Now That’s Good News!

The passage this morning is going
to be Luke 2, verses 8-14. A very familiar passage. Very familiar, I’m sure, to you
in here. Very familiar, I’m sure, to those
out there who may not be attending a church today, who may not attend
church regularly, who may attend a church maybe on Christmas morning. The reason I’ve picked this passage
because I think there can be a danger, and I’m not saying
with anybody here, with me, maybe it’s really familiar, so familiar
that we kind of just read it and go on. Okay? And we don’t look at what’s really
in there. And with a passage like this,
there’s a ton in there. So much though that we will not
get to all of it today. I asked my wife last night. I
had the same thought. So, if you’re thinking, man,
you guys are whacked, I apologize. But I said, when you hear this
passage, and there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and
behold the angels of the Lord. I said, what do you think of? She said, and this was my thought,
Linus. That’s probably one of the deliveries
of this passage that is one of the more popular because of the
Charlie Brown Christmas special. Charlie Brown, what is Christmas
all about? Can somebody tell me? And this boy with a blanket
very simply says, I will tell you. And he just proceeds to
read the passage and says that Charlie Brown is what Christmas
is all about. And unfortunately, I don’t want
to leave it to Linus And just to read this familiar passage
and just gloss over it. My wife also said something interesting
this morning. She was walking through the stores
these days. And kind of with a smirk on her
face. Because there’s Christmas music playing. And the Christmas
music is telling about Jesus’ birth. And there are people walking
around singing. Singing these familiar tunes.
Who probably have not a clue what they’re singing about. who,
if this music was playing any other time of the year, they
would be offended at what’s playing and the message that’s playing. Also, I have to say what a joy
it was to kind of look into this passage, study this passage this
week at work in the midst of all the things I hear. just to think, for unto you this
day in the city of David, a Savior is born.” What a peace came over
him. Yes, there is a Savior. And it
just kind of dinned out all the rest of what was going on. It’s
a familiar passage. And danger can be in taking it
for granted. In the worst sense, taking for
granted what was announced. For rushing by and not stopping
to think of what’s all there. Maybe rushing through it and
passing over parts we think, well, we hear it and go, okay,
yeah. And maybe treating it not as,
I want to say important, but just kind of glossing over it.
What do we think when we read the shepherds were terribly afraid?
The glory of the Lord. Christ the Lord. and glory to
God in the highest. They’re part of the story and
part of the passage, and maybe we just read them and go, oh,
that’s just part of the whole Christmas story. But do we really
think of what that is and what that means? I’m going to read
to you two passages. Ron already read one. And thank
you, Ron, for leading this morning. You did a great job. Isaiah 9. Verse 6, For a child will be
born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will
rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Micah
5, verse 2, But as for you, Bethlehem, too little to be among the clans
of Judah. From you, one will go forth for
me to be ruler in Israel. Very familiar passages. Prophecies
of the coming Messiah. So we’re going to look at this
passage this morning and we’re going to do an investigation
of what’s going on. Let me read it to you. Luke 2,
beginning 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. 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 hosts praising God and
saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men
with whom He is pleased.” So let’s look at this passage. The
first thing we’re going to look at is the proclamation. That’s your first little line
there. The proclamation. Have you ever
had some news you wanted to share? kind of built it up, and you
shared it with somebody, and they just don’t feel the same
excitement. They kind of felt like a thud. Or maybe somebody’s
coming to you, hey, I’ve got this great news, and they share
it, and you’re going, great. This is not the case here. What we have here is simply the
greatest announcement ever given. This would be one. Maybe one
A. Maybe some of you would say,
second or one B would be, He is not here. He is risen. But this is the announcement
of the Savior. And the angel is really building
it up. The angel says, for behold. Remember
what Ron said weeks ago, what behold means. It commands attention. It says, I want your attention.
