by this juncture, you've probably
figured out that the message is going to be brought upon the
birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you're right. If you would,
open your Bibles back to Luke chapter 2. I thought, maybe I was hesitant
to preach on this particular subject at this time of I don't
want to be identified with modern religion, who's made an idol
out of December the 25th. It mostly gives them a platform
to act and to play and not worship. But we ought not let the world
rob us of this blessing. Let me say this about Christmas. I'm a big fan of Christmas. I'm
not a religious scrooge whatsoever. Truly, it is the most wonderful
time of the year for families to be together. People out in
the world seem to be a little bit more kind to one another,
and I love Christmas. But it has absolutely no religious
significance whatsoever. As a matter of fact, in Scripture,
we're not told to celebrate the birth of Christ. We're told to
celebrate His death, remember His death in the Lord's table.
This do you in remembrance of me. We're told to celebrate his
resurrection. This is why we meet on Sunday,
the first day of the week. This is the day our Lord rose.
Yet, his birth is still mighty good news, isn't it? It's very
good news. Now, I'll beat the Christmas rush, and if you hear
things through this holiday season, you remember some of these things
about Christmas Day and so forth. This is what I know. The Lord
Jesus was not born on December the 25th. It was some other calendar
day other than the 25th. I don't know which one, but I
know it wasn't the 25th. I did some reading on this subject.
John Gill, who tends to be my theologian, I consult, says that
the Lord was born in October. Matthew Henry says it was summertime.
I read other men of some renown who say he was born in the spring.
Others say it was early December. You know what that tells me?
Nobody knows when Christ was born. Just like nobody knows
the day of His return, nobody knows the day of His birth. And
whatever the date, the date of His birth is immaterial. Totally
immaterial. Our salvation depends on who
was born. Just like we're looking for who
is coming back. I don't care when He comes back.
I'm looking for who is coming back, not when. And whatever
the date, the Lord Jesus was born in the fullness of time,
scripture says, at the exact moment decreed from all of eternity.
And that's all we need to know about the time. The time does
not matter. Now, what brought this message to my mind and heart,
the song Leah just sung, Oh Holy Night, is one of Janet's favorites.
And I heard it on the radio the other day and kind of brought
it to my mind. And there's a line in that psalm
she loves so well. She preached a whole message
about this to me one time in our kitchen. We reversed roles.
Normally, I preached to her in our kitchen about the weary world
rejoices. The weary world rejoices. The songwriter said, long lay
the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul
felt its worth. a thrill of hope. The weary world
rejoices. Now we live in a weary world.
Is anybody here this morning weary? I mean so weary. Weary of your sin. Weary of what
you are by nature. Weary of the trappings of this
world. Are you weary? Well, if you are,
I hope the Lord will enable you to leave here this morning rejoicing
in Christ our Savior. Does anyone here feel hopeless? Just utterly hopeless? I don't
think there's anything so sad as a person that's hopeless.
That has no hope for the future. That has no hope. Things are
going to get better than your present circumstances. That's
very sad to me. Was anyone here hopeless? Just helpless and hopeless without
God in this world? If you are, I pray that the Lord
will let you leave here this morning thrilled with the sight
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I've heard it said by men I respect
a great deal that the birth of Christ is the greatest miracle
the world has ever known. that God became a man. Think of that. The ancient of
days became a babe of days. Imagine that. The ancient of
days became an embryo in the virgin's womb. That's a miracle. Without controversy, the Apostle
Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest
in the flesh. That's what happened at his birth.
The miracle of the birth of Christ can only be rivaled by the death
of Christ. That God died? God became a man
and then God died? What a miracle! And the news
that Christ is born is only surpassed by the news of His resurrection. He rose again for our justification. So let's look at these verses
and see if the Lord will give us a thrill at the sight of Him.
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, everyone into his own city. And Joseph
also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into
Judea under 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." Now this tax is
not actually a tax that was being levied at this time. It was actually
a census. The Caesar wanted the name of
every person in the Roman Empire, kind of as a pride thing. He
wanted them all written down to see how great of people he
ruled over. But then he was going to use
this census later on as a tax. And they intended to do this
27 years prior to when they really did it. That was their intention.
