The Birth of the Christ-Lord | Sermon 12/26/2022

Apologia Utah

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We hear this account every Advent season. You might even study it as a family every year during this time.

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Some of you maybe even read it together this morning. But so what? So what?

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Pastors of other churches will dust off the old Christmas sermon for the local

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Christer crowd and will make things more palatable. But so what?

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We won't do that. May we never try to augment this heavenly account the way the world does, the way lukewarm churches do.

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Maybe some of us are weary of hearing this account because we keep hearing it their way.

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Let's look at it the biblical way. Let's look at it in an expositional way.

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Let us never tire of hearing and reading and learning of the arrival of the

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Savior. So please turn with me in your Bibles to the gospel according to Luke chapter 2.

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Chapter 2. The title of this sermon today church is the birth of the Christ Lord.

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The birth of the Christ Lord. Luke chapter 2.

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Starting in verse 1. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

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In the same region there was some shepherds staying out in the fields and she gave birth to her firstborn son. And they were terribly frightened.

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When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another,

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Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the

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Lord has made known to us. So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger.

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When they had seen this, they had made known the statement which had been told to them about this child.

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And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds.

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But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.

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The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen just as had been told them.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy inspired word. Let's pray quickly, Church. Lord, I just ask that you would speak through me today.

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God, that you would illuminate these scriptures for your people, for myself. God, would you cause us to look at these words in a fresh way, with fresh eyes?

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Lord, would you cause us to regain the wonder that we have for the

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Incarnation? Would you cause us, Lord, to be excited for the coming of Christ?

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And Lord, would you allow us to be like the shepherds who were in amazement and astonishment?

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And would you cause us to be like Mary who pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart?

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Lord, I ask that you would bless this time. Help me to speak in a way that is clear and helpful and let it always be true.

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I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So the text begins, as you heard, by saying, now in those days.

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Now in those days. And this demonstrates that this was a real time, at a real place, and was real history.

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We don't read once upon a time. There is no fable here, no fairy tale.

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The world is going to encounter the divine activity of the unbound

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God within the bounds of time, space, and history. That is

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Luke's aim. Luke is an ordered physician and facts are important to him.

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So in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken. At this time in antiquity, the

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Emperor was considered the most powerful force on earth. Augustus' name was

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Octavian. And at the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44

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BC, Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir.

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So as a result, Octavian received and inherited all of Caesar's name, title, estate, and all his loyalties then came down to him.

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Asserting that his adoptive father Julius Caesar was divine, Augustus gave himself the title son of God.

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And turned the Roman Republic into an empire with himself at the head.

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He built the Roman Forum, he founded libraries, he sponsored lavish spectacles for the populace, and boasted that he had found

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Rome built in brick and he left it in marble. That's this man.

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He was the first emperor to encourage cult -like worship of himself. Even so,

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Roman poets would claim that Augustus brought justice and peace to the world and they would laud him as savior and lord of the people.

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We see he issued a decree. The Greek word for decree is actually dogma.

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An ordinance or a command. He expected the empire to follow suit and this is how

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Luke chooses to start the account of the birth of our savior. The battle of two religions in a sense, two dogmas.

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Two kings in a way, except there's only one. Luke doesn't expect us to ooh and ah at Caesar Augustus.

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We are to look at this like a house cat versus a ferocious lion.

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That's what he's setting this up with. There's no comparison. The omnipotent

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God from eternity past has declared and decreed the coming of the true king, the true lord, and the only savior.

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And unlike the decrees of men, the decrees of God will be executed without hindrance.

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They are unavoidable. God's decrees will be imposed onto men, but they are benevolent.

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They are righteous. Unlike the census that Caesar will perform for tax purposes.

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God's decree will overshadow Caesar's decree. Do you see that? Caesar is making a decree.

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He's shouting and saying follow all that I say with this census. And it's at this time that the only true

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God will come and show that Caesar is no true rival. He's no one.

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God's decree will overshadow Caesar's and the son of God will come into this world and carry out the works of redemption for his people and will be born at the fullness of times.

