Book of Luke - Ch. 2 , Vs. 1-20 (12/22/2019)

So, let's begin with a quick word of prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to come together to worship you and to study your

Holy Word. Thank you for giving us this place to come to and the time and this congregation.

Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us and your Son to give us salvation or an opportunity for salvation.

Thank you for all the things you've given us, bless us and keep us and go through all the services today.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, we're going to begin with Luke chapter 2 verse 1.

And it came to pass in those days that there went a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

Now Caesar was not his name. Caesar Augustus was not his name. That was his title.

His name was Caius Octavius. He was a grandnephew and the adopted son of Julius Caesar.

And he was named as his primary heir. After a struggle between he and Richard Burton, Caesar Augustus won out and was established as the emperor of Rome.

Twenty -nine years before Christ was born and that marked the beginning of the end of the

Roman Republic and the beginning of the

Roman Empire. Under his rule, the Roman Empire dominated the

Mediterranean region, ushering in a period of great prosperity and relative peace.

But all of this cost a lot of money. And so he ordered a census be taken of all the world, that is to say all of the world of the

Roman Empire. I'm going to read the first verse again.

And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

And this taxing was first made when Serenius was king of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one to his own city.

Rome, like governments always do, find itself in need of money to operate.

And the easiest way for them to fulfill this need was to enact a tax on all the sovereign nations and all the people in those,

I said sovereign nations, I meant to say subject nations. So a census was done to gather information about each nation and arrange it by tribe and family to be used for taxation.

And the first taxation is coming into effect just now, just before the birth of Jesus.

Therefore, Joseph, a Judean, had to return to his ancestral home to register for the tax.

So Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth and to Judea and to the city of David, which is called

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.

To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.

Dr. Robert Jeffers, a couple of weeks ago, doing his message about Christmas message, made a big deal about this phrase, his espoused wife.

We would say that his engaged wife. Now we know that he's already married at this time, but the long and the short of it is, he and Mary had not consummated their marriage and would not do so until after the birth of Jesus.

So even though technically he is wife, she is treated like an espoused wife.

Anyhow, that's it. Both Joseph and Mary were descendants of David, and therefore their tribal home was in Judea, and that's where they had to go to be registered.

To be sure, only Joseph had to go. He was the only one required to go. So it's reasonable to ask, why did

Mary make this arduous journey? More than 70 miles, uphill, through mountain terrain, either walking or riding a donkey.

Especially when she's on the verge of delivery. Why do you think? Why do you think she went along with him?

One of the reasons is he didn't want to leave her by herself. What other reason do you think there is? Oh, you got that, you stepped out of line.

Quit that. There are a lot of normal, ordinary reasons.

One, there were rumors floating around with regard to Mary's son not being a legitimate son.

So maybe Joseph just wanted his wife to be with him. Maybe he wanted to protect her. Maybe he wanted to have her away from the gossips.

But there's only one reason that really mattered, and that's the one that you did, because God commanded it.

Look at Micah 5 verse 2. But thou,

Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come, he come.

Out of thee shall he come unto me, that is to be ruler of Israel, whose going forth have been from old, from everlasting.

That's the Messiah we're talking about. That's Jesus. So if Mary is going to be the mother of this ruler of Israel, whose going forth have been of old, from everlasting, she must be in Bethlehem when she gives birth.

Now it's true that Caesar commanded Joseph to go to Bethlehem. He really had no recourse.

He had to go. All citizens had to go. But unknown to him, he acted in accordance to a prophecy he knew nothing of.

And he sent a woman he didn't know to a town he had probably never heard of.

After all, he would have heard of Jerusalem, but Bethlehem? To a town he had never heard of, to fulfill a prophecy of a

God he didn't know. Which resulted in the birth of the

King of Kings. The only king that could truly be called the

Exalted One. Now the name Caesar Augustus, Caesar was the ruler of Rome.

Do you know what Augustus meant? The Exalted One. He was named a

God by the Romans. And that began the worship of the emperors as gods, as well as the rulers of the city.

Okay, so we're now to verse 6. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son. And the humiliation of Christ begins.

The one who was equal with God did not jealously guard his position, but rather emptied himself of his godly prerogatives to take the position of a humble servant.

Turn to Philippians chapter 2, verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient, even unto death.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and of things in earth, and of things under the earth.

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the

Father. So one of the aspects of his humbling himself is to glorify

God the Father even more. But to accomplish his glorious ascent into heaven,

Christ had to first experience his descent into the earth. Now last week,

Brother David Huber did the Bible study and I did the sermon, and he brought this passage to our attention, and if any of you weren't here, he did a wonderful job.

