Well, good morning again, and Merry Christmas. Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 2, and the title of this sermon is going to be "The Birth of Christ."
From Luke chapter 2, this is quite a big passage. This is a very familiar passage, but it's quite an honor to be able to serve it to you this morning in a sermon format, to be preached. This is an excellent passage to be able to hear on a Sunday morning, but this is a historic account. It's a historic account by the author of Luke; he's Dr. Luke, which we'll get to in a minute. But it's a historic account of God coming into human flesh, and what an important account this is to be able to see as history, as something that has already happened.
I don't believe in coincidences, as you may guess, but probability and chance do not make things happen. I believe that here today, on December 15th, 2024, 2,024 years in the year of our Lord, here at Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, that God has a word for us. He has a word for me and for you this morning in His providence that you would be able to hear this historic account and be changed.
If you look in Luke chapter 2, we're going to divide this up into three sections. The first section will be in verses 1 through 7. This will be the journey to the birth. The second section will be from verses 8 through 14. This will be the angelic announcement. And then in the third section, from verses 15 through 20, this is the encounter with Christ.
So let's dive into it and let's read together in Luke chapter 2, starting with verse 1.
"Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child.
Verse 6: While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'
And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men, with whom He is pleased.'
But when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.' So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger.
Verse 17: When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them."
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, be with us during this time and illumine our minds, illumine our hearts. Give us the confidence and the trust in You through this text. In Jesus' name, amen.
So what does it mean to believe? When we read a historic account like this, what does it mean to believe? I think there are potentially two different types of belief. There's like a "you need to convince me" type of belief. This is a belief that puts self over the object of belief, where you're the one that's up on a high pedestal and you're like, "You need to present me the evidence." This is sort of like a "convince me" type of belief.
As we get older, we find many, if not all, objects of any kind of belief failing us, don't we? We lose belief in things, and we no longer have the spirit of belief. It becomes very difficult if you were to put faith into a sort of "convince me" belief. You know, "Here, Dr. Luke, you need to show me the evidence some more for me to believe in Jesus." Well, that's a "convince me" type of belief.
In this season, you may hear it on TV or in movies. We were in Atlanta this last week, and I heard a presentation by Santa Claus talking about peace and love and joy. You could sense, well, I could sense the children that were up front in front of Santa were all in much anticipation and believing in this, right? Because they have not lived a life of disappointment.
You could see in the back, the adults were like, "Ha ha ha, that's Santa, you know, peace, love, joy, it doesn't really mean anything." And so you kind of get this idea of this "convince me" belief.
When we're reading here, Luke's account, there is evidence after evidence after evidence, where it becomes either a "no-so" faith, or you're stuck with yourself. You're just going to continue believing in self and allowing anything else to come around. That's very tragic. You come around and you get presented with the gospel, and you say, "No, that's not for me."
But here we are confronted. We are faced with evidence after evidence after evidence. It's almost like nails being driven into a board of so many pieces of evidence of the birth of Christ.
You know, when you present the gospel, when you're evangelizing, you would present something and you would say to the person, "Just take, for instance, what I just said is actually true." You could hear a pin drop because then they're like, "Well, that's not for me." You can see that "convince me" belief is all over the street when we try to talk to people in this world.
It may be in your heart as well, but hopefully after we go through and we start digging into this, every little piece of evidence, we will go across a lot of Bible here to be able to help support what is going on here. We want to have a "no-so" faith, and Luke here is bringing it to us.
If you flip over in chapter 1, it gives the introduction in Luke chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. I'm going to read that. Luke is not a very popular gospel. It doesn't really get taught or heard as much. And so these first few verses, you may be reading these for the first time.
Luke has, he is not an apostle. He is described in Colossians 4:14 by the apostle Paul as the beloved physician. He is a beloved physician among an all-star team of apostles. He had an all-star team to be able to help him. So whenever you see the plural here in the account of Luke, or even in the gospel of Acts that he wrote, he has a plural nature of saying "we." He doesn't recognize himself in the gospel of Luke, but you can see that here a little bit in the plural.
Luke chapter 1, verse 1: "I have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth of the gospel."
I have undertaken to compile an account of the things about the things you have been taught. We don't know for sure who Theophilus is. There are many different scholars that talk about who that is. I think it's a wonderful thing that we don't know because you can insert yourself here as someone that you know.
