Before we read, though, let's
pray. Dear Father, we thank you for your Word. We know that your
Word is true, and all that you say in it is about our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, and what He came to do to save His people
from their sins. Thank you, Lord, that you have
sent your Son into the world. Thank you that by Him alone we
are saved from our sins. And we ask, Lord, that you would
take your word this morning and make it enter into our hearts
so that it would burn in our hearts and we would realize that
it's your word and it's the truth, truth we must believe. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen. In Luke chapter 2, It says in verse 1, "...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, every one to his own city. And Joseph also went
up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth to Judea unto the
city of David." which is called Bethlehem because he was of the
house and lineage of David. So Judah was a descendant of
David and so was Mary his wife. He went up 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." Do you realize that the one here
they're speaking about is the Lord Jesus? He's the one who
was born to Mary. When he was born, she didn't
have anything really to take care of him. So she had to tear
cloth strips and wrap him in it. There was no place. They
couldn't stay in an inn, which was a place where they had beds. So they had to stay out with
the animals in the manger. In verse 8, And there were in
the same country shepherds abiding in the field. Shepherds had to
stay out in the field because that's where the sheep were.
They had to watch over them. Keeping watch over their flock
by night and low, the angel of the Lord came upon them. This
is the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is never
going to tell a lie. He says, And the glory of the
Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. The
shepherds were afraid because of the light and because of the
angel. And the angel said to 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 to 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
and goodwill toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels
were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to
one another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known
to 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 these 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 they had
seen, heard and seen, as it was told to them. And when eight
days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his
name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before
he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her purification
according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought
him, the baby, Jesus, to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord, as
it is written in the law of Moses, every male that openeth the womb
shall be called holy to the Lord. And they brought him also to
offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law
of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. And behold,
there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the
same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation,
that means the comfort of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was upon him.
And it was revealed to Simeon by the Holy Ghost that he should
not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came
by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought
in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law,
then Simeon took him up, took up Jesus as a baby in his arms,
and he blessed God, and he said, Lord, now let thy servant depart
in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. which thou hast prepared before
the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of thy people Israel.' And Joseph and his mother marveled
at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them,
and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for
the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign
which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through
thine own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed. And then there was one Anna,
a prophetess, the daughter of Phenuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and she
lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, and she was
a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not
from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night
and day. And she, coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise
to the Lord, and spake of Him to all of them that looked for
redemption in Jerusalem." Alright. Now I've read a lot of scripture
to you. I want you to hear from God's Word because these are
God's words. And they speak about the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They talk about the angels that they announced His birth. Talk
about Mary and Joseph there with the animals and Jesus wrapped
in swaddling clothes laying in a manger. Talk about how Simeon,
this old man, had been shown that he would not die until he
had seen the Lord's Christ. And so when he saw Jesus as a
baby, he took him up in his arms and said, Lord, now let me depart
in peace, for mine eyes have seen your salvation. And then
Anna, this prophetess, this woman who was a prophet, she spoke
of him to all those who looked for redemption in Israel. So
I've entitled this sermon today, A Bear, A Lion, A Giant, and
a savior, a savior. That's what Christmas is about.
It's about a savior. But until we have some sense
of the danger that we're in, then it all really doesn't make
much sense to us, does it? Now, it turns out that both in
God's Word and in our experience, we learn a couple of things about
ourselves. The first thing we learn is that
the hardest thing it is in the world to do is to convince someone,
especially when we speak of ourselves personally, to be convinced that
we are sinners and that we have sinned against God. That's the
hardest thing in the world to be convinced of. And the next
thing that's very hard to be convinced of, we can't convince
ourselves of this, God has to do it, is that God's law is given
to us and requires obedience of us and demands punishment
against us for breaking God's law, but God's law can never
make us right before God. All that God requires only serves
to do one thing, to show us that we are sinners and helpless. And the hardest thing to learn
is that God's law, even though it requires from us and demands
punishment of us for our disobedience, yet we cannot do one thing that
God's law requires. That's the second thing. That
God's law can't help us. All that God tells us to do,
we're unable to do it because we're sinners. First, we're sinners. Second, we cannot help ourselves.
And then the third thing is that it's impossible to learn this
unless God teach it to us, is to abandon all confidence in
ourselves to bring to God something from ourselves by which He can
accept us. That we can make ourselves acceptable
to God. That's the hardest thing in the
world. We do everything in our life to make ourselves pleasing
to others by what we do, and we think God is also pleased
by what we do. And so we think, if we can just
do certain things, we can make ourselves pleasing to God. Now,
all of Scripture is written, first of all, to teach us that
we're sinful, and we're helpless to do one thing to please God,
because we're sinners. In fact, in the Old Testament,
if you look at all of the Old Testament, there's two things
that you will see over and over and over and over and over again
in the Old Testament. The first one is this. Sacrifices. All the time, every day, every
year, all the years around, sacrifices were offered in the Old Testament.
