The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2, we'll begin reading in verse 1. What you're about to hear really is the word of God. It's living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. And it, and it alone, is able to discern the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. So please lay your hearts bare before God's word this morning as it's read to you. 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 in 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. 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. This will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts 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 to them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up 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 to them. The grass will wither and the flower does fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. You may be seated. Well, with all of the cultural aspects that surround this time of year, I mean, no one's immune to them or ignorant of them or hidden from them, right? Christmas season is just one of those things that rolls around every September. according to certain stores. And we've kind of become used to the ebb and the flow and the decorations and the stories and the celebrations and even, I mean, it kind of permeates every level and area of life from outward decor to foods that you look forward to and some that you fear and don't look forward to but are served nonetheless. And with all of that accompanying this time of year, it can be exceptionally easy for us to lose sight of, well, I'll just pick two key truths about the Christmas story. With all that clutter, it can be easy for us to lose sight of two key truths. The first is with that kind of familiarity, we can lose sight of what I'll call the audacity of Christmas. There's such familiarity from our favorite cartoon iterations of Christmas stories and the way that we see it pictured in different people's lawns and involving or not involving Santa Claus and things like that. We can lose sight of the audacity of the things that we believe and proclaim. Let me just consider for a moment the audacity of the claim that at Christmas, we as Christians really in our heart of hearts truly believe that God the Son really was born and laid in a manger. We do not believe it is fiction, fantasy, make-believe, or anything like that. We really believe that happened. And it becomes so familiar that we forget that that's kind of an audacious kind of a claim. And many would be quick to relegate it from, well, the realms of history to fantasy or make-believe in children's stories. The second thing we can lose sight of with all of this familiarity is we can lose sight of the, what I'll call the confrontational nature of Christmas. You might say, I have in-laws. I've not lost sight of confrontation at all. No, I'm not talking about that kind of confrontational element, although that may or may not be present. I can't speak to each and every heart here. Christmas, and what we celebrate at Christmas is by nature confrontational. For us to say that our king was born on this earth It means that every other king is not really our king. And that every other proposed savior is a false hope. I mean, there is really, really bold confrontational in the way that we ought to be preaching, proclaiming, believing, celebrating, singing all of these truths. I mean, it's audacious and it's confrontational and we send cards full of glitter to people to celebrate all of this. What I want to argue is while those things are, I think, pretty obviously true and easy for us to kind of get our arms wrapped around, I don't want anyone in this room this morning to take a free pass on these truths today. What I mean by that is either the story about the Lord Jesus Christ being born in a major, it's either true or it isn't. There's no in between. It's either the king being born into the world Or it's not? Now, if it's not, then the Christmas story is really, I mean, to put it lightly, it's a very distasteful one. I mean, imagine what kind of weird twisted people we would be to say, hey, there's someone who can save you from all your sin. Not really, I mean, you just say that. Hey, there's a king of kings who will rule the nations and he'll crush every last one of his enemies under his feet. Well, not really, but we like to pretend that he does. So either Christmas is true, and in being true, it is both audacious and confrontational, or it's a fairy tale that's really distasteful and we probably should have nothing to do with it. However, it cannot be somewhere in the middle of that. It's one of those two. So you can, sitting here today, You can do one of two things with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the main question that I wanna put to you. What will you do with the one that we find in the manger? Well, what are you gonna do with him? You can do one of two things. You can either reject him to your soul's peril, or you can worship him to your eternal delight. But here's the one thing that you cannot do any longer. I won't allow it this morning. You can't ignore him any longer. And so I wanna set the one in the manger, the Lord Jesus Christ, before your eyes in the most