to open up to Luke chapter 2, but what I'd like you to do is just flip back to Luke chapter 1 for a minute. I want to remind you of something before we get started in Luke chapter 2. I want you to see what Luke says. I'm not going to read it to you. It's there in the first four verses. Luke speaks about those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of God's Word before him. And he talks about how those folks had delivered God's word and message to people like him and people like Theophilus, to whom he's writing. But Luke has spent a great deal of time thinking about these things himself. And so he says, having spent a great deal of time thinking about these things, I myself decided to explore them, research them and give an account of them so that Theophilus can have certainty about the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's so much here. It's a sermon or two or more in and of itself. But what I want you to understand is that this comes from a man who researched these things thoroughly and sets an account. But Let me add one thing that's perhaps more important than what I just said. More than a researched account, I want you to understand that we have an inspired account. Now, let me show you something. Turn with me, if you will, to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, chapter five. And again, if you're using the chair Bible, you'll find that on page 1179. 1179. I want you to look at verse 18. Notice what it says. It says, for the scripture says, that's the way it starts out. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the labor deserves his wages. That's what scripture says, Paul says. Now, when you try to find these quotes, it's easy to find the first one, you should not muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain. That comes from Deuteronomy 25, four, easy enough. When you try to find that second quote, the laborer deserves his wages, that's a little more difficult. You won't find it in the Old Testament. But I'll tell you where you will find it. You will find it in Luke chapter 10, verse seven. And what Paul is saying is this, Luke is scripture. Luke is an inspired word of God. And so it's obvious to us from reading the very beginning of Luke's gospel that this is a well-researched account. But when you look at something like 1st Timothy 5.18, and you see that Paul calls it scripture, Paul calls the gospel of Luke scripture, putting it on par with the Old Testament. What he's saying to us is this, this is the inspired word of God. This well-researched document is God's word. That's what Paul says, because it is from God. I don't know about you, but when I come to a text of scripture and I find those kind of thing, my heart just wells up within me with delight. I want you to hear from Luke's gospel this evening, the word of God. A safe place to stand, a word that you can hear and know is from the living God. Tonight, I want to turn your attention to Luke chapter 2, and I want to read the first 21 verses of this gospel account. Hear the word of the living God. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered. each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling claws and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, and suddenly There was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. I hesitate to make this confession, but I will. I have a tendency to enjoy, to my wife's great disappointment, especially if she's riding with me, melancholic music. I, for some reason, am drawn to it, which apparently means that of the four different colors of bile that I have, Hippocrates says that I have an excessive amount of black bile. This is not a good joke. OK. Anyway. We'll see how this goes. So I enjoy, not all, but some of Simon and Garfunkel's music, and some of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, and especially the tracks Garborough Fair. There's another track on that album that I'm drawn to. It's the last track and it's called Seven O'Clock News Slash Silent Night. You can imagine Simon and Garfunkel, if you're familiar with their voices, singing this song, doing it beautifully. And it would be beautiful if there were not this interruption in the song itself. They begin, and as they begin, you hear something in the background. voices. You can't quite make out what's being said. They're talking about government issues, but you can't quite hear. But by the time the voice does make itself clear, you can definitely tell it's a news anchor. And he, while Silent Night is being sung so beautifully by Simon and Garfunkel, he talks about the nightly news. Lenny Bruce, 42, comedian, dies of an overdose Martin Luther King refuses to cancel his march in Chicago, and the suburbs of Cicero will call out the National Guard if he persists. Richard Speck will face a grand jury for murdering nine nurses in such a brutal fashion. Anti-Vietnam hearings continue to go on, and Nixon says that if the anti-war sentiment continues in the country, it will be the worst in terms of the war's opposition. He also goes on to say, if the war effort is not ramped up, the country will be in Vietnam five more years. And at the time he's saying this, the Silent Night song comes to a close. And just as they're saying these things about the war, the line, sleep in heavenly peace is being sung. Now, I don't know what Simon and Garfunkel's intent was in bringing together the seven o'clock news and Silent Night, but I suspect it was for criticism. I suspect that what they were saying was this little baby lying in a manger was supposed to bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men. But when you see what's happening in our very own day, Well, how can such a thing be true? And so likely it's an accusatory finger that's being stretched toward the scriptures. But I think that rather than make their point, they're actually showing a great deal of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding about the gospel itself. You see, there are several things I wanna share with you this