I’ve got something important I’m going to say here. Listen up. What I have to say is important
and you need to hear it. Not only does the angel say,
behold, but he adds, I have good news of great joy. He’s really
setting himself up here. This better be good. Pressure’s
on. But the news is better than anyone
could have expected. This is the first gospel presentation,
which is fitting because we often refer to the gospel as good news. Unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. What’s great about this, this
is not more prophecy. This is the fulfillment. of prophecy. Unto you is born a Savior. This is good news and this is
news of a great joy. A Savior has come. He is here. God has kept His Word. The promise back in Genesis 3.15
where we read, “…and I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your seed and her seed, He shall bruise
you on the head and you shall bruise Him on the heel.” The
prophecies that are so numerous that we just read a couple of,
they are met in this child on this evening. This is the greatest
moment in the history of mankind. He is here. Finally here. Our sin which had separated us
from God Separated us from God, so God
sends His Son down to close that gap so it could be bridged. God
has made it possible for our relationship with Him to be restored.
A Savior has come. Hope has become reality. Here is the Savior who will save
His people from their sins, as the name of Jesus signifies.
He is, as it was called, the consolation of Israel. Now, here’s
something that I don’t think we can fully comprehend. Can you imagine what the recipients
of this announcement were feeling? Simeon, if we go later in chapter
2, we read, Simeon, who is described as a righteous and devout man,
came and saw the babe in the manger and said, Lord, You are
releasing Your bondservant to depart in peace according to
Your Word. For my eyes have seen Your salvation.”
The prophets foretold of God’s salvation. Salvation was projected
always into the future. Unto you will be born a Savior.
All of this was in the future. Even from early promises given
to the patriarchs back in Genesis, there was always a future element
in the nature of this Messiah, this salvation. After the Jews
returned from exile, built the wall, the temple was rebuilt,
there was a feeling that salvation was coming. But it was not to
be yet. It was still in the future. Many
of the patriarchs, as mentioned, had received promises from God,
but they didn’t live to see them completely fulfilled. They didn’t
get to see them all. That is not to say that God didn’t
fulfill those promises. But here He was, the fulfillment
of that long-awaited prophecy. And it’s something I don’t know
if we can really grasp or understand. So this good news of a great
joy was given. It was what so many of the people
were looking forward to. So how was it announced? Let’s
look now at the presentation. Angels delivered the message.
They had the privilege of delivering this incredible message. One
commentator wrote that there were no accounts of anyone seeing
angels for over 500 years. Now all of a sudden in Luke,
the first two chapters, we see three or four. Gabriel appears
to Mary. Gives her the news. Gabriel visits
Zacharias and tells him about the son to be born to him. And
now an angel delivers the announcement of the Messiah. Whether it’s
Gabriel or not, I don’t know. It doesn’t say. But it’s an angel. Angels were present at other
glorious occasions. They were there at creation.
Spurgeon writes, they had joined in many a solemn chorus to the
praise of their Almighty Creator. They were present at the creation. Job 38 v. 7, when the Lord is
answering, Job says, where were you during creation? Basically,
when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for
joy. So an angel, the highest of the
created beings, delivered this message, which would have been
shocking enough. But, the angel was accompanied
by something. He was accompanied by the glory
of the Lord. What do you think of when you
read that? And the glory of the Lord shown round about them.
Do you just get the picture of an angel, you know, they kind
of glow and have that halo as it was perceived. Is that all
we think of? He was glowing a little bit?
That is not what the glory of the Lord is. The glory of the
Lord does not glow just a little bit. Can you imagine what fright
the shepherds had with no warning whatsoever? And all of a sudden,
the highest of the created beings shows up in a blaze of glory.
Now, you’ve heard the term, He went out with a blaze of glory.
This angel came in with a blaze of glory. And not just any glory. This wasn’t just fireworks. This
was the Shekinah glory. It’s an expression that we may
take for granted. But those who experienced it
would never be the same. All the more startling because
it was probably pretty quiet and dark out there. There’s not
a lot of traffic going on. There’s not a lot of city lights.
Not a lot of noise. Maybe some sheep baaing or whatever
sounds they make. Maybe just casual conversation.