He called his a Christian, a Christmas message, but it really wasn't directly a

Christmas message, it was a message about love, and in some sense that is a

Christian message. So here's what he said, this was the theme of his lesson, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

I went on to copy the rest of the passage, ye are my friends if you do whatsoever

I command you, henceforth I shall not call you servants, for a servant knoweth not what his

Lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my

Father I have made known unto you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go forth and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the

Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

And Dave hit the first and the last verses of that phrase, and I would like to focus now on just the first one,

John 5, 13, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Now consider some of the things that Jesus did in the process of laying down his life for his friends, that is to say his disciples.

He gave up being equal to God, he took on a human form, he was born in a lowly place,

I purposely refrain from saying stable. He was born to poor parents, then he lived a perfect life, after which he died on a cross, crucified between two thieves.

He was buried in the tomb of a rich man, after which he delivered his atoning blood to God the

Father at God's throne in heaven. He was then resurrected on the third day after his crucifixion and burial.

He ascended into heaven in view of hundreds of witnesses.

And so now we are to the end of the things that had already been done. Now for some things that are still yet to be done, that he is still yet to do as he lay down his life for his friend.

See, the laying down of his life was not just dying on the cross. The laying down of his life was when he consented to coming down to earth to be a man, to be born as a baby and to grow up, and to do all the things that he had to do, all of these things when he could have been in heaven with God the

Father. All of his time in an inferior position, because that's the position he chose to be in.

He's still got some things left to do. He's going to return to the earth, and he's going to rule the earth for a thousand years from David's throne.

After that thousand year period is over, he is going to judge the quick and the dead.

And then finally, and you can pick this up in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 28. 1

Corinthians 15 verse 28. And finally, when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the

Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Now, when it says all things shall be subdued by him, that him is

Jesus Christ. And the Son, that's Jesus Christ. And himself, that's

Jesus Christ. And subject to him, that's God the Father that put all things under him,

Jesus Christ, that God may be all in all. And you notice I didn't say God the Father or God the

Son. The entire Godness, the entire Godhead now is all in all.

And only now will he be again in the state that he left. You know, he is in a higher state now than he was when he was on the earth.

But he is not quite to the place that he left from. He's in a good place, and he's going to come down and rule in a good place.

And it will be a good rule in a good place. And he will bring everybody out of that thousand year reign and put them in a better place.

But he's not yet back to the place where he left. And that you've got to consider when you think about he is laying down of his life for his friends.

And so what will he get? What will he have accomplished by doing all this? Well, he accomplished a lot of things.

For us, the least of which is not, we will be with him. We will now be with him.

And that's only a small token of his love for us. So we're going to go back to the

Christmas story. And she, Mary, brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

We spoke of the significance of the term firstborn the last time I had

Sunday school lesson. In short, it infers the logical conclusion that Mary had other children born after Jesus.

That despite the Roman Catholic dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Mary did have other sons.

One of her sons the scripture was written about, Jesus. Two of her sons wrote portions of that description,

James and Jude. Those were Jesus' half brothers,

Mary's sons. So, yes, she had other children, but none like Jesus Christ.

There is none other like Jesus Christ. Had there been any other like Jesus Christ, Jesus wouldn't have had to have done all the things he did to bring some of us along with him.

Now the second item here is the manger. That was a feeding trough for animals. And this is the source of the notion that Christ was born in a stable.

That is not mentioned anywhere in the scripture. Ancient tradition held that he was born in a cave.

And that cave was possibly used as a shelter for animals and hence the feeding trough.

But no actual description of the location is given. Although there is a place that you can go in Bethlehem right now and visit the cave where Jesus is said to have been born.

We don't know if that's the case or not, but it is a good tourist attraction.

All we know for certain is he was not born in a normal shelter for traveling, for travelers.

We know that because, and when she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there was an old, I think it's an old commentator that had this to say about that.

I thought it was worth reading. The man's name is Barclay and I'm not sure that what his, all of his credentials are.

But he said this, that there was no room in the inn was symbolic of what happened to Jesus.

The only place where there was room for him was on the cross. There was plenty of room for Jesus on the cross, but there was no room for him in the inn.

Okay. Verse two, chapter two, verse eight. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over the flocks by night.

And I want to ask the question, why do you think Luke went or the description here went to shepherds?

Well, the shepherds were the first group of people to actually visit Jesus. Last week when we did the, no,

I'm confused. Next week, when we go further into Luke, we'll see some other people that came to visit

Jesus. But so far, nobody's been there yet. And the shepherds are going to be the first, given the honor to be the first to greet

Jesus. Why shepherds? They were the lowest of the low.

It does. If you've ever dealt with sheep, you know why they were ceremonially unclean. Every shepherd that has a herd of sheep has a dead one every morning almost.

