The Shepherd-King of Christmas (Jeremiah 23:1-8)

Kootenai Church

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Jeremiah 23. All right, let's bow our heads, ask the

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Lord's blessing on our time before we begin. Our Father, as your grateful and redeemed people, we come to your word, asking that you would shepherd our souls and feed us from your word today.

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Grant to us understanding and insight into the meaning of this scripture. Help us to see it in its context, both its place in the book of Jeremiah as well as its place in history.

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And then may we marvel at your good grace, your providence, your sovereignty, your kindness, and the mercy that you have treated us with as you have provided salvation for us in your

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Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So fill our hearts with affection today for you, our great triune

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God, that you would be honored here in our midst as we understand your word. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.

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In the last few weeks, we've been considering God's promises to his people, particularly the land promises that are mentioned in Psalm 37.

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We've talked about what that promise is and what it entailed and how that relates to the kingdom that is to come.

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And today we're focusing on something that is related. When we come to a portion of the year, whether it's resurrection

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Sunday or Christmas time, I try to stay in the Christmas message or the resurrection message close to something that we've already been going through in scripture.

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So we're doing that today, just looking now at something that is related to the land promise.

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We're gonna look at a promise that is given about the land, but particularly about the role of the

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Lord Jesus Christ in the land when God fulfills that promise. And so we're going to see today the place of Christ and the centrality of Christ in God's provision for us in the blessing of the land that is to come and see what

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God has given to us in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a good subject to occupy our attention during Christmas week, because it's connected to what we've been going through and also kind of keys off of God's provision for us in the birth of Christ.

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Now, the land promise is not something that is to be considered as an end in itself, as if God's blessing is merely a chunk of real estate in the

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Middle East and a rather unappealing chunk of real estate. If you look at the totality of what was promised, most of it just rock and desert, but the land promises more than that.

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The goal has always been for God to dwell with his people in a paradise, for God to be with his people in that land.

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God's people dwelling with their God, with their Redeemer in the land, enjoying his blessings and his provision.

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Ezekiel describes this in Ezekiel 34, 23 through 34, that I will set over them one shepherd, my servant

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David, and he will feed them. He will feed them himself and be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will be their

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God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken. Ezekiel 37, my servant

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David will be king over them, and they will have one shepherd, and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them.

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They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers lived, and they will live on it, they and their sons and their sons forever.

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And David, my servant, will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them.

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It will be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.

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My dwelling place also will be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people, and the nations will know that I am the

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Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever. See, the heart of the land promises that God would dwell with us, with his people forever.

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That is the central blessing of the land, that Christ would dwell with his people and be a shepherd to care for us and a king and a sovereign to rule us, and this is an expression of God's love for us.

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So the Bible's narrative begins with God dwelling with man in a paradise.

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The Bible ends with God dwelling with man in a paradise, meaning that God is going to restore to us in the eternity that is to come everything that has been spoiled by sin and everything that Adam lost, everything that the first Adam lost and spoiled, the second

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Adam is going to restore to us in the end. And so the goal of the land promise, the goal of that blessing, the goal of that grace that God has given to us is that he would dwell with us.

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So now we come to Jeremiah 23, one through eight, and we're going to look now at more promises regarding Christ, who is our shepherd, and promises regarding Christ, who is our sovereign or our king.

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Jeremiah 23, we'll read the first eight verses, then I'll set up a little bit of the context because the context is essential.

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Verse one, woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the

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Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending my people, you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not attended to them.

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Behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture and they will be fruitful and multiply.

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I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend to them and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the

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Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

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In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which he will be called, the

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Lord, our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, as the

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Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the

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North land and from all the countries where I had driven them, then they will live on their own soil.

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That is our passage for this morning. Now, Jeremiah is writing at a time when Judah was facing an impending destruction and collapse.

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The nation of Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar at the helm was fixing to invade the Southern kingdom and destroy them.

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And Jeremiah had been prophesying the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Davidic line, consistently indicting the kings for their apostasy, their sin and their rebellion.

