The Arrival of the Savior (Luke 2:1-20) | Christmas Evening Service

And welcome to the Christmas Eve service here tonight at Kootenai Church. Would you please stand with us as we begin our service this evening with a call to worship from Isaiah 7. In verse 14, it says, ''Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel.''.

Christmas Worship and the Prophecy of Emmanuel

So let's begin our worship service this evening by singing together Joy to the World.

Joy to the world is come to sing the same, their song. The sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. Repeating, repeat the sounding joy. The sins and sorrows infest the ground as the curse is found. Far as, far as the curse is found.

With truth that makes the nations prove his love, and wonders of his love, and wonders, wonders of his love.

If you have a copy of God's Word with you tonight, will you please turn to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2. The Gospel of Luke Chapter 2. We're going to read together the first 20 verses of Luke 2, and then we will pray.

Luke Chapter 2. ''Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.

Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David. In order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child.

While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth, 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.

In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

They were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.

When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened, which the 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. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as had been told them. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask your blessing upon our time of worship and reflection tonight as we are reminded again of the.

The profound mystery of the incarnation that the second person of the Trinity became flesh and dwelt among us. That we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. You have made known to us the nature and the character of our God in and through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

And we pray that our time of worship here would be special as we reflect upon that profound truth and upon the salvation that you have provided for us in him. Be honored and glorified through this, our time here tonight, our worship before you and be honored through our obedience to your word and our love for the Savior.

We thank you by his grace and we thank you for your grace. In Christ's name. Amen.

Would you please stand and we will sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

I have a feeling the slides weren't right behind me,.

The Incarnation and the Humility of Christ's Birth

So I'm just going to take that one as my bad. Please stand again and we'll sing What Child Is This?

What Child Is This?

You'll need your Bibles open to Luke chapter two again. And let's begin with a word of prayer. Our Father, as we come now to your word, it is our prayer that you would open the eyes of our heart to understand your truth and to see again in Christ, a precious savior, a great salvation and a great gift to us.

And we pray that our hearts would be filled with love and affection for him and joy in the salvation that you bring to us through him and filled with faithfulness as we wait for him and his soon and coming return.

We ask your blessing upon this time to that end in Christ's name. Amen. Well, the events that surrounded the birth of our savior are an odd combination of very ordinary things and some very extraordinary things, things that are natural and things that were quite supernatural.

And without thinking too much in those two categories, we've seen a lot of things in the last few weeks that sort of fall into that have made reference to ordinary towns and ordinary people. And yet some very extraordinary things that are connected to it, the birth of our Lord, some of the ordinary things to remind you of them.

Mary was just a common Jewish girl, not royalty in the sense that we would think of royalty. She was of royal lineage, but she certainly was not living like a queen. She wasn't wealthy. She wasn't notable.

She wasn't a tick tock influencer. She wasn't a social media mogul or any sort of of cultural phenom at all. She was just an ordinary woman from a very ordinary town, the town of Nazareth. She was engaged to an ordinary man who was employed in a very ordinary occupation, being a carpenter.

And Christ, the child that would be born of her, was a man, fully human, a descendant of David, brought into the world through a very ordinary means, nine months of pregnancy and an ordinary birth process.

And yet there were extraordinary things that were sprinkled into that, including the visit from angels, which we looked at this morning in Matthew chapter one and in Luke chapter one. He is conceived by a creative act of the Holy Spirit, not through the normal means of procreation and conception.

So he is born of a virgin in fulfillment to prophecy, born a king. And he born of David's line, both from Joseph as well as from Mary. He was in every sense true royalty, for he was the one who would take David's throne.

The angels announced his birth to Joseph and to Mary, and his birth was preceded by a few months, at least six months, of his next of kin, his relative, close relative, John the Baptist, who was the son of Elizabeth, who was related to Mary.

And this one would be called the son of God. So there's this odd mixture of very ordinary details and very extraordinary details that come together into the birth of our Lord. The prophecies and the promises that we've been looking at from the Old Testament contain all of these very things.

A ruler who is divine, who is human, who would live, who would die, who would rise again, who would come and rule. He'd be born of a virgin. He would fulfill the Old Testament prophecy. He would be called the son of David.

