Page 857. And as we come to God's Word, let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for the blessed Gospel of Your Son. And we pray that as we read and meditate on these words this morning, we would, as we just sang, hear that voice from the manger calling us to flee from our woe and our danger, to be reminded that we are freed. from all the ills that grieve us, that we are given all that we need in Jesus Christ. Help us to hear that in the song the angels sang, and help that song to echo in our own hearts, that we might bring glory to you in the highest, and celebrate that peace that we experience here on earth through Jesus Christ. We pray now that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Luke 2, the first 14 verses. 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 clothes, 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 clothes 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. Praise God for the gospel of his son. Beloved, the gospel writer of this book of Luke was many things. He was a historian. He was a researcher. He packs a lot of information into his book. We know from the book of Acts that he was also a medical doctor. But I think it's safe to say he was also a music lover. There's music all over in the story that he tells, especially in these first two chapters that tell of Jesus' birth. Now, I remember when I was younger, the year was 1996, and This is kind of dorky, but there was a science fiction book coming out, and it was going to be this big production. And this book, I mean, they were basically treating this book like it was a movie, because there were posters in all the bookstores. And when you bought the book, you could also buy a soundtrack CD, as if this was a movie. And there was one track of music for every chapter of the book, and the idea was you could go home, you could read the book, and you could play this music, and the music would kind of match what you were reading. So it was like this big cinematic moment. One wonders if that technology existed back in Luke's day, perhaps he would have done the same thing, you know, released his gospel along with a little CD of all these companion songs that you could listen to. Well, this morning we're coming to probably the show-stopping number in the book of Luke. Luke chapter 2, the song that this choir of angels sang, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Now in this song, there's kind of three sets of two. If you would treat this song like poetry, which it is, there's three sets of dualities. There's three sets of two things. There's two realms, there's two results, and there's two recipients. So Jesus is coming, the angels are celebrating the coming of Jesus, and that coming of Jesus is going to have effect in two different realms. The realms are earth and heaven, or as our translation says, the highest, which was a Greek way of talking about heaven. Those two realms, earth and heaven. There's gonna be two different results. There's gonna be glory in heaven, and there's going to be peace on earth. And then there's two recipients. The peace goes to men with whom God is pleased, and the glory goes to God. So two realms, heaven and earth, two results, peace and glory, and then two recipients, God and man. That's what we're going to be looking at this morning in that order. So first we're going to look at those two realms, the realms of earth and the realm of heaven. Now, I've said this before in sermons, but it really is important for when you go home and read the Bible for yourself. When you see the word heaven in scripture, usually the first thing that we think of, and it's not a bad thing to think of this, is that heaven is that spiritual place where the souls of those who die in Christ are resting and waiting in the presence of Jesus. They're there in the presence of Christ until the second coming. It's a place of bliss. It's a place of comfort. And those of us who have lost loved ones, it's a beautiful thing to meditate on. And it's a wonderful truth. It's a promise that is proclaimed in Scripture. It's wonderful. It's a privilege to speak of those things. at funerals and at gravesides and at the deathbeds of God's people. And that's definitely in Scripture. But that concept should not be the first thing that comes to our minds. It's definitely there, but it shouldn't be the first thing that comes to our mind when we see the word heaven in the Bible. The primary thing that the Bible means when it talks about heaven, when it uses that word, is that that's the place where God rules from. It's his throne room, or to use a more modern turn of phrase, it's the control room of the universe. It's where God is ruling and reigning and controlling all things. So when the Bible says God is in heaven, it means God is the one who's kind of in charge of everything. Everything is happening according to his will, his decree. is being run from heaven. Think about it this way. It's very trendy right now to go to these escape rooms, they're called. It's this big thing. It's very popular. I've never been to one, but two different friends of mine have started this as a business and they're doing very well for themselves. One is in Canada. One is in Idaho. And they've started these escape room businesses. If