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They had led the people of God astray and put them in a perilous condition, a perilous situation, where now

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Nebuchadnezzar was threatening them and Jeremiah has already told the king of Israel, you are going to be destroyed.

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This city is going to be given over into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and he is going to sack it, he is going to destroy it and he is going to bring it to an end.

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That was Jeremiah's promise. And chapter 22 ends with a prophecy concerning the last king from David's line.

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His name is Coniah. Sometimes he's referred to in scripture as Jehoiachin. He's also referred to as Jeconiah, three different words used for that one and same king.

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Look at Jeremiah 22, 28 to 30. Here is Jeremiah's curse and promise to Jeconiah.

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Is this man Jeconiah a despised shattered jar or is he an undesirable vessel?

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Why have he and his descendants been hurled out and cast into a land they had not known? Oh, land, land, land, hear the word of the

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Lord. Thus says the Lord, write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.

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Now that curse marked the end of David's royal line. Through those kings,

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David, Solomon, Rehoboam and then all of the list of kings most of whose names we can't pronounce that come after them for a couple of hundred years ending with Coniah.

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Coniah is promised here, he is cursed and God promises through Jeremiah that no descendant of his would prosper and sit on the throne of David.

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And that is exactly what happens with Coniah. The line, the kingly line of David came to an end and God promised that no physical descendant of Coniah's would ever sit on the throne of David.

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That was the curse. And what happened was Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem, he took

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Coniah captive and he appointed Zedekiah who was Coniah's uncle to rule in his place and Zedekiah was a puppet king of Nebuchadnezzar.

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And with Coniah, the kingly line of David came to an end. But of course, this is the darkest period in Israel's history.

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It is difficult for us to even understand just how significant these events were as Israel was invaded and captured and destroyed and then exiled from the land that God had promised them and brought them into.

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And then there is this curse placed on David's kingly line so that no descendant of Coniah's would ever sit on David's throne.

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The nation was morally and spiritually bankrupt. They were under the judgment of God and the kingdom now was at an end.

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But of course, this raises some very significant questions, doesn't it? What then would happen to the promises to David?

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Because God had promised David that one of his descendants would sit on David's throne and rule forever.

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Nobody had done that. Coniah certainly didn't do that. So what of the land?

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If they're being exiled from the land and kicked out of that, would they ever return to the land?

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And what about the promises to David of one who would sit on his throne if in fact the end of David's kingly line was cursed?

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If no descendant of Coniah will ever sit on the throne, then what about that promised descendant of David who would take the throne?

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What of that royal line? Would God's promises to David fail? Would he cast off his people because of their apostasy?

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And would the whole nation then perish because of the disobedience of these false shepherds and kings?

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Had their apostasy nullified the promises of God and would God now give over those promises to another people, another nation in a different way?

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What about this eternal kingdom? And what about the descendant that was to come from David's line? And it is into that dark and discouraging scene that God speaks the promises of Jeremiah 23.

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Let's read it again. We're gonna notice in verses one to four that he promises out of his love to provide a shepherd for his people.

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And then in verses five through eight, he promises to create a king for his people. Verse one, woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the

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Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending my people. You have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not attended to them.

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Behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the Lord. Now the kings of Israel had failed.

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Their sin had endangered the nation. They had led Israel astray. They had polluted the nation by promoting apostasy and idolatry and almost every conceivable form of wickedness.

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And they had led the people away from Yahweh, their God. And here the Lord indicts the kings.

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He calls them false shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of his pasture.

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God still claims that the sheep are his, but he indicts the kings for their sin against God and against the people by scattering the sheep and exploiting them.

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So God promised that he would not leave the nation without shepherds. Jeremiah 23, look at verse three.

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Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture and they will be fruitful and multiply.

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I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will anything be missing, declares the

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Lord. So after indicting the kings as false shepherds, God promises that he would raise up shepherds for the nation.

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This was fulfilled, by the way, after the Babylonian captivity, when the people, it was partially fulfilled after the

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Babylonian captivity, when the people came back to the land, God raised up Zerubbabel to come back and to rebuild the temple.

