Luke 2:8-21 Treasuring Our Savior

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series,

King Over All, from the Gospel of Luke. Let's listen in. Good morning, everyone.

My name is Ben Wainwright, and I'm the Associate Pastor of Student Ministries here. I'm glad that you've joined us.

It actually kind of hit me when she said the final Sunday of 2024. That seems crazy.

We're already welcoming the new year in just a few short days here. I hope that everyone had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, this past week over Christmas. Such a blessing to be able to gather together here with all of you every

Sunday morning. I'm thankful to be given the opportunity to fill in for Pastor Don this week.

I'm grateful for so many great things that God is doing here at Recast Church through the power of the

Holy Spirit working in us, through the preaching and teaching of his holy word. I'm just grateful for this time that we get each week to do that.

If this is your first time attending here, you might be wondering why our church is named Recast.

What does Recast mean? Well, it's an acronym. It stands for replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

There are two parts of our name that I want to touch on and highlight for us this morning. The first thing that I want to talk about is truth.

Every week that we get together, we open up our Bibles together, and we study the holy scriptures that come directly from God.

He's given them to us. It is the word of God, the ultimate source of truth for us as believers.

Today we're going to continue on in studying with the book of Luke as we do here, and today we're going to look at chapter 2, verses 8 through 21, kind of continuing on from what

Don preached last week after verses 1 through 7 of chapter 2. I'll read those 14 verses for us here shortly, but first I want to take a moment to touch on the importance of the second word that I'd like to look at for today that'll kind of speak through our sermon, and that is replication.

That's the other word in our church name that I want to touch on, the replication. Well, before Jesus ascended into heaven, he commanded his disciples, and this comes directly from Matthew chapter 28, verse 19.

He said this, go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

And so if you've repented of your sins, and if you've put your faith in Christ alone to save you from your sins, then you are both a

Christian and a disciple of Jesus. And for each of you here in attendance today who find your identity in Christ alone, it is my hope that you leave here today with a

God -given joy and amazement of our Savior Jesus that results in a desire within you to tell others about the good news of the gospel.

And if this is your first time, maybe this is your first time hearing about our perfect Savior Jesus, then

I want you to know that I prayed for you earlier this week. And you're like, wait a second, how do you not even know me? How did you pray for me?

Well, I did. Earlier this week, I was praying for this message, asking that God would speak to the hearts of those who have yet to put their trust in Him.

And I asked that He would capture your hearts with the powerful truth of His saving grace that came to us in the form of a baby in a manger.

Well, many of you here have likely, probably read this passage of Scripture before, or maybe you've even already heard it preached.

Well, following Don's message last week from Luke chapter 2 verses 1 through 7 that told of the humble birth of our

Savior, we come to today's text in verses 8 through 21 of chapter 2 that tell the incredible story of what happened shortly after His birth.

This section of Scripture is going to speak of shepherds in a field at night hearing the best news that they'll hear in their entire lives.

Followed by in our text, we'll see their immediate response to hearing this news, which will then conclude with their actions after a truly life -changing experience.

So if you haven't already, I'll ask that you please open up your Bibles with me to the

New Testament book of Luke, Gospel of Luke chapter 2, and we're going to be looking at verses 8 through 21.

And I know that Pastor Don says this most weeks, but I think it's just an incredibly true statement, so I want to reiterate it in saying that, church, this is

God's sacred word given to us. It is an immense blessing that we get to hold this text in our very hands.

The word's given to us directly from Him. It is His gift. So at this time,

I'm going to ask that you follow along with me in your Bibles as I read the word from Luke chapter 2 verses 8 through 21.

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

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

And the angel said to them, 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 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.

And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising

God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom

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

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 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. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising

God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called

Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Please bow with me as I lead us in prayer. God, we are so thankful that you decided out of your great love for us to send your one and only

Son to this earth to be born as a child, an infant

Lord. You sent him in the humblest form, in the most vulnerable form,

Lord, but you did that because it was a part of your great plan, Lord. And we thank you that not only was he born, but that he lived a perfect life, that each and every one of us here, all of us on this earth are just completely, totally, utterly incapable of living.