Maybe the crackling of a little fire they have for warmth. But
it’s pretty quiet. MacArthur states that the full
impact hits home when you consider what the glory of the Lord is. I mentioned this is Shekinah
glory. Described as one wrote, the cloud of intolerable brightness. It is what symbolized God’s presence. The presence of the Shekinah
glory was, as one said, reckoned as one of the most precious blessings
of Israel. We see this glory at the completion
of the temple. Acts 40. We read about the Shekinah
glory being taken away in Ezekiel. Not to appear again until this
very night. That we read about here. And
the next time we see it will be when Christ returns. When Isaiah was confronted with
the presence of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, was he affected? Yeah. He was terrified. He said, woe is me. When John
saw the vision of the glorified Christ, did he just stand there
as if nothing happened? No. He fell like a dead man. When Moses asked to see God’s
glory, God said, nobody can see My glory and live. Full glory
and live. So, Moses was able to catch a
part of it. A small part. The back. Moses also came down from the
mountain after being with God. told him to cover his face because
the glory of the Lord, the countenance of the Lord was upon him. Terror is the result of seeing
the presence of God. The passage says, the shepherds
were terribly frightened. Understatement. This is a normal
reaction though. We are a people who are naturally
affected by a sudden and unusual But the response from the angel
was what? Fear not. We also see this in
business to Zacharias and Mary. And it was what John was told
on the island of Patmos when he had his vision. We actually
see this all through the Bible. And we can see it for the first
time in Genesis 15-1 when God speaks to Abraham. However, If God shows up before
you and does not say, don’t be afraid, be very afraid. The glorious announcement is
accompanied by God’s divine presence and blessing. But who is it given to? The announcement
of the Savior, this greatest announcement, surely, there was some sort of press
conference held. That’s what would happen today.
If you had just a very important announcement, you would have
somebody in your office leak it out, so the buzz would start,
and then you’d call a press conference for the next day and announce
it. If it was important enough, you’d
televise it. So as many people could see it
at the same time. But obviously, there wasn’t a
press conference. Maybe, like when a king had a
proclamation, it was heralded by all these trumpets and all,
and when a king came into the town, he had people go before
him preparing the way. Maybe that’s what was going to
happen here. There was going to be this big announcement. There
was this big fanfare. No. God handled this whole situation
differently. First of all, the baby was born
in an obscure village. Nobody really knew what was going
on. If somebody had passed by, they wouldn’t have thought anything
different. Here’s this young couple with a baby. The only thing they would have
thought is why are they out in the barn? But as I said, God does not do
things the way we might. So God chose a group of shepherds. Why not the religious elite?
Why not the Pharisees? They were looking forward to
the Messiah. They knew all about the prophecies throughout the
Old Testament. They knew that stuff down. They had that stuff
down. Why not the Pharisees? That would have been a better
group to start with, wouldn’t it? Except the lowly bunch of shepherds
out in the field. but maybe it’s not so unlikely. Early on in his public ministry,
in his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus was in the synagogue and
read from Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the Gospel
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. to set
free those who were oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord.” Put the Scripture down and say,
today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Now, that got
him into a lot of trouble. So much so, they wanted to throw
him off a cliff. But He said, the Lord has anointed me to preach
the Gospel to the poor, and that’s what happened. In Matthew 11,
when the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and said,
John wants to know, are you the one we’re looking for? Are you
the one He’s been talking about? Jesus responded and said to them,
go and report to John what you hear and see. The blind received
their sight. The lame walk. Lepers are cleansed. The dead are raised up. And the
poor have the Gospel preached to them.” This is a much better group to
announce this news to. God knew that the religious leaders,
the Pharisees, were looking for a different message. A different
Messiah. They were looking for a military
leader. Not someone to save them from their sins. That might have
come in the package, but that certainly wouldn’t have been
all. They wanted someone to deliver them from the Romans and from
their oppression. If they had been given the message about
a Savior coming who would save them from their sins, they might
have responded, and save us from our sins, and it wouldn’t have
been enough. They were looking for somebody
different. As one wrote, isn’t that the
point? Isn’t it like God to disdain the hypocrites who thought they
were good enough to achieve relationships with God by their own self-effort. 1 Corinthians 1.27 says, But
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,
and the weak things of the world to shame the strong. So God chose
to announce the greatest announcement in the world to shepherds. Now,
it’s not as if shepherding was a shameful profession. I mean, Abraham had been a shepherd.
