This morning we turn to Luke chapter two. Luke chapter two. Going to read the first 21 verses, or first 20 verses, rather. In the game to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. This taxing was first made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was that While they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, 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, goodwill toward men. And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, let us now go even unto Bethlehem. and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them. We read that far. I'm going to be preaching on the latter part of this narrative, but our focus will be upon verses 15 and following. I'm not going to read that again, but I'll read verse 15. It came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, The announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ is the occasion for great joy on the part of all of God's people. That's what the angel of the Lord himself says in the announcement of his birth to the shepherds the night he is born. Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. Those good tidings are the tidings of the gospel, the good news of the gospel. And the effect of the preaching of the gospel in God's people is always great joy. Great joy, of course, because of who it is that is born. He's identified here as the great hope of the people of God. that which is told to them, that which is promised to them, as the angel indicates, for unto you is born a Savior. That Savior is the great hope of the people of God because he is the Savior from everything that makes them miserable, namely sin and death. Saving them from sin and death then brings great joy. We're told also that this child that is born is Christ the Lord, indicating his qualifications as Savior. He saves because he is able to save, and he is able to save because God himself has appointed him as Savior. and qualified Him to do that work. He is God's own Son, and therefore also Lord. One of the things that is important for us to remember this morning is that the amazing thing about this Christ is he does not begin to work when he is first baptized as an adult and begins to minister for three and a half years. He does not begin his work at the cross. He does not begin his work even when he's born and laid in a manger. As we have seen as a congregation, this Christ was at work throughout the Old Testament, announcing his own coming. and effecting it, making it happen. He was being born throughout all of the Old Testament period of the woman in travail. He is at work now. He is not simply in heaven doing nothing, but he is bringing about his own second coming. But we also, even when we focus on the shepherds this morning, as we're going to do, revealing that He is at work from that manger. And that work is evident in the announcement of His birth and the effect that it has. And by looking at that, we see We see the nature of his salvation. We see the nature of this Christ when he comes into the world. Therein lies the Holy Gospel also, not simply in the announcement, but in what it does and what's going on. And that begins with the call to the shepherds. That announcement was not simply a declaration that the Christ is born, but it is a call, a call to come to Bethlehem and see. Really, that was the call that was issued throughout the Old Testament through the promise. Come see, look for him, he's coming, and then he's here. And that's the call that comes to us this morning too. And in response to that call, the shepherd said, let us now go to Bethlehem and see. And that's what we're going to do this morning. With me, let us now go to Bethlehem and see. that which was told. An amazing detail of the narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ is that the shepherds abiding in the nearby fields, watching over their flocks of sheep, are called by the angel of the Lord to see this thing that has come to pass. Mary has gone through the labor pains of birth. And there, in the cattle stall, she has given birth to Jesus, so named by the angel of the Lord. She has wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. And we see in the narrative that even that is not by her own choice. God has seen to it that she has given birth exactly where she is supposed to be, that she has so laid her child in that manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. And that's evident when immediately after that, the angel of the Lord that had so named him Jesus and denounce the conception of the child in the very womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Ghost now immediately appears in the dark fields around Bethlehem to a group of shepherds and denounces what he does. Fear not. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be the sign. This shall be the sign, because God has made it so. Not Joseph, not Mary, but God has made it so. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Now what ought to impress us, what ought to make us sit up and take notice, and sit up and take notice because it is part of the gospel. It has everything to do with what went on in Bethlehem and the kind of Savior that is sitting there in a manger, which is, this announcement is made to a bunch of shepherds in the darkness, in the fields, or by themselves. That's amazing because the birth of this child had been announced over and over and over again in the very land of these shepherds. It was known from all the way up in Galilee, in the city of Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary had come from. It was known in the palaces of Jerusalem, and all of Israel knew that this birth was coming, that this Savior was coming, this Messiah was coming. And we learn later that in fact, few were actually looking for Him, expected Him. And so the announcement of His birth doesn't come to them. It doesn't come to mighty Herod the king in the palace of Jerusalem or his court. It doesn't come to the rich landowners of Israel. and the rich merchants. It doesn't come even to the pious teachers of the law, the Pharisees. It doesn't come to the