Micah 5:2 & Luke 2:1-20 - The Incarnation of the Son of God

Normally we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

Most of you know in the Advent season, we take the time to refocus a little bit on the uh themes of Advent.

We do have some extra copies of the scriptures.

We'll be looking at uh Luke chapter two.

I wonder if someone would jump up and grab a pile of these.

Just see if uh anybody who needs a copy, raise your hand up real high.

If you are preferring to uh follow along on your device, I think there's a QR code up on the screen right now with some notes and quotes.

And uh also I want to uh welcome, uh we always want to be mindful of the fact that uh we've got folk who are uh online joining us for worship on Sundays from literally around the world.

So uh this week we heard from folks in uh Chicago, Illinois.

Oh, so Chicago, if you're out there, yeah.

Uh Omaha, Nebraska.

How about any?

Oh, three of you.

That's good.

And that's in the room, so we don't know who's out there.

Um also uh Jaipur, India.

We're so glad that uh you folks are joining us and folks in Seoul, South Korea as well.

What a what a wonderful thing to have this technology and be able to uh spread the message of the gospel and the hope of Advent and the Christmas season as we do through our worship services during Advent.

So the church has a recovery program of sorts for lost wonder and trampled anticipation leading toward Christmas.

That recovery program is called Advent, which means appearing.

And it comes from the Latin word adventus.

This is a pastor up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who said that.

And I thought that was quite insightful.

This uh Advent year, we have looked at several different aspects of Advent, but we summarized it saying we want to commemorate the birth of Christ.

We want to saturate in and celebrate the life of Christ, and we want to anticipate the return of Christ.

So we look back, we look forward, and in the middle we are also here, and his presence is with us wherever two or three are gathered in his name, and we have uh that uh quota here uh this morning, as well as with those who are online with us.

In the first week of Advent, we looked at Isaiah 7.14 in Matthew chapter 1, the dawn of redeeming grace.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

We saw that the promise of Isaiah 7 was a sign, a son, and a savior.

And that was echoed and reinforced and shown to have been fulfilled as we read from the first uh chapter of the first gospel, all of that what was predicted in Isaiah 7, fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ.

In the second uh Sunday of Advent, Pastor Tommy led us through his sermon, The Joy of Every Longing Heart, focused in on the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, from Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

And we also looked at Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Today I want to take a look at one of the birth narratives.

That's Luke chapter 2, so you're gonna want to turn there.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

I'll also read from Micah, and that's one of those ones where we'd have to stop for five minutes while everyone went to find Micah.

It's in the place where all the pages are still stuck together in your Bible.

Um, but it's a great book, it's an awesome book, and I'll put the one verse that I want to read.

I'll put that up on the screen in just a moment.

First, let me uh pray for us as we prepare to read God's word.

Grant to each one of us, O Lord our God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct that is pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you one day.

Pray this in the name of Jesus, amen and amen.

So here we are, the incarnation of the Son of God is what we'll call our study today.

And I'll put uh, as I say, I'll put uh Micah five.

Let me go ahead and throw that up on the screen for you right now, Micah chapter five.

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, um, too little to be among the clans of Judah.

From you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.

Bethlehem Ephratha, that's listed there.

It's like the last name of this particular Bethlehem, and it just distinguishes it from another Bethlehem that's also in ancient Israel area, the one up in the territory of Zebulun.

So here, um, Micah identifies this Bethlehem as the town where King David was born.

And when he does that, he, and when we connect Jesus to that verse in Micah chapter five, you'll see it really finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the one who is to come.

So in Micah, we have the where, the who, the what, and the why of the event we call the incarnation.

Where?

Bethem Ephratha.

Who won?

Not just a force, but uh a person.

Um will do what?

Will go force.

Uh and what kind of person and why?

Because they'll become a ruler whose throne will never end, whose origins are in eternity itself.

This makes really interesting uh reading when you start to connect the dots between uh that kind of a prediction and Jesus that we'll read about in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

So let's do that.

Let's jump to that story that you know so very well.

I'm reading out of the New American Standard.

You may have another version.

It's gonna be similar to this.

Most of you will be so familiar with this story.

I would I would say, even if you're here today and you're not a believer or you're watching online, you're not a believer, you probably know this story at least from Charlie Brown's Christmas story.

Uh I watched, Kim and I watched it again uh just about a week ago, and we're like, oh, that's it so good.