Moses had done some shepherding. And obviously, David, we know,
was a shepherd. But it was a lowly profession. One said that shepherds
were the lowest, commonest nobodies in Israel’s society and culture.
Shepherds were outcasts. They were, as one said, insignificant
and uneducated, unskilled. In fact, many of the shepherding
duties were sometimes done by children because it was fairly
simple. Shepherds were the lowest of the low. And these particular
shepherds had another thing going against them. The sheep that
they were shepherding, according to the Mishnah, which is a Jewish
book of the oral law of the Pharisees. It’s got a bunch of regulations
in it. It records the Jewish law as given by the Pharisees. It says that these sheep were destined for temple sacrifices.
This field was about six miles outside of Bethlehem, very possibly
David shepherded it in these same fields. But Domitian says
that any animal found in certain spots between Bethlehem and Jerusalem
were fair game and could be taken for sacrifices. And around the
time of Passover, that would have been a lot of sheep, which meant that these shepherds
had to be out all the time. They were out all year round.
They were out every day, which made it impossible for them to
perform the rituals that the religious elite put up on men. However, there is support for
these shepherds understanding what was going on because it
said they were devout men, it’s believed, And there’s basis from
two points. First, the sheep they were watching,
destined for temple sacrifices, they would have known the meaning
of the sacrifices. That there was sin and it had to be accounted
for. Secondly, their reaction to the
news. They didn’t question. They immediately praised God
for the announcement. Now, if they didn’t understand
what was really going on, I don’t think they would have had that
reaction. I think there would have been some puzzled looks.
Oh, Savior’s been born. Okay, they would have been in
shock by these angels who had come to deliver this message. One last note about shepherds.
When you think that Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, it’s
not surprising that this news came to shepherds. Okay, we’ve looked at the proclamation.
We’ve looked at the presentation. Now let’s look at the person
about whom this announcement was made. We find this in verse
11. For today in the city of David
there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. First fill in there right under
person would be Savior. Who is this baby born in obscurity? The angel does not make a riddle
of it. He doesn’t make them guess. Guess who’s here? He says, for
unto you this day is born a Savior. Erdman’s dictionary says salvation
is God’s deliverance. This is a rather long definition. God’s deliverance of a person
or group from a threatening situation. from which that group or person
is unable to rescue itself.” It goes on to say it could be
political oppression, which we’ve already mentioned the Jews were
looking for. It could be an unjust accusation. It could be military
disasters. God had delivered Israel from
many of those. It could be unfair or difficult
labor. The exodus from Egypt. Physical illness, several examples
given, or spiritual consequence of behavior, or the experience
of God’s wrath. It’s this last one we think of
mostly when we think of salvation. Save us from our sins, our spiritual
condition. But, if we give the message today
to the world, a Savior is born. Why do you celebrate Christmas?
Well, because our Savior, we celebrate the Savior being born.
Savior. Savior from what? Because when you say Savior, usually you think of a dangerous
condition. There’s a level of desperation
to it. Because if you need a Savior, obviously you’re in a bad situation
and you need to be taken out of it. There’s almost an immediacy
to it. I’m not in any danger. I go to
work. I live my life. I get along with
my wife. Nothing that I do hurts anybody
else. Why do I need a Savior? Many live life to the fullest.
They’re happy with their life. Again, they don’t do anything
that really hurts anybody. They’re good people. And God
certainly wouldn’t send good people to hell because God’s
a loving God. Why? Why do I need a Savior? Spurgeon wrote, there are those
who on Christmas Day will pretend to exhibit joy in the remembrance
of our Savior’s birth, but they will not seek their pleasure
in the Savior. Unfortunately, that can be a
result of the Gospel light that has been preached in many places. From this, people might get the
feeling that they need to be saved from their unfulfillment.
