You see, God doesn't get tired. He doesn't get fatigued. That's not what it means. You know, some people will say that the seven days of creation are about setting a template for the week for all of us feeble and frail humans. That's certainly in there, but we're missing something else because that word resting is about where God is resting. God has finished creating and he has come to dwell in his creation with the people that he has made. And he does that at the Garden of Eden where he meets with Adam and Eve and his presence dwells.



But God wasn't done with mankind, because he had a plan. He selected somebody. It was a nomadic shepherd called Abraham, and he promised Abraham that he would have a son from whom a great nation would arise, through whom he would bless all mankind. But then something really curious happens in that story. You see, Abraham's wife, Sarah, is barren, and she can't have children. And when she miraculously conceives a son called Isaac, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.



Moses, who started life as a prince in the court of Pharaoh, and then fled to the wilderness where he became a shepherd. And that's where he met with God. And God told him to go and free his people from Egypt. And God, through Moses, told his people to set themselves apart by sacrificing a lamb so that they were different to the Egyptians who were about to receive God's judgment. But do you know, even after that, God's people saved from Egypt and they rebelled.



He gives them instructions to make a sort of portable temple. It's made as a tent and it's a tabernacle is the name that it's given. We read about it in Exodus. So here it is. He says, then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell there. Among them, make this tabernacle and all its furnishings like the pattern I will show you. And then he goes on a little bit further and gives some more instructions.



You see, Jesus' ministry on earth started with his baptism in the Holy of Holies. And I want to take you to that passage in Luke. It's in chapter 3, just after the one we began with. Notice how Luke describes it. When all the people are being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And he was praying. Heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. You are my son whom I love. With you, I am well pleased.



The important thing that you have to understand is Luke is sending a message here. Adam did not succeed in the task he was given. He failed. Jesus, unlike Adam, had come to follow God's plan to do what Adam could not do. Well, that's all great, Matthew. How are you going to fit in this Abraham and Sarah stuff? Where do you get that from? Well, Jesus has just been baptized in the Jordan. And the person who baptized him was John the Baptist.



Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led to the Spirit into the wilderness. How long for? Forty days, where he was tempted by the devil. He wasn't there to find himself. He wasn't there for some look -after -me time. He was being tempted by the devil. And when the devil tempted him, how did Jesus respond? If you know the story, he quoted from Scripture. Here's the verses that he quotes to the devil.



It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land, until three in the afternoon. For the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When he said this, he breathed his last. Do you see what Luke records? The curtain of the temple was torn in two. What does he mean by that? That's the curtain between the holy of holies and the rest of the temple.



There are no more sacrifices in the temple. That practice has come to an end. Jesus is no longer, sorry, God is no longer going to dwell, in a temple. He is going to dwell in the hearts and the minds of every man, woman, and child who decides to accept him. If you don't believe me, look what the apostle Paul has to say in these two passages. Do you not know that your bodies are what? Temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you have received from God.



Do you know, in the first century, there was a tower, and it was in between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That tower was a watchtower, and the watchtower was used by shepherds to look after their sheep. And we know from a Jewish book called the Mishnah that the sheep who were between that tower and the city of Jerusalem were used for sacrifice in the temple. You see, when we come to this passage in Luke, these were no ordinary sheep, and these were no ordinary shepherds.



There is a reason that God announced to the shepherds, first of all, because he was announcing none other than the practice of sacrifice in the temple was over. He was announcing that once again, he was coming to dwell with and amongst his people. That's the importance of the shepherds. And do you know what? There's clues, right here in the passage that we began with. But if you're the casual reader in English, you might not pick that up, because some of the language underlies the original languages of the Bible, and it's quite technical.



The angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. That phrase, the glory of the Lord, is a technical phrase, that appears a handful of times in the Old Testament. It appears when God comes to meet with Moses in a burning bush. It happens when God meets with Moses on Mount Sinai. It comes also when God fills the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. That phrase tells you that God is coming to dwell on earth once again.



Today in the town of David, a savior has been born. What do you mean, town of David? Why doesn't it say Bethlehem? Jesus was born in Bethlehem. What's the town of David? David was the most revered king of Israel. He came from Bethlehem. But what did he do before he was a king? He wasn't born a prince. What was he born as? A shepherd. It's telling you something about the king that Jesus was.



Jesus is savior. We get that. We're in a Christian church. We talk about it all the time. Jesus comes to save. There's no mystery there. But Messiah, what's Messiah? What does Messiah actually mean? The term Messiah means the anointed one. The anointed one means the anointed one. Who's anointed? Kings. Kings were anointed. King David was anointed by the prophet Samuel. Luke is pointing to who Jesus was.



But if you don't think that Luke understood what he was saying when he used the word Lord, you haven't been paying attention. Luke knew exactly what he's saying. He's telling you that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, and it's right there. There in the passage. So in summing things up, God has come from the Old Testament and is the one and same person as Jesus. He's also the Savior, and he's the Messiah, the King.