You know, and last year, I think I said, I can't remember if I said this a couple weeks ago now, but last year I remember we were in New York City and we went to see the Rockettes, which I don't tell everybody I do that.

But man, they laid out the scripture, and the the this story was told in its entirety, preserved, you know, like like it is right here.

So let's let's read it together.

Um I think, like I said, I think so many of you will be uh quite familiar with this.

It came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus.

Uh he's the the first of the Caesar emperors that will have this Roman Empire, and it'll be, you know, he he he uh he reigned from uh 26 or 27 BC all the way around about 14 AD.

But it came about that during those days, so so here uh uh Luke is actually putting it in space-time history in a region of the world that uh we can actually know about.

A census was taken of the inhabited earth.

This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

And some of you who are nerds and geeks like me about stuff like this will know there's some confusion over what the date would have been for that census and when Quirinius was actually Syrian, the governor of Syria.

Um, you're welcome to go explore all of that.

I'm not sure we're gonna be able to solve it, but 2,000 year ago history should have some mystery about it.

There should be, we should expect, any reasonable person should expect that we won't know everything, but it's not essential to our salvation.

So I want to keep reading.

Um, all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone 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, there it is, Bethlehem.

And this is Bethlehem Ephratha, okay?

Because uh 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.

Verse 5, those words don't usually go together in a sentence back in that day and time.

Um uh, and in some cases in our own day and time as well.

But back in that day and time, to say you were engaged and you were pregnant would not have been something anybody could have fathomed.

That just wouldn't have happened.

Um pregnant came after marriage, and so this is really important that Luke is saying this.

Why?

Because Luke's a doctor.

We know that from Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

And we know that Luke, if anybody, would have researched this really, really well.

And he knew, Luke, if anybody, knew exactly how young women become pregnant.

And so when he writes this kind of information there, as a doctor who's researched it well, he's saying this happened this way.

And it came about that while they were there, the days were complete for her to give birth.

She gave birth to her firstborn son.

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

Again, uh, you're welcome to explore this.

There's some lots of talk, lots of ink spilled or spent uh trying to decide what was this inn was?

What was the room in?

There was no room that that's being mentioned.

What was that like?

And we all have in our minds' eye, you know, we we kind of have a picture of this because we've seen it in various cartoons or various depictions of the nativity story.

We've seen it happen.

Um, and yet there's a lot in that we see in our in our plays that aren't that's not here.

I I don't think we're gonna find an animal here.

And so let's let's just keep keep working it.

She gave birth um to her firstborn son, wrapped him in a claws, laid him in a manger because there's no room for them in the end.

And in the same region, I love this part, 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, and they were terribly frightened.

And the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.

Most often repeated command in Scripture.

Do not be afraid.

Behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which shall be for all the people.

For today in the city of David there's been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign for you.

You'll find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger.

Second time the manger is mentioned, second of three times.

Suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest.

We sing it, Gl-O-O-O-O-O-U-U-O-O-O-O-U-O-O-ORIA in Eccelsisteo.

Glory to God in the highest.

I wonder if the choir director in heaven.

When he's getting the angels all together for the rehearsal for this.

Hey, y'all, let's pull this together.

Y'all get over, you soprano tanners, you all stand together.

There's gonna be a dude in a few years that's gonna show up on the earth and he's gonna write this piece of music.

But let's preview it.

And I wonder if that angel who led that choir that night got them to sing something like that.

That was just, I mean, because a multitude, a great multitude of angels.

I don't know how many angels that is, but that's more angels than I personally have ever seen.

That's a lot of angels.

And uh and they sing glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.

Came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, and they had to have just must have had to pick themselves up off the ground and dust each other off and you know, pinch each other, make sure they weren't dreaming.

Let's go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger.

Third time.

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

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

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

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

That's just such an amazing story.

I really do love this.

Hey, I want to thank everybody.

Look around the windows here, and I want to thank you for contributing, those of you who did your nativity uh scenes to our church and our displays here at the village chapel.

Um, I don't know whether the online folks can see these or not, but as you I hope you'll take time to walk around after the service and read some of the little cards that are under each one of the nativity scenes, and you'll be able to get a little bit of the background, a little bit of the story.

There were a couple of uh nativity scenes uh that didn't make the cut here at the village chapel.

And uh, you know, some of you guys, some of you guys bring those kinds of things in.

And I think the card on this one said, May the faith be with you.

I'm something like that, I'm not sure.

This one really didn't make the cut.

