Angels, Shepherds, and the World

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Our desire is to help you draw near to God by growing in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Pastor of Teaching and Vision, Don Filsack. Thanks for listening. This morning

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I decided to call an audible, I've been going through the Gospel of Matthew, and instead I'm going to be focusing this morning on the

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Gospel of Luke, the actual Christmas account, the Christmas story as we find it in Luke chapter 2.

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I've somehow managed to preach now for three years here at Recast Church, three

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Christmases, and I've never once taught on the Christmas story. So I thought it might be time, we might be due for that.

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But I sometimes think in my mind, and tell me if this happens to you, I sometimes think, what could

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I bring new to this story? How many of you have heard the Christmas story as read in Luke chapter 2 before?

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If you've ever watched Charlie Brown Christmas, then you've heard kind of, at least a big chunk of it. And so I think in my mind sometimes, what could

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I bring that would be new to you? How is this going to strike you as new? You've heard the story before.

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But I think that shows a wrong mind in myself to some degree. Because is it only valuable to come to Scripture to get something new?

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Or is there a time when we might need to remember something we already know? We need a refresher, we need a reminder, we need to be brought back into that story.

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How many of you have ever read the story of David and Goliath? Have you ever read that before? How many of you have read that more than once?

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And then probably some of us, I could just keep going up numbers and it'd be like 25 times I've heard that story at least.

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But have you ever read a story like David and Goliath from Scripture and it's like, it meets you where you're at.

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Like it's not that you get some new understanding, it's just that where you're at in life, Scripture comes and meets you where you are and impacts your heart and your life in a different way.

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And I think there's the potential for that any time we encounter God's Word. That even if it's something that's familiar to us, we still should be open to the

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Lord changing us as a result of coming in contact with His Word. Because really the point is not that we just simply get something new, it's exciting when it happens, but the point of coming to the text of Scripture is to know

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God. And we always have the potential to encounter God if we come to Scripture with the right attitude.

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And so in our time in this text, we will encounter the God who has revealed Himself in flesh and blood.

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And we will find that He comes in humility and He comes to earth for His own glory and He comes to earth to bring revelation, to reveal something to us.

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Now, how many of you would agree with me with the statement, many babies have been born on planet earth?

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Would you guys agree with that statement? There have been a handful of us born at some point.

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Now I would even dare say that there have been many babies born in strange circumstances. It is possible that Jesus was not the only baby on the planet born in a barn, for example.

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Now some of your moms thought you were born in a barn, right? They were like, were you born in a barn? Shut the door. Did any of your moms ever use that phrase?

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She knew where you were born when she said that. Just saying. But the whole born in a barn thing,

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I mean, is it possible that another baby, sometime, some era, somewhere was born in a barn? It's probably likely on the face of this planet that's happened.

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There certainly were some amazing circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ. But I want to propose to you this morning that the revelation of God to the angels that night is the centerpiece of Luke's story.

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It's kind of the big deal, the big point, where everything else is a historical account.

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We have a baby born in some unique circumstances, during a time of a census, under Roman oppression, born in the line of King David.

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We get a lot of historical events, but how many of you know that sometimes watching an event does not tell you the significance of that event?

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You need somebody from outside the situation to tell you why that was significant or why that was important. And that's what the angels do.

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The angels literally come from the throne of God in heaven to come and declare the significance of this baby that was born.

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Why? And that's what makes the exclamation of the angels to those shepherds that night 2 ,000 years ago all the more important.

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It is the very revelation of what is going on in that stable. But God sent his

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Son and then sent his angels to explain the significance of those things to us. So I want to read that.

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Luke chapter 2. So if you'd open up to that, Luke 2, 1 through 20, page 732. If you take the

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Bible that's in the seat back in front of you and turn to page 732, it's easy to find there. And if you don't own a

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Bible, if you're here with us this morning, you don't own a copy of the Word of God, please take that one with you. We've got boxes of those back in the back room to replace the ones that are taken.

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So just please don't sell them on eBay. You know, I mean, if you're going to take one, use it for yourself. Follow along as I read

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Luke 2, verses 1 through 20. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

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This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be registered each to his own town.

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And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called

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Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

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And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

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And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the

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Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them,

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Fear not! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a

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Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

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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

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He is pleased. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

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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

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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.

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And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherd told them. But Mary treasured up these things and pondered them in her heart.

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And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us. Father, I rejoice in this story, a story that we've read and we've heard.