My younger brother said they walk around with their heads down looking for a place to die. So they always dealing with dead things.

Well, when you touch the dead thing, you are ceremonially unclean. You couldn't come to the temple and worship.

So these guys were ceremonially unclean. They were coming to the temple for weeks at a time.

So why did God choose them to be first to view baby Jesus? 1

Corinthians 1, 26 might give you a hint. And Ms.

Karpiak is correct. They were the lowest of the low, and that's the reason that they were chosen. I've been told that this is

Queen Victoria's favorite passage. And she said every morning she gets up and thanks the

Lord for the letter M. You don't know what

I'm talking about, do you? 1 Corinthians 1, 26.

Every morning she said, I get up and thank the Lord for the letter M. Well, almost.

Let's go. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.

She says, I'm sure glad that didn't say not any noble. Not many noble are called.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

And the base things of the world and the things which are despised hath God chosen.

Yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

What's that saying? If anything is done that gives glory to God, that's a good thing.

But if it gives glory to anything other than God, that's a bad thing. And Diane always says, you can always tell commentators and radio preachers whether they are of God or not by who gets the glory for what they do.

If God gets the glory, there's a chance that they belong to God. And if they get the glory, they are reaping their rewards right now.

And then we have Luke 1, 51, which reinforces that. He hath showed strength with his arm.

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent away empty. We covered that a couple of weeks ago.

So the reason that he chose shepherds is as Carpiac said in the very beginning.

To show that the Lord accepts all classes of people.

In particular, those that the rest of us wouldn't choose to accept.

We might have a purity test, are you good enough to get in? But the

Lord didn't have a purity test, are you good enough to get in? And if he had a purity test that said, are you good enough to get in?

None of us would be in. And none of the others would be in either. And lo, the angel of the

Lord came upon them, upon the shepherds. And the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, fear not. For behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is

Christ the Lord. Now does anybody know what the name of the city of David is? Bethlehem.

And so I was going to allow Ron to lead us in the...

I forgot to look it up in our song book, I looked it up on the internet. We're going to go to the little town of Bethlehem.

And we're going to sing the first two verses. And I'm going to sing quietly because if I sing,

I will, because of the mic, drown out everybody else. 196. I'm going to read along quietly as he sings, as he leads us.

O little town of Bethlehem, we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by Yet in thy dark street shineth

The everlasting light The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight For Christ is born of Mary And gathered all the angels sleep

Watch the morning stars together

Proclaim the holy birth Thy praises sing to God the

King And peace on earth. Thank you,

Ron. And of course we know that the hopes and fears of all the years are born in thee tonight.

That was Jesus, the Messiah. And peace to men on earth.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the

Lord. Do you know how many times the word Savior is mentioned in the Scripture? Twice.

That's all. Here's one. And the other is in John 4 .42.

I'm going to pick it up at John 4 .40. Jesus is visiting with the woman at the well in Samaria.

And he is a sinner. He goes through all that he does. She is convinced that he is something special.

And she goes out and she tells the city. And the city comes to hear him. And so when the

Samaritans would come to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode there two days.

So he spent two days talking to the Samaritans. And said unto the woman. This is the men.

The men of Samaria. The Samaritans. And said they to the woman.

Now we believe, not because of thy saying. For we have heard him ourselves.

And we know that this indeed is the Christ, the Savior of the world.

So those are the two times that Jesus is referred to as the Savior of the world.

Now we can infer that from thousands and thousands. Thousands, I may be too many. From hundreds of verses.

We know that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior. He is our substitute.

He is our atonement. He is all of the things that we recognize that he is. But I thought that was interesting.

And this shall be a sign unto you. That you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. 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. Goodwill toward men.

Now John MacArthur had an interesting comment about this verse. I just want to read it to you. This is not to be taken as a universal declaration of peace.

Toward all of humanity. Rather, peace with God is the result of justification.

Goodwill toward men. The Greek word of goodwill. Is used in two or three other verses.

In each case it refers to God's sovereign good pleasure. That goodwill.

God's sovereign good pleasure. Not dependent upon anything else except by God. It's His goodwill.

So a better rendering here might be. Peace toward men. On whom God's sovereign pleasure rests.

God's peace is not a reward. For those who have goodwill. So if you have goodwill.

That doesn't mean you're going to get peace. But rather it's a gracious gift. To those who are the objects of His goodwill.

So that's us. We hope. Yes it is. So it's not.

The peace and goodwill doesn't extend to everyone. It extends to those that He has justified.

And called. And called His. And you will have peace. Peace that passes all understanding we read.

How can you have this kind of peace with all the things that are happening to you? Because it doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with what is happening to you.

Okay. Now. We're going to go to verse 15.