There have been talks that he's an aristocrat from Antioch, that he is a rich person, a person of influence. He could be someone who is just a friend who he's trying to convince. So he lays out for the reader here an account that's in consecutive order.
If you ever want to know, you know, you're flipping through the gospels, you want to know, "Okay, what's the order of things? Is this before or after?" Luke is a great gospel to be able to refer back to that.
Luke is also the one who wrote the most words in the New Testament. The Greek words for between Luke and Acts are 39,932. Paul's combined 13 epistles were 32,408. Even if you add in Hebrews, which we don't have solid evidence of the particular author or group of authors for Hebrews, even if you add that in, that's about 2,000 words shy if you combine Luke and Acts.
So Luke and Acts of Dr. Luke here is a very crucial contribution to the divine inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God with the historic account here in Luke with the birth of Christ.
And also we see the historic account in Acts. It may become your favorite author in the New Testament. It may or may not, but if that's your thing, of having a historic record. But it's pretty neat.
So go back now to chapter 2, and we're going to read verses 1 through 3 again.
"Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city."
A census, you may know, I think we do it here in the United States every 10 years, if I'm not mistaken. It's something that the government likes to be able to do, to be able to, in my opinion, maybe put more taxes on you, right? It wants to be able to get some data on you to be able to understand what they need to do to form the right amount of programs and governments.
But in order to do that, in order to make a more articulate decision from a government, this is the Roman government at this particular time, ordered by Caesar Augustus, to get a census. This was somewhat of a regular thing. It was irregular in that time because this was the first census, and later on there is a second census.
And then Luke throws in the fact here of Quirinius was the governor of Syria. That helps scholars really fine-tune what year the birth of Christ was. When you... I'm going to send that to you here. I didn't have 24/7 hours to be able to look that up for you. But if you look in your study Bible and different things, you can look that up as far as how the scholars looked and analyzed the governor of Syria there named Quirinius.
And then later on in the verse, it talks about each to his own city. Each to his own city is like a person's family origin. In that time, it was very important. You didn't really have social media or the internet to be able to say, "Hey, this is who I am. This is my resume."
So people kept their name and their family of origin as almost like a way of business. Like, "Oh, you're from Nazareth. You may have business with other people of Nazareth." There was like a historic account, a record, a document, to be able to go back to your own city where your family of origin is from.
And so that was in verses 1 through 3. Read with me now in verses, starting in verse 4.
"Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child."
So here we're now presented the names of Joseph and Mary. And we look at the genealogies. There are two genealogies to be aware of in Matthew 1, which we'll flip to in a second, and also in Luke 3.
In Matthew, after the genealogy, it actually goes through a little bit more detail about Joseph. So I want to spend a little bit of time reading about Joseph.
So if you want to, you can flip over to Matthew chapter 1 and take a look at this genealogy and maybe just scan over it. But this genealogy here is said to be a biological lineage from, you can see here from verse 1, from Abraham.
And it goes from Abraham, it starts old and progresses through time in Matthew chapter 1. It goes all the way up and it divides it up into 14 generations, right, that we can see here in verse 17.
And so later on now in this chapter 1, the gospel of Matthew gets into details about Joseph. So I want to kind of just for our own sake here to get a taste of where Joseph is coming from.
Let's read from Matthew chapter 1, verse 18.
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.'
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Then in verse 23, it says, 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us.'
And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus."
I think one of the most important verses out of that particular passage is found in verse 21. It gives the purpose of Christ. It gives the purpose of the life of Jesus. And as Jimmy said earlier, here it says, it says, the angel is speaking to Joseph. He says, "For he will save his people from their sins."
What a wonderful account that is to be able to know a little bit more about where Joseph is coming from. Now if you flip back over to Luke, you can glance at the genealogy in Luke chapter 3 in the second half of chapter 3 there.
If you look at that for a second, you can see that the genealogy starts with Jesus and then it gets older as it progresses. By the end of the genealogy at the end of chapter 3, it actually says a little bit different. It actually traces the lineage back to this as the son of God, very different than going back to in Matthew chapter 1 where it goes from just Abraham.
That may be a Jewish need to be able to understand that biological descent from Abraham, but Luke here, with the account of all the genealogy at the end of chapter 3, it actually says a little bit different. It actually traces the all-star team of apostles that he has, makes a point to be able to trace the lineage of Jesus back to the son of God.
