Our scripture reading this morning is Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2, the first 20 verses. The text for the sermon of the first seven verses of the chapter, I will not reread them. So please pay particular attention to the first seven verses. Luke chapter 2. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto 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, ye 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. 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 is 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. 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. So far we read God's holy word. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior is born in Bethlehem. This message of the angel to the shepherds was startling. The shepherds were common people from the region of Babylon. They were obviously devout men. God had preserved a remnant in unfaithful Israel, God fearing Zacharias and Elizabeth, the widow Anna and Simeon, saints who prayed with great longing for the coming of the promised Messiah. And so these men were of the same. taking care of their sheep in the countryside outside of Bethlehem as they had done many, many nights, unknowing and unsuspecting of the great privilege that God was about to bestow upon them. And suddenly without warning, the darkness and quiet of the night was shattered by the appearance of an angel from heaven An angel sent by God. The darkness was taken away by the light, a dazzling light such as they had never seen before in their lives because it was the radiance of the glory of God that was reflected in the very being of the angel who had been in the presence of God. Brighter than any light they had ever seen, they were understandably alarmed and even terrified. They were, says the Bible, sore afraid. But the message of the angel is glorious. spoken by an excited and joyful messenger from heaven. Fear not, he assured them. I do not come with judgment. I do not come with an evil message. I come with good tidings, good tidings even of great joy, great joy that shall be to you and to all people. What is that message? Verse 11, For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And as the angel concluded his message, he was joined by a multitude of angels from heaven, glorifying God, singing glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. And then they were gone. Immediately the angels forgot about everything of their life filled with the one burning desire. Let us go to Bethlehem and see what has come to pass. And so they went and they found Mary and Joseph and the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, exactly as the angel said they would. It's a beautiful story, very simple story, yet at the same time, unfathomably deep as we read in the Creed of Chalcedon, unfathomably deep. A story well known to us so that from our perspective, it's just natural. This is what happened. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It couldn't be any different. We've learned that since the time we were children and sing about coming to Bethlehem. But in the minds of the shepherds, that message was a bit surprising. The son of David, the one who the angel identified as Lord and Savior is born in Bethlehem. Why Bethlehem? Tiny Bethlehem. It's safe to say that few Israelites were expecting Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. Yes, there is that prophecy in Micah about him being born there. And the leaders of the Jews knew that verse. They could pull it out of Micah 5 too and say, it's Bethlehem. And yet that was a pretty insignificant place, as we will see this morning. The shepherds didn't care if anyone was expecting Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. They heard the message. They went and found the newborn baby. So let us go this morning, too. and examine the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ exactly from that perspective, the Savior born in Bethlehem, the Savior born in Bethlehem. I sent the sermon information out by email. The first point is the humble beginning. Second point, the divine determination. and thirdly, the rich benefits. So the theme, the Savior born in Bethlehem, the humble beginning, the divine determination, and thirdly, the rich benefits. Bethlehem was a rather insignificant little town in Israel. What do we know about Bethlehem? Well, the name doesn't tell us much. The name itself means house of bread. In the Old Testament, it went by the names Ephrath or Ephrata. It was about five or six miles southwest of Jerusalem, which would be a very easy drive for us, but a walking distance of a mile, an hour and a half or two hours. situated near an important road that connected Jerusalem to Hebron, and therefore it was a strategic spot for an army. The Philistines, when they held much of the territory of Israel, put a garrison of soldiers there in Bethlehem to guard that road between Hebron and Jerusalem. The only thing of significance really in the Old Testament other than that is that Boaz and Ruth settled in Bethlehem. And therefore, we know that this was the place where David was born, the place where David raised his father's sheep and where he was anointed king. But after the time of David, the town of Bethlehem settled back into relative obscurity. Yes, of course, there is that Old Testament prophecy, Micah chapter five, verse two, which says, but thou Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." There is that. And yet, even the few people in Israel that would be able to quote that verse, probably very few were expecting that he would actually be born