Their life isn’t what they expected it to be. They haven’t advanced
far enough, or as far as they think they should, at work. Their
marriage isn’t what they thought it should be. They’re still kind
of stuck in maybe an addiction to this. Maybe it’s not serious,
but it’s something I just can’t kick. But it’s making it so my
life isn’t what I expected it to be. Not to fear. They are told that Jesus will
come in and they’ll fill that need. that is making your life unfulfilled. So the idea is that Jesus will
come in and give them what they think they need for their life
to be fulfilled. But it isn’t necessarily what they’re looking for. Because
Jesus will come in and He will make changes, but it’s not the
changes that they’re looking for. They expect Jesus to boost
them up the career ladder. To make a change in their marriage
to maybe where they expect it to be. Come in and just right
away eliminate the addiction in their life. He will fill all
the holes and provide them with what they feel will make them
happy. Now, Jesus can heal. And He can do that. But that’s
not the promise. The promise is He will come in
and save the people from their sins. He did not come to save us from
our bad habits. Everyone has broken God’s law
and is destined for an eternity in hell and needs to be rescued
from sin. And that’s a hard thing to understand
when you’re living a life that you feel is not hurting anybody.
I’m a good person. I don’t do anything really bad.
I don’t cheat here. I haven’t killed anybody. I haven’t
done this. I haven’t done that. Maybe I
tell a lie every once in a while just to ease the pain of what
I’m telling them. But that’s sin. And that’s breaking
God’s law. It doesn’t matter the severity
of the sin. Some sins are worse than others,
but once you break God’s law, you’ve broken it. When we become saved from our
sin, that is not the end of sin in our life. But we are saved from its penalty. We will continue to blow it,
and we may not realize our career or marital dreams, But the victory
comes when our focus is eternal, not temporal. We will never be
sinless. Is that a surprise to anybody? We will never be sinless, but
we will have forgiveness. God sent his son to save us from
our sins. That is what we need to remember
and what the message needs to be. Sin is real and all have
committed sin. And I don’t think you’ll ever
hear anybody argue that. Nobody will… I don’t think
anybody… I’ve never run across anybody that claims to be perfect. However, the message has been
weakened to the point where sin is not that serious an issue.
It’s just a mistake. Don’t worry about it. But that sin is what condemns
us and it’s the judgment that we would face. That judgment
is an eternity apart from a holy, righteous, and merciful God.
What people need to realize is that it carries a severe penalty.
No matter what it is, how minor they think it is, it carries
a severe penalty and they need to be saved from that. And God
has provided that in His Son. John the Baptist preached of
the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. That
is what Jesus came to save us from. Were it not for this Savior,
our lives would have been a mess. It would be a wretched existence
with a future in hell laid out for us. However, as one wrote,
the God whom we have offended has come down from heaven and
taken upon Himself our nature in order that we might be saved.
He is the Savior. He is also Christ. He’s the Christ. This is not
a name, but a title. And it means anointed one. It’s the equivalent of Messiah
in Hebrew. He’s the anointed of God. When
Gabriel came and told Mary who her child would be in Luke 1,
He told her that He would be great, Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David. He will
reign over the house of Jacob and His kingdom will have no
end.” So, He is anointed of God. It should be a relief to those of
us who are saved that God has anointed Christ to save. No fear that Christ’s work won’t
be accepted because it is God’s chosen and anointed one. But
anointed for what? He’s anointed in a three-fold
sense. Now, right after Christ, you’ve
got three blanks under there. The first one, He is anointed
and He came to be King. He’s a King. He is the Son of
God. He is also the Son of David because He’s in His lineage.
So He is God’s King. Kings were anointed. If you look
back at the Old Testament, you see Saul and David being anointed. Samuel went out to these men and especially
anointed them to be the king of Israel because they were God’s
choice. It was a way of setting them
apart. However, this kingdom that this child comes and will
reign in is a heavenly kingdom. When Pilate asked, Jesus, if He was a king, Jesus
responded with, My kingdom is not of this world. And the day
is approaching when He will reign as King of kings and Lord of
lords. The book of Matthew emphasizes the kingdom of God throughout.