you've ever been to one, you know how it works. But if you're like me and you're not up with these trends, you don't know how it goes. But it's this room where you go in and you get locked in. It usually has a theme, like maybe it's a World War II theme, and you're like this spy who's broken into the enemy headquarters, and you have to figure out some mystery so that you can get information back to the Allies. Or maybe it's a medieval theme, and you're in the dungeon, and you have to find your way out. But whatever the theme is, the idea is that you're locked in this room, and it's this puzzle that you have to solve, you and your friends who are paying money to get locked into a room. And what happens is there's someone sitting in the next room, kind of making sure that this is all going okay. If you run stuck and you're just not able to figure out your puzzle, they're going to give you a hint. They'll make sure you're not hurting yourself or damaging, you know, this whole room that they put all this work into. So like my friend, who's the owner of this business, he's sitting in this room, he's watching what's happening inside on little cameras. And when necessary, he's speaking over the loudspeakers to give them a little clue. Because he designed this escape room. He built every one of the props. He was very careful about curating everything. He decorated it. He designed all the puzzles, all the mysteries you have to solve. He knows how to solve them. Think of heaven as that control room. God is the one who designed every detail of this earth. He has willed and decreed everything that comes to pass, everything that, you know, we're here and things seem puzzling and mysterious and strange to us, but he sees it and he understands because he designed the whole thing. Like, we're struggling through life, trying to figure things out, but God sees every possible result. He sees every interconnected event. He decreed and understood the beginning, the middle, and the end, all in one intuition. Now, we're stuck experiencing all this being played out in time. We're creatures of time. We're bound by time. We don't see far back enough to understand the beginning of things. We don't see far forward enough to understand the end of things. We're plodding along in the middle, puzzling things out. Earth and our experience of it seems like a puzzle, a struggle. I mean, that's what our life is. And if it is a puzzle, if it is a struggle, it's really our own fault. We've cursed this world with our sin, our selfishness, our hate, our unwillingness to care. We made it this way. We brought the curse into this world. We brought death into this world, a world that was God's perfect creation. We've brought this curse in. It was beautiful. It was clever. It was imaginative. And we brought ugliness and cruelty and boringness and sorrow into this world. Now God is still in control, and we believe that He's not the author of sin, He's not to blame for this curse, but we believe that He can still use it for His ultimate good purposes. Because again, God sees the beginning, the middle, and the end all in one intuition. We're stuck living it out in time, in our own finiteness, our own confusion, our own limited imagination. And so, We feel stuck. We feel locked in. We feel like we're in a puzzle that has no answer. But then verse 13 of Luke chapter 2, suddenly. Now we think, okay, the word suddenly is just a storytelling word. Suddenly this, suddenly that. It's just a word to get us from here to there. But in the New Testament, that word suddenly, if you would go to your Bible and search it online or in a concordance, that word suddenly is used in the New Testament in a very particular way. It usually is used in connection with an unexpected, game-changing, supernatural interaction between heaven and earth. If you see the word suddenly, it's a clue that something big is going to happen, that heaven and earth are going to meet together, and something strange and wonderful is about to happen. Something wild is about to happen. It's like that moment in the escape room. I mean, I really want to milk this metaphor, I guess, but it's like that moment when the designer phones in like, wow, you guys have really gotten way off track. You made a mess of things. Let me clue you in to something about my design. That's what the word suddenly is like. I'm about to clue you in. Control room heaven is reaching out to the cursed, confused earth. God is saying, this is what I have in mind. You don't see it. But this is how my kingdom is going to come. This is how my will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I'm going to make things right for you. And here's how. So those are the two realms, heaven and earth. Let's move on to the two results. The results are glory in the realm of heaven and peace in the realm of earth. These two realms are interacting in a surprising way. That's what we're clued into with the use of the word suddenly. Verse 13, suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host. Now, if you're American and you've been brought up in our culture, you've probably seen so many Christmas specials. I mean, if you were like me, you were brought up on those little claymation, like, stop-motion animation Christmas