kind of quintessential Advent text. I know we've had some odd Advent texts up to this, but this is the Advent text of all Advent texts. And I wanna set him before you, and you either reject him or worship him, but you can't ignore him. And so let's take this text apart under four headings, and the first will be this. The wonder of God's providence. the wonder of God's providence. If you would just kind of scan over verses one through five. You'll see Luke really as a master storyteller, not in the sense of a story in that it did not happen, but the sense of story, it really did happen, and this is the history of what took place. He begins to unfold the scene, the setting, and the major characters that are involved in this historic account. Now, he mentions two rulers right at the outset. He mentions Caesar Augustus and Quirinius, both names that have fallen out of use. for obvious reasons. So, he lays them before your eyes so that right at the beginning of the Christmas story, you know that what is being told to you really happened and it really happened at a particular time in a particular place. He does not begin the Christmas story like this. A long, long time ago in a land far, far away, there lived, I mean, that's the author signaling I'm gonna make something up and there'll be pictures and you'll read it to your kids and your kids, no matter how many times you read it, will want to hear it a thousand more times and they make a killing off the book. It's not one of those. He says, you know what, when this ruler was over Syria, And this ruler was over the known world. This king came into the world. We really have historic accounts of when Quirinius was ruler over Syria. We really do know when Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was ruler of the world from 27 B.C. through about A.D. 14. We know that that's the time frame within which these events happened. And so what Luke is telling you by the inspiration of the Spirit of God is this Really happened. And if you want to know when, it's when Quirinius was over Syria and it's when Octavian was over the Roman Empire. Really happened. that has not just historic connotations, but actually has, it's sort of, well, not sort of, it has, unashamedly, theological connotations as well. You might say, what theological connotations? Could be had by naming of two guys with really odd names that would be almost impossible for their kids to spell. Well, they are seen as, forgive the analogy, as sort of decorations for the story. Two of the most powerful people are mentioned as kind of like pawns. that God in his providence has set in place. You remember what Daniel said in Daniel chapter two, when God reveals to him the meaning of the dream of the king, and you start seeing these kingdoms as different elements of the story, and Daniel prays and gives thanks to God, and he says something in there that we, in all ages, should keep mindful of. He says, God establishes kings and he removes them. and he's about to bring his son into the world, and almost as a throwaway, the board has been set, and it's as though God in his providence goes, you know, I'll put Quirinius here, and Caesar here, and that will set the stage for my son to be born into the world, and in that working of providence, he uses Caesar, calling a census, to be the circumstances that moves a poor man and his family all the way from the north to the exact place and location where the Messiah was to be born. And he can even use, I know it seems crazy, government for his purposes. And the census, it wasn't like they were trying to figure out how diverse they were. They wanted to know how many people owed them taxes. Now you can be assured of this, when it comes to taxes, the government's thorough. He's using elements of that to be the occasion, the setting, the scene that brings this carpenter and his betrothed all the way down from the north of Israel down to the south of Israel to be at the right place at the exact time that this one needed to be born. Delrath Davis puts it this way, he says, Christmas has a great way of putting Caesar back in his place. Caesar seen as in the background as the king of kings is coming to the foreground. We meet a few more characters in the story, verses four and five, we're introduced to Joseph, we're told the town he's from, we're told where he set up shop, and then where he is coming with his bride to be registered. And so we somehow need in the story to get Joseph out of Nazareth, down to Bethlehem, and it mentions that that's where this whole story takes place. And you know all this from the Christmas story, that of course Jesus is born in Bethlehem. But if I had to ask you, well, Why did it have to be Bethlehem? I'm curious what sorts of answers we would get. You'd say, well, I don't know, that's where the story happened. I don't think much about these things. Well, if you remember, you've actually bumped into Bethlehem a bit in the Old Testament. In some places, you might even argue that it's almost like the birthplace of the nation. I mean, that's where the bones of Jacob and his wife Rachel are buried. I mean, this is not an inconsequential event in the life and the ebb and the flow of the nation, but it's also where David's from. David