And we get a picture of the risen Christ in heaven, reigning. The Lamb who sits on the throne.
This baby is a Savior and God’s anointed King. If we look in
Hebrews 1.8, God says of His Son, your throne of God is forever
and ever. And the righteous scepter is
the scepter of His Kingdom. As children of this King, we
have to have His rule increase in our lives as our rule in our
life decreases. As the anointed of God, this
baby born in a manger, not only the anointed king, but he is
priest. Priests were also anointed. And
Jesus Christ is God’s anointed high priest. Again, in Hebrews. Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, Therefore,
holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the
Apostle and High Priest of our confession. He was faithful to
Him who appointed Him. And later in chapter 5 of Hebrews,
verse 5, So also, Christ did not glorify Himself as to become
a High Priest. but he who said of him, you are
my son today, I have begotten you according to the order of
Melchizedek.” Now, Melchizedek is mentioned in Genesis and also
a little later in Hebrews. Not to go into much detail about
that, but he was a king of Salem and also served as a high priest. He is our high priest who is
gone, who goes before the people of God to offer sacrifice for
sin. That’s what the high priest did.
He stood on behalf of the people before God. But that was under
the law. Hebrews again. Chapter 10. Beginning in verse 10. By this,
we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering
and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can
never take away sins. But He, having offered one sacrifice
for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. Now
where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer
any sacrifice for sin. Jesus Christ, our High Priest,
stands on our behalf before the Father as the sacrifice for our
sins. And finally, He is our High Priest
who has gone through all we can and will ever go through and
more. Hebrews 4, 15-16, “‘For we do
not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet
without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with
confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need.'” It says our weaknesses. This means Jesus knew and knows
about our drive to sin. for since he himself was tempted
in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid
of those who are being tempted.” This high priest, he also mediates
between God and man. 1 Timothy 2.5 says, “…for there
is one God and one mediator also between God and man, the man
Jesus Christ.” One wrote, Christ has willingly put himself between
the offended God and the offending sinner in order to take upon
himself the wrath of God. He is Christ. God’s anointed. God’s anointed king. God’s anointed
priest. Now, prophet. Prophets spoke
for God, so they were anointed as well. Back to Hebrews. God, after He spoke long ago
to the fathers. This is Hebrews 1, the beginning
of the book. God, after He spoke long ago
to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many
ways in these last days, has spoken to us in His Son, whom
He appointed heir of all things, through whom the world was made. John 3, verse 34 says, Jesus, whom God sent speaks the words
of God. The prophets prophesied of the
coming Messiah. Jesus is that Messiah. And He
is given the final revelation of redemption. Jesus was the
living Word. Lastly, and most importantly,
your next feeling, not only was this baby in the manger the Savior,
He was Christ, the Anointed One, the Anointed King, Priest, and
Prophet. But most importantly, He is God. The most important, as one writes,
the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is an essential, non-negotiable
tenet of the Christian faith. And this is what sets the Christian
faith apart from all of the faiths. Jesus was a good man, but He
was not God. And that’s what all the other
belief systems will tell you. This is the most important. The angel said, to you is born
this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Lord with a capital L. It’s meant
to imply in the Greek all that is implied by the Hebrew word
Yahweh. Saying Jesus is Lord is the same
as saying Jesus is God. One wrote that the Christian
faith is three words. Jesus is Lord. Or Jesus is God. The Greek word that they use
here for Lord is kurios. Pronunciation, don’t know. You
can ask Pastor Press to go after. It means Lord or Master with
supreme power. With authority. With legitimacy. Jesus is kurios. In the Greek
Old Testament where the word for God, or Yahweh, is used,
the Greek uses this word kurios. So when we confess Jesus is Lord,
we are saying Jesus is God. Jesus said, I and the Father
are one. The beginning of the book of
John says the word Jesus was God. Colossians 2.9 says, for in him
all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Tonight, to deny
that Jesus is fully God is to deny the Trinity. It’s to deny,
it’s to say that you don’t know God. To deny Jesus is God is
saying that his death meant and did nothing because Jesus being
God was the only acceptable sacrifice for sin. It is aligning yourself
with all the other belief systems in the world. Spurgeon wrote,
if an angel had been our Savior, He would not have been able to
bear the load of my sin or yours. Or if anything less than God
had been set up as the ground of our salvation, it would have
been too frail a foundation. There is no Gospel if Jesus is
not God. We’ve looked at the proclamation,
the presentation, the person. And lastly, let’s look at the
purpose. 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 well pleased. There’s a ton in that last phrase. and we’re only going to get a
little part of it, because the ultimate purpose. Why did God
send His Son, Jesus, to earth? What was the ultimate purpose?
