Well, grab your Bibles and let's go back to Luke chapter 2 as we'll Give the second part of Jesus' birth as we're looking at these. Again, foundational truths about Christmas, but there's some wonderful things here. That hopefully will stir your hearts and Build your joy as we think about this Christmas season. I'm going to just read. The section where the angels are appearing to the shepherds, because that's where I'm pulling the truths from that we'll be looking at.
Of course, Mary and Joseph have Journeyed to Bethlehem for the census, and there she gives birth to the baby Jesus and They're in this cattle stall. She lays them in this trough and Then the angels from heaven appear. What a phenomenal, powerful thing to even try to visualize. And we begin in verse 8 of Luke 2. Two, and we'll go through verse eleven.
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. It would be an awesome, awesome scene to say the least. Verse 10, but the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.
And here's where we're going to build the rest of the message from. For behold, 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. the Lord.
Now, first of all, his verse speaks to us of condescension. The coming down, we talked about that last time. how he left the throne of glory. to be clothed in human flesh and to be born as this seemingly weak certainly meek infant child. And then he was born not only as a child as we were obviously Understand, but he was also born to very lowly parents, Joseph.
And Mary. Nothing about them Connected in any one of dignity or loyalty, just plain. If you will. simple country folks and very poor. He's born in a trough, or rather, a stall as such for livestock, and then laid in a wooden trough.
They would feed the livestock from. Everything about it speaks of deep pathos. Would evoke sympathy and concern to see such a scene.
So he came in this. Condescension, again, if you will, beyond comprehension. But now we come to new material. Not does his birth only speak of his condescension, it also speaks of his condition. of the culmination.
This was bringing Things to a culminating point, not an end point, if you will, but a culminating point. First of all, for the nation of Israel. For time and time and decades, and century after century after century. The faithful prophets had told the people of Israel: we have a great victor who's coming. We have a great Warrior King Deliverer who is coming just for us.
And he's called the Messiah. He's called the, in Hebrew that means the anointed one. God the Father Himself will Specially anoint this one to carry out this role, this work. of the office of Messiah. And so, literally, it would have been true in ancient Israel.
Every Jewish girl lived and dreamed that maybe her baby boy would be the Messiah. The great leader, the great king, the great deliverer of Israel. And God chose a virgin by the name of Mary. She has This baby. Emmanuel And it wasn't just one that God sent to be the Messiah.
God Himself came as our Messiah. And he's born there. And all the prophecies of all the ages that were continually placed before Israel that the one is coming now culminates in this birth. This is what they had been hoping for. They'd longed for and looked for their Messiah, their Savior.
So it brings to a culmination these many decades and centuries of hopeful anticipation.
Now, did they get it? No. Did they miss it? Yes. But it was the culmination.
He is the culmination. of all of the prophets' promises.
So now they can no longer Wait to look at him.
Now they are wait to look for him, rather.
Now they can actually go look at him. Think about that. He's there. He's come. And just as God is prone to do, He doesn't do things the way man does them.
He came in a way they would not discern. Except for a faithful remnant who had the understanding and the discernment from the Old Testament text of how he would come. It kind of reminds me of Christmas morning for a little child. I remember those days so very well. The days roll by, the tree goes up, and presents start being under the tree, and this guy's supposed to come down the chimney.
Yeah. And bring us a bunch of gifts, and a child's heart is just full. A very eager anticipation.
So much so that on Christmas Eve night, when it got real quiet and you couldn't sleep, you would sneak into the living room. And very carefully just get a glimpse. And there in the dim, glimmering lights of the Christmas tree, you would see the presents. The things that the fat guy brought and left all around. That was the fulfillment.
of a child's anticipation. Maybe in some way that does reflect on how The faithful remnant of Israel must have felt when they understood that the Christ had come. All they had hoped for, all they dreamed of. Brothers and sisters, life was incredibly difficult in those days. It's probably no exaggeration that most children died before they're one or two years of age.
Just a difficult age. The Romans held Israel in captivity. They went through Babylonian captivity and Assyrian captivity, and the Medo-Persian Empire held them captive.
Now the Romans hold them enslaved.
So for all of those centuries, they'd longed for a victor. And now that anticipation Is enveloped in a culmination. He is here. He has come. You know, when a woman gets pregnant.