is found in first Samuel 16 in Bethlehem, and it's this little town that other than where Jacob is buried and other than where David is from, we really don't bump into it all that often, but we do bump into it in Micah chapter five, verse two. But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, who are too little to be numbered among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel. whose coming forth is from of old and ancient of days. After you've read both 1 Samuel 16 and Micah chapter 5, you should have known, being a careful reader of the Old Testament, you know what, there's one place and one place only that this one can be born. It's not in the capital city of Jerusalem. It's not gonna be in like one of the older capitals like Shiloh or this or that. It's not gonna be up in Samaria. It's gonna be in this no name town where David's from because this one is from David's line. And God has kept that little town for this very moment in redemptive and world history. Something that would have never escaped, I mean, it's hard, when it calls it David's city, you're meant to chuckle a little bit. Because it's like a one-stop sign kind of a place. Like it's not even, they couldn't even afford a stoplight. It was just, that's the small nature of it. He's coming to the lowly. And that's gonna be the theme we follow from here on out. Secondly, we wanna notice, the humility of Christ's arrival. And this is where I wanna invest a fair little bit of time in verses six and seven. Verse six, because we're so familiar with it, it's lost a lot of its shock or push or I don't know what to call it beyond those two things. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And we read it in such a bored, old, tired way. We're like, oh, okay. It's like when you're writing a book report and then the character did this. And you try to use lots of adjectives and adverbs to get that word count up. No, that's not what's going on. There is a, I wish I could frame it in right ways. There's an entire Old Testament worth of weight behind that phrase and the time came. I mean, you and I, because we're half awake when we read it, might think like, well, I mean, every lady who's pregnant, her time eventually comes. Even though late in that whole process, they begin to believe the lie that they will perpetually always be pregnant. That's a different matter altogether. I don't think he's saying, and it happened as a consequence of human biology. that she gave birth. Oh, it's a much bigger time. This has been the time for which all of the prophets have longed for. From Genesis 3.15 onward, we have waited and waited for this time. We've waded through all of the books of the Pentateuch and all the historic books and all of the prophetic books and all of the minor prophets and all the writings. We've waded and waded and waded. And then with like this lackluster introduction, he goes, that time, yeah, it happened. I mean, you can tell Luke's like a historian and a physician, like there's no dressing up the story. It's just the basic facts. And that time that we've longed for dawned. It came. as a result of all that God has done. Now, if you were to pile up and say, well, I mean, the Bible is surely full of lots of really, really important texts, and you could, I mean, I'm sure if we just went, we won't take the time to do it, trust me, but if we were to take the time to do it, I'd be like, well, what are some of them, just the massively important moments in redemptive history? I mean, you'd be, You'd say Genesis 3, 15. You'd say Genesis 15 with Abrahamic covenant. You'd say, you know, Exodus 3, burning bush, 20, and the giving of the law. Second Samuel 7 in the Davidic covenant. I mean, all of these massive moments in the Old Testament. They would all, by level of importance, have to then kneel before this one. Just verse six. Because what they looked forward to but did not receive, we receive in verse six. And it's with the plain, simple, straightforward, and the time came. You find in that brief, beautiful phrase, all of those hopes and expectations crashing into reality. You find the Genesis 3.15, born of the woman, crusher of the head of the snake, here in the manger. You find the Genesis 49 scepter that would descend from Judah. You find him right here. You find the Psalm 2 ruler of the nations. You find the Psalm 110, the one who will rule in the midst of his enemies until they're made of footstool. You find all of Isaiah 40 through 66, the suffering servant here. You find the branch of Jeremiah 23 and the righteousness of God. You find all of that crammed into, verse six, and the time came. You could, in some sense, picture those very texts, promises, prophecies, kneeling right alongside the shepherds and pointing to the one in the manger. Here you find the greater Adam, the greater Moses, the greater Aaron, the greater David, the real temple, the true lamb of God, the real lion from the tribe of Jew. You find all of that right here and it's as though all 39 books of the Old Testament and all 929 chapters of those 39 books crashing in on this one that we've expected. It all comes true in Him. In a way, and I know that obviously the life begun here works its way out in the perfect life, and the atoning