priests making sacrifices in the temple, except one, before it happened. It doesn't even come to the multitudes of Israel. Even though Moses and the prophets had said this was going to happen, For 2,000 years, that had been the announcement of Moses and the prophets, as Christ Himself will say. They had either given up hope, or they had rejected this message. They were busy. They were busy with the honor and glory of men. Busy with making money. Busy making peace with Rome. Busy with their own interests. And so the message passes them by. But what's amazing is this doesn't even come to the many believing in God, fearing in Israel, who indeed looked for the Christ that the Bible tells us about. It didn't come to the many godly fathers and mothers in Israel like Zacharias and Elizabeth. It didn't come to the aged saints like Anna and Simeon. The message doesn't come to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. It doesn't come to Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus. It comes to a bunch of shepherds whose names we don't know. It comes to those who by every account in Scripture occupy the lowest of all professions and are the lowest of all the people. That's simply because they labored in the fields and were poor. But in Jewish society, that was the occupation for the outcasts, those who couldn't get any other job, those who were of dubious origins, those who were aliens and strangers, the uneducated, We're told in Jewish society at this time that such weren't even considered real citizens. They couldn't own property, couldn't testify in a court of law, and the angel of the Lord appears to them. It's part of the gospel. That wasn't an accident. Point is, they were chosen by God from all eternity to be the first to hear the good news that Christ, who had been promised almost 4,000 years earlier, had finally been born, and then to witness it. And in fact, were the only known witnesses of the birth of Christ. We need to dwell on that. God deliberately chose lowly shepherds because they represent all the people of God, all those whom he saves by this Jesus in a manger. All the people of God saved by Christ are always represented in Scripture, not only as sheep, but sheep gone astray, and significantly, as shepherds. Have you ever dwelled upon the fact that many, many notable people of God in the Old Testament were called to be shepherds? Abel, whose righteous sacrifice the Lord received while rejecting that of his brother, was a keeper of sheep. The patriarch Abraham, the father of all the faithful, was a keeper of sheep. Isaac and Jacob, keepers of sheep. Moses, for 40 years, had to keep sheep before he could lead the people of God. Prophets like Amos, kings like David, all kept sheep. Does it really surprise you that God then, of all the people on earth, and all the people in Jerusalem, and all over Palestine, God would select a handful of shepherds to personally appear to and announce the birth of the Savior. This, of course, is itself prophetic of the fact that all the people of God are followers of Christ, who is the Great Shepherd. That babe in the manger is the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, the New Testament will tell us. Not only office bearers and ministers are shepherds, but all of us. We're not only sheep, but shepherds, and shepherds as followers of Christ the Good Shepherd. And what we must see is that it is the case in our relationship one to another. Mothers and fathers, you are shepherds called to take care of the lambs and the sheep God gives you. The child in the home is a shepherd to his siblings. Old and young shepherd each other in the church. It's exactly because these shepherds are chosen by God that they have faith and are given faith so that they're waiting patiently for the Messiah with great hope. That's the message we've learned as we've gone through the Old Testament prophecies. The prophecies were given as promises. And those promises worked faith in the people of God, faith by which all of them in their life looked for the Messiah, even though He might never be born in their lifetime. Such was the case of these. It's evident. It's evident because although they are filled with fear, they are terrified at the sight of the angel of the Lord, they don't run. They don't bolt. They listen. And after they listen, they obey. That's faith. They feared. Well, they feared because they knew they were sinners. Those with faith know they are sinners. They know what they deserve. And as sinners standing before the righteous holiness and glory of God, they fear. We too would fear. Certainly, I like to imagine these shepherds. Certainly, not everything that they talked about the campfire at night was sanctified or spiritual. I doubt they spent all their time around the campfire singing the Psalms and reading through their Bible. At the same time, you know that their conversations around the campfire weren't filled with dirty jokes. They didn't spend their time talking about the latest news from Rome, talking about the latest gladiator battles that were going on in the arena, the spectacles that went on in the theater. They didn't spend their time thinking about the latest fashions that they should be wearing. or what they were going to buy the next day from the merchants in Jerusalem. They behaved and they talked to one another as those who believed in and were looking for the Messiah. You know that. I wonder how we would be if we were there in the fields. Of course, most of us, that would be too lowly. How could we be Christians? How could we be filled with joy? How could we be fulfilled watching a bunch of miserable sheep in the dead of night warming ourselves by a campfire? But even if we would find ourselves out there, what would our speech be all about? I wonder that because I know our speech, you know our speech. We get out of the church on Sunday, and in Arthax, what are we talking about? Whether the Detroit Lions are going to the Super Bowl or not. Whether Michigan crushed its opponent that Saturday. What we're going to buy and what's going to show up on our porch on