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At a small village in Bethlehem. And for the people of Judea, they were required to register for the census in their hometowns.

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Joseph was affected by this. He was required to leave his hometown in Nazareth of Galilee, travel south up the mountain to the city of David, which is

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Bethlehem. Joseph was in fact of the house and family of David.

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He was an ancestor in the royal line as we see in the genealogies in Matthew and Luke.

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The covenant God made with David was one of his descendants would come and take the throne forever.

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In fact, it speaks to this, especially through Bethlehem. Bethlehem was considered no destination on the map.

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In fact, God says so. Micah chapter 5, the Lord says this, but as for you,

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Bethlehem, too little to be named among the clans of Judah. From you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

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His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. You hear that?

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From the days of eternity. He will give them up until the time when she who is in labor has born a child.

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Then the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel. And he will arise and shepherd his flock in the strength of the

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Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will remain. Because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth.

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And it ends saying this, this one, this one will be our peace. Did you know that Augustus means majestic one?

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The one with majesty. But here we see in Micah chapter 5 that this child, this child will arise in the majesty of the name of the

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Lord of hosts of Yahweh. This is the true majestic one. And he alone will have the crown rights to the throne.

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He alone. Verse 5 says Joseph went to Bethlehem in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and she was with child.

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So if you notice, Mary's marital status hasn't changed. It's remained the same from chapter 1 verse 31.

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The only thing that's happened is now she's pregnant. She's not fully married yet. She's engaged to him.

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She still is. She's pregnant as the angel Gabriel told her.

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And she's a virgin. But as the angel said, the power of the Most High has covered her and the

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Holy Spirit has caused her to be with child. And so in that, you've got to think about it this way.

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The seed of Adam will not pass through from Joseph into Jesus.

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To Jesus. Consequently, Jesus will not be under the fall of man.

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Jesus won't be under the curse. Then he'll be born in a miraculous fashion.

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He'll be perfectly holy, blameless, and perfectly righteous. Born of a virgin.

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Now, some have wondered why did Mary go with Joseph, right? This woman is pregnant.

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She's ripe. She's ready. And why is she traveling with him?

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And if you read the text, it kind of sounds almost as if she was supposed to. She was forced to.

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As if maybe some have speculated she's also of the house of David. Some say since Luke focuses so much on Mary, maybe

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Joseph's genealogy shows more of his connection to David through a bloodline.

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But maybe Mary's is possibly more royal or the other way around. And some speculate that.

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Her name is Miriam in Hebrew, which is the name of Moses's sister.

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Her cousin Elizabeth, though, was of the Levite tribe. It's possible Mary was both of Judah and Levi.

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Interesting. Nevertheless, the text doesn't indicate exactly why she joined

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Joseph. But what seems reasonable is that they were both approached by the angel Gabriel and understood the importance of this baby.

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And you can imagine Mary coming along with Joseph at Joseph's desire. Joseph fears

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God. Joseph cares for his wife. He's not going to let her stay at home. He knows who this baby will be.

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He's received the vision from the angel. And he's got to be with her at every moment.

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He's got to protect her. He's got to protect the baby. And he's going to be there when she delivers, no matter what.

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So she's coming with him. But we also understand what's really happening behind the scenes, right?

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She couldn't have stayed behind in Nazareth. The sovereignty and providence of God had her go to Bethlehem, because only there would that prophecy be fulfilled.

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So the decree of God would be carried out just as he planned. And verse 6 says, while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.

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We don't know if this is the first night. Do you realize that? If you look at the text, there's no indication that she gave birth on the very first night, that it was a rush.

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We don't know if it was the first night in or ten nights in. It says at the right time, it was fulfilled for her.

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Her days were completed to give birth. It could have been the first night. But she was ready.

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Knowing the care of Joseph, I believe that he would have departed in such a way that they could find hopefully some reasonable accommodations, even if meager.

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But we don't see, obviously, that happening very shortly. Mary then gives birth to her firstborn son.