And as it came to pass the angels were gone away from them into heaven. The shepherds said one to another.

Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass.

Which the Lord hath made known to us. So how do they know about this baby born in Bethlehem?

Because the Lord told them. By the angels. It told them what city to go to.

But it didn't tell them where to go. Now you notice that this attitude contrasts sharply with that of the religious leaders we talked about several weeks ago.

In the book of Matthew. Who knew where the baby was born. But didn't bother to take the time or the effort to confirm it for themselves.

To remind you of what that is. And if I didn't touch Brother John's sermon on that passage

I probably will here. Matthew 2 .4. And when he,

Herod, had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together. He demanded of them where Christ should be born.

And they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophet.

And then it says. That's the

Messiah they're talking about. That's the Jesus they're talking about. That's the baby that was born. That was the man that the wise men were looking for.

It was the man that the wise men followed the star to get to Jerusalem.

To ask Herod where to go to find him. And Herod asked the priest and the scribes.

And they knew and they said go to Bethlehem. Now once they started to Bethlehem you know what happened?

The star led the way. Took them right to the stable in which Jesus lay.

They didn't have to look a bit. They just walked right to it. The religious leaders knew precisely where to tell the wise men to go.

And yet they chose not to go there themselves. You might consider this. Yes.

Well I don't doubt that at all. These guys were astronomers. They knew the nature of stars.

And if you go and you drive around the star doesn't move.

The star stays where the star is. For the star to have led them had to be an anomaly.

The star did not lead the shepherds to Bethlehem. The Holy Spirit informed them to go to Bethlehem.

And it's going to say in the next passage that they diligently sought to find him. The wise men didn't have to diligently seek to find him.

As soon as the Holy Spirit had performed the mission of taking them to Jerusalem to inform

Herod to have another set of prophecies fulfilled. And he says go to Bethlehem.

The star not only takes them to Bethlehem but takes them to the I said stable. Wherever it is that he was.

They went right to the place. But yes I think it definitely was not a normal.

It was not a nova. It was not a bright star that suddenly flared up and is brighter than normal.

That's not what it was. It wouldn't lead you anywhere. Unless it has a pointer on it.

And that would call it a pointing star. Okay.

We call them pointing vectors. That's an inside math joke.

Well the question I wanted to ask is this. Why were the wise men willing to travel all the distance.

Hundreds of miles for them. Through hostile enemy territory. To worship this newborn king.

But the religious leaders were not willing to travel six miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

To see for themselves. Okay. The wise men actually believed.

And not only did they believe. They were called and told to go. What about the religious leaders?

They weren't called. You know how I know that? Because the wise men went and the religious leaders didn't go.

They didn't even have eyes to see the star. You may have heard about that too. Now.

Unlike the religious leaders. The shepherds found the time to go.

And they came with haste. And they found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

That's kind of subtle and it doesn't say it all. The word found means found after a diligent search.

They didn't just come to Bethlehem. They came in a hurry. And unlike the wise men who came later.

There was not a star that led them to the baby. They had to search for him. And search they did until they found him.

And when they had seen it. They made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

Having found Jesus. They immediately made it known what had been. What they had been told about him.

And all they that heard it. Wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart.

There's two kinds of reaction here. There's the astonishment of the shepherd. And all of the people that saw it.

And those are like transient reactions. They happen right now.

Mary's reaction was different. She didn't just react. She kept these things inside her.

And meditated over them. Seeking to understand the deeper meaning of it all. And in next time when we get to one of the next people that visit her.

He is going to prophesy some things to her. That will make her more aware of the entire role of Jesus.

But for right now she doesn't know. She's just pondering and thinking about them. And it's going to be receptive to the next things that come.

Well a lot didn't. But a lot did. Those who were called didn't.

Those who weren't called didn't. And that makes it even. It would be one thing if the

Lord had called a really elegant speaker. To come and speak and convince them that Christ is born.

But these shepherds. They're not going to convince anybody. If there's any convincing to be done.

It has to be done by the Holy Spirit. It has to be of the ones that are called. And that's why the shepherds were the ones that came first.

The wise men might have been able to convince some people. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising

God for all the things that they had heard and seen. And was told unto them. And here's what

Calvin says about that. Their zeal in glorifying and praising God. Is an implied reproof of our indolence or laziness.

Or rather of our ingratitude. If the cradle of Christ had such an effect upon them.

As to make them rise from the stable. And the manager to heaven. How much more powerful.

That death and resurrection of Christ. Be to the raising of us to God. That's Calvin.

Most gracious Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. And thank you for all our many blessings. Bless us and keep us.

Go through the rest of the service today. Give John King the message you want us to hear.

And give us the ears to hear the message that he presents. And let us understand and find all the things that you have available to us.