And as we come now to our sermon, the text for our sermon reading is found on page eight of your worship folder. And we're continuing through our series of the songs of Luke, the Christmas songs or Christmas Psalms, if you would, of the gospel of Luke. And so we find ourselves now looking at the in excelsis Deo, glory to God in the highest, the song of the angels as recorded in Luke chapter two, beginning in verse eight, where we read these words. 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 round 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, which shall 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 hosts praising God "'and saying, glory to God in the highest "'and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. And when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. This is the word of the Lord. Sometimes you can actually say a lot with just a few words. And this little song of the angels, this Christmas song that we're looking at today here in Luke's gospel is just a few lines long. And yet within those lines, we find the very heart, the very center of the gospel. We find its purpose. The angel's song summarizes the entire reason we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ. But what is perhaps even more astonishing is that this concise little song is sung to shepherds. It is the most unlikely of audiences. I mean, of all the people in the Advent narrative, the shepherds are perhaps the most unlikely of characters to find their story recorded for all eternity in the inspired Word of God. And like many people in the story of Jesus' birth, we do have a tendency to kind of romanticize the shepherds. They're portrayed often in many a Christmas pageant or program or song as being these kind and gentle men who came to see the baby Jesus. But who were these shepherds, really? I mean, we don't know their names. They're not given to us. We don't know their ages. We don't even know how many of them there actually were in those fields of Bethlehem. It may have just been a couple. It may have been a dozen. It could have been 50. We don't know. And that's kind of the point. Because as far as many people were concerned, the shepherds were nobodies. The shepherds were just ordinary people with an ordinary job, living unnoticed lives. And on the night that Jesus was born, they were just like everybody else in the small village of Bethlehem. They were going about their lives without even realizing the miracle that had just taken place in their sleepy little town. And as Luke tells us in verse 8, they were out in the field. They were keeping watch, the night watch, over their flock. Now, shepherds, they didn't just spend time, a lot of time outdoors, in the cold, in the heat, in the rain, in the sun. They actually lived outdoors. They didn't live in a house of brick or stone or wood. They may have had a tent, but they were accustomed to eating and sleeping and doing just about everything in life out in the open, outdoors. I do, like many people. I enjoy the outdoors. I like camping and fishing. I've even gone hunting. I find it refreshing to be in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, for a time. But only for a time. I like to come back to civilization. I like to come back to my warm bed, my cozy house. The idea of living my entire life outdoors, exposed, as these men did, keeping watch over sheep in a pasture, well, that sounds exhausting. And shepherding was not a glamorous job. I doubt there were many Hebrew children that said, I want to be a shepherd when I grow up. Now, most shepherds, in fact, were born shepherds. Their father was a shepherd before them, as was their grandfather. And if you were born a shepherd, you probably didn't have much of a chance of being anything or doing anything different. You are going to watch sheep your entire life. Now, despite the harsh lifestyle and the rigor of watching the same sheep for hours and hours on end to protect them from bandits or wild animals, the shepherds had a very important job. See, sheep were vital especially to Jewish society. They are a central part of life in the New Testament. The sheep were a high demand commodity. Now, besides the food that they brought and the wool they provided for clothing, sheep were also, according to the law laid down in the Old Testament, a clean animal, an animal that was fit for sacrifice, for the worship the ceremonial worship of God that he had prescribed his people in the Old Testament. And during the Passover, for example, thousands upon thousands and thousands of these animals would be slain in sacrifice. And somebody had to watch all those sheep before Passover time would come. Now we don't know if these sheep the shepherds were watching were the Passover lambs. It's not told to us, but historically around this time in the first century in the fields of Bethlehem, that's where the temple sheep were kept. Despite this though, despite the fact that sheep were such an important part of society, shepherds weren't really appreciated. They weren't seen in very positive light. In fact, many people considered them to be outcast, dirty, barbaric. As we noted, shepherds lived outdoors apart from society. And as such, they were unable to keep many of the ceremonial laws and thus were considered by the religious elite as being unclean. Despite the fact that Israel's Greatest earthly