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A story that's probably quite familiar to most of us in this room. And yet, in it is the power of revelation, in it is your self -disclosure, a way of showing yourself to us.

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Father, I pray that you would bring honor and glory through this service, the opportunity we have to see the kids ring the bells, to singing songs, to meditating and focusing on this text.

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Father, that we would bring honor and glory to you because of this gospel, this good news that the angels declared, a gospel, a good news of great joy that is to be for all people.

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And I pray that we would number ourselves in that group of all people who bring praise and honor and glory and rejoice in you.

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I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's pray as Don comes.

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God, thank you so much that you did send your light. Thank you for your son. And thank you for redemption. God, there's so many stories and so many things that parallel that, that talk about that.

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But this is the story, Christmas is the time where we celebrate what happened and what you did for us.

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God, your redemption is incredible. We thank you for it. And I pray that you'd help us to humble our hearts now, to hear from your word, to be changed, to be more like you.

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God, we're broken people and our own sin damages our lives and our sin damages others and other sin damages ours.

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And we so need you and your love. And what a great time this

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Christmas to come to you and to know you better. Be with Don this morning,

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God. I pray that you would speak truth and share what you would have for our hearts this morning.

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For your glory, God. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship.

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I hope you were able to come before the throne of God this morning and not just merely sing some songs, but to actually enter into worship.

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I want to encourage you to have your Bibles open to Luke chapter 2. As we walk through this text, it's helpful for me to know that you've got the

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Bible open in front of you so you can kind of just walk through and see that what I'm saying is coming from the text. It's not just me standing up here telling you some stuff.

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So and that's on page 732, again, if you closed your Bible, you probably did already. So as we walk through this, as we walk through this text, it's a very familiar text, but I just want to point out some highlights and actually some of the things that I think as we look at the text, you'll realize how much we've added to the story over years, how much tradition we've tacked onto it and how much we've kind of almost made some of the main points, things that are kind of barely in there and really bring out and draw out what the main point is.

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What is the main point of the birth of Christ and what is really happening here in our account? To start with,

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Luke sets the birth of Jesus into two distinct sections of historical data into two historical contexts.

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First, he addresses for us a Roman context. Jesus was born under Roman rule.

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He was born under the reign, the specific reign of Augustus Caesar, a real emperor. There are books and ledgers of history surrounding his reign, a real guy.

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We also see a designation of time in here that he was born during the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria, again, a stated fact.

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We can go back into histories and see that. I want to point out that this is a historical fact.

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This is not some fable, this is the story upon which, this is the event upon which a lot of our fables come.

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So a lot of the things, Dave was mentioning that earlier as he was introducing the worship set this morning, just that notion that a lot of our stories, a lot of the stories that have been passed down,

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I mean, in all honesty, there's a lot of movies that come out from Hollywood that have a theme of a sacrifice in them.

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You know what I'm talking about? There's a lot of literature and a lot of books that have the concept of one who comes to be the sacrifice to stand in the gap for others and to actually give his life for others.

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And that's a theme that we see throughout Scripture, but then something that's been adopted by our culture because this story is here.

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So it's set in a historical context, a Roman context, and that highlights that Jesus was born into an oppressive time.

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That's one of the things that we know from this text. He was born under the

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Roman rule of Palestine, of Israel, a time when the Romans could demand that the Jews, for example, must go back to their hometowns to be registered, to be counted.

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Why do you think the Romans had interest in counting the Jews? Are we getting all the revenue we're supposed to be getting from taxation?

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Is there anybody following through the cracks? They're going to send everybody back, count every single person to make sure, well, here's how much tax we took in last year, we know how much we're supposed to be getting per person, and we want to see if that matches up.

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So you're talking about heavy taxation, oppression, how many of you think it would be just inconvenient for them to tell you you need to go get counted?

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You go ahead and put your life on hold for a minute for your government, you're going to go do this. Does that sound fun to anybody?

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No, and that's the kind of situation that Jesus was born into. He did not choose the most peaceful time to enter the world.

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Now, it's interesting to think, I mean, could he have picked a peaceful time, is there really such a thing? No, but there's peaceful areas,

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I mean, in all honesty, we live in a fairly peaceful time now, relatively speaking, compared to a

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Roman oppression like this. But the other context that we see here is the

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Jewish context. So there's a Roman context to the birth of Jesus, but there's also, he wants to make sense for the

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Jews as well. A Jew listening to this story, what is the significance of the birth of this child,

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Jesus? Well, Joseph was of the lineage of King David, and the gospel author

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Luke wants us to know that he was a child, a descendant of King David. And that's why we know of this trip to Bethlehem, Bethlehem being known as the city of David.