death, and the resurrection of the dead. I understand all of that. But all the expectation and promises come true in Him. And we get the resolution of it all in just two brief verses. And there's something to the simplicity. I think there's a bit of beauty in the simplicity. Only two verses for all of that expectation. It's as though they've said, you know what, we've said it all in the old. Now all that's left to be said is, and God kept his word. It's like you didn't need to be told anything more than that. That God was true in everything he had promised. These two verses tell us the truthfulness of God's promises, but it also tells us just kind of three things about this one. We find out that he's born, he's poor, and that he doesn't fit in. Verse six tells us that he was born of a virgin, a young peasant girl. We know from what he's wrapped in that they were too poor for anything else. It wasn't like they had a baby shower and were showered with really expensive gifts and more clothes, and if your child wore a new outfit every day, You could never burn through them. That wasn't the situation that was here. They were poor. And that's how he was born into the world. He was laid in a manger, a feeding trough for animals. You might say, well, why is he laid in a manger? That's not a great crib. I don't know if it was safety approved. Did it have the sliding thing up? I don't know. Probably not. But why was he laid there? You're like, well, that's because it's part of the story. No, that's not the why. That's just simply a further what. Why was he laid here? Well, you know, the story, because there was no room for him in the inn. Now, I know, just stay with me, and I'm gonna geek out for just two seconds. The word that's used for inn there, he'll use later, it's a word meaning like the guest room. It's a word used for the upper room, actually. It's the very same word. He also will tell us a parable later on about like an inn or a hotel as we would imagine it, and it's a different word. The idea is there's no place for them in the guest room where they would stay with family. So all the Christmas stories about the really grumpy innkeeper, I hate to be the one to break it to you. He's fake. He didn't exist. It's not the only fake character in some of the stories, but we'll just move on from there. So, there's no place for them to be. There's no one that'll take them in, and all of that has, again, theological significance. He does not fit into this world. There's a sense in which, yes, is he in the incarnation, the full right fulfillment of what Adam sang to Eve in the garden. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Oh, absolutely, he's fulfilling all of that. So in that sense, does he belong? Oh, absolutely. But then in another sense, he doesn't. And I think there's something to that. I mean, John picks up on this in John chapter one, verse 11. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. You're gonna see a theme that runs throughout all of the life of Christ here on the earth, beginning here at the manger and continuing on. He's one who was rejected and didn't belong. And he comes then as the savior for those who are rejected. and who don't belong. He's made like them, and those are the ones that he chooses in his grace to save. If you could think of all of the birth narratives in the Old Testament, I don't know of like too many, but it happens from time to time. This one is the most lowly of them. I mean, in all of the Old Testament stories, you never find laying in a manger and this level of poverty, this level of like, not belonging, you have to go share the stall with the animals, like none of that's found in all of the Old Testament. So what's trying to be shown in this text? Well, the idea that's being shown, it's not trying to be shown, it's clearly shown, is that this one is lowly. This one's humble. This one's not like any of the others we found. I mean, take Zechariah 9.9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous. Having salvation is he, humble. Oh, that'd separate him from all the other rulers and politicians around him, wouldn't it? Isaiah 57 verse 15, for thus says the one who's high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of contrite and lowly spirit. Listener, you understand that by Christ coming in such a lowly fashion, He's identifying from the very first moments with those who are lowly. You realize that if he was born in the finest palace, laid in the finest silk sheets, clothed with the finest baby clothes, designer, I don't know if it works that way. I mean, if he had the best of everything that you could have, wouldn't there be this odd connect of like, well, I mean, that's him. but sin has made a ruin of me. Or I've made a ruin of me with my sin. And there would be this separation as it were. No, he's come to save the lowly. He's come to save the ruined. He's come with that express purpose. and it's signaled to you all over the place. You may say, well, why does it need to be signaled to me all over the place? Well, it's because we're really slow to believe all that God would have. We're slow to believe that he really could desire to save me and have me as his own. We're so slow of heart. And so he tells it to you