And he lived that perfect life so that he could then be the perfect sacrifice, the perfect lamb to die on the cross for our sins,

Lord. And we're thankful that it did not end there, but that you rose him from the grave three days later.

We're thankful for this incredible truth of the gospel, Lord. And as we read and study from your word this morning,

I pray that you will open our hearts and minds to this amazing truth, Lord. Thank you for this time that we get to worship you, and I pray that these songs of praise will glorify you,

Lord, and that we will honor you through our singing here, not for how our voices sound, thank goodness

I speak that, but just from our hearts, Lord, that these words that we say, that they don't just come out as a repetition to us, but that they truly, truly come from hearts that are just fully surrendered to you in awe and wonder at how amazing you are.

We love you, Lord, and we just thank you for this time this morning that we have. We pray this in your name, amen.

Thank you, Dave and the worship team, for leading us in that time of praise. I'm going to ask that you please get comfortable and reopen your

Bibles back up when you get a chance to Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 21.

Please feel free at any time throughout the service, if you need to use the restroom, you just go out the double doors down that hallway there, past the barn doors on your left -hand side.

Feel free to do that at any time. Also get some more coffee or donuts in the back while supplies last.

Get yourself comfortable. So at this time, yeah,

I want us to get ready to dive into this passage together, but as we get ready to look at this section by section,

I want to give you the sermon outline that I've come up with for today. I've broken it up into four parts.

So I think at this time, yes, there you go, we have those up there for you. So part one is hearing of our

Savior, and this covers verses 8 through 14, hearing of our

Savior, verses 8 to 14. Part two, amazed at our Savior, and this covers verses 15 and 16.

Part three, glorifying our Savior, and this covers verses 17 through 20.

And then lastly for us today, I have part four, naming our Savior, and that covers verse 21, part four, naming our

Savior from verse 21. So, at the very opening of our passage, we read in verse 8 about shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night.

Now, I'm guessing that the majority of us here, might be a couple outliers, but I'm guessing that the majority of us here haven't had a personal experience of being a shepherd for an extended period of time before.

I know that we have a few farmers here who probably own sheep or maybe have had sheep at some point in the past.

Maybe you've worked with them when you were younger. But I think it's safe to say that there probably isn't a single person here who's actually spent time outside, actually like living with the flock outdoors.

So I might be wrong, and if so, good for you, wow, that is quite an experience you must have had.

But, that's exactly what the shepherds are doing here in today's text.

The ESV translation simply says, shepherds out in the field, while I was looking at some different cross translations and studying this text, the

NIV version actually says pretty explicitly, it says, shepherds living out in the fields nearby.

So it uses that key verb there of living. Being a shepherd a couple thousand years ago was not merely a hobby, as it often is for many people today.

Oh, I got a couple sheep, cool, well, that's fun. But this was, for them, this was their livelihood, their career, their way of providing for their family.

But before we move on from this section, I want to clarify that during the time of this writing of this text, shepherds were, unfortunately, they were among the most socially undesirable classes of the time.

They were, in fact, frequently looked on as filthy and disreputable due to regularly being out in the fields without the opportunity to bathe themselves regularly for several days at a time, right?

They just didn't have that opportunity because they were so busy, focused on their flock. And my guess is that those of you who work with livestock or have worked with them in the past, you have a pretty good idea and an understanding that things can get quite messy and smelly in a hurry.

So you have an idea as to why maybe this was not a desirable class of position.

Although the shepherds were often despised by many people at the time, doesn't

God have a bit of a history of calling upon lowly shepherds for high tasks, church?

Think about this. Think about how about the story of a little shepherd boy named David in the Old Testament book of 1

Samuel, right? There we read about God using an insignificant shepherd boy to slay a giant with merely a slingshot and a stone.