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So that's where Joseph has to go to be counted. But this is significant because it was prophesied in the

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Old Testament that the Messiah, the Christ, must come from the line of King David, and therefore it's important, and Luke wants us to know that.

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He wants to say, you know, for all of the Jews who were looking forward for a Messiah, they had all of these criteria that the

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Messiah had to meet, one of them being of the line of King David, and they want to make sure that you understand that Jesus meets that requirement.

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Now we know, though, anybody kind of already ahead of me on this, Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, right?

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He was born of a virgin, and so because of that, there's something that we need to understand about inheritance law in that time and in that era.

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It's very, very clear that Jesus was considered the son of Joseph in an earthly sense, and because of that, he adopted him, in essence.

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There's some clear things in Matthew, for example, that make it clear in his genealogy that he was declared to be, almost like spoken of as the son of Joseph, and he adopted him, and in adoption rights, the firstborn son, even of adoption in Roman law, under Roman law, was legal, it was binding, and so he was the firstborn inheritor of the right to the throne of David.

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So even though Jesus was born under oppression, he was born into a royal line, and I think sometimes we play, in our thinking about Christmas, we play so high the humility of Jesus, born in a stable, born with the animals, laid in a manger, all of these things, you know what

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I'm talking about? And are those things real? Is there a sense in which there's some humility in which the son of man comes?

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Absolutely. But are there also some glorious things that happen surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ?

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Absolutely. And I would discourage you from minimizing those things, like that he was born from the line of the kings, that's a big deal.

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That angels, as we're going to see here in a moment, shout and bring the glory of God down into a field just outside of Bethlehem, and it's the glory of God shines in this situation.

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It's not all humility, there's humility, but there's also hints of the future king who is coming, and you've got to have both of those aspects in your understanding of the birth of Jesus Christ.

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So even though he was, I said this already, he was born under oppression, but he was also born into a royal line.

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But I want you to notice the complete lack of data that we're given about the trip to Bethlehem. If you think about the gospel accounts, where do you find the

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Christmas story? Right here. This is it. You can go back to Matthew to find the three wise men.

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You could go to John to find a statement like, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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That's the Christmas story according to John, pretty brief. That's literally what he says, the word of God came and dwelt among us.

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Christmas story, according to John. Mark doesn't even record the birth of Jesus. So this is it.

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So notice how much data are we given here. Where is the donkey in here? Did you find him?

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I mean, we probably have songs written from the perspective of the donkey for Christmas time.

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I don't know. I mean, but now I've just given you an idea. If you don't know one, then now you can write a song. Dave, maybe you could pick up a song and write a song from the perspective of the donkey for us.

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But are you getting what I'm saying? How much have we added to this story? Now I would encourage a holy imagination when you read scripture.

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I would encourage you to picture these events and I would even encourage you to some degree to fill in the blanks in a sense of just kind of going,

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I wonder what it would have been like to be there in the field with the shepherds. I wonder what it would have been like to go. But here's the thing is don't make your primary application.

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Don't make your primary point come out of some extra thing that you've added to the text.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? And I'm afraid that we've done that often surrounding Christmas time as we've added a bunch of extra things in there and then use those as if they're the main point.

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Another thing is that we don't understand their culture. We don't understand. And if we don't get into their culture and their history, then what do we do?

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We fill in the blanks with American mindset, with modern mindset. So how many people traveled with Joseph and Mary from Nazareth up north, the 60 mile trip south to Bethlehem?

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How many were with them? It was the two of them and the donkey, right? Now I don't want to be critical. If you were the one, if you're one of those who chose that for the front of your

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Christmas card, but how many Christmas cards have kind of like a moon and there's like the desert scene and there's the camel or the donkey on top of the hill,

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Mary sitting on it and Joseph is leading it? And that's, well, you got the star of Bethlehem over the top, right?

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And are you getting what I'm saying? She's nine months pregnant. Do you think they just traveled alone? What's going on in the historical text while we're reading it?

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What's going on in Israel across the whole Roman empire? What's going on? A census, everybody is traveling.

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The roads are busy. The houses in Bethlehem are full of travelers, okay?