again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again all over the place. Why? We need to be constantly reminded. He came to save wretches like me. He came to save wretches like you. He came lowly and humble because he delights to save those kinds of people. It wasn't like all of this was done so that we had a quaint story that we could buy little figurines of and put up in our houses once a year. It's like this cool little like rustic setting, like no. He showed you this so that you would believe. You know, that kind of a king, I could trust him when he says that he delights to save people like me. Thirdly, we want to notice the angel's announcement. The angel's announcement. Picking up in verse eight, there's a scene shift away from the young man, the young lady, and the baby, and the cows, and the other animals that we sing about around Christmas time. And obviously there was snow in the Middle East. on this night too. Newborn babies and zero noise, obviously all true. But the scene shifts in verse eight, and it goes out to, in the same region, there were shepherds in the field. So in telling this story, Luke tells it in just extreme brevity, here's when it was, here's who was involved, and all of the promises of God came true, and he was laid in a manger. And then the scene shifts away from it and spends actually substantially more time talking about the shepherds, which strikes me as odd. Two verses on the king of kings born, and then like, my math's not great because of how I was educated, but from verse eight through 20, is about the shepherds. Fascinating. It's to these that the angelic choir show up. They don't show up in Rome and say, actually tonight the king of kings is born, thought you should get the memo. I mean, that's not where they went. They didn't go to the hall of the Sanhedrin and tell the leaders of Israel, you know what, the messiah, the one that you've been waiting for, just down the street actually, second manger on the right. Like no, they didn't tell them that. They show up to shepherds. Again, the idea of they go to the lowly, the insignificant, the unwanted, but I don't think that's all that's meant. When we find angelic messengers breaking the silence of the past four to 500 years, redemptively speaking, we should be asking a lot of questions. And so just like harness that inner three-year-old. Why? Why did they go to the shepherds there? And if you pick at it and pick at it and read folks about it, they're gonna say, well. I mean, what an idyllic life. I mean, these guys were out in the fresh air and breathing. No, I don't think that was it. Well, I mean, he goes to the poor and the insignificant. I think we're near an answer there. But remember, where are we when this story is taking place? I mean, it's not a rocket science kind of question. You're in Bethlehem. Do shepherds from Bethlehem ring any kind of bells to you? You're like, no, and I'm not sure why you're saying that. Yes, they should, right? Who used to shepherd in those very same hills? Yeah, David did. And how long ago had it been since God promised that shepherd boy, not just that he'd be king, but that the king of kings would come to him? Well, it was around about 1,000 years. And here's the angelic choir sent by God himself in some sense to say to David's people, I keep all my promises. Every last one. He goes and tells those who like David shepherded in those hills. And do you think the shepherds from Bethlehem would know the story of David? Do you think that's like, that's not going out on a branch and saying like, ah, I mean, he would have been their hero, right? Like if you're a shepherd from Bethlehem, you always have that trump card. I guess that's a kind of a weird way of saying it nowadays. Whatever your buddies did, it wasn't nearly as cool as being a shepherd like David was. He goes to those people and says, I promised David 1,000 years ago. Tonight, I make good on my promise. I think there's more meant than just a ragtag group of shepherds. I think we're meant to be having David and the promises to David on our mind. And you might say, oh, that's a wee bit of a stretch. Well, notice what they refer to the city as. Do they not call it the city of who? David. Or they could have called it Bethlehem and you would have known exactly what was meant. They pick that designation so that all of the promises, all of the expectation, all of that wonderful biblical theology surrounding the Davidic king would come then flooding back into our minds as the angels break forth and remind you of everything he said about this ruler who would come from David. You know it's not Herod. You know he's not sitting on the throne yet. And they announce, God keeps every last one. Would a thousand years feel like a long time? Yeah, to us probably, but not to God. He fulfills every last one, and also indicates to the reader that again and again, He goes to the weak, the downcast, the lowly, and there's a bit of, well, edginess would probably be too far of a stretch in the announcement. Verse nine, they give an interpretation of Jesus. of verse six. Verse six, and the time came she gave birth. And we were left going like, well, you could have said more than that. The angels give you God's interpretation of these