there in little Bethlehem. Why would they? Bethlehem was not the center of anything in Israel. Jerusalem was the center. Jerusalem was the place where David had established as the capital city, where he had built his palace. And Solomon continued that, and all the kings of Judah had their palace in Jerusalem. It was the place where the temple was built. That's where people went up to bring their sacrifices, where they would celebrate the Passover. All of the major feasts were there in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, even in the day that we read here in Luke, was the place where the high priest was and where the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews, met regularly. This was the center of Israel. Bethlehem, by contrast, was a small towns surrounded by farm country and pastures, a place for shepherds and their flocks of sheep and goats. Nonetheless, it was to Bethlehem that Joseph and Mary came. They came on the occasion of the decree of Caesar Augustus, the ruler of the Roman empire a decree we read that all the world should be taxed now actually the purpose of the decree was that the goal was that all the world should be taxed eventually but the actual decree was that everyone within the boundaries of the Roman Empire should plan to be taxed and should register. So this was a giant census or registration of the empire of Rome. Some claim that the Bible is in error here because it says that they came to be taxed, but it's not an error at all because verse two says the taxing itself was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and that's 10 years after Herod the Great died, the Herod who is ruling right now. So the census takes place, the registration is now, and the tax would actually come some years later. But in order to fulfill the decree of Caesar Augustus that everyone be registered, Herod who oversaw the regions of Galilee and Judea said, this is the way we will do it. Everyone must go back to the hometown, to the line of their family. The Jews knew their family lineage. Go back to the place where your fathers came from and registered there. That's how we will know that we're getting everyone registered. And so they did. It's striking, isn't it, that chapter two, which is the account of Jesus' birth, starts out with a decree from a Roman emperor. And that tells you something about the state of affairs in Israel, if you think about it. The glory of Israel was gone. They were not an independent, mighty nation. They were under the control of Rome. And they had not an Israelite, but a foreign king ruling over them. And even the temple was an empty shell from a certain point of view. There was no ark there in the temple. So that it shows you something about the glory having departed from Israel. Nonetheless, in obedience to the decrees of the ruler, Joseph and Mary picked up from their place in Galilee and went to Bethlehem, apparently intending not only to register there, but to move there and to live there. The journey from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem was some 70 miles. And again, we can drive that on an expressway in an hour, but they're walking. And it was a very difficult journey. And Mary was very close to her delivery date. We read that in verse five, that she was great with child. And when they arrived in Bethlehem, they found no place where they could spend the night. However many inns there were, probably not very many, but they went from one to the next and there was no room. And then to private homes, would you put us up for the night? But everywhere they went, the same message was, no, we have no room for you. And they finally decided to stay in a stable perhaps in a cave even outside of Bethlehem. And there in those humble surroundings, Jesus was born. Because we read in verse six, and so it was, 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 end. Surely you would all agree this is a most humble beginning and a lowly birth. Children of all the people that you know, all your friends, your acquaintances, anybody in your family, was anybody ever born like this? If we would read about this in the paper about a woman and a man who had no place to stay, but they went finally into a barn and there the woman gave birth and they wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes. And those were simply strips of cloth that you could wrap around a baby like leftover material. They were like rags that she wrapped her baby in. You would say, Those people are really poor. What a way to enter into the world. Born in extreme poverty in a small insignificant town where there was no room in the end. And even that was somewhat symbolic, isn't it? A symbol of the fact that there isn't any desire for Christ naturally. There isn't any room in people's lives or hearts for him, but the extreme poverty. Joseph and Mary did not have money to buy cute little outfits for their baby. They had no decorated nursery with matching crib and dresser. After the baby was born, they wrapped him in those rags and laid him upon some straw in a manger. Jesus, the Savior, was born there. Let's talk about that for a moment. He was born. God was born in that stable. The eternal Son of God, the one who is eternally one with the Father and with the Spirit, co-essential, co-eternal, The one who is the word of God, by whom and for whom all things were made, in whom is in fact all glory, all power, all wisdom and knowledge. He was born as any one of us, as all of us born into this world. No ordinary child this babe of Bethlehem, he was Emmanuel, God with us. Called in the Bible, in the Old