What a wonderful thing that is.
So now if you flip back over in Luke, in Luke chapter 1, we get a little bit more of a taste of a background of Mary as we got introduced in Luke chapter 2 with Mary. I want to be able to kind of unpack her background a little bit here in Luke chapter 1.
Read with me in verse 26. I'm going to go through verse 38.
"Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel—here we have, I'm going to talk, I'm not going to say scripture right now, but it's the—Gabriel here is mentioned here unlike in Matthew chapter 1 where we don't know the name of the angel that spoke to Joseph.
Alright, let me get back here in Luke 1, verse 26.
"Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
And coming in, he said to her, 'Greetings, favored one!' The Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was.
And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.'
Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be since I am a virgin?' The angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible with God.'
And Mary said, 'Behold, the bond slave of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her."
This was the announcement of the Son, the Most High God, the Messiah to a virgin girl named Mary.
Go back to chapter 2 and let's continue in verses 6 through 7.
"While they," meaning Mary and Joseph, "while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."
This phrase here, "the days were completed for her to give birth," is very factual, but it's very, very important to be able to understand this is that Mary gave birth in Bethlehem. This fulfilled the prophecy. It wasn't some sort of orchestrated event.
As most people know here, babies can come at any time. Babies can come prematurely. Babies can come whenever. But here at this particular time, they journeyed to Bethlehem. And here it is accounted for that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she did there in the city. Very important to be able to understand that.
The first main truth for this first section is that God always fulfills His promises. God always fulfills His promises.
Think of all the details of this passage. Even just the first section here, in the first seven verses, there's point after point after point where the fulfillment of what God had said all throughout what we call the Old Testament has been fulfilled. The Savior has been born in flesh.
Now think of all the New Testament verses that promise eternal life to those in Christ. All of His promises will be fulfilled. We can take the promises that we read from Genesis to Revelation. We can take these promises, this word, God's word, from this life into the next. We can have confidence. We can have faith that His word will survive. It will go from everlasting to everlasting.
It's so important to be able to have this kind of "no-so" faith. That it's not just something that's going to fail. It's not something that's going to, when something happens or some nation or head of state or whatever is going to write an executive order and it's going to go away. It's not. God's word sustains. God's word will fulfill. God always fulfills His promises.
And so you may think about your own life. As an example, you can read in Hebrews chapter 11. In Hebrews chapter 11, we see the hall of faith. It's example after example, example after example of God who has revealed Himself to men and women where by faith, they were able to do so many great things.
Yet in one of those verses in chapter 11, it talks about that they didn't yet see in their biological life that promise being fulfilled. But they had the faith, and so we can too, as it's further explained in Hebrews.
In Romans chapter 8, verse 28, it reads that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Some other scripture passages that you may read that you might want to go through. I went to the back of my Bible and I have a couple of pages that talk about the promises of God, and we can read these and understand them that they will not go away. They will be fulfilled.
So how? How do you respond when you feel guilty? How do you respond when you feel guilty? Romans 8, verses 1 through 2. This is something that you could look up if you feel guilty. You can bank on God's word. It says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death."
This is God's word. What goes through your mind when you feel sick? Psalm 23, verse 4: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
What about when you're feeling impatient? We have no reason to feel impatient these days. Everything is going fine out there. If something has you becoming impatient, Psalm 37, verse 7: "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way because of the man who carries out wicked schemes."
You can rest in God's commands and promises. After a while, people are going to start to think that you might be out of your mind because of your faith.
I think as this world continues to get tougher and tougher, if your faith were to grow by God's grace, you're going to be more of an outcast. People are going to be like, "What do you think you're doing?" You're going to be like, "Well, God said this, and therefore I'm going to have faith and trust in that."
When you do this, you're going to be denying yourself. This is not the way of the world, but it's the way of Christ living. Christ living is denying yourself and picking up your cross and following Him.
When it may be obvious to you that some of you are not going to be able to do that, that Satan looks like he may be in control, you need to say to yourself, "God's got this." You need to open up your Bible and you need to pound the word of God into your mind.
You'll start to see the wonder of God's handiwork through events and circumstances. God's word is going to pop out at random times. I know we're going to go through a season here soon where we're going to memorize scripture. That's going to be absolutely crucial to be able to go through and to be able to hide God's word in your heart.