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She wrapped him in cloths, laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

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Firstborn is Praetotikos. That title means something much more significant than Mary could ever know right now.

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Praetotikos later on for Christ means the preeminent one, the one who receives the inheritance of all the earth and all of heaven.

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The firstborn gets everything. He gets the rights and privileges that the father has.

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All is his. He is the Praetotikos and the Monogenes. He is the one and only son of God.

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And yet the entry of Jesus into the world would have a backdrop of humility.

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In fact, humbleness would mark the whole of Jesus's life and ministry.

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Wrapped in the traditional Jewish cloths, as Ezekiel 16 shows, was done for newborns.

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He was swaddled like any other baby. He's laid in a manger.

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I'm sure most of you know a manger was literally an animal's feeding trough. Animals would come and eat from it.

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It could have been made of stone. It could have been made of wood and held a straw and hay, literally for sheep, goats, cattle, whatever.

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So in this case, this animal feeding trough resembles a crude cradle.

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A crude cradle. All of us were likely born in a nicer place than Jesus Christ.

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So meek and so lowly it confounds the world. By the way, this isn't actually the word in the

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Bible. I'm going to ruin all the sort of things out there surrounding this story. This isn't the word for inn or hotel.

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That's another word in the Greek. This word that says inn typically in most of our

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Bibles is actually guest room. You see, it's possible that a small village like Bethlehem wouldn't have had a public inn or hotel.

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It was too small. So this word literally means guest room. And you have to understand, everyone is traveling.

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Everyone is journeying back to their hometowns. So there wouldn't be a lot of accommodations for people.

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They'd be very scarce to find them. And so a typical first century

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Jewish house was a pretty good size rectangle. And it was partitioned into three sections.

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In the middle section was the main living area in the center. And on one side, the other small room was the guest room, which is the word that's being used here.

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And then on the other side, the opposite side of the house, was a small covered stable. So that they could even open up a window and kind of, you know, throw scraps out or manage the animals that they had.

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And so that's really what we're looking at is Bethlehem was made up of a bunch of these rectangular sort of houses.

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So all the kinsmen, all of Joseph's kin, all of his tribesmen, their guest rooms were full.

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He's going to Cousin Eddie and all these guys. And all these people that he knows.

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And people that obviously he doesn't know. And everyone's saying, I'm sorry, the census has brought everyone into town.

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We have nothing for you at this point. We have especially nothing for your wife to give birth.

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There's no room for you. And so there they are in the stable of someone's house.

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We don't know who. Makeshift beds, makeshift cradle.

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That's where our Lord was born. Jesus would later tell us that the

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Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Truly, is that not the case his whole life?

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From the moment he was born, he had nowhere to lay his head. And when he was an adult in his ministry, he had nowhere to lay his head.

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He would borrow from others. It was shame and humiliation that was his wrappings.

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He was swaddled with shame and humiliation. Every part of it was integral though to his atonement of sin.

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You have to understand, it would be humiliation at his entrance into the world, and humiliation at his exit.

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That's our Christ. And yet God the Father would not be pleased in the arrival of his

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Son if it were only humiliation. No, that won't do. My Son is coming to the world.

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It's going to be great and it's going to be grand. Exaltation is only fitting for an event the world has never seen before and will never see again.

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God will shine glory on the manger. So what would be better than bringing an audience to this event?

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Two audiences, okay? The first one is mentioned in verse 8. In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.

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These men were on the outskirts of the village of Bethlehem, okay, in a circumference around Jerusalem.

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Okay, that's what you have to understand. In a circumference around Jerusalem, there were shepherds and flocks in this circumference around the city, and they were caring for the sacrificial lambs all around.

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North, south, east, west, in a big circle around Jerusalem. And Bethlehem, if you know, is just south of Jerusalem, so that would have been included in the circumference.

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These were shepherds who were taking care of the flocks of sheep and lambs that were to be part of the daily sacrifices and even the

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Day of Atonement sacrifices. Shepherds would be further out in the country during the warmer months.