Testament, wonderful, it is a miracle, counselor, mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But nothing of that could be seen with the natural eye. If you had gone to Bethlehem and followed the shepherd's trail and found Joseph and Mary and Jesus there in that stable, what would you have seen? You would have seen a carpenter and his young wife and maybe a little bit of possessions there and a newborn baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. That's all you would see. God came into the flesh in that way to dwell on the earth. No flash of glory, not even the glory that the shepherds had seen when the angels came from heaven and the glory of God was radiating around them before the very presence of the shepherds. None of that when they went to the cattle stall. The son of God was born. in the likeness of human flesh, looked like any other baby. No halo, no bright glow, just a baby. There is no humbling or lowering like unto this. God came into this world born as anyone else is, born of a woman, The infinite power and the glory of the divine nature hidden underneath his humanity. Voluntarily so. All his glory and power hidden underneath his humanity. In insignificant Bethlehem, in a stable in deepest poverty. Humble beginnings indeed. Now, does it surprise you? It does not. But we notice secondly, that this is God's determination. He determined all of these things. On the surface, when one reads this passage, he might not be so conscious of that and detect the hand of God in all these things. You can find natural answers to the question, why was Jesus born in Bethlehem in a cattle stall that reasons can be easily cited? Well, because It just so happened that Caesar Augustus issued this decree that all the world should be taxed and registered. And Herod said, the people from Galilee and Judea, go back to your hometown, the town where your fathers came from. And Joseph was from the line of David, not the royal line, probably, but the line of David. And so they went to Bethlehem, and when they arrived, to nobody's surprise, many people had come back to Jerusalem, Bethlehem rather. Many people had their roots there, and so the town is overflowing with guests. There is no room anywhere for them to find a place to sleep. And so they found this place out there. At least they have some shelter through the night out in this cattle stall, and the rigors of the journey, 70 miles after all of a pregnant woman finally getting here, it brings on the labor pains and she has a baby. So it's all understandable. But look again with the eyes of faith and acknowledge that the Lord God rules. He is sovereign over all the affairs of men. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turneth it whithersoever he will, like a rivers of water. Even the purposes and intents of the heart, God controls and the emperor was under God's sovereign control and determination. God set Caesar Augustus in power, gave him a measure of peace. and power in his empire brought it about that the economic demands of the empire made him convince Caesar Augustus that he needed more money. He wasn't conquering lands and bringing in their treasures. So how are we going to get more money to run the empire? Well, we need to tax everyone, change the policy in Rome and everyone will need to be taxed. And God put it into the mind of Herod that the best way to accomplish the registration was by having everyone go back to their hometown. And in addition, God caused that all of this thing, this registration took place not last month or next week, but on this day, this week. All these things were determined by God. who had before spoken by the mouth of the prophet that yes, it would be in Bethlehem that the Messiah would come forth out of Bethlehem. If we look farther than the fact that there was no room in the end, the fact that Joseph and Mary were so poor as is so obvious from this birth, all of that too is absolutely controlled by God. So why? Why did God bring it about that he is born of Joseph and Mary, dirt poor parents in a cattle stall in little Bethlehem? Why? Well, first of all, I call attention to two things in answer to that question, why? Why does God determine this? And the first is to underscore the significance that Jesus was from the line of David, the king. God had made this plan this plain centuries before. Already Jacob from his deathbed, prophesying about his 12 sons, said of Judah, from you will come Shiloh and a scepter, a scepter, a ruler will come out of Judah. Wicked Balaam, Spoke of this when he said God has not foreseen not seen evil in Israel Why not because the shout of a king is among them There's a king in Israel coming forth who will cover their sins so God doesn't see their iniquity Balaam's prophecy Isaiah prophesied for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government is shall be upon his shoulders. And then all the promises to David. That upon that from your seed. There will come a king who will ever sit upon the throne. 1 Corinthians chapter 17. Verses 11 and following. This is what God promised David. 