Never again will you say, "The devil is in the details," because we know that the details belong to God and that the details belong to the sovereign nature of a holy, wonderful, slow to anger and abounding in love, wonderful God. God is in the details.
Alright, let's go back to Luke chapter 2 and start in verse 8.
"In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened."
The region here was talking about in the same region. It's talking about the region around Bethlehem. We find that later that the angels are saying, "You need to go to Bethlehem." So we know that they're not in the city limits of Bethlehem.
Right now, we can tell by just looking at a map that Bethlehem is about five miles away from Jerusalem. It wasn't abnormal to have a group of shepherds just in that region of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in that general area. There were many festivals. There were many sacrifices. There was a high demand for sheep, a high demand to be able to give sacrifices.
So shepherds from all around, owners of sheep would migrate their sheep to this particular area if there was a particular way. Weekend or week, if there was a festival. So that's another indication for scholars to be able to say, "Okay, where kind of is this particular date?"
You can analyze the nature of shepherds, and it's very important to have this account of the shepherds, even just trying to zero in on the date of the birth of Christ.
These shepherds may have been traveling shepherds. This would have been a good opportunity for them to be able to sell sheep. And so by keeping watch over their flock by night leads us to believe that there was no fixed pen, right? There was no place where they could leave them fenced in and they could go take a nap.
They were out in the field, and if they were not keeping watch over their flock, they would scatter. They would have to owe up to that by the owners of the sheep. And so these shepherds were there keeping watch over their flock at nighttime here in this particular time.
And then in verse 9, we read about an angel of the Lord. This is one angel, one angel. An angel that suddenly just appeared and took them by surprise. It just scared them. They were terribly frightened.
With this one angel, the glory of the Lord shone all around them, all around them by the effect of one angel being in their presence. And it terrified them, terribly frightened.
As we get to understand the impact of this one angel and how the glory of the Lord shone around this one angel, I want to be able to help us understand this phrase, "glory of the Lord," which was the impact, was the only way to describe the effect of this one angel and the glory of the Lord.
Oftentimes, the glory of the Lord is mentioned where the glory of the Lord fills the temple or fills a house of God. It's said in Exodus chapter 40, verse 34. I'm just going to read some passages off to help describe the glory of the Lord.
Exodus 40, verse 34. Numbers 14, verse 21. 1 Kings 8, 11. "So that the priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord."
That verse is also found in 2 Chronicles 5, 14. Ezekiel 10, 4. "Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord."
And the last one I'll read to you is, and there's many more. The phrase "the glory of the Lord" is mentioned 38 times in 37 different verses. But here in Ezekiel 43, verse 5, "And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house."
And so in Luke 2, these shepherds were surrounded by the shining glory of the Lord. When we talk about that the glory of the Lord shone around them, there was a shine to the glory of the Lord.
One minute, they're in control of their own behaviors. Maybe they're sleeping, or maybe they're talking to each other. And this one angel just kind of suddenly causes them to fear.
There was one time I was deployed to Afghanistan. We were outside of a village. We were on a perimeter with some, I'm in a Humvee. And we're kind of, I'm not smoking, but kind of the soldiers were smoking and joking kind of a thing. You got a guy on a gunner, and we're just kind of talking to each other.
We actually do see some shepherds off in the distance. They're kind of just, there's a few sheep around there, and there's some shepherds. And then all of a sudden, they lit us up. We see some fire come on. There was an RPG that hit the back of the Humvee.
And then there was ding, ding, ding, ding. And right there in a second, I was taken from one second, I was talking. I was talking about, you know, this or that with the driver. And then another second, my life is at stake.
That's just what's going on here in this particular time where the shepherds are thinking their life is at stake. They're not thinking, "Oh, this is just a wonderful thing, and it's Christmas time here in the region of Bethlehem." They are scared out of their mind from one angel who has suddenly come into their presence.
As you think about that, maybe you've gotten into a car accident. Maybe you've had an experience where it's kind of flipped into your mind, where God has gotten your attention, whether it be something good or something bad.
This is what the shepherds were feeling. They were caught off guard. God chose that particular time with no warning. Although there are prophecies for that particular time, but these are just shepherds not thinking about this particular time.
God chose this one time to be able to wake them up.
So continue reading with me in verses 10 through 12.