events. They tell you from God's perspective, his judgment on the manger, not judgment in a bad way, but his estimation. They say when they're surrounded by the glory of God, verse 14, we talked about that I think last week, They tell these shepherds that there's born in David's city one who is, well then three things, a Savior, Christ, and the Lord. Three ways of referring to this one. They're giving you his identity, who he is, and also what this one will do. So that you would know that we're not reading into the story and making things up. The angels show up and say, hey, I know you as shepherds are a little slow. Let me tell you exactly who the one in the manger is. Well first, he's the savior. Now, if someone comes as a Savior, that presupposes, like, one major set of circumstances. There's something that you need saving from. If you don't need saving, the Savior's just not that great of news. But we are those who have ruined our lives because of sin. And this is not like, yeah, I know that, I knew this guy, he used to be my neighbor. He was really bad. I bet he needed a Savior. I'm gonna talk about my current neighbors, past neighbors. Yeah, that's true of him, but it's true of everyone in this room. Everyone in this room has committed treason against God for which answers and account must be given. This Savior born in the manger came to save sinners. It's the only kind of people that he saves. It's the only kind that he saves. And so here in the manger is the one who can actually save you from your sin. And get this, and this is where we get the confrontational part of it. He's the only one who can. No one else can. You can't. Friends that you have can't. Good deeds that you think you commit or carry out can't. Only this one can save you from your sins. He's the only savior. I mean, that's an audacious claim. That's a confrontational claim. But it's a true one. And it's to our soul's peril if we reject it. He's also called the Christ, which means the anointed one of God, the Messiah. Again, all of the expectations surrounding the Messiah, the Old Testament, they're saying, if you've been looking and waiting for Messiah, he actually is just up the road in Bethlehem in a manger. We'll tell you what he's wearing and where he's laying so that you can find him. So that there's no misconstruing it or misunderstandings, this one, is the anointed of God. He's the anointed of God as his prophet, priest, and king, and he will carry out full salvation for all of his people. The third thing they tell you is that he is the Lord. He's the right ruler. He's the Davidic king of kings. He may be humble, but don't mistake it. He's also the king of kings. This one is the ruler of all rulers. That is, I don't wanna rate them, but that's possibly the most confrontational of all of them. You get when Caesar would be introduced at different events or fundraisers, I don't know if they did those back then, but when he would be introduced, there would be titles that would accompany the introduction of Caesar, and some of them would involve things like a son of the gods, savior of the world, and lord. Fascinating that those are the very same things that are said of this one. While those in Rome propound to be this, this one really is the son singular of God singular. He really can save, and he really is the king. We as Christians have said for 2,000 years, Christ is king, not Caesar. What a confrontational, but desperately important, not just thing to say, but truth to be shaped by. If you are here this morning and you are a Christian, you have one king that you answer to. He doesn't live in Washington. He is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Christ is King, not Caesar. And so that's the announcement to these guys. So they're told, outside of where David grew up, listen, all the promises are yes and amen, and the one that you're gonna go find in the manger, he's the King, he's the Savior, he's the Messiah, go and find him. Notice what they say in verse 15. I love, again, the simplicity of it. And when the angels went away, One of the brightest among them, the shepherds that is, says, hey. We should go see about that. That's my kind of translation there. Verse 15, let's go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. Notice the faith that's already taken root in this, whoever the speaker is, we don't even know his name. He doesn't say, let's go over and see if these things are true. I mean, they did just have an angelic choir in the glory of God. I mean, so there was good evidences to it, but they go and they say, listen, we heard it, and we know it to be truth, see it. That's actually going to repeat itself here in just, actually in just a few moments. So I think we're on our fourth one. Yep. So fourthly, let's consider the proper response to Christ. How do they respond? They go and they see. Notice it says they go with haste. They didn't take their time. They ran, as it were. You might say, well, what did they do with all the sheep? I don't think the sheep were on the top of their concern list at this point. Their response mirrors, or excuse me, what they were told mirrors the exact content of verse seven. Verse seven, you find this one born in a manger, the angels tell them who