Monday. Whether we're going to get a raise from our boss. Hardly the speech of those excited about the good news of the Messiah. The fact that these shepherds were chosen by the Lord is evident from who it is that brings this good news to them. We read it's the angel of the Lord, that the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. That is, this was no ordinary angel. In the words he spoke, no ordinary message from God. This was, in fact, the second person of the Trinity who at the time is in a manger. The very person of that child who just went through birth and had just been cleaned off by his mother. and had the umbilical cord cut, and was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that Lord now, at the very same moment, appears in angelic form to the shepherds. That's amazing. And that's why we read, the glory of the Lord shone round about them. They stood before the Lord. The same one in the manger tells us something then about the message. Quite fitting, isn't it? Because this is the Word of God bringing the Word of God about the Word of God. who at the moment is in a manger. That's the Savior. He brings a message, and the message is the Gospel. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. But what's its purpose? Is He simply stating a fact? Writing down 2 plus 2 equals 4? Monkeys are mammals? No. In the first place, that gospel message is to comfort them as a sinner. Fear not! For behold, away with your fear, away with your doubts, away with your anxiety, all cause, because you're sinners. And you stand before the righteous Lord, but fear not. You are standing. Are you not? I am here. Am I not, and you are not consumed? That's the very same message of the Gospel that comes to us every Sunday, again and again. Why are you afraid? Why are you afraid to come to church? Why are you afraid to kneel in prayer and talk to me? Fear not, for I am your Savior. And so amazing is this message, it's confirmed by a multitude of heavenly hosts. A multitude of angels suddenly appear and join the angel in praising God. We don't know if they sang, we don't know if they simply spoke, but they gave a simple but elegant anthem of praise. Glory to God in the highest. And on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. literally and unearth peace toward men of goodwill. We before them don't always like to talk about goodwill. Is not our will depraved? The answer is no. It is depraved from the point of view of our old man, but by faith in Christ, God gives us a will that also wills the good. That's why I said these shepherds were looking for the Messiah. Looking for the Messiah not as natural human beings, But because God had given them faith, and as men of faith, they had goodwill. And as men of goodwill, they were brought the gospel of peace. A message of praise to themselves? No. Glory to God in the highest. As believers given faith, That message of the gospel came to them in the form of a call. A call to Bethlehem. You don't read that call. You don't read, come to Bethlehem and see. But nevertheless, it's a call. Because part of the message is, this shall be a sign. Ye shall see. Well, how shall they see? Implied is, go to Bethlehem and see. And so by faith, they respond to that call. Let us now go to Bethlehem and see. That again is the gospel message. This is the salvation he works. This is how he works. He comes to lowly shepherds. He announces the gospel and he calls them, come see. Don't stay here by your campfire. Come see. Take a look. And so they come with haste. They obey that call with haste. I imagine they ran. I imagine they dropped everything they had and they ran to Bethlehem. And they knew where to look. They were told where to look. They didn't waste their time knocking on doors, knocking on the inn that had shut its doors to Mary and Joseph. They ran to the stable, and there they found, indeed, exactly what had been announced, a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. You see, that's why that word of the angel is so important. They don't just stumble upon the Jesus. From a certain viewpoint, you have to see they weren't even really seeking Jesus apart from that Word. The Word of Jesus comes to them and says, this is the Christ. This is the Word of God. This is Jesus the Savior. Come and see. And only then do they come and look. And they go in the one place He can be found. And it's exactly as they're told. That word is what calls them. That word is what's important. Otherwise, they simply look in and they say, oh, what a giant mistake. What a poor baby. What a poor couple. What a sad state of affairs. What a cause to cry, not be filled with joy, but to cry, to bemoan the fact. And then one sees the Lord and God that way, not as a savior, but as someone who ought to receive the pity of men. Not as Christ the Lord, to whom we must obey and serve, but one we can manipulate and maybe feel good about helping. No, they see exactly what the angel announced, Christ, that one. the very one God had promised through all the prophets and through Moses. Even though he's lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, being observed by barn animals, he is the Christ, they believe that. And he's the Lord, that is the one who owns me, who bought me. I'm his property, the one who cares for me, who loves me. Notice He's born unto you. He's a man. A man just like you in all things. Body and soul. Sin accepted. Born as a man of Mary. He shares in your misery. He shares in your toils. He shares in your temptations. That means He's a Savior for you. Not a Savior as a possibility. A Savior perhaps, Savior from sin, a Savior from death, Savior from your fear, even the fear that He'll receive you and accept you and cares for you. And all of it is a sign. Notice that. In the narrative, what they see is a sign that verifies what they heard. And that brings us then to the response. What happens after that? Because that too is instructive about the Savior and His gospel and His call. And notice, they don't hang around Bethlehem or in the stable for the rest of the evening. They don't do that. They don't