You know, they had it all planned out 27 years ago they were going
to do this. And shockingly, trouble suddenly
arose in the empire and they had to deal with that trouble
and could not do this census until 27 years later at the exact
moment that Mary was ready to give birth. I told you in our
Bible lesson, God's purpose is going to be accomplished at the
exact moment of his decree. And God arranged that trouble
to come up in the Roman Empire so that the world would be counted
and come to their hometowns at this moment, when this girl named
Mary, nobody ever heard of before, would be brought to Bethlehem
at the end of her pregnancy. Otherwise, they never would have
traveled that late in her pregnancy. How foolish to put this woman
nine months pregnant on a donkey and go all this way, you know.
But they did it because this was the decree of Caesar. And
really, it was the decree of Almighty God, wasn't it? His
purpose never fails. Prophecy told us Christ, the
Messiah, will be born in Bethlehem in the house of bread. And God
brought his eternal purpose to pass. so that the bread of life
would be born in that city, the house of bread. The king of kings
is going to be born in the city of King David. That's why all
this happened. Now verse 6, and it was so 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. Now in the fullness
of time, When all the days of human history were accomplished,
Mary brought forth her firstborn son. She brought forth God's
only begotten son. And she wrapped God's son in
rags that they tore in strips to wrap him in swaddling clothes. And she laid God's son in a manger
because they didn't have a cradle. They laid God's son in a cattle
trough, a place where you feed livestock. This is the Lord of
glory, born in a barn and laid in a horse trough because there
was no room for them in the inn. All the travelers, you know,
there was no vacancy and Mary Joseph probably could not have
afforded the room anyway. And that would cause most people
to stumble at the low conditions of his birth. But to the believer,
this is very precious to us. The humble condition of our Lord's
birth shows us the amazing condescending grace of our Savior. He made
Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor, that you through His poverty might be made rich.
He was born in this lowest day to show us the people He came
to save. And we can't begin to fathom the humiliation that God's
Son suffered to become a man in order to save us from our
sins. He willingly endured these things. You think of the humiliation
that it took for God's Son to become an embryo in the womb
of one of His sinful creatures. But He did it. It continued in
His birth, the low conditions of His birth. It continued up,
him growing up as a poor middle class person, I suppose, you
know, in Joseph's carpentry shop. It continued throughout his ministry.
Nobody would hear him. The son of man had no place to
lay his head. And continued in his death, how he was the humiliation
he suffered in his death. He suffered those things to save
his people from their sins. Our Lord did not choose a wealthy
woman to be his mother. He chose a poor maiden whose
lineage had just become nothing, just a dry twig is all her lineage
was. And really, it would have been
amazing condescension if our Lord would have been born to
a princess in the house of a palace, because that earthly king's palace
would have been a mud hut compared to the glory that God's son came
from. But he didn't even do that. He
went further down than that. He took upon him the form of
a servant. He chose this poor maiden to
be the mother of his son. You know, we should never despise
the poor and homeless. Because that's who our Lord Jesus
was. Poor and homeless. He had no place to lay his head.
And this is the people that he came to save. The spiritually
poor. Bankrupt. Destitute. who so poor
they cannot help themselves. That's why the appearance of
our Lord Jesus Christ is such a thrill to the hopeless. He's
a thrill of hope. All of our hope is in Him, and
this One who was born this day. In verse 8 we read, 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 shown around about them,
and they were so afraid. Now can you imagine how afraid
these men were? It's difficult for us to understand
how dark it was at this time. None of us have ever known a
time without artificial light and so forth. When you go to
a baseball game, you know, at night, I remember the first baseball
game my dad ever took me to was a night game. We got there, it
was still daylight. And late in the game, I was shocked
to look up at the night sky and see it was dark. Because those
lights made that feel just as bright as day. They'd never seen
anything like this. They'd never seen Times Square
at midnight. They'd never seen artificial
light. And suddenly this darkness, the glory of this angel shone
round about them and they had to be scared out of their minds.
He's probably floating somehow above their head. And the first
thing The angel said unto them, is don't fear. Fear not. You
have no reason to be afraid. Look at verse 10. The angel said
unto them, fear not. For behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For unto you
is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ
the Lord. Don't be afraid. I bring you
good tidings of great joy. Don't be afraid. We have reason
to fear. if we're in ourselves, we have
reason to have great fear. If it wasn't for this one who
was born, don't fear, I bring you good tidings of great joy.