[00:44:25] (Making raw clip | Making vertical clip | Making vertical captioned clip)

Morning everyone. Is that working? You can hear me?

Hello! I tell you what, we've got a lot to get through, so shall we just crack on and get straight to our first sermon verse of scripture? The passage that we've got to read for today says this:

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.'"

So I think the most interesting question about this passage would be this: Why the shepherds? God is announcing the savior of the world coming to earth, and he announces it first to a bunch of shepherds. Why does he do that?

Some people would say to you that the shepherds were from the lowest part of society, and God wanted you to know that he was looking out for them too, that he was looking out for those who maybe didn't have a voice. And that's certainly in there; that's a good moral lesson, and perhaps it's a good moral lesson for our church.

There are not many people here today who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. That's an important lesson, but is it the only lesson? Is there something else in that passage that we're missing?

You see, I happen to think that the Bible is a joined-up, coherent story with a golden thread that runs all the way through it from beginning to end. And for that reason, I want to take you on a tangent this morning. It's going to be a long tangent, and you're going to wonder where on earth we're going. But I want to assure you that in about 20 minutes' time, we're going to be back here, exactly where we started, and you're going to have a new appreciation for the richness and the depth of your Bible, and this passage in particular.

So what is Luke on about? Why is he telling us this story? He tells us in the very first chapter, the very first book of his gospel. Here it is:

"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us."

The gospel of Luke is one of those accounts. But what does he mean by fulfilled? What is being fulfilled?

I'll tell you what's being fulfilled. It's the Old Testament. And for that reason, we're going to have to go backwards in order to come forwards. And if we're going to go backwards into the Old Testament, why not go the whole way? Let's go all the way back to Genesis 1, verse 1. Here we go. This is what it says:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens. Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

Now, if you were reading this in the Hebrew rather than in English, that word "hovering" is like the picture of a bird hovering over its nest and over its young. That's the picture that we are left with.

And of course, if you've been around a church for any length of time, you'll know what happens next. God speaks into existence all of creation, and he does it in six days:

"Morning and evening the first day. Morning and evening the second day. Morning and evening the third day."

Except something curious happens on the second day.

Listen to what happens on the seventh day:

"Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had done."

I've underlined the word "rested" because it's the crucial word in the passage. If you understand that word, you'll get a much better understanding of creation and the rest of God's story.

You see, God doesn't get tired. He doesn't get fatigued. That's not what it means. You know, some people will say that the seven days of creation are about setting a template for the week for all of us feeble and frail humans. That's certainly in there, but we're missing something else because that word "resting" is about where God is resting.

God has finished creating, and he has come to dwell in his creation with the people that he has made. And he does that at the Garden of Eden, where he meets with Adam and Eve, and his presence dwells.

And what about those people? What does the Bible tell us about those people? Well, here it is:

"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in the likeness, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish of the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'"

The image of God. What does that mean? What does it mean to be made in the image of something?

Well, that term isn't exclusive to the Bible. It's an ancient Near Eastern term that applies to somebody who acts on behalf of a king, who administers his kingdom. Somebody who is like an ambassador on behalf of the king. It's telling you something about who God is.

But again, if you know your Bible, you will know that there are some pretty good summaries of the situation so far. And I want to give you one. This is in Isaiah:

"This is what the Lord says: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?"

Now, we get that bit about the throne, don't we? That's another reference to a king, isn't it? But what's that footstool thing? What's the footstool all about?

Well, in the ancient world, thrones were set really quite high up, and you needed a stool for the king to rest his feet. But we know from archaeology that those footstools had carved or painted into them the peoples and the lands and the countries who were under the dominion of the king.

It's another reference to God as king. If you've ever heard the phrase "to be under someone's foot," that's where it comes from. That's the origin of that phrase.

But again, if you know your Bible, Adam and Eve turned out not to be very good imagers of God. They disobeyed him. They were cast out of the garden. They were no longer in his presence. They were no longer in the place where God dwelled.

But God wasn't done with mankind because he had a plan. He selected somebody. It was a nomadic shepherd called Abraham, and he promised Abraham that he would have a son from whom a great nation would arise, through whom he would bless all mankind.

But then something really curious happens in that story. You see, Abraham's wife, Sarah, is barren, and she can't have children. And when she miraculously conceives a son called Isaac, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.

"Abraham looked up, and there in a thicket, he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son."

You see, right here, we have a foreshadowing of what will come in the New Testament. God has given Abraham a substitute to die for his son.

But do you know what? Abraham's children, they weren't faithful to God either, and they wandered away from God, and they found themselves in slavery in Egypt.

But God wasn't done with them there either because he raised up someone else to bring them out of slavery. And that was Moses. Moses, who started life as a prince in the court of Pharaoh, and then fled to the wilderness where he became a shepherd.