My son can answer this because I quizzed him on it last night.
Was it for our sakes? Was it because we are so valuable
that God sent His Son so that we could be saved? I say no. Not the ultimate purpose. It
was a glorious result that God sent His Son into the world to
save us from our sins. That’s a glorious purpose and
a glorious effect of what happened that night. But the real purpose,
the ultimate purpose in my mind, what I see, is to bring glory
to God. The purpose was to save us from
our sins so that we would in turn glorify God. That’s what we were created to
do. Worship. Give Him the glory. It’s all
about Him. We are the ones who have made
it about us. That God loves us so much that
He sent His Son into the world. That is true. God does love us
so much. But the ultimate purpose is to
bring Him glory. The angels sang because this
is the highest thing that can occur in the universe. The created
universe. The highest thing that can occur
in the created universe is that God is glorified by His creatures. That’s the purpose of the good
news. The angels sang because salvation is God’s glory. Again,
Spurgeon wrote, we must learn that if salvation glorifies God
and makes the highest creatures praise Him, then any doctrine
Any doctrine that glorifies man in salvation must not be salvation. We sang it this morning. O come,
all ye faithful. Glory to God, all glory in the
highest. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee. Born
this happy morning, Jesus to Thee be all glory given. That’s the purpose. It’s to glorify
God. The angel sang because salvation
is God’s glory. And salvation was brought in
the form of a baby, that being Jesus Christ, and praise God
for that glorious fact. However, God saves us not because
we are any good, not because we have something that He desperately
needs from us, but because He is a God full of compassion and
mercy. And like the shepherds, we will
know one day that it is all about His glory. when we come face
to face with Him. The beginning of the passage
says that the angels brought good news of a great joy. What
do you do when you hear great news? Hopefully, you share it. And that’s what we are to do
with this message of a Savior. A Savior has been born. The long-awaited
Savior. The Savior who came in and changed
us, who forgave our sins, who changed the path of our eternal
destiny from judgment, a deserving judgment in hell, traded our
sin for His righteousness so that we could spend an eternity
with Him. Let’s pray. Father, this is a
time of year when, as has been mentioned this morning, we can
get really busy. We rush around. We do things. We get caught up in all that
the season brings, or what kind of commercialism has meant that
the season brings. We’re rushing around doing things.
Lord, I just pray that every year we bring this prayer, we
say this prayer, help us to remember the real reason that we celebrate
Christmas. It’s to celebrate God becoming man, coming into
the world and saving His people from our sins. From their sins. From our sins. Lord, that is
a glorious, glorious fact. And that is what Christmas is
all about. And it should remind us that
at this time, That we are sinners and we needed
saving. Lord, help us to share that great
news. This great joy that we have with
others. Proclaim who you are. Lord, help us to calm down and
realize what we celebrate this season. Lord, as we sing carols
that are so familiar to us, as we read passages that are familiar
to us, speak to us in those and help us to remember there’s a
lot more in there than maybe what we’re reading. That there’s
so much more to it than just a baby was born. But it’s a Savior. A King. It is God coming down
in human form. one put indescribable gift and
let us share that gift and be so thankful for the gift for
for the fact that you have been so gracious to us in choosing
us allowing us to have that gift allowing us to be children in
your kingdom to you alone be the glory in your name we pray
amen