He would be called the son of God. He would be called the son of man. He would be called the son of the Most High. Extraordinary things. And the announcement for Gabriel that we looked at this morning contained some of those things.

And now, having looked at the announcement of the coming Savior, tonight we're going to look at the arrival of the Savior from Luke 2. And we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 20. And I have less time tonight than I had this morning, and we are doing more text tonight than we did this morning.

So I just want to divide it into two statements, two categories here. First, an extraordinary birth under very extraordinary circumstances. An ordinary birth under extraordinary circumstances. This is verses 1 to 7.

So if you have your Bible open there, I want you to notice a couple of things. First, to set the stage before we jump in at verse 1. When we last left Joseph and Mary this morning, do you remember where they were at?

Nazareth. But two weeks ago... I should say last week, actually, not two weeks ago. Last week, we saw that the Messiah was to be born where? In Bethlehem. Matthew 5, out of you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, shall come forth a ruler for me, too small to be listed among the clans of Judah, and yet this one would come forth who would take the throne of David and fulfill these promises.

That was Micah 5, verse 2. So if Joseph and Mary are up in Galilee, which is the northern area of the land of Israel, next to the Sea of Galilee, and yet the prophecy said that he would be born down in Bethlehem, which is in the southern part of Israel, down even south of Jerusalem, outside of the city of Jerusalem.

How do you get a young expectant mother from Nazareth when she probably has not very often traveled anywhere outside of 5 to 10 miles from where she lives? It's not like she would travel down to Jerusalem regularly.

How do you get that pregnant woman down to Bethlehem to have a baby there? Well, it's real simple, actually. You just upset the entire Roman Empire by a decree from the Caesar. Chapter 2, verse 1. Now, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.

It doesn't mean, of course, Africa and North America. He wasn't over here taking a tally of the Nez Perce Indians down in the Coeur d 'Alene region. That's not what it meant, but all of the inhabited earth concerning what Caesar ruled over, the Roman Empire.

So this is the land of Israel and everything else that Caesar had authority over where his troops were stationed. This is a large, massive piece of land. And he decreed that a census would be taken of all the inhabited earth.

Verse 2. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Now, there were only two reasons, two purposes that a Caesar would decree that a census be taken.

Number one, so that he could know who was available for military conscription. And number two, so that he could know who was available to tax. Taxation and military conscription. Now, the Jews were exempt from serving in the military.

Why were they exempt? Because they had this history of leading armed revolts against whatever power was in control and overseeing them. You don't put them, you don't give them weapons and a lot of training and put them in charge of sections of your military.

So the Jews were exempt from serving in the military. So why is it that Caesar would decree that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth? There's only one other reason why you would do that. What is it?

It's to tax them. And that's what he wanted to do. So what I want you to notice is that in order to get Joseph and Mary from the northern region of Israel in Nazareth down into Bethlehem, into the southern region, the Lord directed the heart of the king and used the king's decree to drive Joseph and Mary down to where that prophecy would be fulfilled.

It would be foolish to say without the decree, the prophecy could have never been fulfilled. Maybe somebody would have died in Bethlehem and Joseph and Mary would have decided to go down and attend the funeral of a dear relative or something like that.

But it is interesting that God used a pagan king with his wicked decree, his wicked, greedy, selfish motives to upset the entire empire just so he could shuffle around a bunch of people and arrange this birth in Bethlehem.

A pagan ruler he used to do that. Verse 4, Joseph also went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary who was engaged to him and was with child.

And while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 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.

Rather simple and rather straightforward narrative. By the way, there's nothing extraordinary or supernatural or amazing about a king issuing a decree to take a census so that he can tax his citizens.

That's just another day that ends in why. But what I want you to notice is how fantastic the entire disruption was for the entire empire just to bring about this series of events where Joseph and Mary would go down to the city of Bethlehem to be registered there.

Because remember, Joseph was of the lineage of David. So was Mary. Joseph was of the lineage of David. You remember this morning, he was from a part of David's lineage that was cursed with a promise that no king, no descendant of that king, no physical descendant of that king would ever sit on the throne.

But Joseph is still a descendant of David, but from a cursed line. Mary was a descendant of David from a different line. And so both of them go up to Bethlehem, which is where David was born. Bethlehem means the city of bread.