plunk down on a stool and admire the Savior and look at Him fondly. Tussle his hair. Let me hold him. You don't read any of that. Maybe it happened for a little bit. Sometimes wonder how the church today would react if they were recipients of this message. Many undoubtedly would be indifferent, remain unbelieving, just like the church of Jesus' day. You know for a fact, because it happened in his own life, when the same message comes. I am your Savior. I am the Lord. I am the Christ. Away with him. Crucify him. We don't want him. Many others wouldn't bother to check. Others like Herod are going to say, we're going to come and worship, but then chop off his head. But others certainly would in doubt act the way they do with the message today, with an outward show of piety, false piety. Oh, they applaud the shepherds for coming with haste to criticize or question what they did after that, for leaving the scene so quickly. What they should have done is held a candlelight vigil. What they should have done is knocked on all the doors and had a collection for poor Mary and Joseph. They should have made a creche. That's what they should have done. They should have celebrated what they saw. Put a doll in a manger and grabbed some animals around and we all stand here with our candles. That's not what they did. In fact, we may even compare the response of the shepherds to hearing this gospel message of Christ to our own. Let's do that. The same message comes to us at Christmas every year. And there's some that can't even come to Bethlehem to go see. I got things to do. I got vacations to take. Perhaps they're too afraid. And if they come, how do we respond? How do we respond? Oh, let's decorate the house. Let's make a lot of food. Let's open a lot of presents. Let's play some games and watch football. And that's just what we do on Christmas. What about Sunday? Gospel call goes out, come and see. Come to Bethlehem and see. Let's look. We say, got things to do. Or if we come, as soon as we're done, we're back to normal, back to doing what we're always doing, talking about what we always talk about. Is it really good news and glad tidings of great joy? We read the shepherds didn't even worship the Savior in Bethlehem. I want to read that they came and they saw, and when they saw, they left. No doubt they praised, praised God. No doubt they worshiped at the manger. No doubt they blessed Mary and Joseph, but that's not the emphasis. The emphasis is that they left. And then what do they do? We read, first of all, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. It's important. That's important. Again, we have the salvation of Christ in a very compact form here. What happens when the Gospel call comes? When Jesus is presented in the Gospel, and the call goes out, And the child of God goes and sees. What happens? One of the first things is they make known abroad the saying which was told them. And notice that, what was told them. We don't read that they went and told everyone what they saw, but what was told them, the message. That's indicative that the gospel, the gospel isn't what one sees as such, but the gospel is what one hears and hears by faith. It's indicative of the fact that even faith comes by hearing. In many ways, one could perhaps even look at it that way. that the gospel came through the angel of the Lord and worked faith in those shepherds. Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And notice again, we're talking about, in the eyes of the world, uneducated, know-nothings. Faith works that kind of knowledge. Faith is worked by the Word of the Gospel that presents Jesus as the Savior. And the point is that if a man or a woman doesn't believe the Word of this Jesus, the Word of the birth of this Jesus when it's preached, and says, well, I have to see. I have to see first. I have to touch Him. I have to actually go see it with my own physical eyes. That person doesn't have faith. how the shepherds were called to see, to see with their own eyes. The point is they actually saw by faith. If they had simply looked with their own eyes, earthly eyes, they would have rejected the Messiah. And that's why the text tells us not that they went abroad and told what they saw, but what they heard. Now what's the point? The point is that the joy that is worked by faith in the Holy Gospel is always primarily expressed by witnessing of that Gospel to all with whom we have contact. That's what happened here. It's a precursor of the very fact that the Gospel in the first place is going to be preached promiscuously to all. whether they're elect or approbate, whether they live their lives wickedly or in a godly way. When someone has faith and believes in the Messiah, he tells everybody. He doesn't say, well, I really can't talk to these people about Christ because they're pretty wicked, these co-workers of mine. That's how we think. They have to be deserving to hear from my lips about Jesus. It's not true. None of us is deserving. The shepherds would have told you that. We don't deserve to have the angel of the Lord appear to us tonight. We're sinners like everyone else. But notice what they witness. The simple message. Born in a manger is Christ the Lord, my Savior. I've seen Him by faith. I've heard His word by faith. He's changed my life. Is that so hard? Oh yeah, apparently it is. We rarely go away from church on a Sunday and talk to our co-workers. And if we talk to our co-workers, it's about what a drag Sunday was. Or again, it's about the Detroit Lions, or about what the stock market is doing. And if you want to blame the lack of witness on your own behalf, in part, Don't blame the church, and don't blame the message, and don't blame the messenger. Blame yourself. True joy and gladness over the good tidings of the gospel is, with like haste, I'm going to go tell everyone. They then returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them." Important instruction here too. It means after they went and told everyone that they could grab and find in the dead of night. One can only imagine how that went. How many people did they find in the