Luke 2:1–20
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
In 1965, some producers from CBS came to a man named Charles Schultz and asked him to prepare and make a Christmas special for the television channel based on his famous Peanuts characters. As far as we know, Charles Schultz was a professing Christian, a strongly professing Christian, in fact, and so when the producers asked him to do this, he insisted that if he was going to make a Peanuts special about Christmas, that it would have to include the story of the birth of Jesus.
The producers pushed back a little bit, but eventually they came to a compromise. And it was what you see in the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Now, for almost 60 years, families across the country have been watching a Charlie Brown Christmas as the Peanuts kids make demands for what they want for Christmas and get ready for a gaudy Christmas production and make fun of Charlie Brown's little Christmas tree and pull off all the usual insulting hijinks about him, and it's delightful. But you remember what the story is really about? Do you remember the narrative of the story?
In the midst of all the commercialization, in the midst of all the silliness, in the midst of even all the meanness as they're making fun of his little Christmas tree, Charlie Brown finally gives up and just cries out, isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? And then little Linus, with his blue security blanket in tow, walks up and says, Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Remember that? And then he takes center stage, he calls for the spotlight, and he recites a portion of the text we're going to look at today. When it's done, he silently walks back over to Charlie Brown. He raises a finger and he says, that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. Well, the thing is, that text that Linus recited and that text that we're going to be looking at this morning is being read literally all over the world today.
It's being read around dinner tables. It's being read around Christmas trees before people open up gifts. Kids are listening on television to Linus recite it at the Christmas cantata while he holds his blanket. And it's no wonder that this story is being told all over the world over the next couple of days. It's beautiful, and it's full of a kind of understated majesty. Angels rend the heavens and announce the birth of the Messiah with these ears-splitting praises to God. You can almost feel the cold of the night as the shepherds are out in the fields looking up into the star-filled skies.
As they do that, the skies are filled with blinding light and celebration. And then the shepherds rush off to Bethlehem, just a few miles away, to pay homage to the newborn king. And in the midst of all that that's happening, in the midst of the cold, in the midst of the starlight, in the midst of all of it, right down in the middle is a newborn baby and a young girl and her new husband, away from their home and wondering what they're going to do now. And the best they come up with, at least for that night, is to lay him down and let him sleep in a feeding trough for animals.
So that's what we're looking at today. Grab a Bible, if you have one in front of you, and turn over to Luke chapter 2. We're going to look at this most famous telling of the birth of Jesus. If you want to grab a pew Bible in front of you, like this one right here, these red colored ones, you'll find Luke 2 on page 857. And I'm just going to start reading in verse 1. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the end. In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
The angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.
And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told to them. You know, there's nothing particularly difficult about this text, unless you actually believe that it happened.
If you think it's a story, there's nothing all that difficult about it. We know what fairy tales are. We know how magic works in fairy tales. We know how miracles work in fairy tales. No, the difficulty of the text doesn't come in the story itself. The difficulty comes in understanding that it's not a story. It's a reality. A lot of people just can't seem to get their heads around that. They just dismiss it all, right, as legend or as fairy tale. But I think it's worth seeing right off the bat that Luke doesn't see it like that at all.
He very much intends to be writing history. He's telling you things that he believes actually happened in the course of history. If you look at those first four verses, for instance. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. This was the registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. All of that in the first four verses or so. You've got at least 21 historical references in those first four verses. That as soon as they were written, as soon as Luke put pen to paper and wrote down things like, Caesar Augustus, registration, Quirinius, governor of Syria.
When all of those things were written down, as soon as the ink hit the paper, it was verifiable or unverifiable, right? You could say that it was true, or you could say that it was not true. Somebody could read it and say, there's never a guy named Quirinius that was governor of Syria. I've lived there. We don't have anybody named Quirinius Luke. What are you talking about? But none of that happened. Because Luke intends to be writing history. He slams all of those historical people and historical places and historical references into those verses because he wants us to know that he's not just writing some gauzy story.
He's not just writing a misty legend. He wants us to know that it happened and it's important. It's history. Now once you come to see that, once you come to understand that this story is far more than a story, it's history, well that ought to pull you out of engaging Christmas the way the world around you engages Christmas, shouldn't it? It ought to make you think differently about the world, about the season that we're celebrating. Because what's this all about? I mean, like Linus said, what is it all about?
To the world around us, to the malls and the shopping outlets, to the television advertisements and the Twitter commercials and all the rest of us, what we've got here is just a winter festival. Public schools will treat it as a winter festival. It's a time, at best, to gather with friends, to give some gifts, though we don't know anymore why we do that, to eat too much, to have some fun. And behind it, you've got story after legend, after charming, charming fairy tale that's trying to give it meaning. And that's why you see on the TV all of the Christmas stories and Christmas movies.