evening, and the first one is this. I want you to understand that Jesus was born into desolation, and you see that in verses one through seven. He was being born into the desolation of Israel. I want you to think about the situation for just a minute, and before I do that, let me mention something to you that you can jot down and check later, but I wanna draw your thinking back to Daniel chapter two for a minute. Daniel chapter 2 was when Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. He had a dream of that enormous statue and Daniel was able to tell him about the dream and interpret it for him. And you'll remember that Daniel said, the head is you, Nebuchadnezzar. It's a head of gold. Now, Nebuchadnezzar took this to heart and then in chapter three made a 90-foot statue of pure gold and said, phooey on that whole statue thing, I am the whole thing. But he was wrong. You see, the statue was more, it represented more than just Babylon. It also represented the Medo-Persians, who were the, chest and torso. And then the Greeks would come. And then after the Greeks, the Romans would come. And what we find is that we are in that part of the statue. And the kingdom of God that is also in Daniel chapter two, which is a stone uncut by hands of men, which is hurled at the statue, is what Jesus Christ brings. But right now, Rome is in power and the situation for Israel looks dire. I want you to think about it for just a minute. Caesar Augustus is in power and he summons the world to a census. Luke, who's done his research, says this is when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. And the scriptures say that all went to register for this census. Now Luke is even more clear. He says Joseph went. And he makes quite clear that Joseph went to the city of David, which is Bethlehem. Why? Because he was of the line and lineage of David. And at that, our heart should fall. We ought to be crestfallen when we hear this. Why? Because this is David's line. And it's in submission to Rome. You see, the point is the kingly line of David was now subject to a Gentile, foreign, heathen, pagan power. But it's even worse than that. Not only is it politically dire, but the line of David is in poverty. I mean, I want you to think about this. Here is this man who is in the line, the kingly line of David, and there's not even a guest room open for him. We often translate that or read the word inn, and we think of it in terms of an innkeeper and so on, but it's not that at all. What it is is it's a guest room. In fact, that's the way it's translated in Luke 22, 11. There's not even a guest room in any home for them. And it's likely that they find themselves in the back room of a house, which is really perhaps a cave where they kept the animals in the evening. That's where the King of David is born. But not only that, as I mentioned to you this morning, when they go and offer the purification offering, Well, we find something interesting from Luke's gospel about that. In Leviticus chapter 12, verse 6, we find the requirements of the purification offering after a woman has a child. Let me read it to you again. It says this in Leviticus 12, when the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, She shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one-year-old lamb for a burn offering and a young pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering. But if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two young pigeons, the one for a burn offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her and she shall be clean. Now I want you to notice what it says in verse 22. And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. It looks as if Jesus, who is born into the line and lineage of David, is born into the desolation and the poverty and the subjection of his people. So we might say to Simon and Garfunkel, who appear to be critiquing the Savior, we might say to them, friends, you missed it. You see, it wasn't that Jesus was apart from the misery of the human condition. No, he was born into the misery of the human condition. He shared it and yet was without sin. There's a second thing I want you to notice from this text and it's this. I want you to notice that Jesus was born a king We find that in verses eight through 14. This is the virgin born son, who Matthew tells us is Immanuel, who was adopted into the line and lineage of David, and yet who was indeed the living God, the second person of the Trinity, the Son. And there are three things I want you to notice about this portion of the text that we're looking at tonight. The first is this. I want you to notice the appearance of the angels. Now, this is just an utterly Beautiful and amazing thing. There's one angel that appears initially. And the glory of the Lord shone around them. And these shepherds who were keeping their flocks by night feared a great fear. They were full of fear. And the angel says to them, do not fear. I think that's absolutely wonderful when you think about it because we have so many instances in the scriptures where Fear can lead to cowardice. And when we go to the book of Revelation, we find that that kind of fear, that that kind of cowardly person is actually cast into the lake of fire. Why? Because their fear so grips them that they are paralyzed by it. And it actually controls them and dominates them. And to some extent becomes their God because it is sovereign over them. Can you imagine being in the fields by night and having this supernatural being appear to you? Would you not fear a great fear? And yet this very being says to them, do not fear. Get hold of yourself. And this is what he says, good news, good news has come. Good news of great joy for all people. And then he says this, born this day is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And then once he says that, a multitude of angels appear with him and begin to sing praise to God. The amazing thing about that is this is a host, a military host of angels singing about peace. It's remarkable. It's beautiful. It's