king, David, was once a shepherd, and despite the frequent references of God himself playing the part of a shepherd for his people, many people considered shepherds to be thieves and liars, men with whom good people just do not associate. And because they were considered unclean, the testimony of a shepherd was not permissible in court. They really, on the legal level, had very few rights, if any. On the social ladder, they were the lowest of the lowest classes in Israel, except for one other group, the people that dwelt in leper colonies and who had leprosy. However, in spite of this low status, these men probably were not uneducated. They at least had heard or would have had some knowledge of the Old Testament. They were Jewish men after all. Now while they did not have access to the written word of God like the priests and rabbis, they did have that word passed down through oral tradition, recited to them during important times of the year. And so they probably heard of this coming Messiah through the mouth of the prophets. They no doubt cherished King David and the Psalms he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. After all, he was like one of them once, perhaps. They had even committed to memory some of the words of the prophets, such as those of Isaiah, for to us a child is born and to us a son is given. Jewish tradition taught that the Messiah would come at midnight, and maybe these shepherds, as they would dutifully keep watch over these sheep, They would gaze into the beauty of the Judean sky and look upon the stars and wonder, would this be the night that was spoken of long ago? Would this be the night that a virgin would bear a son and call his name Immanuel, God with us? They may have had a special reverence for Isaiah's words in Isaiah 40, where he says, he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. How little though did these ordinary men realize that on this night, On this night, their lives would take a dramatic change. Their prayers, their hopes, their longings would come to fruition. For as we read again in verse nine, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were filled with great fear. So here they are, busy going about their work. The darkness of night is suddenly broken, and the portals of heaven are opened unto them, and the glory of the almighty self-existing God himself illuminates the fields of Bethlehem in a spectacular display. And then a messenger from God himself steps forward to these lowly shepherds who in great fear fall to the ground as often as the reaction in the Bible when individuals are chosen by God to get just a tiny glimpse of his great glory. And no doubt this glorious site exposed their own frailty, their own depravity as sinners in the sight of a holy God. However, the message they were about to hear was even more glorious than the messenger who brought it to them. And the angel says in verse 10, fear not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people for under you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And now the fear in their hearts begins to melt away into joy. for such is the gift that the gospel brings. It is a glorious message of joy because of who it is about. Notice what the angel says. He says, to you is born a savior. This is Jesus, the redeemer, the one who would bring deliverance to the people who look to him. in faith to rescue them from sin and death. But he wasn't just any Savior. This is the Savior, as the angel explains to the shepherds, that is the Christ. And Christ, of course, is simply the Greek word for Messiah, the anointed one, the one anointed by God to be the Savior. His plan was unfolding just as he had foretold. Now the Savior had come. And also this chosen and anointed Savior, the angel says, is the Lord, which is a title of deity. It speaks of his sovereign rule over all things. In the Gospel of Luke, the title of Lord, up to this point, has been used around a dozen times, always in reference to the God in heaven. And this is the first time it is used in reference to Jesus. Thus point to the fact that Jesus, the Christ, the Savior, is God. He is rightly called Emmanuel, God with us. So this glorious message was that the Savior, who was anointed by God, who was God himself, had come. He had been born. The great shepherd who would gather the lost sheep into his merciful arms had arrived. But notice something else that's amazing about this message. It's to whom the angel is giving it. This savior who is Christ the Lord is born not simply to his parents who no doubt would celebrate his joy, but the angel says, shepherds, he is born unto you, unto you. And here is a revelation that is worthy for a king's ears, but it is now sounding within those of lowly shepherds. Christ the Savior is born, the long-awaited Messiah had finally arrived, the one who was first announced to Eve that would crush the head of Satan, the one whose coming had been foretold by many a prophet, the one who is the anointed, the Christ who is born to die and shed his blood for sinners. Like you shepherds, he's been born to you. This is Emmanuel, God with us, God with you. the very creator clothed in the flesh of his creation. And indeed, the extraordinary gospel is a message of joy for ordinary people. For ordinary people like these shepherds, that's to whom this gospel is directed. As the angel said, this message is for