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And then he raised up Ezra to come back and to rebuild or reform the people. And then he raised up Nehemiah to come back and to rebuild the wall.

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So Zerubbabel to rebuild the temple, Ezra to rebuild the people, and Nehemiah to rebuild the wall. So they functioned as shepherds for the nation of Israel, but of course, they did live terrified and afraid.

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And some of them were missing because not all of them came up from Babylon. So the promise was not ultimately fulfilled in their day, even though they had other good shepherds, prophets, men like Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, who also served that function of shepherding the nation.

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But the next two verses, verses five and six, promise one from David's line, who would be king.

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And just as David was a shepherd king, so this son who would come from David's lineage would also be a shepherd king.

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So he promises a king in verses five and six and shepherds in verses one through four. And this one who would be both a shepherd and a king is the one who is here called the righteous branch in verse five.

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Christ is the king who is both a shepherd and a king. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the perfect and faithful shepherd who cares for his people and gathers us into to himself, granting us salvation and will bring us into the land to inherit this eternal promise.

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Now, this is implied here in the indictment for the shepherds and then the promise to raise up a king who would replace those kings and shepherd, but it is stated explicitly in Ezekiel chapter 34, another passage that talks about God's promise to give them the land.

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Listen to verse 11 of Ezekiel 34. For thus says the Lord God behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he has come among his scattered sheep.

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So I will care for my sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.

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I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land.

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And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the streams and at all the inhabited places of the land.

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I will feed them in a good pasture and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. They will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

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I will feed my flock and I will lead them to rest declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost and bring back the scattered and bind up the broken and strengthen the sick.

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But a fat and the strong, I will destroy. Not speaking of sheep, but the false shepherds who got fat because they exploited the sheep.

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I will feed them with judgment, thus saith the Lord. Psalm 23 verse one says, the

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Lord is my shepherd. Ezekiel 35, 24 says, my servant David will be king over them and they will have one shepherd, namely this one who is known as David their king.

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Ezekiel 34, 23 to 24, I will set over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will feed them.

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He will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord will be their God. And my servant David will be

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Prince among them. I, the Lord have spoken. Now here's what's curious about Ezekiel's promise. This comes hundreds of years, centuries after David had lived and died.

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And yet Ezekiel promises that God would raise up David to be their shepherd and their

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Prince. What is he describing? David has been dead for centuries. What is Ezekiel describing?

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It's one of three things. First, he is either describing the

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Lord Jesus Christ as that one who would come from David's line and he's just using the reference to David to describe the coming

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King Prince Christ who would come and shepherd his people in the land. Or he is describing literally resurrected

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David in the kingdom, in the new kingdom, in his resurrected body who would shepherd Israel under the oversight of the great shepherd, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Or Ezekiel has in mind there both, that this is a reference to David and to David's greater son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, both of whom would shepherd his people. So when we celebrate the birth of Christ, we're not only celebrating one who was born unto us a savior, but one who was born to shepherd us.

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And Jesus directly tied all of this imagery to himself in John chapter 10 when he said, "'I am the good shepherd.

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The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They will hear my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd.'"

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Have you ever wondered why it is that the announcement of the birth of Christ came to shepherds who were out in their fields watching over their flocks by night?

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It's because this one shepherd who was promised to Israel was born. And so the announcement from the angels came to shepherds.

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But the angel said to them, Luke chapter two, verses 10 and 11, "'Do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people.

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For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord.'" So here's the promise, not just the bare promise of an inheritance of real estate in the

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Middle East, but God promises to dwell with his people in that land and to himself be our shepherd, to feed us and to care for us, to protect us, to provide for us because he delights over us to do so.

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And the Lord Jesus Christ is our shepherd who himself calls us to himself, lays down his life in our place, suffered and died that we might have life and gathers us in and he has promised that he will not lose any of his flock, those who belong to him.