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They'd be letting the sheep go to pasture. The grass was plentiful. But then in these colder months, they were closer to the city.

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That's how they were able to get to the family like they were. They were likely closer.

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Could be during the time of winter, which is what we think. Shepherds, they lived hard lives.

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And in fact, shepherds during this time, we often read in the Bible, God has this way of talking about shepherds.

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He calls Himself a shepherd. Jesus calls Himself a shepherd as well. And we see David was a shepherd and all these things.

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Moses was a shepherd. And so we can kind of look at shepherds in this grand way, but really at this time in the first century, shepherds were considered low of the low.

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Low society. Staying out in the fields literally means they lived out in open country.

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Exposure. There's possibility, it says, that they built small huts to stay warm.

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Then they would take turns in the night watches of the sheep. They had to protect the flock from predators and rustlers, people who would seek to steal them.

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So go to that night. The bleeding, the bleating of the sheep has died down.

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They're all asleep except for one man. One man is keeping watch while the other men are getting rest.

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It's nightfall. Until suddenly, with no prior warning or an announcement, an angel of the

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Lord stood before them. There was just no one, and now there's someone.

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And this someone is an angel of the Lord. This phrase was given to Gabriel in chapter 1.

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It could be him. Some have argued it's a theophany of God. I think it was likely Gabriel. Either way, accompanied with this angel was the glory of the

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Lord. The glory of the Lord was surrounding this angel who appeared to the shepherds.

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It says the doxa in the original language. The doxa of the Lord shone around them.

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And it pierced the night sky. Every time you see an angel of the

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Lord in the Old Testament, you see the Shekinah glory of God with it.

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And it was shining brightly. This is the kind of glory that people hide their eyes from.

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They wouldn't even look at the residual effects of this glory on Moses's face when he came back down the mountain.

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They were terrified, right? This must have been blinding compared to the night sky.

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It makes you wonder if this is the literal aspect of Isaiah's prophecy when he said the people who walk in darkness will see a great light, right?

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Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. It's like as if this is being fulfilled in this moment literally.

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These shepherds were sleeping in darkness of night, but the glory of the Lord shone in great light.

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And the one shepherd who was awake and the others were sleeping, he didn't even need to wake them.

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It immediately says in the plural, they were frightened. They were completely frightened.

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The Greek, literally, they feared a great fear.

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They use the word phobos twice. Now, if you know in the Bible when a word is used twice, it's greatly emphasized.

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They feared a great fear. They were completely afraid. This is unlike anything you and I have probably ever witnessed.

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This is a fear to the degree many of us do not know. Some of us, of course, have been terribly afraid in our lives, but this is the

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Shekinah glory and they seem to know it. They know it. The angel, though, speaks kindly and says, do not be afraid.

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Do not be afraid. And you can tell your kid a hundred times not to be afraid and an angel says it and somehow it works, right?

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That's what happens. Jesus has used this phrase as well to His disciples.

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He says on the water as He's approaching the disciples in the boat, He says, it is I. Do not be afraid.

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But there is something about being in the presence of God Almighty as fallen creatures that can be terrifying.

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But soon a time would come when we no longer have to be fearful when we consider the glory of God.

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That is, it's not to boast in ourselves, not to think that we have confidence in the flesh.

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It is the very faith that we have in Christ that allows us to look forward to the glory of God in heaven with eagerness and expectation and without fear.

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When Jesus says, do not be afraid, it is no empty command. It is backed by His finished work on the cross that the wrath was dealt out on Him for our sins and that perfect love casts out fear.

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The angel tells the shepherds, do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people.

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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 says it's good news for you, for all people.

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This child was born for you and for me. And He says that it's news for you and it's news for all people.

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That means it impacts the individual and it impacts the entire world all at the same time.

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You see, God can't come into the world without affecting everything.

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But it's amazingly personal. The God of the universe cares for the individual soul.

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It's remarkable. He says, don't be afraid, be joyful, for a Savior has been born.

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He's going to save people. He doesn't say from what, but what at this point keeps affecting every single person without prejudice.