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So do you think they traveled alone or do you think they probably had some people alongside of them as they went? As a matter of fact, it would be just very rare for a woman who was nine months.

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Any of you women here ever been nine months pregnant? I think quite a few of you. Those of you who have been, you're kind of like, would you want somebody, would you want to be kind of close to the hospital?

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Want to be close to where you're going to, and in those days, women took care of women and that was, it was relationship and it was family and cousins are probably along with her and aunts are along with her and they're eagerly anticipating the birth of her baby and they're traveling.

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I mean, Joseph has family, so they're all going to the same city to be counted together because they're all from the same family.

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So all of that's going on here. I just want to point out that we have in our minds sometimes the wrong picture.

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Joseph married donkey alone traveling to Bethlehem. Not accurate. So, well, and another thing,

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I mean, just the notion, did Joseph deliver the baby? No. No, I don't think so.

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Probably not. But all of this stuff, you know, all of this stuff is really cool.

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Jesus is about to be born, but we really haven't even, we really haven't even got to the point of the text yet.

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However the trip goes, they arrive and during their stay, she goes into labor.

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And again, with very little detail. I mean, look at the lack of detail. I mean, in one sense, this is just a very simple, meager account, just a very direct, clear account of the birth.

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Verse seven states, she had her firstborn son and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn.

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That phrase, no room in the inn, have we got some mileage out of that one? Maybe a little bit.

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Like, where is the innkeeper in this account? Is he hostile? Is he nice? Is he angry? How many of you have heard like stories about the innkeeper before?

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Like almost an entire poem about the innkeeper. Any of you ever heard those? Or, you know, songs about the innkeeper or something about, where is he in here?

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What is an inn? Is that like a bed and breakfast? Or is this like the holiday inn?

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Or what kind of a thing here in Bethlehem? Bethlehem was a tiny, tiny farming town. Much smaller than Matawan.

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A few huts on a hill just outside of Jerusalem. So this is not a huge community.

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We've added quite a bit to the story. And those facts are fun to imagine, but they are not the main point.

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I've heard entire sermons or messages or like a radio snippet about no room in the inn.

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But would you make room for Jesus in your heart? Is that kind of adding a little bit? Is that kind of taking on a little bit more than what we probably ought to get from the text?

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No room in the inn, but would there be room in your heart for Jesus? I think that's stretching the text just a little bit.

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There is a main point to this text. A Savior, a King, a Lord has been born.

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And we're going to get there in a second. Because just outside Bethlehem in the fields are some shepherds doing what shepherds do.

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What do shepherds do? It's dark. They're trying to stay awake, trying to guard their sheep.

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When suddenly an angel, a messenger of the Lord, appeared to them. Singular. One. An angel.

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The angel of the Lord appears to them. And the Lord shone his glory into the darkness there.

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Anybody think of what your response might be? You're out there in the fields. There's not a whole lot of light pollution.

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I mean, the things that David talks about, about being able to see the starry host of having the... Have any of you ever...

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We moved from Portage out here to Matawan three and a half years ago. In Portage there's a lot of light pollution where we lived, and so I'm kind of an astronomy geek that way.

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I had a telescope ever since I was a kid and totally get into that stuff. Yeah, you can make fun of me later.

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Just not to my face, please. But if you sit outside, if you're outside in the dark for 15 minutes, it takes about 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness.

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And at that point, if you're patient enough to do that without letting your neighbor's light shine in your eyes or something, the sky explodes.

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It's just like you can see stars you never knew were there. Have any of you ever had that experience? Have you camped out under the stars and just been like,

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I did not know there were that many stars out there. You just haven't taken the time to look. So these guys are probably out there.

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Their eyes have adjusted to the darkness. They're able to see better, you know. All of a sudden, boom, like floodlights, like lumens, like the glory of the

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Lord shines. How would you respond? Pass the shaman.

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I mean, I don't know. It would just be like, what in the world is going on? Did I just say that? Oh, can you cut that out of the recording?

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Oh, I did not say that at the first service. I mean, what are you, but really,

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I'm serious. Like, I mean, would it just, it says that they were terrified. Like the words that are used in Greek are,

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I mean, they are scared. And I think I would be. You'd be like,

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X -Files, is everything I saw in X -Files real? I mean, what would you kind of be thinking there?

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I want to highlight that when people encounter angels in the Bible, fear is generally the result.