it is and they run to find him and they find him just as he was described to them. So they did not find a fairy tale, they didn't find something to make a leap, they actually found all that God had said fulfilled and true right before their eyes. Verse 16, they make haste, they find it, they find Mary, they find Joseph, they find the baby and the manger, and they told, verse 17, Mary and Joseph about their evening out in the hills. Imagine the wonder that would have filled Mary and Joseph as they hear a choir showed up out there. and the glory of God. I mean, it would have been a fascinating conversation to sit in on. Mary treasures it in her heart, which is always how Christ ought to be then treasured in both mind and heart together. But notice what they do. Now this is where we want to kind of wrap our thoughts up on this morning. She ponders it in her heart, verse 20. The shepherds returned, back to the sheep, glorifying and praising God, notice this, for all that they'd heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. Now there's some similarities between you this morning and the shepherds, and there's gonna be some dissimilarities as well, right? I think the general aromatics of this crowd are better than what the shepherds, I guess that's not that funny, but. Maybe I'm wrong on that one. Right, you smell better and have a better occupation than the shepherds had. You might not have had a choir show up and tell you these things. But the same gospel truths have been told to you just as it was told to them. And what was told to them is exactly what they found. Now, they might not seem as really profound to you this morning, but let me try to unpack what I mean. That same gospel that was spoken to them, heard and then accorded with reality, is the very same gospel that's told to you this morning. What you've heard likewise accords with reality. It's true. It's the truest true. It's true in every element and aspect of it. Jesus Christ really is the Savior of the world. Jesus Christ really does delight to associate with the lowly, and he's willing and able to save any and all who call on his name. That part of the story actually doesn't change from their experience here to our experience. What was told is what occurred. And what has occurred is life changing to those who would believe it. Not in the sense that they believe it and then for them it is made true. No, that's not what we mean. It's true. It's true whether you believe it or not. But those who put their faith and their trust in this Lord Jesus Christ, something else becomes true for them in their life. They go from being a sinner who's lost in their sin under the wrath of God to knowing true and full forgiveness. They know what it is to, like a pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress, they know what it is to have the burden roll off their back. They know what it is to have the shackles of sin fall off their wrists. They know what it is to have life for the very first time. And that can be the case for everyone in this room today. this lowly one that you find in the manger presents himself publicly both in the story as well as each and every time he's proclaimed, he is the only one who can save you. And this lowly one who's able to save, this king of kings is able to save the very worst of sinners. If you doubt me, you just look around the room. And you'll see just the kind of sinners that he saves. And this is the part that I genuinely want to conclude with. He delights to do so. It's why he came. So you are not putting him in any disposition or kind of being a burden on him by trusting him like, oh, well, I feel bad, I'm his little baby Jesus, like no. He came to save sinners. Will you not believe in Him? If you call on His name today, you actually can really know what forgiveness is, which truly would be, and I mean this with all sincerity, it truly would be the greatest gift ever received. the freeness of his grace. To Christians who've received this same gospel message, this story never gets old for us. So even though it's familiar to us and we know it and we celebrate it, we ought never lose the sense of its audacious nature. How audacious he would come to save me. He'd come to save you. How confrontational. He's our King, no one else. We answer to Him and Him only. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you for sending the Lord Jesus Christ to save sinners. We thank you that He delights. He loves us. when sin ruins sinners, call on his name. What a humble, lowly king is this, that he's not ashamed to be our Savior, and he's not ashamed to be our older brother. He's not ashamed to make us one with himself. Father, we have no words for this kind of condescension. We grasp at words like wonderful, unbelievable, but they fall far short. We pray that we, like the shepherds, would kneel at the manger and worship this one, knowing that this was the savior of the world who came born to die. so that we who are dead might be made alive. We pray that even today you would delight to call many to yourself, young ones and old ones and all those in between. We pray this in our Savior's name. Amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. 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