In this one who's been born, you can stand before God without
fear. The reason not to fear, the reason
to have this great joy was the gospel of a person. This person,
the Lord Jesus Christ has been born. And who is this message
first given to? It's given to shepherds. Shepherds. Poor, illiterate men. Shepherds. God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
Shepherds is who he sent this message to. And it's not really
surprising, is it? God frequently uses shepherds
to spread the good news of the gospel. Moses, Jacob, David,
they were all shepherds. God calls in his word his pastors
under shepherds. And these shepherds have good
tidings of great joy to all people, to Jew and Gentile alike, to
people from every nation, tribe, kindred, and tongue. Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, this
good news, this good tidings of this great Savior that was
born this night. Now unto you, he says, a Savior
is born. It didn't say unto you the Savior
has appeared. The Savior didn't appear to those
shepherds. An angel appeared and told them in Bethlehem a
Savior is born. He didn't appear, he's born.
That's important. This child is man who's been
born. This child is going to accomplish
all the salvation of God's elect. He'll fulfill every prophecy.
every type, every promise, every shadow of the Messiah. He's going
to, the angel says, bring in peace with God. You can forget
about him bringing in lasting peace on this earth. It'll never
happen. Peace in our time will never
happen because men are too sinful. He's going to bring in peace
with God. He's going to bring in pardon
and forgiveness of sin. He's going to bring in true righteousness.
All these Jews have spent all these thousands of years trying
to be righteous through the law, and they failed. This man's going
to bring in true righteousness. He's going to bring in sanctification.
He's going to bring in redemption. After this man dies, there'll
not be another offering made for sin. They're done away. This
man's going to bring in salvation. He's going to save his people
from their sins. His name should be called Jesus
because he shall save his people from their sins. And this Savior,
don't ever forget this now, this Savior is born king. He's born in the city of David. This baby laying in that horse
trough is king of kings and Lord of lords. He reigns. This is
the sovereign king. You can rest assured he shall
be successful in his purpose that God has sent him to accomplish.
Now this is the reason for great joy, great joy. This is not just
some cute baby that's been born. They all look alike to me. They're
all cute, but this is not just some cute baby. This is the Savior. This is God's own Son. Come, save His people from their
sin. Made bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. He's the God-Man. This is Christ
the Lord that's born. When these shepherds go find
this baby, it's a real baby, he's a human being, yet he's
the Lord of Glory. They're going to look at Mary's
son, and there lays the Son of God. The Son of Man, the Son
of God. And the angel says, unto you.
Unto you is born this day the Savior. Unto you. Unto you who
hear. Unto you who believe. No restrictions.
Unto you. This baby is going to grow up
and say, come unto me. All ye that thirst, I'll give
you rivers of living water. Come unto me, all ye that rest.
Are you weary? Come unto me. I'll give you rest. Come unto me, he said. Unto you. Unto him that cometh to me too,
he said, I'll in no wise cast out. Unto you. Unto you who believe. Unto you who need a Savior is
born this day Christ the Lord. Unto you he's come. Now that's
good news from a far country. And the angel goes on in verse
12, he says, and this should be a sign unto you. You should
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. This
angel told these men where to find the Lord. And you notice
he didn't ask for these shepherds to ask, where can we find him,
did he? He just told them, this is where
you're going to find him. Because it goes without saying,
you're going to want to see him. Of course you will. They didn't
have to wait to ask. Of course they're going to want
to go see this reason for good tidings and great joy. But now
the angel had to tell them where to find God's Son. They never
would have looked in a barn. And they never would have looked
in a horse trough, would they? He had to tell them where to
go find the Savior. And that's what God sends His
servants to do today. To tell sinful men and women
where to find the Savior. Because if He doesn't, if He
doesn't tell us where He is and where to find Him, we'll never
look where He's found. We'll look in our religious doings.
We'll look in the fact that we're doing better than we used to
do, or we quit doing this, we started doing this. We'll look
everywhere except right here in God's Word. That's why He
sends His servants to tell us, here He is. If you want to know
Christ, you'll find Him in His Word. You'll find Him where His
Gospels are preached, where two or three are gathered together.
He said, There I'll be in the midst of them. That's where you'll
find him. And if he didn't tell us, we'd never find him. Because
we're blind. We're dead. The Lord's never
hard to find. Not if you're seeking him. The
shepherds found him. The wise men didn't have any
trouble finding him. Herod couldn't find him and save his life. He's
not hard to find if you're looking for him. All you have to do is beg on
him for mercy. Call upon his name. He'll hear. He said. He said, I'll hear you.