dead of night? I have no doubt they probably banged on a few doors. So excited. They didn't say, we're going to wait till daylight. But they did eventually return. That means they returned to their work as shepherds. That's significant because it means they also didn't decide to appoint themselves a new calling to witness to all these things that they had heard full-time. But they returned back to their normal occupation. It's a common mistake people make. The gospel grabs a hold of them. They're converted. They're excited. And the mistake they make and all their joy and their gladness is, God has called me now to be a minister, to be a full-time witness, as it were. That's not true. Yes, some he does, but he only gives some pastors and teachers and evangelists, says the Scriptures. Many, many of us, he just calls to be shepherds, and we serve him by shepherding. There were many, many, many saved at the time of the apostles who were slaves. Did the gospel come to them and say, throw off your masters, now be free. Jesus has freed you from sin and death, now you're freed from your... No. No. Stay a slave. Serve Christ now as a slave. That's minimized today. That's thrown off today. Jesus calls you. as a mother or father, just like He called those men to be shepherds. He calls you to do what you do the same way He called me. I didn't receive any kind of special call other than the same kind of call you all receive. I hope you understand that. But he calls some to do this and some to do that. And the point of the narrative here is he calls us to serve him and therefore also to witness of him in our occupation and calling. You see, it's one thing you have to put these together to witness to Christ. It's another thing to work in your occupation. And we do both. We're called to do both. There's a time and a place for both, never one and never just the other. That's how they praised and glorified God. They praised and glorified God in the calling that he gave them, as humble and lowly shepherds, by being found in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And do not discount that. Do not discount that those whom Jesus saves are lowly shepherds who probably lived out the rest of their days, parked around a campfire at night, chasing down stray sheep and being butted by them and run over by them. That was what they were called to do. And God was pleased to do that. Now why? I hope we know why. The answer is, in the first place, because they were thankful for the salvation that was given to them by that Savior, and thankful for the kind of Savior He was. That's why they weren't offended at His lowly birth. That's why they didn't cut and run when He came. By faith they understood His salvation and the kind of Savior He is, and they were thankful for that. Do we ever think that way? Not often enough. The problem with us is we think we're somebody. We're somebody. We have a successful business. We have this, we have that. Even in the church, we always want to be somebody. I don't want to be the lowly shepherd. I don't want to be that person. who no one thinks about. I want to be in Jerusalem. I want to be in the middle of things. And even when we're not, we still think we're somebody. But if we're humble and lowly, truly humble and lowly, and know who we are and what we deserve, then you cannot help but be thankful when the angel of the Lord comes and says, I've got good news. I've got glad tidings. They didn't run out and tell everybody what they saw because the angel told them to do that. They didn't go do that because they felt that this is what they must do in order to contribute to their salvation. They went out because they were excited. I used the picture before, I'll use it again. Remember your grandkids last night if they opened presents, or maybe today. And when they get a present they like, just watch them. Just watch them. It's fun. It's exciting. It's why we like to do it as parents and grandparents. They run around, and they lose all control, and they're excited, and it's fun. Why do you think God gave you the greatest present of all? Why did He do that? What does He look for? What does He expect? Some excitement. Some joy and gladness in our soul, instead of running around complaining about everything under the sun. Popping more pills for our depression, filled with anxiety. Are we thankful? They were thankful for the very nature of the salvation that this Christ brings. They knew. They knew that the Savior had saved them. They hadn't saved themselves. They hadn't done anything that made the angel of the Lord come see them. And I'm sure they had a profound sense that when they recognized that baby in a manger as Christ the Lord, that that too was the work of that Savior. Who in the world, humanly speaking, would accept and receive such a Savior? Who would have goodwill toward that kind of Savior and then go away with peace? The answer is nobody, apart from that Savior Himself. But that's what they saw. This is the kind of Savior He is. Oh, and the eyes of men? Nothing. Nothing to get excited about. And far too often, that's our response. Nothing real exciting going on in the Word. It's there in the Word, but we don't catch it. We don't receive it. We're going to look for our joy and salvation everywhere else under the sun. Go lions! hope I get a good present this year, a raise, my medications. No, none of those things will bring you joy. At least none of those things will bring you the only joy that lasts, that brings true excitement, that will allow you to share with your neighbors, your own salvation. How in the world, beloved, can we be saved by this Savior and not be excited and tell everybody that we know? So this morning, let us who have gone to Bethlehem to see, give praise and honor and glory to God. and witness to those things that we have heard. Amen, let us pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, we thank thee for the Savior, which is Christ the Lord, Jesus Christ, who was born unto us, born to save us, redeem us, and give us joy. We thank thee, O Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.