And that's where he met with God. And God told him to go and free his people from Egypt. And God, through Moses, told his people to set themselves apart by sacrificing a lamb so that they were different from the Egyptians who were about to receive God's judgment.

But do you know, even after that, God's people saved from Egypt rebelled once again, and they don't follow God. And they are condemned to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

Here's how Luke puts it in the book of Acts:

"He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt at the Red Sea and for 40 years in the wilderness."

That's the story. But do you know what? Even then, God was not done with his people.

It's at this point in the story that God asks Moses to prepare a new temple for God to dwell on earth. He gives them instructions to make a sort of portable temple. It's made as a tent, and it's a tabernacle is the name that it's given. We read about it in Exodus.

So here it is:

"Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell there among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings like the pattern I will show you."

And then he goes on a little bit further and gives some more instructions:

"Hang the curtain from the clasps and place the Ark of the Covenant law behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the holy place from the most holy place."

If you're more familiar with the older version of the Bible, that would be the holy of holies. That's what the curtain divides the tabernacle into.

And I've underlined that term "Ark of the Covenant." You've seen Indiana Jones, right? That box, that's what it is. That's what we're talking about.

But how many of you know what the Ark of the Covenant actually was? You're in luck because there's a verse in the Bible that tells us, and it's in Chronicles.

And here it is:

"King David rose to his feet and said, 'Listen to me, my fellow Israelites, my people, I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, for the footstool of our God.'"

The Ark of the Covenant was a footstool. We are back where we started, where heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool. And God comes to fill the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.

But of course, by the time we get to the time of Jesus, God's people have left the wilderness. They are now in the land that God promised them, and they have built a permanent temple.

And in that temple, we have a Holy of Holies with a curtain just like we did in the tabernacle.

Matthew, what on earth are you talking about? What has this tangent been all about? Where are you going with this?

Remember what we said about Luke:

"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled."

How have these things that we've just talked about been fulfilled in the gospel of Luke? You're about to find out.

You see, Jesus' ministry on earth started with his baptism in the Holy of Holies. And I want to take you to that passage in Luke. It's in chapter 3, just after the one we began with.

Notice how Luke describes it:

"When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And he was praying. Heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my son, whom I love. With you, I am well pleased.'"

Does that seem at all familiar to you? We've got Jesus in water. We've got God speaking. And we have the Holy Spirit hovering down like a dove.

Luke is making an allusion to the Old Testament right back to the beginning because he's telling you something new is happening. Get ready. God is coming to dwell again. Amen.

But what was all that stuff about Adam and Eve? Where are you going with that? What was that all about?

The very next section in Luke is the family tree of Jesus' natural parents on earth. It goes through all the names just like the genealogies in the Old Testament until you get all the way to verse 38.

Here's what happens in verse 38:

"The son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."

Now, I don't have time this morning to go into that phrase "Adam the son of God." If you want to know, Romans 5. Go home and look it up after the service.

But the important thing that you have to understand is Luke is sending a message here. Adam did not succeed in the task he was given. He failed. Jesus, unlike Adam, had come to follow God's plan to do what Adam could not do.

Well, that's all great, Matthew. How are you going to fit in this Abraham and Sarah stuff? Where do you get that from?

Well, Jesus has just been baptized in the Jordan. And the person who baptized him was John the Baptist. Who were the parents of John the Baptist? It was Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Zechariah and Elizabeth oddly could not have children. But God had promised them they would have a son who would be the predecessor to the Messiah.

Let's read how that's described by Luke:

"In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old."

This is none other than an allusion back to Abraham and Sarah. Who was Zechariah? He was a priest in the temple. His job was to make sacrifices. Who was Elizabeth? She was a descendant of Aaron. Aaron was the first high priest in the tabernacle. His job was to make sacrifices.

Okay. How do we get to that wilderness stuff then? Where does that fit into the story?

Well, the very next chapter, chapter 4, what do we read?

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. How long for? Forty days, where he was tempted by the devil."

He wasn't there to find himself. He wasn't there for some look-after-me time. He was being tempted by the devil.

And when the devil tempted him, how did Jesus respond? If you know the story, he quoted from Scripture.

Here are the verses that he quotes to the devil. Now, I'm not so much concerned today with the text in these verses at all. What's interesting to me is where he quotes them from.

It comes from the book of Deuteronomy. What is happening in Deuteronomy? It's the story of God's people. The people of God failed, but Jesus did not. He stayed true.

We've got one more illusion to come. What's all that tabernacle stuff and the curtain? Where does that fit into the story?

Well, to get there, we've got to go right to the end of Jesus' life. And that's where we're heading now, to the time when Jesus was hanging on the cross.

Here it is:

"It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. For the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' When he said this, he breathed his last."