To then follow up and become king over Judah in Israel, church,

I want you to understand that God loves choosing ordinary people for extraordinary tasks.

Something interesting that I also discovered in my time of studying this week is that Bethlehem's shepherds, they were often known to care for the temple flock.

So the shepherds who were tending to the sheep that would be used as sacrifices, right?

The temple flock, they were the ones that were used as sacrifices to atone for people's sins at the time. Those shepherds are the ones that God decided to first give the good news about the birth of the perfect Lamb of God.

So cool. This is just awesome. So God could have chosen to first share this incredible news with royalty, with powerful military commanders, or even with wealthy magistrates, but instead he chose to first deliver that incredible news about the announcement of the birth of Christ, the beginning of the gospel.

He announced that to common shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night. So let this be a lesson to all of us that God doesn't show favoritism toward anyone.

We know this to be true as it is written in the New Testament book of Romans chapter 2, verse 11, that says this, just pretty straightforward five words, for God shows no partiality.

Thank goodness for that. So my encouragement to you is to be ready for God to use you for his purposes at any time.

Be prepared for that. Well, the next four verses, verses 9 through 12, they're going to describe an absolutely miraculous event.

But before we get to that, I want to ask you, I'm going to get a little bit of participation from you guys,

I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if you've ever worked the night shift at a job before, raise your hand, oh, wow, okay, decent amount of you, that's awesome.

So I have not, I'll say I've not done that before, so I can't speak exactly to this from personal experience, but I can only imagine that at some point during working that shift, you probably get quite drowsy,

I'm guessing, that probably kicks in, because God has intricately and wisely designed our human brains with a natural circadian rhythm, and this biological clock within our brains, as many of you know, is going to help regulate our sleep -wake cycle in response to light and darkness, just this natural way of how he created things.

So sure, your body will likely somewhat adjust to new bedtimes and alarm clocks over a certain period of time, but working in the wee hours of the night will inevitably come with some fatigue.

And why do I say this? Well, it's because the shepherds in our story, they are out at night doing their best to stay alert in order to keep their sheep from wandering away, and also, a very important part of their job is to protect the sheep from potential thieves looking to steal them, or beasts of the field looking to gobble them up.

So put yourself in their shoes for a second, or I guess maybe I'll say put yourself in their sandals for a second, because that was probably the footwear of choice at the time.

It's dark outside, you're a bit groggy, trying to keep yourself awake, when all of a sudden, an angel of the

Lord appeared to them in an instant, just like that. It's an ordinary, typical, usual night, and then just like that, an angel appears.

As if that isn't shocking enough, our text says this, are you ready? Look at verse 9. It says, the glory of the

Lord shone around them. Verse 9 finishes by saying,

I think something that seems fairly obvious, but it states, it says, they were filled with great fear.

In fact, again, while kind of looking at different translations this week, the NIV Bible, it translates this by saying something that I think

I like a little bit better of a descriptor, and they were terrified, right? In fact, as I was writing my sermon this week,

I just thought, how can I describe this? This is what I said, I said, I can't even begin to imagine what this verse would say if I was in this instance, in this situation.

It probably reads something like this, it would say, and He passed out and required a change of clothes.

I'm sure that's what it would be, probably be even greater than terrified, right? I would just, I can't even imagine just like that, suddenly an angel appears, and the glory of the

Lord shone around them. The footnote in my ESV study Bible, it describes the glory of the

Lord as this. So when we're talking about the glory of the Lord, this is what my footnote in my study Bible says, it says, the bright light that surrounds the presence of God Himself.

Going back to the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, we read of the glory of the Lord appearing as a cloud and also as devouring fire.

Can you imagine that? It's just unreal. In Ezekiel, the glory of the

Lord is described as this, it's described as the appearance of brightness all around, all around, and it caused people to fall on their faces.