specials, like Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey or the Little Drummer Boy or whatever. And they're cute. And they're adorable. And apparently, to kids these days, they're very boring. I tried, and they're like, what is this? Why are you showing us this? I think they're cute still. But in all those little Christmas specials, you know, the heavenly host that comes and sings to the shepherd, they're like these really attractive men and women in choir robes and wings and maybe a halo. Like, it's really cute. Like, you know, we have it on Christmas cards. We have it, you know, we have little, like, outlines of an angel in Christmas lights on our front yard, and it's adorable. And we're like, oh, they came and they sang a little portion of Handel's Messiah to the shepherds. Isn't that sweet? But that's not what's happening here. Think of that phrase, the heavenly host. In the Old Testament, many times, God is referred to as Yahweh Sabaoth. You know, we sing that word. We sing a Hebrew word whenever we sing a mighty fortress is our God. We sing Lord Sabaoth, his name. Or if we butcher the Hebrew, we sing, Lord Sabaoth, his name. That's Hebrew for the Lord of hosts. That's a phrase you see all over the Old Testament, the Lord of hosts. And my Hebrew professor in seminary said that to get across what that phrase really means, because it's one of those things you read in the Bible all the time, like, oh, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of hosts. Like, you just kind of read over it, like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. To get across what it really means, my Hebrew professor said we should translate it as the god of armies. which is a little terrifying, because the heavenly host is the army of heaven. These aren't people in choir robes with wings. Remember, we talked about this a few weeks ago. The biblical description of angels is terrifying. They're like the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the face of a man. I mean, you might think of the Egyptian sphinx, which was possibly a depiction of an actual angel, except without the wings, because You know, that'd be hard to do out of stone at that scale. But it's scary when these angels, and a lot of them, appear suddenly in the middle of the night, like these shepherds are out there minding their own business, and suddenly this heavenly host is surrounding them, and it's scary. This is a message from heaven to earth, from God's throne room to his creation, and it's being brought by the royal celestial army. And I would think that if the shepherds knew their theology, which we have every reason to believe they did, they would be a little terrified because they would remember this creation that we're living in is cursed with our sin, and it's kind of our fault. We daily mess up more and more. God's creation, we're living lives of hate and cruelty. Instead of being the image bearers we were created to be, Maybe God is sending a message, hey, I had a plan. I had an intention for this creation, a design for this world, and you haven't done that. So when a bunch of angels show up around you, it would be reasonable to assume these guys are here to just wipe us out, because that's kind of what we deserve. We're the problem in this creation. If God wants this world to be put back right, the best thing he could do is use these angels to wipe us off it. But that's not what happens. The song they sing isn't a song of holy war. It's a song of peace. God is sending a message saying, my intention is and always has been to set things right for you, to fix what you've made wrong. And I'll let you shepherds in on this. My plan is starting now, tonight, in the most unexpected of places, the most surprising of ways, this baby in a manger. And the result of this work of God is going to be peace for earth. Now, I've drawn this to your attention in the last few weeks. Luke, we've learned, is a historian. He's big into doing research, and including that research in his gospel. But he's not just some history nerd that likes throwing in random facts for no reason. Verse 1, I pointed out, mentions Caesar Augustus. And Luke isn't just saying, well, here's like a random time. You know, Caesar Augustus happened to be ruling. Luke is trying to deliberately set up a contrast. Remember, Caesar Augustus, we talked about this, Caesar Augustus was the emperor who would constantly refer to himself as, I'm the son of God. He would constantly refer to himself as, I'm the savior of the world. Those were the actual terms he would use to describe himself. There were hymns and poems that were sung throughout the Roman Empire praising Caesar Augustus as the savior of the world, as the son of God. So by mentioning that name, we saw Lucas setting up this contrast. Here's this great emperor in his palace with the might of Rome. versus this tiny baby in a manger. Both are claiming to be the Son of God. Both are claiming to be the Savior of the world. Which one are you going to believe? But as the angels sing their song, this contrast goes even further. Caesar Augustus proclaimed, I have brought peace to the world. He called his reign the Pax Romana. If you've studied history, you know about that phrase in Latin, the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. Ancient