just stunning. But second, I want to say something about the announcement. I want you to think about the announcement for a minute. Fear not. Good news has come to the whole world this day. What does that mean? We oftentimes forget what that means, or maybe we don't know it to begin with. We think of the gospel in terms of our own context, and we miss the point of what's happening in this text and in the first century. You see, the gospel is not simply good news that's found in a tract that we give to somebody hoping that they'll receive what's found therein and have eternal life. Gospel had political overtones to it. It was out and out political. For instance, I want you to understand something, and this is just one example. Octavian was born in 9 BC. I want to read to you the inscription of his birth. Listen to it. The birthday of the God was for the world the beginning of joyful tidings. Let me read it again. The beginning of gospel tidings, it's the word gospel, which have been proclaimed on his account. In other words, Octavian is born, and so that becomes good news to the whole world, gospel news to the whole world, because he is featured as God. Now I want you to think about that. I want you to think about that. So when Mark writes his gospel, This is what he says. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That's a political challenge. He is saying that there is a King who is ascended and this one is truly the Son of God. And this is good news to all the world. In fact, you know, there was a saying, Kaiser Kyrios, Caesar is Lord. Do you notice what's being said here? The Messiah is Lord. The Messiah is Kyrios. And you see, people understood what was being said when the gospel was proclaimed in the early church, when the gospel was taken into the world. I want you to see this. It's in Acts 17, and you can go there if you'd like. But in Acts 17, this is what's said. They're in Thessalonica. And there are men who are complaining about what's happening here. It's in verse six and in verse seven, I'll read it. And when they could not find them, that is Paul, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities shouting, these men have turned the world upside down, have come here also. And Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar saying that there is another king, Jesus. See, they understood, they absolutely understood that to say Jesus is Lord is political. And then the third thing I want you to notice is this. Just as the census was for the whole world. That's how we started out. The census of Caesar Augustus was for the whole world. So too is this gospel. So Jesus is born a king. And this is good news to the world. But I want you to also understand something else. And it's my third point for you this evening. It's this. This Jesus was born to behold, that's verses 15 through 21. He was born to worship. He was born that we might proclaim the good news to all the earth. Again, I want you to notice three things here under this particular text. First of all, these shepherds are obedient to the Lord. There's something interesting about their obedience. Have you noticed that they understand the Lord as the author of the message that they just received? But they also understood that the Lord is the one they are seeking who is lying in the manger. Isn't that remarkable? The Lord just told us this message. Let's go see the Lord. That's a remarkable thing. And there's no attempt by the shepherds to say, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. They go and they see what the Lord told them to see, that is, the Lord, Christ the Lord, lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. The second thing I want you to notice is this. After seeing, they testify. They made known the things they heard. How could they not? How could they not? And as a result of the things that they said, those who saw and heard marveled. The shepherds praised and glorified God. Mary treasured these things in her heart. Others wondered. You know, as we hear this story again, and as we're reminded that this is a story that ought to not only shake us to our very core, that we ought to remember that we had to remember that God Himself took on human flesh and dwelt among us, was born into our poverty-stricken condition, the spiritual desolation which was ours. He came to be our Savior. And if we can simply hear that and not be moved by it, then we are not marveling at the message. And if we're not marveling at the message, are we praising God for the wonder that He's done in the Lord Jesus Christ? And if we're not marveling, then are we witnessing? Are we speaking the good news to others? Sharing with others like the shepherds shared with others? What do you do with this? How do you respond? Well, I want you to understand something. I want you to understand that since Jesus is our Savior, and He saves us from this spiritual desolation, there's nothing that we could do. I want you to understand that He saves us from that situation. It's not that we initiate and He takes over. We are in spiritual darkness and in death, and He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And if you understand, if you understand and marvel and rejoice in all of this, then you understand the salvation that was brought in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you understand that, then the place to begin this evening is to simply rejoice in the Savior who saved us and who made us His own and who brought us into union with Himself and the Father by that remarkable working of his spirit. Praise God for that. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for the wonderful work that you've done, for the work that you've accomplished on our behalf in your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, as we gather together this evening, Help us to hear afresh the story that is so well-worn. Help us to wonder and marvel at it. And help us to bear witness to it and what the Lord has done in our lives. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.