That's how we've just here in Scripture described the glory of the Lord. Well, in verse 10, the angel of the

Lord begins the angelic proclamation by saying this, he says, fear not, for behold,

I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Church, the word gospel means good news. So as I mentioned earlier, we're reading here about the very first declaration of the gospel in all of history.

And something that I want to emphasize from this verse is the last four words, for all the people, all being the key word there.

Church, God desires the gospel message to be shared with all people, with everyone.

He wants everyone, all people to hear the powerful truth of the gospel. Now, I'll be clear, this doesn't guarantee that all will receive it and accept it, but John 3 .16

tells us that God so loved the world, he gave his only son that whoever, no distinction, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

The message of the gospel is for all people, church. Well, the angel makes it very clear to the shepherds in verses 11 through 12 as to what this good news is, right?

Because the beginning says, I bring you great news. So what is the good news? Makes it very clear in these next two verses.

Verse 11, the angel says, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, which is the town of Bethlehem, a

Savior who is Christ the Lord. Now, instead of saying

Christ the Lord, again, I didn't mean to dabble in the NIV quite as much, but I mean,

I was comparing, I think, the CSB and the ASB, I was comparing a few different versions, and I was seeing some differences in the

NIV that I just, I thought were good. I thought were good. The NIV translation says, the Messiah, the

Lord. Instead of Christ the Lord, it says the Messiah, the Lord, and Messiah and Christ, they essentially mean the same thing.

They both mean the chosen one by God who he sent to the earth to save us from our sins.

Well, if the shepherd's brains even had processing power at this time, because I imagine they were just stunned, shocked, and in absolute awe, but if their brains had the ability to process at this point in time and this magnificent moment,

I'm imagining that they were probably wondering, okay, well, where is this

Savior, right? That would probably be the next logical thought is, well, where? But they didn't say that.

They didn't say that. Before they could even ask that question, before it even came off of their lips, if they were indeed thinking it, the angel proceeded to tell them in verse 12, if you look at verse 12, the angel says, you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

Then as if this wasn't enough to have the shepherds just standing in absolute awe at God, and if they even had time to perhaps change clothes from just being stunned, verse 13 hits.

Are we ready for this one? It's like just one thing of amazement after another miraculous thing.

Verse 13 says that God suddenly sent to them a multitude of the heavenly host to praise him.

Again, using the footnote in my ESV study Bible, I really love the notes down there. The footnote, it says that a multitude of the heavenly host would be composed of thousands of angels, not hundreds, but thousands of angels.

I cannot even...we can't fathom what that phenomenal sight must have been like.

And if we think about this, the angels, not only were they before them, but they are belting out, belting out a song of praise and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he is pleased.

I read in a commentary this week that around the time when Jesus was born, it was commonplace for singing to occur at the arrival of a newborn child.

It was just something that was common at the time. So it seems here that this was God's angelic way of welcoming his one and only son into the world.

Well, some of you probably noticed, maybe there's a little bit of a difference here between our verse where it says, peace on earth, it does not say to all people, it does not say to all people.

We talked just a couple minutes ago about the good news of the gospel is for all people, but the angels are not singing peace on earth to all people, but instead with whom he is pleased.

At first read, this might seem contradictory to what I said earlier about God not having favorites, right?

Those things might seem to conflict with each other a bit, but let me assure you that it's not.

It's not a conflict. It's not a disagreement. One commentary that I read says of verse 14 that when accurately translated, the angels are not declaring

God's benevolence to all of humanity. They are celebrating his mercy to those who follow his will by accepting his son.

Well, this month, my wife, Erica, and I, we went through an Advent devotional that was written by John Piper, short, small, little read, almost handheld book, and I would highly recommend it.

It is called Joy to the World. It's a really great Advent devotional that we went through, and yeah,

I'd encourage it for next year. You'd pick it up maybe now so you've got it for next year. It's really, really great. Well, the devotional for December 6th, so the devotional a little over three weeks ago, it was on verse 14 of Luke chapter 2, and it says this.