Roman sources use the phrase peace on earth, those actual words, peace on earth, to describe what Caesar Augustus did. So the early Christians are reading Luke 2, and they get to this phrase, peace on earth, and they're like, I've heard that before, but not describing Jesus. That's how Caesar Augustus describes himself. So it's inviting us to think of this contrast. Caesar Augustus, the way he brought peace to earth, is by enforcing his rule, by conquering other nations, by subjugating them, by enslaving them, by plundering them, by oppressing them. It brought prosperity for himself. It brought peace for, you know, the people that were on his side, those near to him. The Roman Empire was, by earthly standards, a success. But think of all the people who were forgotten, who were oppressed, who were marginalized, who were killed, who were hurt, to bring about that peace. There's a fascinating quotation that was written. It was actually written like the same time that Luke was writing this gospel. There was a philosopher named Epictetus. And this is what Epictetus said. He was writing this at the same time that Luke was writing his gospel. Epictetus said, That's a powerful quote from a pagan philosopher. He saw that the systems of this world offer peace through power, through wealth, through politics. But if we're honest, we're going to see what that pagan saw. That kind of peace is empty. It doesn't solve the real problems of our heart. What we need, what this pagan philosopher knew we needed, was inner peace, the peace we gain from peace with God. Luke is saying that only God can repair what we have broken. Our relationship with Him, our relationship with each other, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with His creation can only be repaired by God, and our sins separate us from God. Our deepest need is not wealth and security and fame that the systems of this world offer, the sort of peace that the world offers comes at the cost of ignoring others. It comes at the cost of deadening ourselves. It comes at the cost of plundering this creation. The peace we need is a restoration. We need God and sinners reconciled. And that's the peace that will bring glory to God. God's glory is his majesty. When the angels say glory to God in the highest, they're recognizing the greatness of God. There are endless reasons to praise God, and the angels certainly had plenty of time to praise Him for them. I mean, we're told in the Bible that the angels are constantly before His face, praising Him for the many things He's done. Think of all the reasons they would have for eternity to praise God, for His creation, for His providence, for His creativity, for His character, for so many different things to praise God. But the angels are saying the highest glory, the thing that we should praise God for the most, the thing that he deserves the most praise for is this moment, his plan to restore sinners, his plan to welcome the least and the lowliest of earth, to welcome outcasts like these shepherds, those whom the systems of this world, the systems of Caesar ignore. The thing that God deserves the most glory for is his plan to redeem us. They're saying all of these things, creation, character, creativity, care, they all show God in a way that deserves our praise, but the thing that shows God most clearly is this baby in a manger. Jesus will bring the most recognition to God. God is most glorified when we see Jesus. So we have the two realms, earth and heaven. We have the two results, glory to God and the highest peace on earth. That brings us to those two recipients, human beings receiving peace on earth, God receiving glory in heaven. Now I want to return to how I began this sermon, talking about how Luke, you know, in writing these songs in his gospel, he's kind of providing a soundtrack to the story he's telling. There's a lot of albums, CDs, cassettes, records, where You get this big, wham-bang, gorgeous song near the beginning of the album, and then there's a bunch of other songs. And then near the end of the album, there's going to be what they call a reprise. They'll sing a portion of that song again. Sometimes it's even just like the same recording that they just put near the end of the album. That drives some of my friends nuts. I've had a lot of my friends be like, why do they put these reprises onto albums? You know, I'm paying for this album. I'm paying for 12 songs, and one of them is just a repeat of the song that they had earlier. I'm being gypped out of my money, or cheated out of my money. Why do they do that? I mean, I already listened to the song. If I liked it that much, I would go back and listen to the original one again. Why is it on the album twice? But see, I like those reprises because those reprises come from a time not when we would listen to music on our phones where you could just scroll through and just choose one song and then like, oh, I want to listen to this song next and, you know, random order of songs, or we put everything on shuffle. Those reprises come from a time, I'm sounding like an old person that's like, when I was a kid, but I mean, when I was a kid, you would sit and listen to an album from start to finish. You would put a CD in your CD