Um this is the Irish nativity.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the gifts of the three wise men they brought were uh a little cluster of clover, some stew, and a little uh keg of Guinness there.

So that's not appropriate for really Jesus or any baby child at all.

So just wanted you to know, and for our Irish by the way, I have a little Irish in me, so I'm this is I'm not poking fun at anybody that isn't myself.

Um hey, listen, how many of you ever played a part, just as a little kid or whatever, in a in a Christmas play?

Raise your hand.

Have you ever had any part?

What's okay?

Anyone, who is Mary?

Anybody ever get to play Mary?

Okay, we got one.

Okay, two couple?

All right.

How about Joseph?

Any Josephs?

All right, how about uh maybe one of the animals that weren't mentioned in the story?

But that seemed to be in the all right, how about the three wise men that aren't that also aren't mentioned in the story there?

All right, and we're gonna come to that story, by the way.

Yeah, oh, angels, we got some angels.

Okay, good.

We got lots of angels.

That's so beautiful.

Um, I was I was a shepherd boy once.

Um I was kind of a grumpy shepherd, though.

Um and I gotta be honest, uh that's actually not me.

Okay, so so now you're grumpy people, a congregation of grumpy people.

But uh yeah, I did, but I did do this same thing though, with the bathrobe and the whole, you know, just kind of going, I had a towel, I think, wrapped around my head and that sort of thing, played that part.

But uh we we we have these things and we we have these symbols all in the window, and we have you know all kinds of different symbols that help us uh retain and remember and reflect upon the story of history, something that actually happened.

Luke, when he opens up uh his the entire book of Luke, he says right there at the beginning, those first four verses, I'm writing history, is what he says.

And I went to eyewitnesses and I interviewed them and I examined everything really carefully.

And Luke the doctor says a virgin was pregnant and had a child.

And Luke, the medical man of science, says some angels unzipped a hole in the heavens in the night sky.

And one of them came through first and started talking.

And then, unbelievably, a whole bunch of them burst through and started singing.

And this is where they did it in the Judean hills.

And their entire audience was just a bunch of kind of despised blue-collar workers, shepherds, that in that day and time that's just that's just the way it was in their society.

They weren't the educated ones, they weren't the ones who were revered and respected, businessmen, or any of that sort of thing.

These were some really simple folk whom some people would never expect anybody to care about or want want to invite into anything.

And these angels come and they go, Great news! And we're giving it to you.

And and and then they run and they go looking for it.

So, well, what what do we learn here?

I just want to highlight a few things.

This is the incarnation of the Son of God.

And I wanted to call it that.

By the way, I came up with all these clever titles.

I was thinking, I need something really, you know, artful and poetic, you know, the remarkable ordinary.

Or, or uh I think I I think I called it uh, well, my first point, a divine invasion, was going to be the name of the sermon.

But we need to be theologically uh astute enough to be able to say this word incarnation.

Say that with me.

Incarnation.

It means something.

God became one of us.

And we don't, I think because we those kinds of terms come and go: incarnation, justification, sanctification, salvation.

I want to take a break from your communication.

We just get we wear people out with our long words.

My mom says she what she watches the sermon every every week, and she'll tell me when I use too many three and four syllable words.

I you know, it was good and everything, but um you you use those words.

I don't I can't really hang with those words, you know.

I don't know what they mean, you know.

Um so, mom, if you're listening, we're about to find out what incarnation means, okay?

And she is listening, folks, so you all be good.

Um divine invasion.

Yeah, let's call it that for now.

As we've said so many times here at TVC, Jesus did not have to come.

He didn't owe it to us.

Uh He didn't look at the world and go, oh man, I think I owe those guys down there deserve.

No, no.

He didn't owe it to us, and we didn't deserve it.

And yet he came.

He invaded the rebel planet, the dark, rebellious world of sinners, including people like me and people like you, and people like the shepherds, and people like Mary and Joseph needed a savior too.

Including the religious leaders of Jesus' time, desperately needing a savior.

Even though they were religious as they could be, followed all the rituals.

Some of them had the Old Testament memorized.

And you can have your head full of data and your heart be completely devoid of any connection with God.

I know this because I've stuffed my head before with stuff, and my heart has been far from him in some of those seasons, and it's important for us to know.

Jesus took the initiative.

Jesus came for us when we weren't even asking him to.

Some of you know that better than others in the room.