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Death. Death affects every single person, no matter if you're rich or poor, great or not, little or small, it doesn't matter.

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Death. What brought death into the world? Sin. He's going to save people from sin and death.

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The people called Caesar Augustus Savior, but Augustus can't save people from any of those things.

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He saved them from nothing. Christ saves us from everything. And what is interesting here, is that only in the

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New Testament, this is the only time we see it in the original language, Messiah and Lord are fixed together, so as to say

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Christos Kurios. Not saying that He is simply

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Messiah of the Lord, but that the Messiah who is the Lord. And this birth of the

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Savior was today, it says. That's what the angel reports. Today for you.

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Today. And today, that word in the

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Bible brings with it so many reasons to rejoice. The word today begins the announcement of the advent of Christ.

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Jesus says today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. When He preached and performed

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Isaiah 61 and brought the good news. And finally, the sweetest promise is given to a man undeserving at the end of his life.

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Jesus says to this man, today you will be with me in paradise.

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Many wonderful things follow the word today. Today. Today is the best day to repent and believe.

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Today is the best day to remember what God has done. Today, my friends, is a good day to celebrate.

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The angel continues to tell the shepherds, this will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

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And so think about it. The angelic promise is not some ethereal lofty idea up in the heavens that no one can touch.

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The angelic promise is a baby in a feeding trough. It's got flesh. It's got bones.

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You can touch it. You can see it. Incredible. The word sign here brings us back to another one of Isaiah's prophecies.

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God speaks to King Ahaz and says, go ahead, ask for yourself a sign.

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Any type of sign, big or small. A sign as high as the heaven. King Ahaz tells,

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God tells King Ahaz. Ahaz hesitates. He's like, I don't know if I want to test you or anything like that.

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He says, no, go ahead. Make, ask for the one of the biggest signs ever. And King Ahaz doesn't even get to speak.

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God says, okay, I'll tell you what the sign is. This is what he says. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you the sign if you're not going to ask for it.

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Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son. She will call his name Emmanuel, which means

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God with us. That's a sign. That's what the angels tell them.

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If these shepherds knew the scriptures at all, this would ring a bell for them. Maybe they did.

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But if it weren't for the divine pronouncement, someone could maybe miss it. If the scriptures didn't speak to it, who would know?

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Because at the end of the day, if you're walking by this stable, it's a baby in a feeding trough.

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So lowly, so humble. No royal robes. No purple is draped over an amazing marble cradle.

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Cheap cloth. No gold throne, but an animal's feeding vessel. No grand audience.

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Well, actually, yeah, there is. There is a grand audience. The shepherds were listening intently.

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They're listening to this angel. His brightness is filling the night sky.

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The Shekinah glory is emanating in the blackness. And like an explosion, suddenly there appeared angels everywhere, proclaiming together with one booming voice.

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The silent night had been broken by deafening praise. It makes you wonder why the

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Christmas hymn Silent Night doesn't end with in excelsis Deo, glory to God in the highest. That's how it should end.

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We'll do it next year. This word suddenly was used to describe what happened to Saul turned

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Paul on the road to Damascus. That is to say, when it said, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

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This kind of suddenly is sort of lightning fast. And in the same fashion, sudden fashion, there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising

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God. It's so sudden, it couldn't be from anywhere else but from heaven.

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There's no way anyone else could have marched out there that fast. It's from heaven. And it's a multitude.

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This literally means count without number. As far as the eye could see, these angels were more concentrated than the stars in the sky.

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Brighter than the stars, the night sky lit up in a magnificent way. This isn't just Mary singing anymore.

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This isn't just Zacharias singing his prophecy when his tongue was finally loosed when

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John the Baptist was born. This is something more amazing. Here in the

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Greek, this word host means army. So that means angels of every type.

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Angels, Cherubim and Seraphim, Gabriel and Michael the

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Archangel. And every single angel that you see reported in the Bible was there in that moment.