She has that expectation, I believe I'm pregnant. Then she goes to the doctor, and they do what they call an ultrasound, and that's the confirmation. And then there's that anticipation time. Clothes are bought and Rooms are painted and The nursery is set up, and diapers are purchased in bottles, and they even have lots of contraption today. I don't even know what they do.
But you just buy all this stuff, all the anticipation, and then the day, the culmination, the baby is born. But none of these, though we can relate to these, can even compare to the depth of anticipation. that came to culmination. The morning Jesus was here. and was born.
And this is so true for these Jewish shepherds. who were out on the hillsides around Bethlehem keeping watch over their flocks. And all of a sudden these angels appear. And the angel said, Hey, there's been born for you today. This day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
So while specifically and directly it was the culmination of the Jewish anticipation. Even more broadly. He came for all. The text tells us very clearly, and this is our second subpoint here, in verse 10. Let's read it again.
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.
Now, first of all, he says... For you you do not be afraid. Then he says in verse 11, for you a Savior is born. We'll emphasize that again in a moment. But it's certainly clear that the angel says, this is for you.
The Jew but It's also for All the people. It is the culmination of hope. There's always been something in the heart of man that says there's got to be something better. There has to be something more. There's a sense of anticipation that's inherent in the DNA our Creator put within us that we're looking for someone else.
Of course, there's been a million counterfeit Christs who've been flung our way, but this one was the culmination. that we were all truly looking for. Good news of great joy. He will be for. All the people.
Now again, the Juice missed it. They missed the true significance of his coming. Only a remnant of genuine believers could grasp and bring this in. But when Jesus was born, The favor of God was at hand. And I believe that's what these Jewish shepherds.
Again, I hold them to be a faithful and godly remnant who, in the providence of God, knew enough of the Old Testament text and the spiritual understanding of the text to know what the Messiah should look like as far as where he would be born and what he would come like as a little child. That is, Isaiah made that very clear in his prophetic messages. And so, those that remnant, they knew his revival, his arrival rather, meant that the day of grace is now being thrown open to all men. The way of pardon and peace before God is now open to all people because He has come. Spiritual darkness had covered the earth for 4,000 years.
And now it's being rolled back. This is the good news. And it came in that package of a little baby. The mighty truth that God can be just. And yet, justify the ungodly is now to be proclaimed throughout the earth because this one will provide the means.
Of God being able to remain just. Of course, he can't not be just, but as a figure of speech, he will remain just. and justify us. The ungodly. Salvation was no longer to be seen in Old Testament prophetic types, shadows, and figures.
Now salvation can be seen. face to face. Can I remind you again, church, salvation is not a plan. Salvation is a man. He is our salvation.
And he has come. Don't come to me. I almost said, don't come to me on your deathbed. I don't think you'll be able to do that. Don't tell me on your deathbed, Pastor, I did the thing.
I took the steps, I fulfilled the obligation. Don't tell me that. Tell me, Pastor, I know him. I know here. And he Came.
Born of Berry. In the little town of Bethlehem and a livestock stall. to be our Savior. You see, when he came that Christmas morning, the first stone, indeed, the cornerstone of God's kingdom had been set. And this is good news of great joy.
To save the world, God did not send a helping hand. He did not send an angel band. He didn't send a new teaching, a new philosophy, or a new religion to save the world. God sent his son. The angel said.
For today. Today That means all you've been anticipating, all you've been looking for, culminates in him today. The Saviour is born. and is born for all the world. 2 Corinthians 6:2 reminds us, Behold, now is the acceptable time.
It's the acceptable time because Christ has already come, and now is the day of salvation. Hebrews 4:7 reminds us. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. Today, today. Like the shepherd said, today he's here.
We don't anticipate him any longer. We have the culmination.
So his birth speaks to us of Great condensation. He condescended down to us, and even lower than any of us could ever imagine. And then it was a great culmination. All the hopes and prophecies and dreams. Of Israel, and in a larger sense, of the whole Gentile world, was there's got to be one coming.
He's come. Now we come to the third thing I would like to bring out from the text, and that is his verse speaks of his commission. His commission.
So we've talked about his condescension. We've talked about his culmination. But the culmination of the promise does not mean his work was completed yet. There's still work he is to perform now that he has come. His commission was given to him by his father.
That he would perform, listen to me now, he would live out the responsibilities. Of the assignment the Father gave him, that is. to fulfill. The office of the Messiah. The Great, the Office of the Christ.
That was his commission.