"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. And you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'"
This good news of great joy, also the gospel, it's good news for all people. This is good news for all people. It's a wonderful thing to be able to have the one and only Savior come into this world.
There's this enormous amount of grace upon grace, common grace and special grace that is now being made available to the whole world. So the whole world benefits from this good news.
God now has come into human flesh. The author has touched down. I'm really trying to stay away from movie quotes and movie scenes. I'm really trying to give biblical references here.
But when I watched the movie Tron, you may have seen this, and if you don't, I apologize. This may not relate to you. But there's this guy named Flynn. He creates this computer system. And then there's chaos that has happened in this movie.
When Flynn comes back, and he took a leave of absence for a short time, and then he comes back. When he comes back, there's this one scene where he touches the floor, and there's like a radiance of bass tremble that goes through.
Everyone there in that presence knows that the author has come back. Forgive me if this caused you to go into a tangent of thought, but I feel like this is very important to be able to understand what this means about when Christ comes back into this world.
In essence, the author coming into human flesh, where there is no prince or principality that can overthrow what He is going to accomplish, which we pointed out in Matthew chapter one, that He came to seek and to save the lost, to forgive the people of their sins.
It's such an important thing to be able to understand that this is a benefit for the whole world. And we're not talking here in this case about atonement. We're not talking about universal atonement where when Christ comes back, that now all of a sudden, everybody in the whole world is saved.
No, it's like if you were in a garden and the garden is just chaos with weeds and there's nobody with weed killer. Well, the gardener's got the only recipe. The gardener comes into the garden with the only recipe to be able to kill the weeds and to be able to take out the plants whom He's come forward to save.
So that when the gardener comes into the garden, the weeds tremble, the plants tremble, but they're all benefiting that the gardener is back. Does that make sense?
It doesn't mean that everyone is particularly saved. But everyone needs to take responsibility for what they have done with their sins, right? I don't want any misunderstanding when we're interpreting this angelic announcement to be able to assume that this is talking about universal atonement.
But there is a benefit to the whole world for Christ to come into this earth.
Continue reading with me in verse 13.
"And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"
So now at this particular time, that one angel is now accompanied with a multitude. The word "host" here, a multitude of a heavenly host. The word "host" here is a military term to describe like an army of soldiers.
You can see an army of soldiers. There is, you can see, a military term to describe. I used to think that these angels were floating up in the air and that kind of thing. The only indication in this text that there may be in the air is the next verse in verse 15, where it says, "When the angels had gone away from them into heaven."
We don't know particularly when they went into heaven, if they, heaven, we're not really sure if they just went to a different, like you could say a different dimension on the ground. Or it could be in the air. It could be both.
But other than that, the text is not here when it talks about, "And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude." It's not like they're up in the air in a Hollywood type of setting.
So in the heavenly host, you can almost see like an army where this glory of the Lord is shining around the shepherds. One angel caused the glory of the Lord to shine all around them. But now you have a multitude of angels all around them.
You could just hear them yelling out, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased."
Glory to God in the highest. And John the Baptist, I think, says a great on our response to this. In John 3, verse 30, he must increase and I must decrease.
The phrase here, "on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased," obtaining peace is a gracious gift. Like I said earlier, it's not universally applied when you're talking about the blood of Christ. You're talking about common grace.
You get now like the peace of God. But in order to have the peace with God, you need the blood of Christ to cover you, to have peace with God.
All men, all of us here were born as a human being with a human father and a human mother. And so we are all born under this sin nature. We are all born sinners. And so therefore, what do we do? We sin, but we also take responsibility for every single one of those sins.
We have no hope in and of ourselves to be able to come to God and have peace with Him. And so here it says, rightfully so, "on a multitude of a heavenly host," just saying, "and on earth, peace among men, and it's with whom He is pleased."
Very important to be able to understand that, the difference between the peace of God and the peace with God. The peace with God is a declaration of God's grace.
We do not summon this peace. We don't put on a pedestal and say, "Okay, I'll take the peace with God now, and I'm going to go about and live my life the way I want to live."
No, when the peace with God comes upon you, you will be changed.
Also exclaimed in 1 Corinthians 15.
So the second main truth for this is that the glory of the Lord fills a holy temple. The glory of the Lord fills a holy temple.
In 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20, we read about, it says, "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you."