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So what love is this that the King of heaven should take upon himself humanity and come into this world and to live and to die for his people, to lay down his life in our stead so that he may secure our salvation, pay the penalty for our sin, then rise again the third day according to the scriptures and ascend to the father's right hand where he waits even now for his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet and he will return again and he will gather us in and he will bring us into that inheritance and shepherd us.

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Second, he will also rule us, this is verses five through eight. Let's read verses five and six.

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Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

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In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and this is the name by which he will be called

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Yahweh our righteousness or the Lord our righteousness. Now at the end of chapter 22, remember there's a curse upon David's kingly line.

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Upon Caniah, verse 30, thus says the Lord, write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.

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The succession of kings which came from David through Solomon and then Rehoboam and then down to Caniah, that succession of kings came to an end with Caniah and there was a curse placed upon him that no physical descendants of his would ever reign on David's throne.

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So that was the end of the kingly line. No one had a right to rule who was a physical descendant of Caniah.

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So does that then mean the end of David's throne? Would the promises to David be fulfilled and if so, how?

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But after that curse at the end of chapter 22, you have the promise restated in chapter 23, the promise of a king from David's line.

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So we have in verse five, behold, the days are coming declares the Lord. Well, I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

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So lest we think that God's intentions have changed regarding the promise, or lest you think that God has cast off his people because of their apostasy and sin, and lest we think that God is going to spiritualize these promises and fulfill them by giving them to a people like the

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Gentiles, or that the throne of David is simply a spiritual reality, lest we be deceived by any of that,

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God reiterates the promise to David using the same language to the same people, promising the same thing and all of the specifics are the same.

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He has cursed David's kingly line. No one of Jeconiah will ever sit on the throne of David, but the

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Lord says, I will raise up a righteous branch from David who will take that throne and rule and reign.

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Now, how can that possibly happen? It's a very good question.

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How would God accomplish that? The way that the Lord accomplished that is utterly magnificent.

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Joseph was a descendant of Caniah. So none of Joseph's sons could sit on the throne of David.

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None of Joseph's physical sons could sit on the throne of David, but the Lord Jesus wasn't the physical son of Joseph, was he?

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He was the physical son of Mary. Mary was a physical descendant of David, but not through Jeconiah, not through Solomon, but through one of Solomon's brothers, through Nathan.

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Mary is the physical descendant of David. Jesus, therefore, is the physical offspring of David, but being conceived in the womb, by the

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Holy Spirit, in a virgin, he is not of Joseph's physical lineage, but because he is adopted by Joseph as his son, he gets all of the rights and the authority that would confer to Joseph.

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So Caniah's physical descendant cannot sit on the throne, but Mary's physical descendant can if he has the right to the lineage through his adopted father,

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Joseph. So Jesus inherits the physical right to fulfill the promise and to sit on David's throne through Mary, because she's the descendant of Nathan, not of Solomon, and Jesus inherits the legal right to rule and to take

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David's throne through his father, Joseph, though he's not the physical descendant of Joseph, he is the legal descendant of Joseph.

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So he gets all the authority that is conferred to a descendant of David's kingly line, but he cannot take that throne if he is a physical descendant of Joseph.

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He's not, he's the physical descendant of Mary. So therefore, he can reign.

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So imagine, if you will, the lineage of David being like a tree trunk, and that kingly line is the tree trunk, and of course, there are other branches that come off of the kingly line that are not part of that divine right to rule lineage, and that lineage is cursed.

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It begins with David, it ends with Conniah, but imagine, if you will, a branch that comes off of David's line that has the right to rule, but is not under the curse of Conniah.

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And in fact, the word branch is exactly how the passage refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at chapter 23, verse five.

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"'Behold, the days are coming,' declares the Lord, "'and I will raise up for David a righteous branch.'" Not from Conniah's line, but an offshoot of David, a sprig, if you were, a branch, something that comes up off of another root, still from David's line, but not from that cursed trunk of the lineage.

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Jeremiah 33, 15 describes the Lord Jesus Christ as a branch again. "'In those days and at that time, "'I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth, "'and he shall execute justice "'and righteousness on the earth.'"