So let's unpack this a little bit again from the angel statements here. And I've got to hurry a little bit as we're going to take the Lord's table and before that receive some new members. But nevertheless, first of all, A. His commission meant he came. to us Very simple.
Very obvious. But you need to think there for a moment. Meditate on the text and let it work on your heart and soul sometimes. He came. to us The text simply says there in verse 10, the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.
I bring you. I'm bringing something. to you. Then again in verse 11. For today in the CD David, there's been born.
For you. A Savior who is Christ. The Lord. He came to us. Personally, and it is interesting afresh, is it not, that God chose.
to reveal himself to first These lowly shepherds Not sovereigns, not sovereigns, rather, but shepherds, not princes, but peasants. Not First, the powerful, but the unpowerful. Not first, the popular, but the unpopular. And then he also came for all people, the Gentiles.
So he came. Yeah. His commission also includes that he came. To save us. I watched, Pam and I watched the ABC Kevin Costner special on the birth of Christ, and they got a lot of things right, but man, when they blew it, they worked real hard to blow it.
And what you find out with the secular world and the approach to Christmas in general is they kind of want to come to the manger and Marvel over the baby, maybe even mention the cross, but they don't mention much at all, if anything, about his work. To save us. His work on the cross. which is foundational to why he came. The angel said to the shepherd in verse 11: Again, there has been born for you.
A new hope. A new direction, a new example, all of those things. But no, they said a Savior. Matthew 1:21, the angel said this very thing to Mary when he told her she was pregnant of the Holy Spirit and going to have the Son of God that she would birth. The angel said to Mary, He will save his people from their sins.
That's the message that needs to be emphasized. G. Campbell Morgan in his commentary said this. It was the most stupendous event in all the running decades and centuries and millenniums of the history of man. There is born a Savior.
A savior. You see, he was born into the kingdom of man. That he might begin building the kingdom of God among men. He was born into the kingdom of man. That he might begin building the kingdom of God among men.
And by the way, brothers and sisters, that's what the local churches are. This is a Preview, if you will. It's a forerunner, if you will, of that ultimate glorified church that will be on the earth at the end of the age, when the present heaven and earth have passed away and he makes all things new and we're all glorified. But for now, the most evident, clearest, purest Most wondrous picture. Of the kingdom of God on the earth.
Is the Bible-saturated, glory of God-focused, Christ-honoring local churches? It's when I grasped that decades ago that I begin to talk to you so much about reforming our church to be as biblically sound as we could be. We'll never arrive. We're certainly never perfect, but it's because God's representation in the earth depends on the church being right. The kingdom of God is seen when you live right at work, when you live right in the neighborhood.
When you're married, just biblically sound, when your family is centered in Christ, that's very true. But none of that compares to when all of us are together. Because God's always meant to have A people. That's why the angel said to Mary, he will save his people. He likes having a collectivity of people.
He will save his people from their sins. And We need to be saved from our sin. Sin means we fall short. God made us as human beings the highest point of creation. He stamped his own image on us.
He means for us, unlike any other part of creation, to reflect his very character, holiness, goodness, righteousness. And we all fall short. Sin is something we are. Sin is something we do. And sin is also something that we fail to do.
We're all guilty, we are all condemned, we are all lost, and we are all wondering. We all need a Savior. And we have one. Because of Christmas. Jesus was born and laid in a wooden trough so that he would one day die on a wooden cross.
His birth was the promise of hope culminated. His death was the purchase of hope actuated. It's been done. It is finished. But he had to come first.
And we never separate the wonder and the mystery of the incarnation. From the awful reality of the crucifixion. Ben Hayden, the radio preacher, once said that I would not walk across the street to celebrate Christmas. If there were no Easter. If there's no Easter, he's just another good idea.
He's just another teacher. He's just another philosopher, if you will. He's just another model, maybe, to emulate in some ways. But that's not the main reason he came. He's all of those things, but he came.
to be born that he might die. to save his people. From their sins. That's his commission. The third part of his commission, we want to elaborate on this a little bit, we'll be through.
Not only did he come to us, not only did he come to save us, thirdly, He came with the authority and power to save us.
Now, that's important. You see, in this day... there had been any number of Jewish men claimed to be the Messiah. And they claimed to be their new Savior and their new hope, and they were all liars, and they were all counterfeits. It was the spirit of the Antichrist.
And the Bible tells us in 1 John, the spirit of the Antichrist is still active today.