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They were singing to God, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom

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He is pleased. You see, this event has touched every single realm, physical and spiritual.

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It doesn't mean glory to God in a big way, simply.

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Glory to God in the most high place. Glory to God in the heavens. But also that glory has touched down to the earth.

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Heaven and earth have collided in this moment with the Christ. Jacob's ladder to heaven is here.

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The bridge from earth to heaven has arrived. And He, the Son, will bring peace among those of whom

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He, the Father, is pleased. You see, many translations will use the traditional goodwill among men.

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Okay, you know that, KJV, all that. They say, peace on earth and goodwill among men.

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But the manuscripts reveal the word is actually Eudokias, which literally means

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God's good pleasure. God's good pleasure. And although that good pleasure will impact the whole earth and all its inhabitants, the peace coming through Christ will be among men with whom

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God is pleased by His sovereign desire. Point is,

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God hasn't sought men of goodwill. God has sought bad men by His good pleasure.

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That's the difference. Verse 15 tells us at this moment then the angels had gone away from them into heaven.

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What a sight. We're supposed to see a kind of contrast here though as well.

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You have angels and lowly shepherds. Heaven meeting fallen earth to reverse the fall.

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It will take the one in the manger who is totally of heaven and now totally of earth to accomplish the redemption of humanity.

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But the shepherds were saying to one another, let us go straight to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the

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Lord has made known to us. Almost everything to this point has been in the past tense, which is the aorist tense form.

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But here it says that the shepherds are speaking to one another about what they've seen and heard, and that's in the imperfect tense.

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That is to say that they continue to keep doing something that has already occurred.

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They continue to keep talking and speaking of what they've seen. In fact, it's possible here at this point is when year after year after year, the shepherds at this time of year would talk about what they saw and what they remembered.

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They would celebrate the coming of the Messiah that they witnessed this first Christmas night.

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Let us go straight to Bethlehem and see this thing. They don't know what to make of this announcement yet.

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But this marvelous and spectacular thing will be a baby in a stable. And they recognize all that they had seen and heard was from the

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Lord. That's what they said. They knew that this was divine. There's no mistaking it. So they made haste.

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It says that they found Mary and Joseph. But they didn't come to see them, did they?

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They heard the sign. They came to pay homage to another. So the shepherds start to slow down to a jog from their sprint over the hills.

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They come up to the house, the stable, and they slow down.

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That jog becomes a walk. And that walk becomes a slow treading forward.

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Not the kind of treading where as if you're trying to keep a baby from waking up.

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This is the kind of slow treading in which you feel like you're walking on holy ground.

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So they walk gently over. There he was.

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The baby that laid in the manger just as the angel had spoken. The Christ Lord, the

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Savior, their Savior. It says when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child.

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They spoke it to Joseph and Mary. They said, we were just in the hills. We were asleep. We were doing our watch by night.

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And an angel of the Lord and an angel of the heavenly host. Multitude of angels came and said that a child was born.

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And they gave us a sign. And your son matches the exact description of what the angel said.

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And here we are. We've come to see this thing that God has done. And they reported it to Mary and Joseph. They likely reported it to others.

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Do you know this? That in Judaism, shepherds were considered legally disqualified from being real witnesses and trials at this point in time.

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They were considered such low lives, such scum. And it's true.

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Often some of these shepherds would see travelers and they would swindle them and take things from them. So they were disqualified from being witnesses.

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But God does the role reversal as he always does. The irony.

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It is not a group of finely dressed Pharisees and high priests witnessing this event. The first witnesses of the gospel whom

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God qualifies himself to see will be those who never get to be witnesses ever.

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Be shepherds. Also, you have to remember that the shepherds are over the sacrificial lambs.

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This is a foreshadow of Christ's crucifixion. These shepherds get to observe the spotlessness and unblemished nature of the true

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Lamb of God. They aren't authorities to be able to determine the magnitude of what has occurred.

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They are simply witnesses. Some of the first evangelists chosen by God because of what they have seen.

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And what has been told them about this child. Which allows all of us, even after them, to be witnesses.