It says, the key that unlocks the treasure chest of God's peace is faith in the promises of God.

When we trust in the promises of God and have love, joy, and peace, then

God is glorified. Amen. We're going to move on now to part two of our section, and this comes from verses 15 through 16.

This is amazed at our Savior, and I want us to look at a couple of things that stand out from verse 15.

First and foremost is the fact that the shepherds didn't rush home to tell their families or friends about what had just had happened.

I think that probably would have been the natural reaction for most of us. I know I probably wouldn't have been able to sprint home quick enough to tell

Erica what I had just witnessed, right? But that's not what we see here. We don't see here them doing that.

Instead, they all look at each other and kind of unanimously, they agree on the same page.

They say, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. Here we see the genuine sense of urgency and excitement that the shepherds had after this miraculous experience that they had just all gone through together.

So without hesitation, they all agree to pack up and head out to go see this

Savior baby that they have just been told. Verse 16 says, they went with haste.

They went quickly. Second thing that I want to touch on about the shepherds' response to this event is at the end of verse 15, and this is very important here.

It's where the shepherds say, which the Lord has made known to us. Here we see that the shepherds have faith that this was truly a message from God to them.

They're not believing that they had just eaten some raw fish the other night and seen some hallucinations.

They're not looking at this as some sort of, you know, surreal experience that can't be explained.

They have faith. They say, which the Lord has made known to us. They were told the fact of the

Savior's birth. That's another thing that I find interesting here is the angel did not give them a command to go and visit.

It did not say, go now and see, right? There was no direction given to them.

There was just merely facts. It was just merely stated the truth about what had happened.

So even though there wasn't a command given them directly to obey, I find it awesome that God laid it on their hearts.

He put it in them, a desire, a true passion to go and see the one true

Savior of the world. They heard this news, they said, let's go. And they did just that.

Verse 16 says that they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

Well, Luke's account doesn't give specific details of their initial reaction to the moment that they first laid eyes on baby

Jesus, but I can only imagine that their jaws dropped and they must have shed tears of joy.

That's what I imagine, just seeing the Son of God laying there.

That's got to be just the most incredible, incredible experience, which is wild, right?

To see, okay, thousands of angels praising God, but then to see one humble baby laying in a manger, but to know that that is the

Savior, that's just amazing. We're going to move on to part three now, glorifying our

Savior, and this comes from verses 17 through 20. Here it says that the shepherds made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

One last time, I'm going to do a little bit of comparison here of the NIV text.

I just like what it says as well. Here it says, they spread the word, they spread the word, the combination of the angelic announcement that they had just received from the angels and the sign of a child in a feeding trough, right, seeing that with their very own eyes.

This inspired them, this inspired the shepherds to tell as many people as they could about what they had just heard and experienced firsthand.

I want to take a second, I want to encourage each of you here, I want you to think back on the first time that you ever heard about Jesus.

Take a second and think about that. What happened in your life when

He first captured your heart and you committed your life to living for Him and following His ways?

Well, the shepherds, they went all around telling everyone that they could about our

Savior. That was their reaction. That is what they did immediately following this. Verse 18, it tells us the result of the shepherds glorifying

God through spreading the news about Him. It says this, and I love this verse, it says, all, it doesn't say some, it doesn't say most, it says, all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

Now, I guess I thought I said that, I was done, but I guess I have one more NIV comparison here.

And I love this, I love this here. The words say, all who heard it were amazed.

So instead of, all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them, it says, all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.

So the result of the shepherds spreading the good news about Jesus' birth was that many people were completely and utterly amazed at the powerful truth of the gospel.

Even if they didn't fully understand all the particulars of what was being told to them, I imagine hearing that news would be just surreal, right?

Like, oh, we saw these angels out in the field, they were singing praises, and then we saw our

Savior as a baby in the manger. I mean, they were probably a little bit, maybe not fully understanding everything of it, but they recognized that something significant had just happened, something extremely monumental had just happened.