When you look back on your moment of conversion, if there was a moment, or the arc and curve, if there was sort of a season where the Lord was drawing you to himself, calling your name.

And you you don't know exactly when it was, but you just know that now you believe the gospel to be true.

That Christ came, that Christ died for your sins, and that your believing and trusting and hoping in Jesus makes a difference in your eternal destiny.

And you don't know when that happened.

You might you might be sitting here and you might not know that, but it is, make no mistake, a divine invasion.

Jesus and the the Trinitarian God took the initiative and came for us when we weren't even looking for them.

I think it's so important for us to be aware of that.

The creator.

The ruler of the universe, the one to whom every single soul will give an answer one day.

He's the one that rolled up his sleeves and came to earth, became one of us, with the intent of saving those who would repent and believe.

I ask you, is that you?

I hope it is.

If it's not, why not?

Please come to him.

Please turn to him.

I beg you.

He took the punishment for your sin, for my sin.

And I know the Christmas time we're supposed to talk about the sweet little baby Jesus.

We've got songs, I think, that saying things like no crying he makes.

I got news for you.

I'm pretty sure he made a lot of crying.

You know, I'm sure his diapers had to be changed.

I know that's you don't want to think about that.

But I'm just telling you, this God, Almighty creator, sustainer of the universe, ruler of the universe, became one of us.

He condescended to become one of us, a real one of us, so that he could take our place on the cross and lay down his life for us.

And some of us don't, I don't know, we just don't like to think about that much.

But despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes.

The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin's womb and an empty tomb.

Jesus entered our world through a door marked no entrance, and left through a door marked no exit.

Yeah.

Virgins don't have babies.

Tombs don't have their stones rolled away.

And yet Jesus enters the world and leaves the world in ways that we would all think were impossible.

Lewis calls it really the central miracle.

And he says it's asserted by Christians, and this is the incarnation.

They say that God became man.

Every other miracle prepares for this or exhibits this or results from this.

There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about.

It relates not a series of disconnected raids on nature, but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion.

An invasion which intends complete conquest and occupation.

He's coming for you if he hasn't already got you.

Fair warning.

The fact that you're even here today, the fact that you're even listening online, the Hound of Heaven is seeking you.

He's after you.

And uh he was seeking me before I turned to him and believed in him.

Um and I didn't realize that until well after I had turned to him and believed in him.

But it blows my mind all the more that he was actually after me before I turned to him.

And I want you to know he is after you if you don't know him today.

He's coming for you one way or the other.

The incarnation of the Son of God was a divine invasion.

And it's a glorious wonder, and we see that here in this passage, don't we?

Um, it's wonderful, it's beautiful, uh, it's mysterious.

Lots of questions when you read through that passage, right?

It's powerful.

You bet.

The shepherds, properly so.

They were trembling in fear.

And and then the angel, of course, the first thing they say is, you don't have to be afraid.

We're not here just to scare you.

We've got good news for you, great news for you.

Um, notice the various categories in which the uh glorious wonder manifests itself.

Uh, it's glorious because it's an historical event.

First of all, Augustus Caesar.

Uh, he calls for the census, which is to assess uh potential taxes and to conscript some males to come and join the army at the right age.

So we've got to figure all that stuff out as we go around the whole Roman Empire.

And so that's happening.

It's mandatory.

They've all got to be a part of it.

Um there's a real man named Joseph who leaves a real region, Galilee, heads to a real uh and the city of Nazareth, that's a real city.

He heads to his hometown in Judea, Bethlehem, a real city again, connected to the ancient promise of the Messiah, as I said earlier.

He he leaves betrothed, but uh as far as we know, and we don't really know when they actually had their ceremony, you know?

Do you take Joseph for your do you take Mary?

We that's that probably that happened somewhere in Bethlehem, I don't know.

And they're probably in Bethlehem for a little while, but Jesus grows up in Nazareth.

And how long did they stay here?

I surely, I'm I'm not really sure how long there.

But this, my point is this it's a historical event.

This is not just it's not just a fairy tale with fake names of fake places in fake time frame.

No, this is this is history.

It's also a glorious wonder because it's uh of the virgin birth and that that medical reality that Dr.

Luke points out right here and embraces.

And if the infinite God could become one of us, we should expect it to be quite unusual.

Um, so there's the glorious wonder of that uh medical aspect of it as well.

Then the social aspect of it, I think, is also a glorious wonder.

Shepherds.

That's who the angels sing to that night.

Shepherds, lowly shepherds.