Now you come to him. And this is one of the things
that's so wrong with these Christmas plays and these manger scenes,
you know, they set up. You come to Christ. But now,
listen. You're not coming to that baby.
You're coming to the king, sitting on his throne, sovereign, to
do with you as he pleases. You come to Him, to the Sovereign,
and beg Him for mercy. You're not coming to this baby
you think you can hold in your hands to do with as you please.
You're in His hands to do with as He pleases. Come to Him and
beg Him for mercy. Don't come to that baby. That's
just an idol. Don't come to that baby, that
manger scene. You come to the Christ who sits on His throne,
enthroned in glory. Now verse 13, suddenly, there
is 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. Now can you imagine this choir? You'll call it the militia of
heaven. A lot of the old writers say this was every angel in heaven. Here to these shepherds singing. What a choir. And this is the
message of the angels. This is the message of heaven.
Glory to God in the highest. Ascribe all possible glory and
praise unto Him at the top of your lungs. Ascribe it all to
Him. We praise God because of the
birth of His Son. How thankful we are at the birth
of God's Son. Because now that He's born, we
can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We saw
God's power in creation. We saw His judgment and His holiness
and His wrath against sin in the flood of Noah. But we see
God's greatest glory in mercy to sinners, found in this man
who was born, Jesus Christ the Lord. In this baby that was born,
we see truth personified. He will fulfill God's covenant
of grace. In this man who's been born,
we're going to see wisdom personified. Now in him, we see how God can
be just and justifier. After those thousands of years
of sacrifices, they say, now we see. Now, Simeon says this
across the page, let me depart in peace, for now mine eyes have
seen thy salvation. Do you need another verse of
scripture to tell you salvation is not a doctrine? It's a person.
Now mine eyes have seen thy salvation. We see this because Christ has
been born. Glory to God in the highest. Thank God. And on earth they
sang peace. Now they didn't sing peace on
earth, did they? They said on earth peace. They're not talking
about peace is now suddenly going to be among men. Because that's
not. It's impossible. What they're
saying is peace himself is on earth. He who is peace, the Prince
of Peace, is now on earth. He's been born. He who is our
peace, he who will make peace with God through the blood of
His cross, has been born. And He's been born a man. And
like I said a minute ago, that's very important that He not just
appeared, He was born. He was born a man with flesh
and blood like we have, yet without sin. He must have blood, the
blood of a man. to offer as the payment for sins
for men, for men and women of His choosing. This baby is the
God-man. He's the only one who's fit to
make peace with God for me. He's God, so He can touch God,
satisfy God, please God, fulfill every one of His holy requirements. And He's a man, so He can touch
us and be our substitute. Be the substitute for our sins
and make reconciliation for the sins of men and women like us.
On earth peace and goodwill toward men. Goodwill toward men is now
on earth. God Almighty has goodwill. His purpose is goodwill towards
men on this earth. Now that's a big statement, how
do you know that's so? How is it that a holy God has goodwill
toward men who without exception have rebelled and sinned against
him? How can you make that statement? Only because of this, goodwill
toward men appeared on earth this day. He has goodwill toward
men, not man, not mankind, men. Men who he has chosen out of
Adam's fallen race. And I know that's so because
God sent his son to be born of a woman, to be made a man. Unto
us, a child is born. Unto us, a son is given. Why? Because of God's goodwill toward
men. He's going to save some men out of Adam's fallen race.
And he's going to do it through the righteousness and the sacrifice
of this man born this night. Well, verse 15, 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." Now you notice the shepherds didn't stand around
asking each other, do you think we should go to Bethlehem or
do you think we should stay here? You reckon this could be true?
They didn't ask that question, did they? They said, let's go
to Bethlehem and see this thing which the Lord has brought to
pass. These men talk like men of faith, don't they? God said
it. I believe it. Let's go to Him.
Let's go see Him. And isn't that good reason to
rejoice? Like I said in the Bible lesson,
God has commanded us to go to Christ. Now that's God's command. You reckon He'll accept you when
you come? That's His command. These men said, I'm going to
go. I'm going to go to Him. I'm going to see Him. I'm going
to see this miracle that God has made known unto us. So verse
16, they came with haste. They didn't waste time, they
came with haste. And they found Mary and Joseph and the babe
lying in a manger. When they'd seen it, they made
known abroad the saying which was told to him concerning this
child. These men made haste. Everyone who hears the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gets a sight of Christ himself,
this is what I know about them, they will make haste to go to
Christ. Zacchaeus was up in that tree.