There's Santa Claus and Ebenezer Scrooge. There's the Polar Express. There's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. There's Buddy the Elf and John McClane. and then, oh yeah, there's that Jewish myth about some baby being born for some reason or another. What's that all about? It doesn't matter. We have better stories to talk about anyway. That's what the world says. But for you, if you're a Christian, if you believe that this story is real, then Christmas is way more than a legend.
It's way more than a myth. It's way more than a winter festival. It's the celebration of the birth of a king. It's the celebration of the birth of your king. Which isn't to say that all the traditions and gift giving and cookie eating are wrong. They're not. They're fine. In fact, most of those things have Christian tradition underlying them. But never ever forget, as you shove that last Christmas cookie into your mouth, never forget that underneath and beyond all of that is the incarnation of God.
I think that's what Luke is doing in Luke chapter 2. I think that's the main idea, the main thing that he's wanting us to do as we read and study this text this morning. He is just wanting us to stand in wonder with the angels at the fact that God became a baby. And then ask the question, what does that mean for you? So I want to look at this text in two points. Number one, we're going to talk about the majesty and the manger. The majesty and the manger. And then number two, we're going to look at the heart of faith because there are a lot of people who respond to the fact of Jesus being born and they respond in different ways.
And one of the things that Luke unfolds to us is what does it look like when a heart comes to faith in Jesus? And he's very clear about what that looks like and what it doesn't look like. Excuse me. So I hope this morning before everything begins in earnest this afternoon or for most of you, it's probably I should say before it continues in earnest this afternoon. I hope that for a few minutes today we can pause and remember why we do all of this. And as a result, maybe we can approach Christmas this year, not necessarily with less hustle and bustle. That's not really the goal. I'm not going to tell you to get out of the hustle and bustle.
I'm not going to say, you know, simplify it, change it. Most of us are stuck in what we do, right? But maybe we'll approach Christmas with a little more awe and a little more wonder and a little more astonishment at why it all happens in the first place. That's my goal. So point number one, looking at this story from Luke chapter 2, the majesty and the manger. The majesty and the manger. Luke's story actually begins way back at the beginning of chapter 1. And if you have maybe read ahead this week, or I'm sure you've read the story before, if you kind of know the story of Luke chapter 1 moving into 2, then you know that some extraordinary things have already happened.
There are amazing miracles that happen in Luke chapter 1. There are prophecies that are foretold. There are things predicted. There are barren women that become pregnant by God's grace. There's all kinds of things that happen in chapter 1. But when 2 opens, when chapter 2 verse 1 opens, all of a sudden in Luke chapter 2 verse 1, it really couldn't be any less remarkable. And for the first few verses, you don't get anything remarkable happening at all. For the first seven verses, in fact, there's nothing but the kind of pitiful story of this young couple being forced to have a baby away from home, away from family, away from hell.
And it turns out it has to happen under the worst possible conditions. I mean, the conditions were probably never great in first century Judea and the first century Roman Empire, right? There are no epidurals. There are no ice chips. There's nothing like that. Having a baby in first century Rome would have been a miserable experience no matter what. And yet normally, probably, a woman would at least have sort of a bed of some kind or a place to lay down on which she could give birth.
But Mary and Joseph don't have it. I think a lot of times our assumptions about what's going on here are wrong. We think that Mary and Joseph are poor. We think they're destitute. We think they can't afford the inn. That's basically the opposite of what the text tells us. They seem to have had some means. It wasn't required by the Romans that you travel to your ancestral home. That's what Joseph and Mary decided to do. It would have taken some resources for them to make it to Bethlehem in the first place. Second, if you just read the story carefully, they had enough money to try to stay at the inn.
Right? It's not that they didn't have enough money to stay there. They did. They tried. It's just that so many people had come into Bethlehem at the time that there was no room. And for that matter, they probably had to pay somebody to stay in the stable. If you didn't have any money, if you were destitute, you just wound up on the street or in an alleyway. That's not what Mary and Joseph were doing. It's all just very normal. I mean, during this time, Rome was dominant over the Jewish people. And what had happened here in the first four verses, a decree came down from Caesar Augustus, one of the greatest of the Roman emperors, that the subjects of his empire were to be counted.