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Generally, when people experience an angelic presence, it's not like I had a flat tire on a dirt road, and some guy walked out of the woods with a tire iron and changed my tire for me, and then walked into the distance, must have been an angel.

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That's not usually the experience. It's usually like, oh, I'm scared. Freaking out, okay?

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And it shows how supernatural this event was, and it also highlights how uncommon these kind of occurrences were.

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I think sometimes we have a perspective looking back on Scripture that an angel appeared every five minutes to people.

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Like, just, oh, there were miracles going on all over the place and stuff. They weren't expecting this kind of thing. They were scared.

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They were terrified. They weren't even sure what was going on at that point. But up until this point in the text, we've encountered history.

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History is valuable. We get the feel for what's going on. We get the actual data, the account.

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It's fun to study. It's interesting to try to picture and figure out. But we have not found the point of the text here yet.

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Because babies are born all the time. As I mentioned in my introduction, it's quite likely that babies have been born in a stable before.

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Right? That's possible. I mean, that's unique, but is it worth the attention of the whole world?

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Is that that big of a deal? So what is the significance of this baby? Why is this important? Why are we here 2 ,000 years later talking about the birth of this baby?

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And what we're going to see is that the angels have appeared and brought the glory of the

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Lord down for a purpose. They are going to reveal to us the significance of these events.

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Now, we can learn something about Jesus from the manger. We can learn some things about His decision to come to earth during a time of Roman impression.

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We can learn about His humility and things like that. But the significance of His birth is openly and clearly communicated in verses 10 through 12 in our text, 10, 11, and 12.

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In that we find the verbal revelation of the significance of why these events that happened in Bethlehem matter.

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Why does it matter? The angels are going to tell us why it matters. Well, the angels calm the fears of the shepherds by explaining, singular, that He has come to them to bring good news of great joy.

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He says, don't be scared, I haven't come to hurt you. I'd imagine that's what the shepherds thought first.

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Are we dead? Something has come and it's going to kill us. Calm down, we're here to bring you good news.

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Good news that should produce rejoicing in you, not fear. So calm down and listen up.

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And this message, the angel says, is not just for the shepherds, but it's to be good news for all people.

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And in this sense, the shepherds are being entrusted to be the first missionaries. God, from heaven, giving to the angels the message, the message then going to the shepherds.

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And who is the end result? Where is this all supposed to end? All peoples.

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That's where it's supposed to get to. And in verse 11 is the center of our text.

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Born on that very day, this is the point. Now we are hearing God telling us the significance of the events in that animal section of the house there in Bethlehem.

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Born on that very day in Bethlehem is a Savior. Listen to these titles.

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Born in Bethlehem is a Savior. Born in Bethlehem is the Christ. Born in Bethlehem is the

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Lord. That's the point. And this is the gospel according to Christmas.

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The Savior, the one who will redeem people from their sins, the one who will reconcile the broken relationship between God and humanity, the one who will ultimately restore all things, has been born.

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And that's the message that the angels bring. But He's not just Savior, but He's also

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Christ, the Holy Anointed One who was promised from ancient times in the Old Testament.

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The Christ, the Messiah that was anticipated for centuries, has arrived and the angels came and announced it to the shepherds.

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He's been born. But not only is this little baby Savior and Christ, but He is also declared to be

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Lord. Lord as in Master, Ruler, King.

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And the angel then leaves instructions for the shepherds to find Him. How do you find this

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Savior and Christ and Lord? Give us a sign. Show us.

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How are we going to even know this? And so he says, in Bethlehem you'll find Him. In the city of David you will find

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Him wrapped up in cloths and lying in a manger. I'd assume there were not a lot of babies lying in a manger in Bethlehem that night.

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It's probably pretty easy to find. We don't get the details of how the shepherds actually found them. I'd assume that they just kind of stopped and talked with people along the way and figured things out.

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Yeah, this lady, she was nine months pregnant, coming up the hill here and the community buzz and all of that stuff.

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I'd imagine that the shepherds are trying to process this good news. Can you imagine just kind of like, I'm out in the field just kind of taking care of my sheep and angels and all of this stuff and all of that.

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So how many of you would have some things in your mind, running through your mind at that point? But they're interrupted because an angel party starts.

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Now how many of you, when I mentioned that the angel came, by the way, how many of you pictured the angel in the sky? Did you have the angel up in the sky?

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And then the angel host comes up and they're in the sky too? And where did we get that notion from? It was just something that we've invented.