And again, it's a small, indescript little city out. It's a watering hole, really, more animals than there are people out in the middle of the Judean hillside there. And that is where they go to be registered to be taxed, not, of course, to be conscripted into the military.

A lot of busy traffic and moving population that the census caused, a lot of people coming to the various cities to be registered and to make sure that they filed for their census and to make sure that they were counted.

Luke chapter 9, verses 5, or sorry, verse 58 says,. The foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. So as Mary and Joseph approach Bethlehem, they are in every sense in very humble surroundings in a very humble town, just very humble people with nothing really to their name, engaged.

To be married.

And they arrive in Bethlehem, probably to stay at the home of relatives, which is what the inn was, probably a bad translation. Really, it's a place of lodging. They would have wanted to stay there probably with relatives, but a lot of people in Bethlehem coming back to register there.

Humble surroundings, humble arrival, really fitting description for the mission that the Lord Jesus would undertake Himself, having no place to stay, no place to sleep. And this is how He began His life, and this is how He would live His entire life.

And these circumstances really serve to highlight the Lord and the majesty of the Lord in His majesty in even humbling Himself to come to earth and to come into such humble surroundings. A magnificent person, 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 says, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you, through His poverty, might be made rich.

This is how He begins His life here on earth. Not a rich family, not a rich city, not a rich lineage, not rich surroundings, not rich parents, nothing rich, nothing fancy, nothing ostentatious about it.

In fact, what is remarkable is just how ordinary and common the surroundings were and the family was given the gravity of the person who was stepping into human history at that time. It makes the entire event and all of its ordinariness so really extraordinary.

It's striking just how lowly it was when He came into this world, wrapped in cloths, swaddled in simplicity, laid down in a feed trough in which animals had eaten. He's not even in His own hometown amongst His own relatives, probably His own parents, probably amongst Mary's relatives or her parents, none of that around.

And here's the long-expected Jesus, the seed of the woman who has come to crush the serpent's head to destroy the works of the devil. He would represent a new humanity living a perfect life. He would call that humanity out of Adam's fallen and helpless race because He is the son of Abraham who would fulfill all of the promises given to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Moses, down on to David and his descendants.

He would fulfill all of this. He would establish a kingdom. He would rule the nations in righteousness and justice. This is Shiloh. This is the one to whom it belongs who would take the scepter and rule the nations with a rod of iron and crush the nations like earthenware jars.

He Himself will rule in truth and in righteousness because the foundation of His throne is justice and righteousness. And He will rule the nations. And to Him all the nations shall give their obedience.

And to Him all the nations shall come and they shall offer up sacrifices. And they will praise Him and they will worship Him, God in human flesh, the Son of David, the Son of Mary. And how does it all begin?

Remember that the king who issued the decree to take a census of the entire world at that time, he does not know anything about the promises that were unfolding. He knows nothing about the fulfillment.

He doesn't know Mary's name. He doesn't care about Joseph. He doesn't care about the Jews as anything other than a tax base for him and his kingdom at the time. So he has no concern for any of that. He hasn't had a visitation from an angel.

He doesn't even know what he's doing other than, I'm just going to take a census so I can tax people. And yet all of the pieces are falling into place in the most humble couple, in the most humble area, in the most humble surroundings, in the most humble beginning possible.

That Caesar will stand before that Christ child and give an account for his sin. That is a stunning realization. And then you realize that while the kings are sitting in palaces hundreds of miles away, eating luxuriously and enjoying the richest and the best and the fattest that life has to offer, our Lord, who deserved all of that, left heaven to come here and have none of those things and instead to suffer and die on a cross for you and me.

To him shall be the obedience of the peoples. An ordinary birth, really surrounded by extraordinary circumstances. Second, I want you to notice the ordinary shepherds and an extraordinary announcement in verse 8.

The Shepherds, the Angelic Announcement, and the Good News of Great Joy

In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. For them, this is just another day at work. This is just another day out watching the sheep.

Good morning, Ralph.

Good morning, Sam. Punch the clock and go to work, watch the sheep come out. Another ordinary evening spent with the flocks out in the fields at night, doing what they did, pasturing flocks in the field.

And these shepherds, up to this point, are completely oblivious as to what has unfolded, probably just within a couple of miles away. Oblivious to the realities, they don't know any more about what is going on or what has gone on than Caesar does in Rome.