all the people, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the hurting, the sick, the sorrowful, the skeptic and the seeker of truth, the frightened, the destitute, the despised, the wise man and the shepherd. And how then would these shepherds find this heavenly king? I mean, surely if this is the Lord of glory, the Lord of heaven and earth, lowly shepherds like us would not be granted admittance to his presence. Well, the angel tells them, no, you can find him. You can know him. And he gives them a very specific sign on which they are to look for as they entered into the town of Bethlehem. As we see in verse 12, this will be a sign for you. You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Now the swaddling clothes, that's not unusual. That's what babies were wrapped in. But to lie him in a manger, well only the poorest of the poor would have that for their bed as a newborn infant. And what is this? Not a palace? Not a bed of ivory and velvet? A manger? A feeding place for cows? How could it be that God himself, made into a man, would make his bed a feeding trough for animals? And what a picture of humility this is. This is the very beginning of Jesus' sacrifice for sin, as Paul tells us in Philippians 2. He, that is Jesus, being found in human form, he humbled himself. He slept in a feeding trough for animals. Christ Jesus, who was involved in the creation of the world, would allow himself to be held in the arms of one of his creatures. He who knew no sin would call a Hebrew peasant girl who was a sinner his mother. He who created the ground as a toddler would stumble upon it while he's learning to walk. He to whom all creation bows the knee he would take a knee to wash the feet of his disciples. He who spoke trees into existence at the creation of the world would hang bloody and bruised and dying upon one and sacrifice for the sins of his people. he who fashioned the earth with his hands would die and be buried within it. And if the Savior was willing to do that, if he was willing to humble himself that far, surely he will allow humble, ordinary shepherds to come into his presence and know him and worship him. But thanks be to God, it's not just ordinary shepherds that can know him, but it's ordinary people like you and like me. You see, God Almighty has chosen to reveal this extraordinary message of the gospel about his extraordinary son, Jesus Christ, to ordinary people like us sitting here in this room today. He has made known the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus. And so we ask, why though? Why would a holy God wish to reveal himself to sinful, ordinary people like shepherds and like us? Why was Jesus willing to humble himself to the point of being born and laid in a manger? Why was he willing to suffer and shed his blood for sinners to redeem them for their sin? Well, we need to continue with the story to find the answer to that, and we find it within the angel's song. No sooner had this lone angelic messenger appeared when we read that suddenly, without warning, there was with the angel a multitude, or literally a army, of the heavenly host praising God. I mean, the firmament explodes with this innumerable army from heaven as they brightly declare God's praises. And the fields of Bethlehem that day were transformed into the greatest concert hall the world had ever seen. As the peal rings out, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. And there, in that little song, we find why God is willing to reveal his extraordinary truth to ordinary people like us. You see, the extraordinary Savior was born to ordinary people so that God would receive the glory he is due by bringing us into peace with him. As the angelic host cries out, peace on earth, peace between men and God, which we know through Christ, the great reconciler, as we read in Romans 5, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled, brought back to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. The angels sing, of course, of this peace among those whom God is pleased. And God's loving pleasure is his grace towards those whom he saves, those upon whom he moves to offer his holy begotten son for lost sinners. There was no redeeming merit in those shepherds at all. After all, they had a hard time keeping the law. They lived out in the open. They were considered unclean. And there is no redeeming merit in you or I either. In fact, if we try to keep the law, we will fail. Ordinary people can't do it. It's an extraordinary law from our extraordinary God. But in his loving pleasure, he offers to us Christ to be the propitiation for our failure to keep which we could not. He reveals his savior to ordinary people so that he might be glorified as we come to him in peace. So in this little song, the entire gospel is exclaimed in simple yet beautiful language, the highest of glory. belongs to God, for he has brought peace to those in whom he has pleased. His sovereign smile has come in the form of a little baby born to ordinary people, made known to ordinary shepherds. That is extraordinary good news for you and I. Good news that gives us the peace that we so need. peace with our Creator, peace that results in sins forgiven. And that peace that is yours is yours if you, like the shepherds, simply go in faith to see that extraordinary Savior. And when you do, it changes your ordinary life. You see, meeting the extraordinary Savior will make an extraordinary change in your life. No sooner had the magnificent display of praise begun that it ends, the sound of the angelic voices fades away, the light disappears, darkness of night once again comes upon the fields of Bethlehem as the windows of heaven are closed. There's a stillness in the air. And the shepherds, amazed, look at one another in silence, but their faces are beaming. And then in this beautiful expression of faith, they say in verse 15 to one another, let us go. Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And we're told by Luke that they go in haste. They go immediately. They don't delay. They don't even make provision for their sheep. They think about that. They are leaving behind their livelihood, the very thing that allows them to exist and live, the very thing that marks their identity. They're leaving that behind to go and find a savior whom they've never met before, based on the word of this angel. And going in faith, they have their faith rewarded. They find the child. We read in verse 16, they went in haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger, just like God had said. Everything that was promised to them was fulfilled. And they saw it with their own eyes. And then what did they do? Well, Luke tells us that from there, after seeing Christ, after meeting him, they went out and they confessed to others what they had seen and whom they had met. Verse 17, when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And so they went to find the Savior, they saw the Savior, they met him, they knew him, and then they confessed him. They went searching in faith, they saw the fulfillment of the promise of God to them, and they confessed it publicly. See, when we hear this glorious message of the gospel, that is all we need to do, is to go to the Savior, to know Him, and confess Him in faith. And meeting the extraordinary Savior thus transforms the ordinary life so that it is not the same. Because now sin is forgiven. Now there is hope. Now there is peace with God. But this is interesting. What does this transformed life of the shepherds look like? I mean, what did it involve? Did they go ahead and sell off all their sheep and go do some amazing, extraordinary thing for God? No. Luke tells us they didn't go off and do something radical. They simply went back to their sheep. They went back to the life of shepherding, back to doing what God had ordained for them to do. As we read in verse 20, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. So what changed then? Well, what changed is now They were glorifying and praising in God. Now they did not have to live in the darkness of sin. Now the Savior had come. Hope had entered the world. And because of that, their ordinary life was now something rather extraordinary. Not because of what they were doing, but because of for whom they were doing it. They were doing it in praise to the glory of God. You see, Jesus doesn't come to to make the poor wealthy. He didn't come necessarily to make the lame walk or the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Now Jesus does do those things in His earthly ministry. We see that time and time again He heals the sick and He lifts up the fallen. But the purpose of those things was always to confirm his true mission, the mission that the angels sang about, the mission to give glory to God in the highest by bringing peace on earth to those in whom God has been pleased to lavish his grace. And that mission is still going on. In fact, it's happening right now. You see, you, you can have peace with God. Peace that comes from sins forgiven. Peace when you go to Him in faith, looking to Him, the extraordinary Savior, seeing in Him the fulfillment of all God's covenant promises and confessing Him with your mouth what you have heard and what you have seen. And when you know Christ, that ordinary life of yours is anything but ordinary. True, you might just watch over sheep, or crunch data, or count beans, or distribute medications, or change diapers, or fold laundry. It might seem pretty plain and ordinary. But for all believers in Christ Jesus, all of that ordinary is now sacred work. And it is through it that you serve and glorify and worship your God. Not because of what you do is significant, but because of what God has done in your life is. He's made you his child. All our life as believers is a sacred life, not because we made it sacred, but because God made us holy through Christ our Lord, the only begotten son. And so thanks be to God. that as we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating an extraordinary Savior that we as ordinary people, like shepherds, know with our lives. Let us praise God for that gospel, that good news. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that through Christ, through our extraordinary Savior, we might know you, that we might come into your presence in peace, not in fear, but in holy awe to worship you, to praise you, that knowing the simple things we do day in and day out serve you, they serve your purposes as you are working your will in the world. So, Father, help us to go forth and love you and love our neighbors. Help us to embrace this extraordinary savior and confess him to others so that they might also know the great salvation he brings. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.