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If this angel party starts, the solo angel is joined by the chorus of heaven. And the angels praise

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God saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those who have received his favor.

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What does this statement mean? Well, they're offering praise and glory to God and the angels are offering what

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I would call a vertical element to their worship and a horizontal element to their worship.

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The vertical part is, God, you are awesome and you deserve all glory. That's what they're saying.

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Glory to God in the highest. You deserve it all. But they also have a horizontal element to their praise.

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And God, you deserve glory because you are bringing peace to this earth. For the things that you are doing, you deserve praise as well.

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So both are praises to God. Both the vertical and the horizontal are towards God, but one is praising

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God for who he is. The other is praising God for what he has done here on earth.

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And our praise ought to have both of those elements to it. As we go throughout our week, we ought to be thinking about God as he is, as he's revealed himself in scripture, but then equally praising

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God for the things that he has done for us. I fear that sometimes it's easier for us to praise God for his blessings than to praise him for who he is.

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Would you agree with me on that? And that's a challenge,

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I think, for all of us, because when difficult times come and when hard things happen, all of a sudden the blessings are gone, then

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I don't feel like worshiping anymore. I don't feel like praising God anymore.

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You know what I'm saying? And we need to praise God for both who he is and praise him for what he has done.

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He has provided a way. Once the angels disappear, the shepherds, they're left in the dark with their sheep, each other.

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Imagine what that conversation looked like. Who spoke first?

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Did you just see that? Did I just wake up? Did I kind of doze off there for a minute?

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Did you just hear the same things that I heard? Did you experience that? So they hightail it over to Bethlehem and they found

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Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. And they proclaim the same news about Jesus, that he is

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Savior, Christ, and Lord. And the implications, even by this text, is that there's more there in that house where Jesus was born.

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By the way, I keep saying that, and I didn't get it earlier, but the notion that Jesus was born in the stable out back, did you see that in the text?

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Did you find the word stable in there? What word did we see that leads us to believe stable?

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But again, we've translated that into modern... The word manger is the only thing in there.

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What you need to understand is that in ancient times, there was inside everybody's house, if you were well enough to actually have room to house other people, there was a section of the house that would be like two steps down where they would keep the animals in for the night.

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And it was pretty common. And so what we actually have happening in this account, when Joseph and Mary show up, they were likely welcomed in by the innkeeper.

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And our notion is that they were rejected by the innkeeper. No, they were welcomed in, but the innkeeper said, look,

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I physically have no room on my floor for you to sleep. You're welcome to stay here if you're willing to sleep down there with the animals.

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And Joseph and Mary said, we've got no other place. So they're there. Probably still under the exact same roof as the other people in the house.

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Again, just a little bit of a different way of understanding, but understanding their culture, understanding the way a house looked in those times.

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They didn't take the time to build another construction out back for housing the animals.

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They were right in there with the people just a few steps down in a barricaded off area. So that's what's going on in all of this.

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And the shepherds show up there, and they talk with everybody in the room, and they proclaim that Jesus, angels came to us and told us that Jesus, this baby that's born here, is

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Savior, Christ, and Lord. Can you imagine that? They're there. The shepherds are like, there he is.

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He's here. It's not like they're talking about something that's over there.

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We heard that in Jerusalem a baby was born. They're like, this baby, this one, they're in the room with him.

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This is the Christ. This is the Messiah. This is the King. This is the one who will save people from their sins.

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They're there, present with him. Can you imagine being in that room? How privileged would you feel to be present in that situation?

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How does everybody in the room respond? With wonder. Not wonder like, hmm,

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I wonder what I'm going to have for lunch today. Wonder like awe. Like speechless awe.

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Like, whoa. The Messiah, the one who has been promised from centuries ago, is here?

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This is the one? Can you imagine that? To be in that situation? And Mary, Mary the one who had just given birth to this child, says, treasured these things and held on to them in her heart.

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I think that implies about her. I think she had been given enough revelation to know that her child was unique.

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To know that he was the Savior. To know he was the Christ. I don't think she knew how this was all going to go down.

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Can you imagine that? You know your child is chosen. You know that they're special. You know that they're unique. And everybody who's had a child knows that already.

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You know your child is really special. Probably no angels came and told you that they were the Messiah. Hopefully.

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Come and talk with me if that happened to you. But she's kind of going, these are some unique circumstances.

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And she's treasuring these things, but she's holding on to them. She's meditating on them. She's thinking them through. And it's not going to turn out well for her in the end with regards to Jesus.