Sacrifices for what? Sin. For sin. So sin is a big,
big problem. Because all of the Old Testament
is filled with sacrifices about sin. Because of sin. And you
know the other big thing in the Old Testament that you see over
and over and over again is the enemies of God's people are always
fighting against them. And the people of God seem to
have no strength against their enemies because of their sin. And so God uses all of scripture
to teach us that we're sinners. That God's law requires of us
what we can't produce in our obedience. And we can't pay God
for our sins. Our own suffering cannot pay
God back for our sins. And we're utterly helpless. Like
the Israelites were helpless against the Philistines. The
Israelites could do nothing to fight against this man named
Goliath. There wasn't one man in Israel
who could fight against Goliath. Not one. The people couldn't
even find a man. All of the armies of Israel were
afraid before this man. Even the king of Israel was afraid. And this man was huge. There
was never anyone mentioned bigger than this man. He had armor all
over his body. His head was covered with a helmet.
There was no way you could find a way to beat this man. He's
huge. He's got a huge weapon. And everyone
is afraid of him. And worse, he comes out and he
challenges God and God's people. Boasting in his own strength
against God and God's people. You know what? There was no one
who could beat this man. No one who could find anyone
to beat him. The people were helpless before
this giant. What did they need? What did
the people need? What did God need? What was it that God would
have to do for the people? He would have to send them a
Savior. a Savior. The enemies of God's
people and the sins of God's people, those were the things
that were bringing them to death. You see, it's because of our
sin that we face certain death at God's hand. There's one thing
that's true of all of us, of you and me. Everyone in this
room and in this world, we're not going to escape this life
without dying. And that's just our physical
death. We can accumulate knowledge from science. We can take medicine. We can eat good food. We can
exercise. And you know what? Every year
we look in the mirror and we're just getting older. And even
though we might be able to get stronger through exercises, over
time, when you pass about 50 or 60 or something like that,
it doesn't matter what you do. You're still going to get weaker.
Your body doesn't feel good because you're going to die. Because
of what? The wages of sin is death. Our body is dead because of sin. Romans chapter 8 says, our body
is dead because of sin. and the wages of sin is death."
In fact, there's a verse in Romans 521 that says, sin has reigned
like a king reigns. He rules. Sin has reigned unto
death. It's a bad king. Because this
king is called sin. And the rule of sin in us, and
around us, leads us to one thing. Death. All of sin's servants
go to death. That's what the scriptures say.
The wages of sin is death. And sin reigned unto death. And we're sinners, aren't we?
There's not one of us that's not a sinner. And yet it takes
God's own persuasion to convince us that we've sinned against
God. And all that God requires of
us, there's nothing we can do. And all of scripture was written
to show us, just like the children of Israel, these people who were
terrified because of Goliath. And it could do nothing about
it. It was written to show us that God has found, and God has
chosen, and God has appointed and anointed a Savior. One who
would be able to go and fight against our enemy sin, and death,
and Satan, and all of our enemies, our spiritual enemies. And God
tells us in the Old Testament those two things. Sacrifices
for sin and our enemies. Because those two things are
what keep us from God. Which hold us under sin like
a king holding us under its rule and leading us to death. But
here, in Luke chapter 2, what we read is that there was one
who was born in the city of David, whose parents, Mary, was his
mother. He was born to Mary. She was
of the household of David. And Joseph, who was about to
be married to Mary, was also descended from David. And guess
what? Jesus, when he was born, was
born as a son of David. Well, who was David? David was
the one God chose. David was the one God anointed.
David was the one that God had found who could destroy the enemy
of his people. Remember, Goliath said, give
me one man and we'll fight. And whoever wins that fight,
that one can rule over the whole army. And the Lord found one
man, the son of David. And he said, I found a Savior. I found a Savior. But the Savior,
even David said when he was speaking about Goliath and promising,
I'm going to kill you. I'm going to cut your head off.
And I'm going to give all the armies to the birds of the air
to eat you up. because you've defied God, you've
defied the Lord, and the Lord's going to... He says this, David
said, the battle is the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's. How could David small young man
go out and beat a man who's 10 feet tall or so covered with
armor and has a man with a shield running before him how could
this man do this how could David do this only one way if the Lord
fought for David that's the only way the battle David said is
the Lord's so in order for God to save us from our enemy sin
and Satan and deliver us from our enemy, he had to himself
be the Lord. The angel said that. He says
this in verse 11, "...for unto you is born this day in the city
of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." If the Lord comes
to fight the battle, that means something, doesn't it? If you
saw a really a really big plane, let's say,
you would think the reason they made a really big plane was to
carry something really big, right? Or if you saw a really big pillar
to hold up something strong, like a bridge, you would think,
if there's a really big pillar there, there must be a really
big bridge for that pillar to hold up. Well, God found a Savior,
and that Savior is the Lord, the Son of God. You know that
if God had to find himself to be the Savior, that the problem
had to be huge, right? It had to be so big that only
God could do it. Only God could defeat our enemy,
sin. And so God found a Savior. And that Savior was His Son.
And He's the Lord of glory. He's the Lord of heaven. He's
the Lord of all. And He sent His Son into the
world to be a Savior. To be a Savior. Now when the
Lord came, it says here, He was born as a baby. Because even
though He was the Lord, He could do anything. But He couldn't
do what we needed most to be done, which was to have our sin
taken away. How could the Lord take away
our sin? Could He just say, I'm just going
to wipe it away. They sinned against me. I'm just
going to wipe it away like it didn't happen. Could God do that?