And why is it that these angels then appear to shepherds when they could have gone to other people whose attention would have been far more productive, we might think? Like the angels could have appeared in Rome to announce to Caesar, hey, you issued the decree, but you ought to know that there has been born in Bethlehem a king who will judge you someday.

But the angels didn't announce it to Caesar. They didn't go to Jerusalem to announce it to the Sanhedrin or to the religious leaders in the city of Jerusalem. They didn't announce it to anybody else who came from David's line.

Instead, they appear to shepherds out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks at night. And why shepherds? Because shepherds were really the bottom of the social, economic, and cultural ladder in that culture.

They were the bottom rung of that. Shepherds were often very poor, very uneducated, sometimes rather unsavory characters who had a hard time remembering what was thine and what was mine. And so they weren't trusted.

But these don't seem to be those kind of shepherds. These seem to be the kind of shepherds who were rather pious because once they hear this, they come back and they praise God and worship. So these are probably pious shepherds.

In fact, they were probably pious shepherds who had some employment in keeping sheep for the temple sacrifices. They would be the first ones to hear. And it is quite fitting that the Lord entering into human history in the most humble of circumstances and through the most humble couple and surrounded by the most humble of people, poor and uneducated in Bethlehem, that the announcement would not be made to the rich or the powerful or the influential, but this announcement would be made to what was regarded as the lowest economic ladder in the culture.

They're just shepherds. Shepherds were not people who were often included in religious circles simply because they were not the type of people who could come into the temple and come close and to worship because shepherds were always ceremonially unclean.

They had to deal with the birth of animals, they had to deal with afterbirth, they had to deal with blood. They had to deal with feces. They had to deal with the dirt of the sheep. They had to deal with dead animals.

So shepherds were always ceremonially unclean. So, they were excluded even from the religious circles of the day. They could come to Jerusalem and they might come to offer a sacrifice but they certainly could not draw near and they were certainly looked down upon simply because of their occupation.

So it is quite fitting that the Lord would come to the lowest people and announce His birth to them, that the angels would announce the birth to them. It's also fitting because Yahweh is Israel's shepherd, Psalm 23 verse 1, the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want, and then that whole psalm of course develops the idea of God being our shepherd and Jesus Himself called Himself the, what, the good shepherd.

So it seems quite fitting that when Yahweh steps into human history, the person of the Son, that He, who is the good shepherd, who is Israel's shepherd, in fact He was promised that He would shepherd His flock, that was Micah 5 verse 4.

Verse 2 says,. But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth for me to be a ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from days of eternity.

And verse 4 says,. And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the 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.

So He will shepherd His flock. The very imagery of the Messiah was one of Him shepherding, Ezekiel 34 verse 23,. Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and He will feed them. And He will feed them Himself and be their shepherd.

And when Ezekiel talks about My servant David shepherding the people, David had been long dead by the time Ezekiel prophesied. So He's not describing literal, actual King David, instead He is describing the one who would come forth from David's line, who would shepherd the nation of Israel.

And Jesus called Himself the good shepherd, so it seems quite appropriate that the good shepherd who came to seek and to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, would Himself, His birth, be announced to shepherds first, before anybody else knew about it.

So shepherds are…and the third reason that announcing this to shepherds is quite appropriate, it is very likely that these shepherds, I don't want to get into this too deeply, but it's very likely that these shepherds who are out watching over their flocks by night, that they were employed actually as shepherds in the service of the temple.

Bethlehem is within sight of Jerusalem. You can stand in modern day Bethlehem, look across the valley and you can see the city of Jerusalem. And there are rabbinic writings that describe the shepherds between Bethlehem and Jerusalem being the ones who would shepherd and raise the sheep for the animal sacrifices.

So it is very likely that since these shepherds are pious, religious, God-fearing people themselves, that they are the ones who are actually out shepherding the flock in the fields, the very flock that would then be offered as animal sacrifices throughout the course of the coming.

Year.

And so to whom does the angel make the very first announcement of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but the shepherds who are out shepherding the sheep that would probably be sacrificed inside the temple itself?

Quite appropriate. Luke 2, verse 9,. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around.

Them.