1 Corinthians, 1 Chronicles 17, verse 11. And it shall come to pass when thy days be expired, that thou must go to be with thy fathers. I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will establish his kingdom, and he shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever. And I will be his father, and he shall be my son. And I will not take my mercy away from him as I took it from him that was before thee, but I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom forever. And his throne shall be established forevermore. David understood the significance of that. This is the Messiah. And so David sat before the Lord and said, who am I? O Lord God, and what is mine house that thou hast brought me hither to? And after he talks for a while to the Lord, then he concludes, now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may be before thee forever. And then in fulfillment of that, Think of the words of the angel to Mary when he announced that she would be the mother of this child. He shall be great. This is Luke 1, 32. He shall be great, shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father, David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there shall be no end. So God made it known very clearly the Messiah will come from Judah from David will be king. He will be king. And now to highlight that, to highlight that he has Jesus born in Bethlehem, the city of David, the city of David. That's the significance of the angel's message to the shepherd. In the city of David, that's where he's born, that city, because he is the son of David, the promised Messiah. He had to be born there. No other place would be fitting, but in David's city. But is there more significance to this? The place is Bethlehem, but why the lowliness of Bethlehem and all of the circumstances? Why not Jerusalem? Jerusalem was called the city of David also. That's the city of the king. Why not there? Christ could not be, according to God's plan, born in Jerusalem, not the center of the religious life, not the center of the spiritual life, which was at this time so corrupt, so corrupt. Christ is as different from the established religion and religious leaders in Jerusalem as Bethlehem is different from Jerusalem. There's a deliberate contrast that God is making. Christ was humble. The leaders of the Jews were proud. He obeyed his father to the last element of God's will. They twisted God's law to be able to do what they wanted. He came forth to serve others. They looked for power so that people could serve them. Christ was righteous. They were wicked. He denied himself. They promoted their own works. He was as a son in the house of God. They were cruel masters in God's inheritance. The contrast. is tremendous. And so the whole birth of Jesus and the lowliness of it was deliberate. Bethlehem in a stable wrapped in rags, lowly, lowly, lowly. That's the point. Not Because God wants to give an example to someone who is poor and born in some horrible straits who can rise up above it and pick himself up by his bootstraps. And he can now become someone famous and his teaching becomes something followed by millions of people. That at best is what Jesus is for the world. But the humble beginning rather points to something very different. It points to his life. It points to his purpose for coming into the world to begin with. He came not into the world seeking the honor of men. He did not covet their gold and silver. He did not look for a comfortable home and a nice vineyard and a good name among his neighbors. No, he was born poor. He lived that way his entire life. He was not seeking comfort or wealth or power, not earthly power. He was a humble, obedient service. No matter what other people said about him or to him, he didn't revile. He didn't answer in kind. His purpose was not his own glory. His purpose was the glory of God. That's the only thing he had in mind every single day of his life. You understand then, his birth in these lowly circumstances was the first step of Jesus' humiliation. In the Heidelberg Catechism class, we just started that. The five steps of Christ's humiliation. This is step one. Lowly birth. The father's will was that his son die, that his son offer himself the perfect obedient sacrifice for all of those given to him of the father. And he would come in that way, the way of loneliness be rejected by all and be crucified. Jesus had a path to walk the path that led through suffering, the path that led to the cross. And that path started in lowly Bethlehem. Born king, yes, he was born king, but coming into his kingdom in the way of humiliation. Zechariah said that. Behold, your king cometh. Oh, but he's meek. He's lowly. He's riding on a donkey on the colt of a donkey. That's how he's coming riding to you, meek, lowly. So when we look with the eyes of faith at his humble beginnings, we begin to understand Bethlehem, poverty, the symbolic rejection, no room, no room. And then we see his life, a life of suffering, a life of poverty, a life of rejection, and we see the cross. It all follows out of his birth in Bethlehem. But exactly therein lies the rich benefits that we consider in the third point. Rich benefits. And the rich benefits, first of all, are for Christ himself, for Jesus. We know that Jesus, born in Bethlehem, is our Lord and Savior, that he is actually sitting right now at the right hand of God, exalted above everything, the pinnacle of glory and power and might. And that's connected to his humiliation. It is exactly because he humbled himself as a servant even unto death, therefore God raised him up and exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name. Christ is Lord of lords. He's King of kings. Salvation has been accomplished by Jesus Christ. He did not die a martyr for the cause. But his death is that of a humble and obedient servant that accomplished everything God gave him to do, paid for every last sin of his people, accomplished their salvation. He did. It's finished. A glorious work resulting in this. God approved of his work and raised him from the dead and brought him to heaven and exalted him there and set him down