Not to mention, of course, the incarnation.

Here's God, here's the Trinity up in heaven, conversion.

Let's see.

Uh Jesus, Son of God, you're gonna go down there.

Let's do this.

Let's put you in the royal line of David.

Okay, check.

That box is checked.

Um, why don't why don't we why don't we have you be born in a palace?

No, no, in a little manger and in a little, you're gonna be laying in this cattle trough.

And that's that's actually because it's mentioned three times in this passage.

I think that's the only really special, unique thing that the shepherds could say was a sign.

Because it's, you know, the fact that somebody had a baby wasn't a sign.

Lots of people having babies.

The fact that somebody would wrap a baby in swelling clothes, that's not really a sign of anything special.

But a baby lying in a cattle trough, that's probably relatively, even back then, that's probably, you know, there's not that many, I would think, probably that did that.

And so they are told to go there.

And this is where Jesus comes.

In a peasant couple in an insignificant little town, in a, in a, uh, uh, uh, an insignificant country that's a pass-through nation.

Empires have run over top of it left and right.

Right now, it's under the oppressive Roman government.

There's nothing fun happening there politically or economically if you're a Jew.

And they're barely allowed to, you know, to uh practice their own religion.

That's even governed in a lot of ways.

And so that's where this the social and religious context for this is actually to me a glorious wonder that God would choose there and then to those people to manifest Himself.

And the first heralds of the greatest good news, I think, in the in the entire Bible.

Well, I'll I'll go with the Old Testament prophets first.

The Lord is speaking through them.

And then I'll go with the angels here.

And then the shepherds.

Because they they go through, they run to Bethlehem to see if it's true.

Did you notice the urgency?

The the how eager they were?

Let's go see, let's go check this out, you know?

Um, and then they they tell everybody, and everybody is literally blown, their minds are blown about it.

Verse 17 says, everyone marveled, everyone who saw it were just marveling at the whole thing.

They wondered about it.

Verse 18.

All the things that were told them.

This is just brilliant.

I love the way, and if you look at the social context for all of this, I love the way that that went.

In a culture that uses this season to get children to dream about how their lives would be made better by possessing a certain material thing, where Christmas has been reduced to a shopper's nightmare and a retailer's dream, it is vital to draw the wonder of our children away from the next great toy and toward the wonder of the coming of our great Lord and Savior.

Paul Tripp in his Advent Devotional Come, let us adore him.

Highly recommend that one to you.

How many of you in the room love to shop?

It's really okay if you do.

I'm not gonna shame anybody.

Raise your hand if that's you.

Okay.

It's not very many.

I don't I don't feel like you're being honest.

How many of you hate to shop?

Raise your hand.

See, that haters are bold.

And I I'm one.

I mean, I'm one.

I'm uh I feel it should be mandatory in every retail outlet in, at least in the West.

I think there should be a husband's chair.

We've got a few.

Um and uh Kim and I were just up visiting my mom in DC.

We took a little bit of time and we're walking around a little bit, and we're in uh uh one particular store, a little fussy for me, you know.

Um, but they had a chair for me.

And I'm like, okay, we can shop here all the way you want.

But um man, the thing is, it may be a retailer's dream, but it is indeed a shopper's nightmare at Christmas time, isn't it?

The news, the local news reports of all the people that broke out into fist fights and all that sort of thing, because that one little PlayStation, or whatever it was, that it was the last one, and parents are back and forth and fighting over the whole thing and all that.

It's just really amazing uh to see that.

How can we get?

I mean, part of me wants to say, hey, world, you can have December 25.

Let's find another date so we can get back to the incarnation and focus on that a little more.

I I don't have the power to make that happen.

Um, but I can suggest to you as your pastor, take the time, make the time in your household, in your own heart and mind, make the time to dwell on, to allow the Lord to show you how wonderful, how marvelous it is that he became one of us and that he did that for you.

I hope you'll do that.

I hope the incarnation won't be missed by any of us.

As Dorothy Sayers said, the incarnation may be devastating or rubbish, but if we call it dull, what in heaven's name is worthy to be called exciting?

I agree.

This is the God who made all of the galaxies, the Milky Way galaxy.

You can look this up if you want.

There are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

And I looked it up, the James Webb telescope and all those sites you can go visit.

There are billions of galaxies in the known observable universe.

And the one who designed and made them all became like us, a human being, to save us.

And that's how much he loved you and me.