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That prophetic reference of describing Christ as the branch, that is used by both

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Isaiah and Zechariah, and of course, here also by Jeremiah. In Isaiah 4, verse two, you have reference to it.

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Listen to Isaiah 11, verses one and two. "'Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,' that is

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David's father, "'and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. "'The spirit of the Lord will rest on him, "'the spirit of wisdom and understanding, "'the spirit of counsel and strength, "'the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the

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Lord.'" Zechariah 3, verse eight, "'Now listen, Joshua, the high priest, "'you and your friends who are sitting in front of you, "'indeed, they are men who are a symbol, "'for behold,

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I am going to bring in my servant, the branch.'" And here, the imagery of Jesus or the

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Messiah being God's servant, Yahweh's servant, and also the branch, those are both combined there in Zechariah 3, verse eight.

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Zechariah 6, verse 12, "'Then say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, "'Behold, a man whose name is branch, "'he will branch out from where he is, "'and he will build the temple of the

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Lord. "'Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord, "'and he who will bear the honor, "'and sit and rule on his throne.

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"'Thus, he will be a priest on his throne, "'and the counsel of peace "'will be between those two offices.'"

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So there's the promise that the Messiah would be both a priest and a king. Remember, he is the one who was according to the order of Melchizedek.

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So he's the priest, and he is a king. Because he doesn't come from Conniah's lineage, he can rule and reign as king.

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And his kingdom will be a kingdom of justice and righteousness, and he will do justice because he is here called the righteous branch.

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That is his nature, he is the righteous one. Now contrast that with the apostate line that has been described up in Jeremiah chapter 22,

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Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and that whole lineage that came from David. Once in a while, one of those kings would be a decent

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Yahweh worshiper who would try and reform the nation. So there were the brief glimpses of revival during that lineage of kings.

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But for the most part, they were abject failures who promoted injustice, and unrighteousness, and idolatry, and apostasy.

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And here is God's promise that this one would be a righteous branch. This shepherd, this king, would be totally righteous.

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"'In his days,' verse six says, "'Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. "'And this is the name by which he will be called "'the

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Lord, our righteousness.'" He is God with us. He is Yahweh, who is our righteousness.

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In other words, you and I do not have any righteousness in and of ourselves, but this one, who is God in human flesh, is utterly and completely righteous.

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He knew no sin, he did no sin, sin had no place in him. He was not a sinner, and he never violated the law of God.

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And instead, he lived the life that you were required to live, but you never could. And he died the death that you should be required to die, but you never will, so that you may have eternal life and the forgiveness of sins.

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He is Yahweh, who is our righteousness. And by his perfect life on this planet, and by his perfect death on the cross, in his resurrection, he has secured for us our justification so that we can be credited and imputed the righteousness of Yahweh.

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And so we can say of the Lord Jesus Christ that he is Yahweh, our righteousness. He is the one who provides us the righteousness that we need to stand in front of God, before God.

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We have no righteousness in ourselves, but he is Yahweh, our righteousness. And all of that was accomplished at his first coming.

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This passage is describing what will be accomplished at his second coming. Having accomplished the work of paying the price for sin, he has ascended to heaven and sits at his father's right hand until such time that his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

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And he is coming again to judge the living and the dead and to take all of the nations as his inheritance.

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And he will rule them with a rod of iron, just as Psalm chapter two says. Look at the reference to this king and this reign and his government here in verses five and six.

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The days are coming, declares the Lord. I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

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In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely because he is their king. And because he is their shepherd.

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There will come a time when these promises are fulfilled, that Israel will not dwell in insecurity.

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They will not live in fear. This is describing his second coming. He will gather Israel just as he has promised and he will establish

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David's kingdom just as he has promised. And he will take David's throne just as he has promised and execute justice and righteousness in the land just as he has promised.

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He will cause people to dwell in safety when the wicked are cut off and his people will delight themselves in abundant shalom.

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Forever. That is what God has provided for us in the birth of Christ. And so glorious and magnificent will be this gathering of God's people.

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That it will replace Exodus, the Exodus from Egypt as the high watermark of God's goodness and his deliverances.