Do you see what Luke records? The curtain of the temple was torn in two. What does he mean by that? That's the curtain between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the temple.

I'll tell you why he says that. Because Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the final sacrifice. There are no more sacrifices in the temple. That practice has come to an end.

Jesus is no longer, sorry, God is no longer going to dwell in a temple. He is going to dwell in the hearts and the minds of every man, woman, and child who decides to accept him.

If you don't believe me, look what the apostle Paul has to say in these two passages:

"Do you not know that your bodies are what? Temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you have received from God. You are not your own. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship."

Are you tracking with me? The apostle Paul gets what's happening. He is making allusion to the Old Testament.

This is the thing about the gospel of Luke. Luke is using allusion to the past to explain what is happening in the present.

And if you want to see all of that, what I've just told you, wrapped up in a nutshell, your homework is to read Acts chapter 7. You can go and do that in your home groups during this week, and you'll find the whole story laid out for you right there.

Do you know, in the first century, there was a tower, and it was in between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That tower was a watchtower, and the watchtower was used by shepherds to look after their sheep.

And we know from a Jewish book called the Mishnah that the sheep who were between that tower and the city of Jerusalem were used for sacrifice in the temple.

You see, when we come to this passage in Luke, these were no ordinary sheep, and these were no ordinary shepherds. There is a reason that God announced to the shepherds first of all, because he was announcing that none other than the practice of sacrifice in the temple was over.

He was announcing that once again, he was coming to dwell with and amongst his people. That's the importance of the shepherds.

And do you know what? There are clues right here in the passage that we began with. But if you're the casual reader in English, you might not pick that up because some of the language underlies the original languages of the Bible, and it's quite technical.

But I'm going to point it out for you.

So here we are, verse 9:

"The angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them."

That phrase, "the glory of the Lord," is a technical phrase that appears a handful of times in the Old Testament. It appears when God comes to meet with Moses in a burning bush. It happens when God meets with Moses on Mount Sinai. It comes also when God fills the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.

That phrase tells you that God is coming to dwell on earth once again.

There's another phrase. It's in verse 10:

"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news.'"

That phrase, "good news," was used to announce the coming of an emperor or a king. Luke is telling you who Jesus was.

And you can see it in the very next verse:

"Today in the town of David, a savior has been born."

What do you mean, "town of David"? Why doesn't it say Bethlehem? Jesus was born in Bethlehem. What's the town of David? David was the most revered king of Israel. He came from Bethlehem.

But what did he do before he was a king? He wasn't born a prince. What was he born as? A shepherd.

It's telling you something about the king that Jesus was.

Do you know, as we're coming into the home straight here, you will see that there are three names for Jesus that are outlined in this passage. And I want to talk about all three of them just ever so briefly.

Jesus is savior. We get that. We're in a Christian church. We talk about it all the time. Jesus comes to save. There's no mystery there.

But Messiah, what's Messiah? What does Messiah actually mean? The term Messiah means the anointed one. The anointed one means the anointed one. Who's anointed? Kings. Kings were anointed. King David was anointed by the prophet Samuel. Luke is pointing to who Jesus was.

And what about that last one? Lord. Wow, that one rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? We're in church. Jesus is Lord. We all get that. But what does it mean? What does it mean to be Lord?

Do you know, I think if you've been here for any length of time, you know the Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew. In ancient Hebrew, the name of God was Yahweh. That's what it was.

But here's something you might not know. By the time of the New Testament, God's people didn't speak Hebrew. They spoke Greek. And you have a historical figure called Alexander the Great to thank for that.

And that's why there had to be a translation from the Hebrew into the Greek so that God could speak to his people. And that translation was called the Septuagint.

And in the Septuagint, the name of God in Hebrew, Yahweh, is translated as the Greek word for Lord. And that tradition follows us right to this day.

If you open up your English Bible and you go to the Old Testament, you will find the word "Lord," and it's in capital letters. If you read that in your Old Testament, that is the word "Lord."

And if you read that in your Old Testament, there's a signal for the underlying word being Yahweh. That's what it means. It's right here in your English Bible today.

But Luke isn't in the Old Testament. He's in the New Testament. But if you don't think that Luke understood what he was saying when he used the word "Lord," you haven't been paying attention.

Luke knew exactly what he's saying. He's telling you that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, and it's right there in the passage.

So in summing things up, God has come from the Old Testament and is the one and same person as Jesus. He's also the Savior, and he's the Messiah, the King.

But his kingdom is not like other kingdoms that you're used to. Let's just recap.

The Bible. But here's my question. Why does God present his kingdom and his kingship as a shepherd king?

Well, I told you we'd get back to where we started. Maybe it's because God's kingdom is for the disenfranchised, for those without authority, for those without power, for those without money. For people like you and me.

That's the story of the shepherds. The shepherds tell us of a hope that is born at Christmas.