I mean, think of yourself.

Think of yourself.

If you decided, you know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go down to the beach, and I'm gonna become a single grain of sand.

And it's not even, I mean, what God did is much bigger than this, okay?

Immeasurably bigger than this.

But if I did, if you did, if we decided to become a grain of sand, we're changing everything really about ourselves, aren't we?

And then we're becoming this little teeny speck of sand.

It's just mind-blowing to think of the infinite God becoming one of us.

Why would he do that?

That's a glorious wonder.

And why did he do it the way he did it?

I think he wants you and I to know, no matter where we come from, whether we are the wise men that eventually come from afar, who were probably wealthy and probably well educated, or whether we're the shepherds who are on the hillside there, barely making enough money to make ends meet, and barely knowing where their next meal's coming from, and hardly, you know, just simple people.

Or whether you're Joseph and Mary living in a social scandal of being a pregnant virgin.

No matter where you're at in life, he came for you.

He came for me.

And I think that should be a glorious wonder to all of us.

Then the last thing I want to say is it's the greatest good news ever.

Why is this important?

What is this greatest good news ever?

Um, I don't know if you notice the intended scope of the angel's song.

Look at verse 10.

And the angel said, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy, which shall be, say it for me, for all.

I love the word all in the Bible.

It's one of my favorite words.

It's a great, powerful three-letter word.

All.

It's for all people.

All.

And the shepherds are sitting there going, all?

You mean all?

You mean me?

Because they didn't think of themselves as the people that would receive uh that kind of news or that kind of a gift.

Good news of great joy, which shall be for all people.

All I don't care where you're from, what you've been doing, how far you've drifted from the Lord, how mad you might be right in this moment at God.

I don't, I don't, I'm, I'm not, you're included in all.

Somebody say amen.

I'm included in all.

That's mind-blowing.

Um, and when we all get home on that first day, you're all we're gonna be going around saying that.

Look at you, you're part of all.

And that good news is for you.

That good news is for me as well.

So I don't know where you're coming from or where you've been, but this is the greatest good news of all time because it's for all.

The gospel narratives, Keller said, are telling you not what you should do, but what God has done.

The birth of the Son of God into the world is a gospel.

Good news, an announcement.

You don't save yourself, God has come to save you.

Christmas shows us that Christianity is not good advice, it is good news.

See, a lot of a lot of religions and even some quarters of the Christian church are just handing out good advice.

Follow these rules.

Maybe you can please God and balance out the moral scales, and then He will, you'll finally earn your way into heaven.

And grace is opposed to earning.

It's not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning.

We we don't earn anything.

We have to bow the knee, lift up the empty hands of faith, and receive as a gift that which we cannot achieve on our own.

And that humbles us.

That means pride goes.

That means there's no boasting for any of us to do at all.

Um, Christianity, not good advice, it's good news.

In the incarnation of Jesus, the Son of God, um, he entered human existence so that he could put on offer to every human soul, rich, poor, doesn't matter what color your skin is, doesn't matter where you're at right now, how far you have traveled down the dark road of sinful activity, doesn't matter.

This good news is for you right now.

If you hear it and you recognize it as good news, simply turn to him right now.

There's no reason you can't.

His arms are open wide.

His are not wagging fingers, his are open arms for you and for me.

The implications of God coming to dwell among us are transforming.

It means that there are no insignificant or pointless lives.

It means that the events and the choices of an average day can have eternal weight.

Just go into the post office, just going to the grocery store, just coming to church can have eternal weight.

Some of us are so bored with life.

We were talking about this the other day.

We're so bored in our affluence in the West.

We have so much of everything.

So now what we have to do is let's figure out a way to create our own reality.

If we can create some of our own reality, maybe then we won't be bored.

See that, and I'm not opposed to you having the latest whatever, you know, all that fun stuff.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm simply saying one of the reasons we're chronically dissatisfied and bored is because we're looking to the wrong stuff and overlooking the right stuff.

The right stuff is right in front of us.

You look up in the heavens at the night sky, and you see some of those, just a hand, all you can see is just a little bit of those billions and billions of stars in the Milky Way.

But you can see some of them, and they point to someone.

And they generate inside of you a bit of awe, a bit of wonder.

And some to some of you whose hearts are up, minds are open a little bit more, perhaps a numinous experience where you hear God calling you, calling your name, drawing you to himself.

How will you respond to him?

He has come for us.