Unfortunately, this is not a, "If you do this, then God will do that." This is not a conditional type of peace that we have with God. God is the one who makes the temple holy.
He consecrates it by the accomplishment of His Son. He comes into the glory of the Lord, fills the holy temple.
In John chapter 3, verse 8, it says, "The wind blows where it wishes. So how everyone is born of the Spirit."
So if this main truth is true, which is the glory of the Lord fills a holy temple, what must we do?
If we can't do anything of ourselves, we need to do something, right? Well, I would encourage you to pray. To pray and recognize God for who He is. And to beg for mercy.
He says that He will have mercy on whomever He will have mercy. And He also says, "Whoever calls upon My name will be saved."
It is a both-and. So I would encourage you to be able to pray. But the actual prayer is not what saves you. But you're at the mercy of God to be able for Him to bestow peace with Himself.
And that is absolutely crucial. You can kind of see the importance when you come around to this. What we're getting at here is there is a fear of God in these shepherds.
We see all throughout Proverbs and all throughout Scripture is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
In Psalm 119, verse 18, this could be your prayer: "Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law."
That's Psalm 119, verse 18. If you want to, I'd like for you to flip to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.
1 Corinthians chapter 2. I like to read 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 14 through 16. If you don't see this in your Bible, you may actually not believe it. You may be like, "Who's that crazy guy up there talking about this word?"
I'd like for you to see this in your Bible or jot it down and read it later. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14 through 16.
"But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
What a wonderful three verses that is to be able to understand right there in those three verses. The heart goes out to the natural man.
The heart goes out to the natural man. The heart goes out to the natural man who cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God. They are not going to skip and jump into the kingdom of God.
They're going to come to God knowing who they are as a sinner before a holy God. And that must be understood with the truth of God and the truth of who we are.
It says here at the end of these three verses, "But we have the mind of Christ."
We have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ is given by God. I don't know any person that can just rightfully say, "I alone, in and of my own ability, have the mind of Christ."
Who do you think you are to be able to think that you have the mind of Christ and it was not freely given to you by the one above?
It is so important to be able to understand that. In this free giving, we have to have the mind of Christ. It is the mind of Christ that provides peace with God as a continual gift of His Word.
As we read His Word, Christ and Christ alone is the Word. In John 1:1, it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
So as we pray, we're self-examining ourselves and becoming more aligned with His will as we're praying.
In Psalm 37, verse 4, it says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."
What an amazing thing this is to be able, when God chooses to fill a temple with the glory of Himself.
Getting back to the main truth of this section, the glory of the Lord fills a holy temple. It is God and God alone who can make a temple holy, and He will fill it however He wants to.
Alright, the last section of this Luke 2 that we'll go over in verses 15 through 20. Read with me starting in verse 15 back in Luke 2.
"When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.' So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger."
The first thoughts of these shepherds after the angels went away was obedience. Isn't that interesting? They did talk to one another, but it was like they were all on the same page. "Let us go straight. Let us go straight to Bethlehem then."
They did not want to waste any time. They didn't want to get some sleep for the hour, for the miles that they may need to be able to walk. They were just ready to go.
They wanted to see this thing which, and we can't mess with this phrase, we can't just skip this and just glance over it. The phrase here, they wanted to see this thing, quote, "which the Lord made known to us."
They couldn't be quiet. When they got there, they were just telling, telling, telling everybody. At this particular time, the great God Almighty revealed to them a special knowledge.
Not just a special knowledge. Not just what's going on, not just what's going on to happen in the nation or news about this or that. But this was the most fantastic news that applied to them, that applied to shepherds.
You know, there's news that we may hear about who got elected or who won the Super Bowl or that kind of, that's big news. It's big news. But this is greater news.
It's not the best news. You could say that, you know, something about the Super Bowl doesn't really apply to me. Like, you know, no. It doesn't really matter, you know, in the grand scheme of things, who wins a football game.
I'm disappointed that Navy beat Army last night. But it's not going to shake my faith, right? It's not going to keep me from going and evangelizing the gospel.
And so here we have here where the shepherds were given the good news and they could not be quiet about it.
So verse 17 says, "When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds."
This statement here is, you can go back to verse 11, with what the angelic or the statement by the one angel that we're saying. It says, "For today in the city of David, there's been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord."