I want to explain to you guys that there is not a single message on this planet, there's not any piece of news that even comes close to having the power that the truth of the gospel has.

This is the most powerful, the greatest news that we can share with anyone is about the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of our

Savior Jesus. Well, while the shepherds were in awe at the wonder of Christ and all who heard it were amazed, we see quite a different response from Mary in verse 19.

Take a look at verse 19 with me. It says that Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

Well, up to this point, Mary had been through so many things that an average teenage girl would never even be able to fathom or dream of.

First she was visited by an angel named Gabriel who told her that she, a virgin, would conceive in her womb the

Son of God and that she would name Him Jesus. Shortly after that, she went to visit her cousin

Elizabeth, and this is while Mary was pregnant, and upon her arrival at Elizabeth's home,

Elizabeth's child, the unborn John the Baptist, leaped inside of Elizabeth's womb.

Right? We remember that sermon that Don preached in Luke 1 a few weeks ago. Well, then, a little bit shortly after that,

Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made, so Mary and Joseph, they traveled nearly a hundred miles from Nazareth all the way to Joseph's hometown of Bethlehem on foot.

Quite a journey that she's been through. Well, upon arriving, they discovered that there was no proper birthing space available for her, so she gave birth to Jesus in a less than ideal location and was forced to place

God's Son, the Savior of the world, in a manger. So after having gone through all of this that I just described through Mary's life, the shepherds arrive to her, and they've got quite a story to tell her.

They say that angels appeared to them and told them that a

Savior would be born or is born in the very town, in fact, of Bethlehem that they're currently in, that Mary is staying in, and that the angels, a multitude, appeared and was praising

God at this arrival of her Son, the Son of God, Jesus.

And even down to the specific details that the angel told them, that the child would be wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger, just as he was at that very moment.

Mary's hearing all this, and it's, I mean, can't even imagine, and so she's pondering this in her heart.

Now, this news caused Mary to treasure, treasure the good news that God had given to her, the experience that she had been able to go through.

She was pondering this. She was treasuring up these things in her heart. So I'll ask you, church, how often do we treasure the birth, the perfect life, the sacrifice, and the resurrection of our

Savior Jesus? How often do we treasure the good news of the gospel? Do you still stand in awe and wonder at the fact that God loves us so much that he sent his one and only

Son to save us from our sins? And I'm not standing up here just looking at you.

It's convicting to me as well. It can be something that we get all amped up every year around Christmas time to celebrate

Jesus's birthday and get fired up at Easter time to rejoice in his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave.

But then, often, many of us, we tend to lose our excitement as the holidays fade away.

I'm guilty of that as well. I've been there. My encouragement, my challenge for myself, as well as all of us, is that we agree to not be constrained merely to dates on a calendar, to seasons that come upon us, but instead to joyfully celebrate the truth of the gospel all year long.

That's my prayer and my hope for all of us here. Now, we'll take a minute here and we'll look at verse 21 as we get to part four, naming our

Savior. Our shortest section here, but it is in the

Bible. It is God's Word, so it has significance. There's importance. There's value to this. This verse can often easily be overlooked, maybe sometimes even skipped by people when reading this section of Scripture, but it's an important part of the story because it shows us the great obedience shown by Mary and Joseph toward God.

First, they honor God by obeying His commands given to Abraham back in Genesis chapter 17, and then the commands also given to Moses back in the

Old Testament book of Leviticus chapter 12. And the commands were this, that every Jewish boy was to be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth.

We can find that in Leviticus chapter 12 and Genesis chapter 17. This was considered such a sacred ceremony, in fact, the circumcision, that it could even be carried out on the

Sabbath day when law prohibited pretty much every other act that was not absolutely essential for life preservation.