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Because they told us too. You and I are witnesses in this sense because God showed us in his word.

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He told us. And all who heard the sayings of the shepherds marveled. Pure astonishment.

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And verse 20 says the shepherds went back to their flocks. They found them well protected.

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There was no problem. Not a single shepherd stayed behind. It was worth giving up the protection of all the flocks to see the one true good shepherd.

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But they came back. They were well protected. Because at the sight of the brilliance of the heavenly host, all predators and adversaries ran away literally and spiritually.

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The demons fled from this sight. And the shepherds were glorifying and praising

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God. And they weren't doing that because of some innate joy in themselves.

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They did that because of all that they had seen and heard, just as has been told them.

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It came from outside of them. The Emperor Augustus had to enforce praise and glorification of himself.

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He, a mere man, had to promote that he is a deity to the people. But the gospel of Jesus is the truth.

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Jesus is the authentic and only Son of God. He is deity.

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Augustus is not. And for that reason, Jesus need not enforce his praise among the people with decrees and registries.

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But it will be wrought by the Spirit and will spread by that same Spirit like wildfire.

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The whole world couldn't have ever realized then what the child in the manger really is and what he would eventually do.

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So as I'm going to finish up here, we see the shepherds couldn't stop talking about what they had seen and heard from God Almighty.

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But Mary was different. I'm going back to verse 19 real quick. Mary received the report of the shepherds.

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She believed them, having her and her husband already being visited by an angel as well.

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But Mary kept all these things. She treasured them. From the first angelic visitation unto now, in fact, the tense of this word also reveals that she continued to protect these things and ponder them in her heart.

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And she kept pondering and she kept pondering and pondering the baby in the manger.

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And she pondered even eight days later, when they brought Jesus to be circumcised at the temple, it says.

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They told the priest, his name is Jesus. The exact name that the angel told them to name their child.

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And he was circumcised. And she kept pondering concerning this child every night.

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When she put him to bed, she would cover him with a blanket and she would ponder. She would ponder what will he do?

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What will he be? What does this mean to be Messiah? And as they visited

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Jerusalem during Passover, when he was 12 years old, she pondered all that had happened there as well.

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I'm sorry, his understanding and teaching. If you remember, astonished the rabbis around him in the temple where they found him.

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And she pondered all these things until his ministry started as she requested his help for the wine at the wedding in Cana.

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She pondered. Mary continued to ponder. And Jesus was gaining in followers and simultaneously, he was growing in enemies.

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And she was starting to accept the hard reality, but the glorious reality that was coming. And Mary pondered and she pondered.

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And she pondered all the way to the foot of the cross as she stood there and saw the holy infant turned into suffering servant die before her very eyes.

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She couldn't help but ponder at that moment when he passed and he gave up his spirit, everything from the beginning until that point.

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But on Sunday morning, on the third day, Mary stopped pondering.

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Her pondering cease, for it was not time for the Christ Lord to be born in humility, but to be raised in exaltation.

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She recollected the shepherd's account of the heavenly host on that night in Bethlehem and imagine their songs of praise to the almighty.

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She thought of Jesus ascending into the throne room. And she was right. At that moment, the

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Christ Lord baby now suffering servant, now glorified king was sung and praised to.

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And this is what they said. Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God almighty who was and who is and who is to come. That's the savior.

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That's the Christ of Christmas. Let's pray. Lord, please bless the message that went out for the glory of your name.

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God, we thank you for this time. We thank you for the account of the shepherds.

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We thank you, God, that the angels were there.

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And even though our Christ was born in the lowest of low places, they lifted his name on high.

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We seek to do that in our lives, Lord. Let us never lose the wonder of the

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Messiah, of the Christ God in the flesh who came into this world, this broken and fallen world.

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And he came and he died so that we would live. He died so that death would die.

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We have faith that this Christ is the Lord and he is our savior.

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He is our personal savior and he is Lord over heaven and earth. And on this day, dear

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God, we worship him. We pray this all in the name of your son,