So many claiming to To be him, and they're not him. He alone The one appointed by the Father is the only one qualified and capable. Of fulfilling the requirements of the office of Messiah, which is the office. from which or by which the children are saved. and secured for him.
Matter of fact, there are three powerful terms here that are used by these angels. If you look at it there in verse 11, for today in the city today, there's been born for you Savior. That's one. Who is Christ? That's two.
The Lord, that's three.
Now again, Christ. is the Greek equivalent of Messiah, which means the anointed one. Then the word Lord is put here. He's the Lord. He didn't become the Lord.
He's always been the Lord, who did become the Messiah.
Now, that's a good way to remember that. He's always been God. He's always been Lord. But then he chose to become the Messiah. Our Savior.
Lord means supreme authority, all power, all authority. The word Lord in the New Testament in Matthew 10 is used of a master. In Matthew 9, it's used of Lord of the harvest. In Matthew 20, it's used of the owner of a vineyard. In Acts 13, it's used of an emperor.
In Matthew 11, twice it's used of God. Even Herod himself is called the Lord. And so you have this use of Lord in the culture. And then our early forefathers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, took this word out of the culture and boldly claimed it for Christ. That no one else could claim it like he can claim it.
He used it for himself, in fact, in Matthew 21:3. As he prepares for the Lord's Supper, the Passover meal, he would be turning into the Lord's Supper. Where says, if anyone says anything to you, say to them, the Lord has need of them. That's me. He's the one of all authority and all power.
So he's the Lord? The God-empowered one. He is the Christ. The God-appointed one. And he is the Savior.
the God performing one. He couldn't just be appointed to it. He actually, in the might of his own person, fulfilled and did in time and space history the work of dying on the cross, taking your place in guilt, taking your place in punishment, bearing those away, rising again to prove your justification is sealed and finished. and goes on up into heaven. That's the God work, performing work he did.
So, Christmas is the message. Christmas is the message. That's why the angels use these terms. There's a lot. We could preach several messages on every term.
The Saviour Christ The Lord. Yeah. Christmas is the message that the God-empowered one. Who is also the God-appointed one, office of Messiah or Christ? Who is the God performing one has come?
To make sure We all Get home. It's as if the angels want to say. You know how thoroughly saved you are? That the God-empowered one? Who is also the God-appointed one?
Who's also the God-performing one? Has come to secure your salvation. And some of our friends wonder why we believe once saved, always saved. I tell you why, I believe more than that: once God, always God. God came, God did the work, God performed it, God sealed it, God saved me, and God cannot fail.
Hmm. In Matthew 11, 28. Jesus says, Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. In other words, you're weary and you're heavy laden because there's nothing in you capable. of getting this job done for yourself.
Nothing in you. You have no capacity. to somehow secure your redemption. To somehow remove your sins, you can't go to church enough, you can't take the communion table enough, you cannot be baptized enough. You cannot renovate your life well enough.
It can't happen. God and God alone, He's the only one that can make this happen. You are weary.
So he says, Come all of you weary and heavy-laden ones and get rid of your stinking pride and come to the foot of a bloody cross and say, You're all I've got, period. You're all I've got, Jesus. You're all my hope. And by the way, the only people Jesus saves are worthless, weak, powerless sinners. That makes me feel good.
Does that do anything for you? I just found this, and I'm going to close with this. But in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7. You have the entirety of his work or commission in one verse. In the past, all the way back to Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, and now in Isaiah 9, verse 6, you have the past prophecy: for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us.
That's the past. They prophesied that in the past. And then you come up to him being born, and throughout the church age, up into the eternal state. You have the next section. And the government will rest on his shoulders, as his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Yes, that comes to full fruition in the eternal state, but right now we're finding him to be a wonder of a counselor. Right now, we're realizing in our hearts. We see through a glass dimly, but we do see it, that he is the mighty God, the wonderful counselor. The Prince of Peace He's all of those things in our hearts, so the world may not know it. But listen to me: the day is coming when all the world will humbly bow and say these very things.
We just get in on it early. As his people, his kingdom and the earth. And then, of course, there's not only the past, only the present church age where we're realizing these truths about him. And glorying in them and marveling over them and wondering over them and treasuring him more because of them. And then there's the future, verse 7.
And there'll be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.
Okay. How in the world is all that really going to happen? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. That's the Christmas story. Thank God for Christmas.
Amen? Yeah.