The Lord said, Zacchaeus, come down. I'm going to your house.
What did Zacchaeus do? He made haste and came down that
tree. He'd gone to Christ. He made haste. And when these
shepherds found the Lord, they didn't stumble and become offended,
did they? Because He's there in that barn? They didn't stumble. They said, this is the Savior.
This is God's Son. This is the King of kings. I
know He's rocking rags. I know He's laying in the horse
trough, but this is the King. This is the Savior. And I would
imagine that those men found comfort in that. Rather than
stumble over, I bet they were happy. They rejoiced. Because
they're poor men, too. They're illiterate, poor men.
And they thought, this king can identify with me in my lowest
state. David said in one of the Psalms,
Lord, remember me in my lowest state. The Lord did remember
me in my lowest state. Because His mercy endureth forever. can identify with me, my lowest
state. And these men saw a baby. He's a real baby. There was no
outward evidence that this is God's son. There was not a halo
going around his head. Mary didn't have this glow around
her head. None whatsoever. There's no physical
outward evidence this is God's son. Those people watching him
grow up didn't know it. They said, what's he saying?
We know him. We know his father and mother.
We know him. There was no outward evidence. This is God's son.
But these are men of faith. And they believed. They saw this
is God's son. They believed what the angels
told them. And they simply believed. That's what believing God is.
Simply believing what he says. Believing he is who he says he
is. And then they left. And they couldn't keep this quiet.
They told everybody what they had heard and what they had seen.
And that's all that preaching the gospel is today. Telling
people what we've heard and what we've seen. And that's all believing
the gospel is. Simply believing the word of
God that's been preached by one of his servants, whom having
not seen, not seen physically, you love. Well, verse 18. 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." Now this word,
wonder, all they that heard it wondered, that word means to
marvel, to hold in admiration. And I pray that's the way we
would receive the gospel, and hear the gospel, and believe
the gospel, in wonder. Absolute wonder at God's mercy
and grace to sinners. Absolutely marveling at His grace. Holding in admiration the Word
of God. Holding in the highest esteem
the Son of God. The Gospel is not to be argued
and debated. These men didn't argue and debate
about it, did they? No. It's to be believed in awe
and wonder and thanksgiving. So thankful His mercy to us. And hold these things in your
heart, like Mary. Mary held all these things in
her heart. Hold these things in your heart. Remember them. You'll rejoice
if you do. How is it that you rejoice? It's
from the heart. We don't rejoice from the head.
We rejoice from the heart. The heart is what's thrilled.
A child of God can rejoice, truly rejoice, even in this weary world. by pondering the miracle of the
gospel, the wonders, the amazement of the gospel, by pondering the
things of Christ in our heart. You can rejoice even in a weary
world. Think on these things and you'll
rejoice. Now, let me beat the Christmas
rush. I hope all of you just have the
best Christmas effort. Enjoy the time with your family
and your friends and exchanging gifts and visits from Santa and
the magic of Christmas. Just feasting and eating too
much. Enjoy it all. I mean, just thoroughly
enjoy it all. I told, I was thinking about
this text and I told my daughter Savannah Friday, I told her,
I said, this year, I'm going to bring up all those Christmas
decorations and never grumble once. I'm going to just do it
with joy. And she said, oh, good. That'll be a change. Do it with
joy. And you know what? That joy ought
to continue into January and February and March. No one has
more reason. Listen, this world is just is
sickening. It's all weary. But no one has
more reason to rejoice than you who believe Christ. than you
that He has revealed Himself to. He's put His Spirit in your
heart. He caused you to be born again.
No one has more reason to rejoice at this season and every day
than those who have been made objects of God's mercy and grace. And those of you who believe
the Lord Jesus Christ, who on that day of God's appointment
was born in a barn and laid in a horse trough. He grew up establishing
righteousness. And in that appointed day, in
the fullness of time, he died on a cross because God made him
to be sin for his people. And he rose again the third day
for our justification. And now he's seated at the right
hand of the majesty on high. Now that'll enable the hopeless,
if you see him, who he is, what he did. Why he did it and where
he is now, thou let the hopeless be utterly thrilled, and let
the weary rejoice. Won't it? I hope God will make
it so. I've asked Mike if he would as
a closing hymn to lead us in joy to the world. Let's sing
this from the heart. Joy to the world.