No, because God can't do anything wrong. God can't just act like
it never happened. If a man, let's say a man goes
out here and he shoots somebody and commits a crime. If we just
let him go and say, oh, you know, I know you killed that person
and I would really like to punish you for it, but we're just going
to let you go. Would that be good, or would
that be bad? That would be bad, wouldn't it?
Because you just let this murderer go. What's he going to do next?
He'll probably go out and shoot someone else. Besides the fact
that he just killed that person, that person didn't deserve to
die. So when sin is committed, God has to punish sin. How could
God take away sin? How could the Lord be our Savior
from our sins, our enemy? He Himself had to come and become
a man, and as a man, bear our sins as His own, in His own body,
and bear the shame and guilt of them before God, and the punishment
for them too. Not only that, but since we couldn't
keep the law, He had to actually keep the law perfectly. And that's
what our Savior did. But when he came, he was born
as a baby in order that, as a man, he could grow up and bear our
sins and suffer for them too. And deliver us from our enemy,
our sin, and from Satan. And so when Simeon, this old
man, saw the Lord Jesus, he picks him up like a little baby. He
was a baby. And he looks upon him as a baby
and he says, This is your salvation, Lord! This is my salvation because
it's your salvation. You've provided him. You've given
him, your only son, in order to be a savior. And since you
found him to be a savior, then he's my savior too. If you've
provided him, he must be strong enough. The Lord is not going
to send anyone out to fight Goliath, is he? Do you think God would
send someone out to fight Goliath who's going to lose the battle?
Do you think he's going to let his champion lose the battle? No, because the enemy already
stuck his fist in God's face and demanded God to fight against
him as if he could beat God in all of his armies. He's not going
to do that. God's not going to let this enemy
of God's people go away. Because if he does, it brings
shame on God. It shows God to be weaker than a man. No, God
found a man that could beat Goliath. But Goliath came in all of his
strength, in his armor, and his spear, and his shield man. But
David came with nothing, except the staff of a shepherd, and
the sling, and the stones. David came in what looked to
be the greatest weakness, just a little boy. But Goliath came
in all the strength. Remember what God told Samuel?
God looks at the heart. Not the outward appearance, but
at the heart. Men look at the outward appearance. So when Jesus
came and he was born, Simeon takes up this little baby. He
couldn't do anything, could he? Ah, but he's the Lord's, and
the battle is the Lord's. He's going to grow up, he's going
to become a man, and he's going to bear the sins of God's people
as his own, and he's going to defeat them. He's going to defeat
Satan who tempted our parents and brought us into sin. Who
wants God to destroy us with His wrath. Who causes us to be
deceived to think that our sin is not against God. So we'll
go on sinning and not come to Him. And not plead for mercy
and call upon Him to save us and leave us in deception. But
God sent a Savior. His name is Jesus. He's the Son
of David. He was born as a baby. And when
the thief on the cross, if you remember that account where this
thief was on the cross hanging next to Jesus, and looked at
Jesus on the cross, and he saw Him bloody and apparently helpless
and weak, and all the people, the entire world, In that place,
we're saying He can't be the Christ of God. He can't do anything.
Look, He's nailed to the cross. He's weak and helpless. The thief
on the cross said, Lord, You're the Lord. Remember me when You
come into Your kingdom. Now, when the Lord sent His Son
into the world, and Simeon held Him in his arm as a baby, he
looked at Him and said, This is your salvation. One day you're
going to deliver all your people as one man against the enemy
from all their sins. When God told Mary what to name
her son, the angel said to Mary, call him Jesus. for he shall
save his people from their sins." Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. He's the Lord who saves. And
so when Simeon held Jesus in his arms and said, this is thy
salvation, Lord, he was talking about the Savior. And when Anna
The prophetess here spoke of Him to all those who were in
that place then, who looked for redemption. They're saying, He
is the Redeemer. He's going to pay the ransom
price to set free God's people from the prison they deserve,
from the debt they owe, and from the enemy that's stronger than
them. He's going to deliver them from their sins. And so that's
who the Lord Jesus is. That's why the angel said, look,
I'm bringing you glad tidings of good things. For unto us is
born this day in the city of David a Savior. a savior who
could defeat the lion, the bear, the giant of my sin, of Satan,
of the world and all of his philosophies, the devil and all of his deceptions,
even death itself, and free his people from sin, from death,
and from all things that held them under the wrath of God.
Even make satisfaction to God himself so that God would justify
them. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. He's the Lord from
heaven. He's the one who took our sins
and bore them as his own, bearing the shame that we, should have
bore, that we actually bore ourselves, but couldn't bear the punishment
for it. He bore it all. He took it all away. He answered
God's law. He satisfied God's justice, and
He took away God's wrath against His people. Lord, we pray that
we would see Him, and look upon Him, and watch Him, and see that
He has actually won the fight, and we would put our trust in
Him as our only Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.