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The last time she sees him on earth is where? Hanging on a cross.

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Can you imagine it being somewhat reasonable that she's questioning these things? Pondering these things? Wondering where is this all going?

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The shepherds return to their flocks, mimicking the angels. The response of hearing this good news is the same for the angels, the same for the shepherds.

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They are glorifying and praising God for all that they heard and saw. Do you think they were excited to be used by God in that way?

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Yeah. They were just out minding their own business, doing their job. And boom, they're wrapped up in the story of what

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God is doing in history. The central point in this text that could be missed, and that is that you were actually mentioned in here.

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Did you find yourself in there? As I was reading it, as I was talking about it, do you know where you're at in the text?

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Every single one of us is mentioned. Not by name, but close, because we're included in here. Look at verse 10 with me.

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Look at 10. And the angel said to them, the angel said to the shepherds, Fear not, for behold,

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I bring you good news of great joy that will be for who? All people.

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Are you a people? Every single one of us is a person, right?

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That's us. Good news of great joy. Who is this good news for? Everyone.

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You, me, your neighbor, your co -worker, your relatives, the people you're going to see and endure spending time with over the holidays, for some of you.

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It's always fun at the beginning, ready to say goodbye at the end, that kind of stuff.

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It's for all people. The birth of the Savior, the birth of the

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Christ, the birth of the Lord should result in more than just a vacation every

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December, more than just baking a ham or roasting a turkey or sharing some presents under a tree.

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It should be the cause of great joy, and then in turn spreading that great joy, spreading that good news to others.

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Look at how the first recipients of this good news responded. They dropped everything and went to share it with others. Like the angels, their joy and praise to God could not be contained.

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They spread it to those where Jesus was born, and they responded in that place with awe and wonder because the shepherds were faithful to go and share that.

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And that message continues to go out. The shepherds started it. And now that same message has come all the way down to a little community in West Michigan called

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Matawan, and it is on our shoulders to carry that forward. It is our responsibility to do what the angels did and therefore then in turn what the shepherds did.

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And they've passed that along and passed that along and passed that along, and it's come down to us to share good news of great joy, good tidings, gospel.

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The King has come. The Messiah, the Christ has come. The Savior has come.

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And that is a message we have to share with all in this community. Consider then whether or not your celebration of Christmas is characterized by good news of great joy.

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Do we concern ourselves with glorifying God because peace has come here on this earth?

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We all know that Jesus didn't remain a baby. He lived a sinless life and ultimately gave his life as a substitutionary sacrifice.

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He stood in the place that we deserve. We deserve to be punished. He took our punishment for us, and we take communion each

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Sunday to remind ourselves of the main point of our faith. This is the centerpiece of our faith, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

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And although we celebrate his birth as an awesome act of compassion, his cross is the place that the good news was completed.

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It was finished there. As you take the bread this morning there, the cracker, I want to encourage you to remember the body of Jesus that was broken for you, and as you remember him being broken for you, rejoice and glorify our great

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God who made a way, his plan, his way. As you take the cup with the juice, remember the blood of Jesus that was shed for you, and rejoice in good news of great joy.

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He has done it, and he has reconciled us. We've been reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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If you're here and you have not yet given your life to Christ, you maybe know the Christmas story, you maybe know a little bit about the cross, or you're kind of just trying to figure this whole thing out,

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I'd encourage you to come and talk with me afterwards. You can just pass the juice and the cracker by. You don't need to feel pressure to take part in this.

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I encourage you to take the song in and come and talk with me afterwards if you'd like to know more about how you could have a relationship with Jesus Christ that would lead to the forgiveness of your sins and making you right with our great

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God. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for this account that we have here of a historical event of the birth of the

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Messiah, the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord. We know that it was a sacrifice for Him to come from heaven to earth, to come in humility and to take on flesh and to come to this dirty, messed up, broken place.

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And then further, He lived a sinless life, which meant denying Himself and pushing aside sin and temptation just as He did the temptation when

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Satan approached Him. Father, that was sacrifice. The way He lived His life was sacrifice.

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And then we know the ultimate sacrifice occurred at the end of His life when He gave Himself up for us.

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Father, I ask that You would help us to remember these things as we come to communion this morning so we have an opportunity to reflect on You in this awesome reality that at that stable we have

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God in flesh come down. And I ask that You would help us to catch the awe of that this