And they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. He tells them which baby they are to look for. Probably not a lot of babies born in Bethlehem, but if there was more than one, this would be the sign that would tell them which one that they were to go and to see.

They would have to find this child, and it might not be what they would expect, given the majesty of this announcement, an angel appearing out at night and telling them what they are about to see. And I'm sure when they stumbled into that place where the animals were kept and saw the baby lying in a manger, that the surroundings and what struck them and their sight was quite different than what you would expect for one who is a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

And if these are pious shepherds, then they understand exactly what they are being promised and what they are being told. They are being told that the one who has been promised all the way through the Old Testament has now come and he has been born in the city of David according to the fulfillment of prophecy.

And he is the long-expected one. He is the long-awaited one. And where are you going to find him? In a palace?

No.

In a temple?

No.

You're going to find him swaddled in cloths and lying in a feed trough. That's where you'll find him. Quite a contrast. Verse 13, and suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom he is pleased.

It started off with one angel and he is joined by thousands more. An extraordinary announcement, an extraordinary press release to very ordinary people, shepherds. Verse 15, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the 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. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child and all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen just as had been told them. What is the response of the shepherds to this?

They worship, verse 20, they went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen just as had been told them. This is why I think that they were righteous men, believers, why God sent the angel to announce the birth of the Messiah to a group of people who are sitting out shepherding the sheep themselves, possibly wondering about when the long-expected Christ would appear.

And here He has appeared and the angel announces it to these religious God-fearing men and their response is to glorify and to praise God for all they have seen and heard. And that, by the way, is the best and most appropriate response to the news that a Savior has been born who is Christ the Lord, to worship.

You understand that Christianity is weird. Christianity is weird because we worship a God who died on a cross. We worship a God who suffered the worst humiliation, who entered life into the most humiliating of circumstances.

Other religions worship their gods who are themselves exalted and deified and nothing bad, nothing humble, nothing lowly is ever said or done by them and yet our God stepped into human history and lived as a man for 30 years, obeying the law, serving others, loving God, loving His neighbor, loving other people, honoring the Lord in every thought, every word, and every deed, living with sinners, among sinners, being humiliated, being responded to with hostility and hatred and vile threats and verbal abuse and they slandered Him and called Him an illegitimate child, the religious leaders of His day.

So we know who our Father is. You get what the slight is there. He lived with this shadow over His head His entire life. He was slandered. He was gossiped about.

He was hated.

He was rejected and excluded from every in-circle, every religious circle, accepted by nobody except again the lowliest of people, shepherds and tax collectors and sinners and fishermen. Not the rich, not the popular, not the extraordinary, not the movers and shakers, not the culture makers or the religious elite, rejected by all of them.

And then died the worst of deaths, like a criminal, on a cross, spurned by men, spit it upon, hated, and verbally reviled until He took His last breath. That is the God we worship. That is the God who stepped into human history and bore the sin that we tallied up.

He bore the wrath that we deserve. He lived the life that we were required to and then died the death that you and I should have died, dying in the place of guilty sinners and then rising again. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, stepping into human history, the long-expected, long-anticipated, long-awaited Jesus, Son of David, the Son of God, the Savior.

Of the world.

And the only appropriate response to that is to bow down and worship for this is our God. In Christ, you find food for your soul because He is the bread of life. In Christ, you find living water for He is the living water.

In Him, you can have life and righteousness. In Him is truth and light. And the Bible commands you to flee from the wrath of God or face the wrath of God for your sin. There is born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

Bow the knee before Him and own Him as Lord now, or bow the knee before Him and confess Him as Lord before you are thrown into everlasting torment for your sin after you die. Repent and believe the good news of great joy that we have a Savior who is Christ the.

Lord.

Let's bow our heads.

Our Father, we thank You for Your love for us, evident in Christ who came and lived in our place and died in our place, and all of our meditation upon the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did, considering the interests of others as more important than Himself, in laying aside the full use of the attributes of His deity and coming to this world to veil that deity in human flesh so that He might live among us and live a righteous and perfect life for us.

That is all the tokens of Your great love, a love that You have for lost people, for sinners, the vilest and the most unclean. And we thank You that though we were counted among that number of vile and unclean, sinners and reprobates who deserve only Your justice, that You, by Your grace, have sent Your Son to seek and to save that which was lost.