Second, and most importantly, looking at verse 21 and seeing the obedience of Mary and Joseph, it shows them following the angel

Gabriel's instructions that were given to them in Luke chapter 1, verses 31 to 33.

Again, this is something that Don preached on just a couple of weeks ago, and those verses,

I'm going to read them for us here. It says, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name

Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the

Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

So this is a direct obedience of the claim in verse 31, and you shall call his name

Jesus. And we see that here in this verse. Them not trying to do a last -minute pivot, oh,

I think this name sounds better or that name. No, they were locked in to following the commands given to them by God, and here they do just that.

As our time together comes to a close, I want to leave you with two application points that come directly from our text.

In fact, I pulled these from verses 16 and 19, and initially when writing up this sermon,

I had the application points flip -flopped. I had two as one and one as two, but then,

I don't know, God just laid it on my heart to put them the other way around. Not that the order is that significant, but at the same time,

I do think it kind of is because of what God commands us in Scripture, what

He wants us as believers to do, and I do at this time, I want us to look at verse 19 one more time, because that's where this first application point comes from, and it is ponder the gospel and treasure

Christ. Ponder the gospel and treasure Christ. That is my desire, that is my hope, that's my wish for all of us this week as we kind of wrap up the

Christmas season and get ready to welcome in a new year. I pray that this is not just an application point for us until next

Sunday when Don is back and returns and preaches, you know, more of Luke chapter 2 for us.

I pray that this application point is something that stays with us the whole year long, our entire lives, that we will never stop pondering the gospel and treasuring

Christ. But let's be honest, our lives are so jam -packed full of things to do, things to buy, and people to see, especially during the holidays.

Because of the constant busyness that fills and consumes our lives, sadly, we often don't take time to ponder the powerful truth of the gospel or to truly treasure

Jesus in our hearts. And I'll be honest with you, I'm guilty of this more often than I'd like to admit, the busyness and getting caught up and hanging out with friends and spending time with family and just doing a lot of things.

And not that any of that is bad, that is great. We can glorify the Lord through our work, through our leisure time.

And we can glorify God through everything that we do. But I want to share with you guys a paraphrase here from St.

Augustine, and it says this, it says, God is always trying to give us good things.

He's trying to give good things to us, but far too often our hands are too full to receive them.

God gives where He finds empty hands. So, with that being said,

I want to encourage all of us to take time this week to slow down from the chaos and the busyness of our lives and to ask

God to declutter your hearts and your minds so that you can better focus on the one who died to save you from your sins.

Our second application and final application point for today is share the gospel and tell of God's great works.

This comes from verse 16, where we read that the shepherds made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

Church, not only do we know what the shepherds knew, that our

Savior was born in a manger, but we are also blessed to hold God's holy words in its entirety in our hands today.

What an incredible gift that is that we have. We're able to read about in Scripture the entirety of the gospel, which tells us,

I have a couple of verses for us here that I want to read from 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 -4, tell us

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried and He was raised on the third day.

Amen, amen. This is the incredible truth of the gospel, that God sent

His one and only Son, Jesus, to the world to be born as a baby, who then lived the perfect life on earth that none of us are capable of living.

I know I said that earlier, but I just want to reiterate it again, no matter how hard we ever try to think that, oh,

I'm not going to sin today, I'm only going to do good, it's not possible. All of us are incapable of that.

He then died on the cross for all of our sins, and then rose from the grave so that sin and death could be conquered once and for all.

As I mentioned at the beginning of our time together, if you have put your faith in Jesus to save you from your sins already, then you are a disciple of Christ.

And if you are His disciple, then I encourage you this week to pray to God, ask for Him to give you both the opportunity and the strength to share the gospel with someone this week.

Ask Him to give you the opportunity and the strength. And the strength is something, because it was just not this past week, but the previous week where I went into Big B Coffee just to get a coffee, and I saw a gentleman just sitting there, and he looked,

I'm going to be honest, he looked pretty downtrodden, and I got in my car, and I was getting ready to pull out and leave, because I actually needed to write this sermon.