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Look at verse seven. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt.

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In other words, there was a time when that was what you said. Israel would, in describing God and his great deliverance, would say, as the

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Lord lives, who brought up his people from the land of Egypt out of their slavery. But Jeremiah says, the

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Lord says through Jeremiah, there will come a time when you'll no longer refer to Egypt as the high watermark of God's deliverances and grace.

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But instead, there will come a time when we refer to that coming gathering and deliverance as the high watermark of God's deliverance and grace.

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Verse eight. As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them, then they will live on their own soil.

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That's the promise. Then they will live on their own soil. This gathering of God, of his people into the land to rule them and to shepherd them as our priest, as our shepherd, as our savior, and as our king, that will surpass the blessing that God gave in the exodus from Egypt and the bondage to Pharaoh.

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Jeremiah 33, 16. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety.

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And this is the name by which she, that is Jerusalem, will be called the Lord, our righteousness. You see, we call

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Christ the Lord, our righteousness. And when he takes the throne of David in Jerusalem, we will refer to the place of his rule and his reign as Yahweh, our righteousness.

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Jeremiah 30, verse nine. They shall serve the Lord, their God, and David, their king, whom I will raise up for them.

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This is our glorious shepherd king. In the birth of Christ, God, by his great love, has provided a shepherd to care for us and a king to rule us.

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And so now I ask you this. Have you placed your faith in that savior? And have you come to him in repentance?

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Have you come owning your own sin and confessing your own guilt? Have you come to see that you need a savior from your sin to rescue you from the wrath of God?

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Because you have personally been apostate, just like national Israel was. You personally are guilty of idolatry as you have worshiped yourself and all kinds of other things that make themselves

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God in your heart and mind. That you are guilty of lying and stealing and blaspheming and profaning

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God, and you have rebelled against him and sinned against him and his holy law. And so you are guilty and stand condemned under the judgment of God.

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Have you come to recognize that and understand that? And then have you turned from your sin to trust in the one who died on a cross to save sinners?

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This one who came and was born of a virgin is Christ the Lord. He came to live in our place and to die in our place to provide for us forgiveness of our sins and the righteousness that we need to stand before a holy

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God. He was crucified according to the scriptures to bear the penalty that we are due. And he rose again the third day according to the scriptures and he sits now ready and willing to receive any and all who come to him.

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He has promised that all whom the father has given to him will come and the one who comes to him, he will certainly not cast out.

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And he commands you this day to repent and to believe upon him and to trust him for salvation while it is still called today because today is the day of salvation.

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The same Jesus who came to save sinners the first time is coming a second time to judge his enemies and it will be without grace.

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So receive his love and his grace now or face his judgment later. Matthew 1, verse 21, the angel said to Joseph, she that is

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Mary will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. Listen to this, he will save his people from their sin.

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Luke 2, 11 and 12, the angel said, do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people for today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who is

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Christ the Lord. He will save his people from their sin. If you repent, come to him, trust him for salvation, he will forgive your sins and give you his righteousness and you will call him

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Yahweh, your righteousness. God in his great love for you has provided for your deepest eternal needs, a savior, a shepherd and a king, let's pray.

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Father, as we reflect today upon your goodness to us through the gift of your son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, our hearts are filled with wonder at your sovereign providence, your goodness, your grace.

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We thank you for giving to us a savior who meets our needs, who himself will shepherd us for all of eternity, love us for all of eternity.

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We thank you that you delight in saving people, that you have delighted in saving us. It brings you joy when sinners repent.

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And so it is my prayer and the prayer of all the believing here, if any are hearing these words, who have never trusted

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Christ for salvation, that you would bring yourself joy and glory by bringing them to repentance and opening their eyes and their hearts to the need for a savior so that they may come to Christ, receive that savior, receive forgiveness and claim him as their righteousness.

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And in doing so, they will be able to lay claim to all these promises that you have provided for those who are yours.

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We thank you for Christ who is our savior, who is our shepherd and who is our sovereign. It is in his name that we pray, amen.