Jesus has come in a divine invasion to bring the glorious wonder of the greatest good news ever to us.

And like the shepherds, then, we're we you can come and see, you can run there and see, but then you're gonna be you're gonna be going and telling as well.

And we want to continue to do that in the Advent season.

So as you think about all of this, and as uh the Lord leads you, you may want to say something to someone else about Jesus, about the gospel, about the incarnation.

I mean, at your water, what if you at the water cooler, you said, how many of you know what an incarnation means?

You know, or whatever.

If you start a conversation about some of that, or you could say, hey, our preacher was talking about incarnation.

And it was interesting because it was something I hadn't imagined, how big God is and how little he had to become.

And why he did that.

And sometimes you could get people drawn into some of those curious aspects of it all and begin to share.

The rub of the matter is that we have been chosen to be the bearers of good news, Nubigan says, for the whole world.

And the question is simply whether we are faithful in communicating it.

I want to be like the shepherds.

Look at the verse 18.

Mary treasured all this stuff, pondering this in her heart.

I love that about her.

Um verse 18, the shepherds told a bunch of people and they wondered about it.

But 20 is kind of the clincher, right?

On this one.

The shepherds went back.

They returned.

Where'd they return to?

Work.

They went back to work.

What did they do for a living?

Well, did they start a uh a 501c3?

No, a nonprofit?

No.

No, they went back to tending sheep.

They went back to their sheep.

And uh, I can imagine the sheep.

I love this.

But all along the way, they're telling their other colleagues in the shepherding business about what had happened to them.

They're glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told to them.

They are transformed.

Their lives become a living testimony for the gospel, glorifying and praising God even as they're going to work.

The gospel transforms even the most mundane of tasks.

So when I think, when I was thinking about this pastor, I was thinking, well, how should we respond?

How did the shepherds respond?

They were filled with wonder, they worshiped, they came to the to the manger, they came to the nativity scene, as we call it, and worshiped, and then they they went back worshiping.

They became worshipers.

That's what they were now.

They are living worshipers.

And we are as well, and they witness.

I wonder how many times some of us have thought that God has forgotten us.

Uh, some of us have thought our work is meaningless.

Some of us have hoped for something else and fixated on something else so much that we're now mad at it.

God, because He hasn't had some made something happen the way we want it to.

Or perhaps we're confused about something.

And I wonder how much our lives would be transformed and changed.

If we saw the value, the meaning, and the purpose of our lives, not in what we do, not in what we know, not in some aspect of money, sexuality, or power, earthly power, but we actually saw our identity wrapped up in the personal work of Jesus and the gospel and began to actually think of well, my full-time job, my very being at the core of who I am, is I am first and foremost a worshiper of King Jesus, who came on a rescue mission to this planet, and he has saved me.

And now, no matter what I do for a living, no matter where I go, no matter how I spend this afternoon, I'm gonna be looking with a keen eye for an opportunity to give praise and glory to my Lord and to my Savior.

Are you ready for wonder?

Are you ready for worship?

Are you ready for witness?

And some of you go, well, I know I hear the story, I I know you're excited about it, Pastor Jim.

That's good.

You get paid to be excited like that.

And that's true, but you know, after 22 years of doing this, I can't fake it.

I just, you know, it's not worth faking.

And what's really true for me is that to to be on the team that we're that we have, to be working together and to be sharing the treasures of this, the the spiritual riches of this story, and to know that some of you come in here hungry, like a sponge to soak some of the truth up, and to see Jesus and to know him and to be changed and transformed by the gospel, that's what makes it worth it.

That's what makes it a wonder.

The Lord is moving.

If you go in search of wonder just for wonder's sake, you're probably not gonna find it.

It'd be like a greased watermelon in a swimming pool.

You're not gonna be able to grab a hold of it.

If you turn to him, wonder comes as sort of a byproduct of turning to him.

He's the one that can blow your mind, not me, not any new device, not any new toy.

He's the one that can fill your heart anew with wonder.

Let's pray to him.

Lord, thank you for this passage.

Um pray that you write it in our hearts.

Draw us to yourself, though, Lord.

I'd love to hear angels sing, I'd love to see the night sky ripped open and all of that, but more than all of that, I would see Jesus.

I would want to know Jesus.

I want to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

I want to know the presence of Jesus in my life.

His presence will mean joy and wonder and hope and life to me.

So, Lord, uh, come and fill your people anew, I pray.

In Jesus' name and for his sake, amen and amen.