I needed to write this sermon at the time. And I remember sitting there, and I was like, man,

I've got a pretty tight schedule. I got to get there. I got to get to the, I was going to the Portage Library, and I was like,

I got to go. And it was interesting how I literally, I sat there, and I kind of wrestled with the

Holy Spirit for a minute, and I was like, I just want to, I've got things to do. The Holy Spirit was like, no, no, you go, like you're about to write a sermon, and you're about to just skip past this guy?

No. It was really cool, because he did know of Jesus, and he had the opportunity to speak to me some of the great things that God had done in his life.

It was an awesome conversation. But I encourage you to follow the nudge of the

Spirit. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore it. Even though our flesh and the clock, the time, wants to push against us and say, you got to, you got to, you got to.

Follow the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. Well, every week at Recast here, we get the opportunity and the privilege to end our time together with communion.

This is a special time where we can reflect on what Jesus has done for us on the cross, and to thank

Him for the hope that we have of spending eternity with Him. One of my favorite

Scripture passages, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it tells us this. It says, "'For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.'"

Church, there is nothing that any of us can do to be freed from our sins, besides put our

God -given faith in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. So I'll ask, have you accepted

God's free gift to you yet? And if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and if you're at peace with everyone here, so far as it depends on you, then after I close this in prayer, you'll get up and walk to one of our tables at the side or at the back there, take the cracker and the juice back to your seat, and after spending some time in prayer, personal time with the

Lord, you may eat the cracker and drink the juice while remembering Christ's body that was beaten and His blood that was shed to save you from the punishment that your sins rightly deserve.

Through faith in the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, Christians are given the greatest gift that anyone can ever receive, that's

God's gift of salvation. So no matter what comes your way this week, I pray that you intentionally take time to ponder the gospel and treasure eternal life spent with Jesus.

And if you've yet to take that next step to put your faith in Christ, you wanna know what it's like and how that can be done,

I encourage you to talk to our elder on duty, Dave Wilson, chat with myself. I see we have a few other elders here as well, we've got

Jesse and Mike and Mark. I mean, there's a lot of, if it's just, I think Don's mentioned before, just grab someone and ask them, hey, if you put your faith in Christ, how do

I do that, what does that look like? Because make today, don't ignore the nudging of the

Holy Spirit, take today to repent of your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ.

Let's bow in prayer. God, we thank You so much for Your Word. Lord, it is, it's so awesome that we can hear of just the story of You coming to the shepherds just on a average normal night out tending their flock and telling them the first ever gospel proclamation, sharing the news of the birth of Your Son, Jesus.

Lord, I pray that for those of us who have heard this incredible news, that we will never, never tire of hearing it, that it will never fall on us as deaf ears, that it will always bring us to awe and amazement.

Yes, Lord, we know that You are gracious and we know that You are kind.

And I pray that we will be encouraged when we hear a message like this from Your Word, Lord, to spread that to other people,

Lord, because there are so many people who, yes, they have heard and we can share in the great works, the things that You have done in our lives, the blessings.

But Lord, we never know when we might encounter someone who we likely will never see ever again like that gentleman at the coffee shop.

I didn't know, probably never run across him. We have so many instances of that in our own lives,

Lord, where all it might take is us just sharing the simple but yet magnificently powerful truth of the gospel with that person that could allow that person to be a brother or sister in Christ with us, and then we could spend all of eternity in Your presence, knowing that You used us.

We were just merely a vessel, Lord, it is the power of Your Spirit that transforms their heart.

We are just a tool used to advance Your kingdom. But Lord, I pray that You will give us the courage, give us the boldness to step out in faith to share the incredible news of the gospel with someone this week.

Lord, we love You so much, and we thank You for that, and we pray that in addition to that, that we will just set some time aside to treasure, treasure

You. We love You, Lord, with all of our hearts, and we pray this in Your name, amen.