at his own right hand. There's a connection between the lowliness of Christ and the exaltation of Christ. The Bible makes that plain. This is what God planned too. Lowliness. That's why the prophet Isaiah, who spoke about a child being born and the government being upon his shoulders, also said in Isaiah 53, he's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is despised and rejected of men. But what if Jesus had been born instead in a palace in Jerusalem, wrapped in purple robes of royalty, with a silver spoon in his mouth, given riches and land and fame and earthly power, There's no lowering in that. There's no humiliation in that. He would not be exalted right now. As got by God to his position of power and glory. God's way is exaltation in the way of humiliation. That's the standard God sets forth in his Bible. I will lift up those who humble themselves. I will bring down those who exalt themselves. Those who are humbled, God lifts up. Jesus humbled himself deeper than anyone ever, ever could voluntarily. going to hell. That's the deepest humiliation. That's the fifth step of his humiliation that we learn in catechism. And out of that comes the exaltation. Jesus is exalted. He humbled himself to the depths of hell. He is Lord born in Bethlehem. We know that we confess him as Lord and Savior, but we know the day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So the lowliness of Jesus, the humiliation of Jesus, according to his human nature, would mean God would raise him up to. The height of glory. rich benefits, rich benefits for him, but also for all those who are in Jesus Christ for us. Christ by his poverty and rejection made us rich and to be lifted up and acceptable to God. He was poor, Jesus was, he was lowly, he was afflicted, but not merely in earthly terms, that's true, but that's in a sense of picture. He was lowly and rejected because he took our guilt upon him. Because he was condemned as a criminal, he had no rights. He was guilty. With our guilt, he became poor. For our sake, he was rejected, not by men merely, but by God himself. God poured out his wrath on him. Jesus, under the pit of that terrible wrath, cried out, Lord God, my father, why hast thou forsaken me? Why forsaken? But he did that, that we might be rich, that we might be rich. Not with earthly riches, not honor, not prestige in this world. In fact, those who confess truly the babe of Bethlehem to be their Lord, they often walk in his footsteps of poverty. They're not seeking the wealth of this world. That's not their interest. It may not be. And their confession results in their being rejected and humiliated by the world and often deprivation, poverty. Our life is not normal for the child of God to have the comfort and the wealth that we have. But that's not what Jesus' intent is. That's not why he went to the cross, so that we could have nice houses and nice clothes. He went there to make us rich with eternal and spiritual riches, far beyond anything this world has to offer. He gives us the robes of righteousness. He makes us prophets, priests, and kings. He gives us eternal life. because we have the righteousness, eternal righteousness of Christ. God adopts us as his children. He welcomes us into his house of many mansions when we die and we live there with God in covenant fellowship forever. That's what Jesus has given. We will at last inherit then the glory of heaven, true riches that can never be lost, that will never fade from this Christ. born in Bethlehem. This is certain. His gift is effectual. This is not a Christ born in lowly Bethlehem who went to the cross in hopes of saving some people. And now He comes with an offer and says, here it is if you want it. Won't you please take what I'm offering you? That's not what He did. He became poor to make us rich. And He does. He effectually accomplished it on the cross, and He continues to give us the blessings of the cross daily. That's our salvation. It's absolutely certain. And for this, this morning, we bow and give thanks. That's why we are here. That's what our joy is this morning. We kneel at the manger of Bethlehem, that lowly, lowly birth, poverty stricken, wondering at the love of a Savior who would stoop to such poverty. We acknowledge that He is King of all, King of kings and Lord of lords. Indeed, we confess the truth that our Savior was born in Bethlehem. Amen. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy goodness to us, for the glorious salvation we have in Jesus, who is willing to humble Himself even to the depths of hell itself. in order to lift us up with him into the glory of heaven. We rejoice in thy amazing work and pray that that may be what is the center of our life, our mind, our thoughts today and every day. We pray this for Jesus' sake, amen. We sing 89D. It was appropriately picked for our pre-service Singspiration because it speaks of God and his son. We will sing the stanzas one, two, five, six, and 10. One, two, five, six, and 10. In vision to his face I'll see, from out the view of what I see. to sing. Let our hearts be filled with the joy of the Lord. ♪ The Lord my Father, he shall ride ♪ ♪ My God, my God, the refuse I ♪ ♪ Thy firstborn Son shall lead me on ♪ above the rings of earth and home. For there, my God, This proud and grace I will maintain Forever while the lands we leave Forever while the lands we leave remain. T'was thee, O Lord, forevermore, whose promise stands the face of all. His word is faithful, thou hast said. Thus be his name, amen, amen. Thus be his name, amen, amen. Alleluia. Alleluia. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.