player, you'd put a cassette in, you'd put a record on. I still listen to records this way. You'd put it on and you would listen from the beginning to the end. You would listen to an album as a complete work of art. And so the idea is, that you're listening to this album, and all the songs kind of reflect on each other. They're all telling a story. You're seeing themes and ideas develop from the beginning of the album to the end. And so there's this big song at the beginning, and then when you hear it again at the end, you're kind of like, oh, when I heard that earlier, I didn't notice this. But now that I've heard these other songs, There's more to it. I'm noticing more. It's being informed by this other stuff I've heard. Like everything else that's happened between the first time I heard this song and the second time I heard this song, I'm hearing it in a new way. So I think that reprising a song on an album is a powerful tool, and it's a tool that Luke uses. Turn with me to Luke chapter 19. As you're turning from Luke 2 to Luke 19, think about what's happening. Think about what happened between Luke 2 and Luke 19. Maybe that's an exercise you want to do. You want to go home and read the Gospel of Luke this week, you know, four or five chapters a day. But think about, you know, as those pages are turning, think about everything that's going by. You know, this little baby in a manger grows up. He begins his ministry. He's despised and rejected by men. He's familiar with sorrows. He ministers to the least and the lost. He teaches the kingdom of God, all of these things. And then Luke chapter 19, he's now riding into Jerusalem. But by this time, he's told his disciples, I'm riding into Jerusalem to die. And suddenly, as you're reflecting on this, like Jesus is riding into Jerusalem. He's going to die. As you're thinking about this, suddenly that reprise kicks in. That album that Luke is kind of spinning for us. Luke 19, verse 36. or verse 38, Jesus is riding into Jerusalem and people are saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. It's so short that you might miss it. But there's those two results we've been talking about again, glory and peace. It's a familiar tune, we've heard it before. I mean, all the Gospels, all four of the Gospels talk about people singing when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, but only Luke, you know, they all are like, oh, they were singing this, they were singing this, they were singing this, and each one has kind of subtle differences, but only Luke includes this line about glory and peace. And it's because as Luke is writing his gospel, he wants us to think back to the song that the angel sang in Luke 2. He wants us to think of this song on Palm Sunday as a reprise of the song that we heard on Christmas. And he wants us to see this song now in Luke 19 in a whole new light based on everything that's happened and everything that's about to happen in Jesus' life. Jesus is about to die. Think of the two realms, heaven and earth. This is the plan that God has been enacting from his control room in heaven. This is his purpose. This is what is going to bring his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. This is the solution to our puzzle. This is the remedy for our sorrows. This is the breaking of our curse. Think of the two results, peace and glory. And notice how Luke is spinning his record, but he's kind of like playing with it a little bit. He changes it slightly. In Luke 2, there were messengers from heaven, these angels singing about peace on earth. In Luke 19, there's these people on earth singing a song to heaven, saying, peace in heaven. This underlines exactly what kind of peace we need. As if it wasn't clear enough in Luke chapter 2, it's now made very explicit. For us to experience peace on earth, we need to make peace with God in heaven. We need reconciliation. We need that to come together. We need God and man to be made one somehow. Well, that happened in Jesus Christ. God and man made one. He was truly God, truly man. The only way for us to experience that peace would be for that sin that separates us to be truly dealt with. Well, that's why Jesus came. He was born in a manger to go to that cross. That's why he was riding into Jerusalem with his face set toward it. This is what brings glory to God and peace between man and God. This is what brings God the greatest glory. This is what reveals Himself most clearly, is this moment of coming to us, this moment of dying for us. what we could never do, the peace we could never achieve. Even the might of Rome could not achieve this peace. God stepped in to show Himself and to bring that peace to us as a gift, and He did it all for love's sake, all because He takes pleasure in us, even though we don't deserve it. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank You that You have brought peace between man and God through Jesus Christ, the God-man. We thank you that there is now peace in heaven and peace on earth, peace that we can experience in a way that no one else can, peace in our hearts, knowing that we are your children here on earth. We thank you that you are making right all that sin has made wrong. We celebrate that this season, and we bring glory to you. In Jesus' name, amen.