And so as we continue reading here, I'll just wrap it up with these last two verses.
"But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them."
So in this last section, we see three responses to this gospel, to this great news. We see the response of wonder by everyone who's hearing from the shepherds. We have wonder.
We have the second response to this gospel is a treasured, that Mary treasured these things in her heart. And the third response to this text here is that the shepherds went away praising.
So we have wonder, we have treasured, and we have praising. You can put in there glorifying and praising; it's very much of a similar word there.
But it brings us to this main truth of this last section, that the gospel demands a response. The gospel demands a response.
Like I was saying earlier, like when you hear big news about anything, it's hard to be quiet. It demands you to say something. It demands for you to change course.
You'll be able to do something, especially something that's going to impact you as a person directly. Whether it's you lost your job, whether you got a job, whether you're getting married, whether you're having kids.
And even the gospel, right, is greater news than that. But you can see how that kind of news would demand a response. Well, those are just earthly type of examples. This is an eternal good news. This is an everlasting good news.
And it much demands a response. Our big problem that we have is found in Romans 3:23. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
That takes on a whole new meaning in this light of this context. We want to have the glory of the Lord in our hearts. We want to be able to say, "You know, God sees me as a good person."
God sees me as, you know, you could craft it to be whatever, as a holy. And so the glory of the Lord, you know, when I'm by myself, I can do this and do that. I can feel good about myself and feel the glory of the Lord.
That is incorrect. Incorrect. The glory of the Lord comes into a holy temple.
And so this verse here of Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned," means there is no holy temple anywhere and everywhere from a human being who was born in this world.
Each and every one of us has fallen short of the glory of God. We know that all throughout the Bible, that God has kept His promises, and we can put our faith and trust in Him, the God of the Bible who keeps His word.
We're talking about, talking earlier about all throughout the Old Testament, where it's almost like a parade of prophecies leading up to this moment where there is a Savior who was born into this world to be able to save His people from their sins.
So as we reflect back on this journey to the birth in the first few verses, remember how precise this journey became true. Remember how precise that this journey became true.
And that just leads to just being awesome that we, in awe of an awesome God, on how much He is in the details, especially in our salvation.
As you reflect back on the angelic announcement, remember the glory of the Lord shining all around the shepherds, such a kingly ushering into this world of the baby who is Christ the Lord.
And then the last section, as you reflect on the encounter with Christ, hopefully you can reflect back on your own encounter with Christ.
And how your response to the gospel, how that's going, how that's been. If you're able to hear with ears today, on this particular day, it means you're healthy enough to be able to hear things and to be able to process things in your mind that you can still show growth.
It's a very simple thing. It's not complicated. It requires a heart change by a merciful God and by turning to Him and surrendering to Him needs to be your response.
So there was a race across America that was done yesterday, and it is so hard to walk into a cemetery, is it not? Because you're seeing the destiny of our biological self.
But here in this account of Luke 2, we can confront that fear and we can face death and say, "Oh death, where is your sting?" Because Jesus has come in the flesh. He is our Savior. He is our champion.
And so as it's repeatedly said in Hebrews 3 and chapter 4, "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Enter His gates with thanksgiving in your heart, in His courts with praise." Just like the shepherds. That's Psalm 100, verse 4.
Let's close in prayer.
Dear Lord, what a sobering message it is just to be able to read fact after fact after fact, just like a nail driven into a board of this, of the evidence of Your birth in human flesh that You took on.
We know that You are still in that human flesh. You are truly God and truly man in all its fullness. What a wonderful thing this is to be able to understand that.
To be able to understand that we can go through life, whether it's our day to day or whether it's just confronting our own salvation, that when we call upon Your name, that You will save us from the wrath that You so justly put down on any and all sinners who have violated Your law.
So here we have the truth of the law and we have the truth of the gospel. We pray that of this truth, that the seeds will be sown in a way where it is pleasing to You, and that You will, as we go about this place, this sanctuary, this worship center, that You will be with us, whether we're around other people, whether we're facing trials, anything and everything that's coming with us.
Help us to be able to look these things in the face and to be able to say, "You got this." I trust in You and You alone.
Thank You for Your Son and for all that He has accomplished. There is no other gift that we are looking forward to this Christmas as much as the continual gift of Your Son.
So we praise Your name. In Jesus' name, amen.
on Jan 16, 2025
