his entrance: in a humble heart that recognizes its condition. Mary speaks this way even as an angel comes to tell her, more or less, that her life will never be the same and that she'll have no more control over what follows, right up to watching the child she gave birth to on a cross. "Let it be done to me according to your word."
• A call to the young (and to everyone): an army must rise up so that we can live the glory God is speaking to us about. We need to be soldiers, valiant heroes and heroines for his kingdom. Has the King found in you a place not only to make his entrance and forgive your sins, but also to use you, whatever the cost? Are you fully seizing the years of energy, strength, and drive he's given you to work in his mission? Or are you numbed by a lifestyle society has set up, letting precious time be stolen from you by trivial things?
• The culture of emptiness: talking with her son this week, Sarah discovered that overstimulation among young people (a movie on screen, games running at the same time, a book) has a name. Scrolling, all of that, "is called the culture of emptiness." Hours, weeks, years go by, fully aware there will be nothing at the end of it, while outside a whole world is being lost. Is there still room in our hearts for the King to make his entrance, or are our mangers filled with emptiness?
• Even though it's called the culture of emptiness, the reality is that it fills your being. It fills it with nothing, but it fills it all the same. And because it fills your being with emptiness, the King has no more room in your manger, no more room in your heart, he can no longer work in your life. This applies to older folks too: don't expect to be saturated with God's presence if your daily routine is bridge from 8am to 10pm, or bowls, or all those appealing things life offers that seduce us.
• Mary's example proves that circumstances never determine who we are when we're anchored in faith and making the right choices. Whether we're 16 or 99, if he finds a heart willing to welcome him, a heart that makes room for him, he enters and he acts. God wants to saturate us with his presence this year, but we're responsible for the room we give him.
• When he makes his entrance, he doesn't do it in warmth and on velvet. He did it in the cold, in the dirt, in the place no one wants to go. Maybe you know your life looks like a stable, rotted by sin, eaten away by bitterness, anger, lies. That's exactly where the King of kings wants to make his entrance. Where no family opened the door for you, where everyone shut the door on you, Jesus, himself, knocks at your door.
• Maybe the emptiness in you is enormous and you can neither explain it nor fill it: that's simply because the King wants to make his entrance. You're not there by chance; chance doesn't exist, it's simply when God wants to pass by unnoticed. The manger doesn't determine who we are, it's what we put inside it. If you fill your life with emptiness, you're empty. If you fill your life with Jesus, you overflow, because it's stronger than you, bigger than you.
• When Jesus arrived in that manger, he turned it into a palace. His presence alone is enough to transform everything that was contemptible. The wise men came and bowed down before him in that stable, and this ordinary place became a place of worship, of rejoicing, of victory. The Holy Spirit is knocking at the door of your heart; you know what the contemptible things are, but he doesn't condemn you. He loves you so much that he gave his life for you. Whatever you thought was broken or ruined, he'll gather up every last piece of it to make it a work for his glory.

3. Through whom does the King make his entrance? A genealogy far from clean (Matthew 1:1-16)

• "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham became the father of Isaac. Isaac became the father of Jacob. Jacob became the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar... Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse. Jesse became the father of David the king... Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." For Sarah, this third truth is one of the most extraordinary: it sums up who our God is, his infinite love and grace.
• A genealogy isn't exactly fun on a Sunday, right? If you're one of those who skip the genealogies in the Bible, you're missing the best part. Biblical genealogies very rarely mention women; the genealogy of Jesus names five, and every one of them has a striking, unusual story. Sarah closes with two of them.
• Tamar (Genesis 38): a widow deprived of offspring who disguises herself as a prostitute to get a descendant from Judah, who was her father-in-law. This is clearly a moral scandal. And yet God, in spite of sin, carries out his plan and moves his purpose forward. He works through broken situations.
• Rahab (Joshua 2): a prostitute of Jericho, a real one this time, it was her everyday job. A foreigner, a Canaanite, who protects the Israelite spies and helps them escape, asking in return that she and her family be saved. She risks her life to save two Israelites, and through this act of faith she saves herself and saves her family.
• This story shows that access to salvation in Jesus Christ is for everyone. Faith will always outweigh your background or your moral past. If you're a prostitute, you're welcome: you're the one Jesus loved so much that he went to a cross and wrote you into his own genealogy to tell you there is no condemnation. If people have condemned you, Jesus Christ wants you to be part of this great royal line. Only faith saves, not reputation.
• The Savior of the world made his entrance through a genealogy far from clean. These tangled stories show that he is the real God, the God of the human being, with imperfect ancestors, so that you and I can identify with this family, because everyone matters. From Abraham, the father of faith, to Rahab, the prostitute, all of them are written into the Savior's genealogy, and today he has a place for you. He wants to turn evil into good, ashes into a song of joy. Today is a day of hope: Jesus is here.

Key Takeaways

• The King's entrance isn't explainable, isn't logical, isn't up for debate: it's supernatural, and real for everyone who believes it. If you open your heart to him, he enters, whatever your circumstances.
• When Jesus enters, he turns things upside down and makes everything new. A life with the King of kings can't stay the same: a life of faith is a life on the move.
• The King makes his entrance in a humble heart that recognizes its condition, like Mary: "Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word."
• The culture of emptiness (scrolling, overstimulation, trivial pursuits) fills your being with nothing, and when your manger is full of emptiness, the King has no more room to work. You're responsible for the room you give him.
• The genealogy of Jesus includes Tamar and Rahab: God works through broken situations, salvation is for everyone, and faith matters more than your background and your moral past.

Personal Application

1. In recent years, has Jesus come and shaken up or changed something in your life? Is your everyday reality a reflection of his shattering entrance?
2. When was the last time you carried your Jesus the way a woman carries her child, where your only purpose in life was his glory and you got up to advance his kingdom?
3. Are you self-centered? What does your language, your speech, sound like? Have you been going in circles for years over the same problems?
4. Is your manger filled with emptiness (scrolling, trivial pursuits, hobbies that fill up your days)? What can you remove this week to make room for the King?
5. Are you ready to leave behind what you have, like Mary and Joseph, so the King of kings can fully live in you and use you, whatever the cost?

Scriptures Cited

• Matthew 1:18: Mary found pregnant by the Holy Spirit
• Luke 2:6-7: Jesus laid in a manger, no room in the inn
• Luke 1:38: "Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word"
• Luke 1:46-50: Mary's song, "he has looked at the humble state of his servant"
• Matthew 1:1-16: the genealogy of Jesus Christ
• Genesis 38: the story of Tamar and Judah
• Joshua 2: Rahab protects Israel's spies

Frequently Asked Questions

Why call the King's entrance "shattering"?

Because Jesus entered the world through a young virgin girl of about 16, not yet married, against every custom of that time. The King's entrance isn't explainable, isn't logical, isn't up for debate: it's supernatural, and it's real for everyone who believes it. And when Jesus enters a life, he doesn't do it gently: he turns things upside down and makes everything new.

What is the "culture of emptiness" Sarah Marvane talks about?

It's the name young people give to scrolling and overstimulation: hours, weeks, years spent consuming content while knowing there's nothing at the end of it. Even though it's called the culture of emptiness, it fills your being, and when your manger is filled with emptiness, the King has no more room in your heart.

Why is the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 good news?

Biblical genealogies rarely mention women; the genealogy of Jesus names five, each with a striking, unusual story. Tamar, a widow left without offspring who disguises herself as a prostitute, and Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho, are both listed there. This shows that God carries out his plan in spite of sin, that salvation is for everyone, and that faith matters more than your background or your moral past.