Now, the Romans did this occasionally because if you don't know how many people you are, You can't tax them effectively, and governments love to tax people effectively, and so they want to know how many people there are. So the Romans would do this once in a while in order to assess taxes. I mean, it seems strange to us that Joseph and Mary would have had to go to Bethlehem. I mean, they lived in Nazareth. Why not just stay there and get counted in the census in Nazareth? You and I think that's kind of weird. We don't have to go to our hometowns every 10 years when the census takes place. Well, neither did Roman people either.
They didn't have to do it. And for Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem would have seemed a little weird to most Romans also. And yet we're talking about the Jewish people here for whom lineage and ancestry and rootedness was incredibly important. Ancestry and tribe were of paramount importance to these Jews. And so it's not surprising that when the census was imposed on them by Caesar Augustus, the Jews did it in their own way. They did it by ancestry, they did it by tribal lineage, and Rome had no problem with that.
Rome was in the business of letting their conquered people hold on to some of their odd traditions. And so Joseph and Mary set out on this 90-mile journey to Bethlehem. The mention of Bethlehem as the city of David there, and Joseph as being from the house of David, you see how that all piles up? This is verse 4. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea. And then you get two mentions of David to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered for Mary.
That's important because you and I know what's coming, right? We've heard the voice of the angel. We know what's coming. It's the birth of the Son of God. It's the Christ. It's the king that's being born here. But that reference to the city of David and that little reference to Joseph being of the house and lineage of David would not have been all that important to anybody else. In first century Judea, if you said the word Bethlehem, if you said the words house of David or throne of David or lineage of David, it didn't sparkle with these royal overtones like it does for us.
We hear house of David or star of David and it just sparkles like a golden crown, right? Because we know what that means. It didn't do that in first century Judea. I mean, think about it. This is a fascinating point to me. It was not impossible. It was not historically impossible to figure out who the rightful king of Israel was. It was not impossible. You had the records, you had the lineages, you had the family histories.
And basically you could start with David and figure out the way the law worked. You could figure out who was the living rightful heir of David. It wasn't impossible to do that. In fact, Matthew did it. And Luke did it in his book. And you know who the rightful king of Israel was? You know who the heir to the throne of David was? You know who the rightful lord and ruler of Israel was at this moment? Joseph. King Joseph.
Trudging along in front of a donkey as he leads his pregnant wife to go get counted by his emperor. That's who the rightful king was. It's not that nobody knew who the rightful king was. It's that nobody cared. It's not even clear that they took the time to figure it out until Matthew and Luke did it. Joseph was the rightful king of Israel. Trudging along to go get taxed. Luke's description of the birth there in verses 6 and 7 is almost shockingly understated.
I mean, there's just not much said about it, right? When they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth, right? That's really all it says. And then you get the little detail, wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the end. It's almost shockingly understated, but don't let it fool you, and don't let the old Christmas carol fool you. This was not a silent night. There's no way it was a silent night. I mean, remember what's going on here. There are thousands, well, hundreds to thousands, pouring into Bethlehem in order to be taxed by the emperor.
And there are so many people in the city of Bethlehem that there's no room for any more guests in the inn. And so they're starting to put people in a stable, which was probably connected to the main house, to the main part of the inn. There were people, when Mary gave birth, everywhere. There were animals everywhere. There were people with their children over in that corner trying to sleep. There was a baby crying over here. There were people in the next room and people behind them, people over there. And over in a corner, Mary is giving birth.
They didn't have a doctor. They didn't have an expert. They didn't have a midwife. Apparently there was not even some, you know, matriarchal figure at the end who just shoved everybody out of the way and said, Get out of the way. I'll handle this. Nobody said, Go get a pot of boiling water. There was nothing that happened like that. They just did it alone, and the baby was born. And either Joseph or Mary was holding the baby, and their arms got tired, and they got an idea. Let's put him there in the feeding trough.
That'll work for a while, so maybe we can get an hour's sleep. Everything in verses 1 to 7 is just completely normal. no angels no glory no bright lights nothing it's just this hard put upon brand new little family who's going to get taxed and they have a baby in the stable and lay him in a manger but then in verse 8 the scene shifts to a field just outside of Bethlehem the shepherds it says they're watching their flocks in the middle of the night I want you to notice first of all how this story is filled with common people. They're just common people. You've got Mary and Joseph. Yes, he's the rightful king of Israel, but he's just a common guy. Now, he's a carpenter from a little no-account town called Nazareth. There's Mary and Joseph, this normal little family. There's this baby who is nothing like normal, and yet there he is laying in the manger. And now, the first proclamation from heaven about the birth of Jesus comes not to the
king in his palace, not to the high priest at the temple, but it comes to some no-account shepherds who are out in a field surrounded by dark and cold and silent and maybe a few sheep bleating in the night. And all of a sudden, there's an angel. Actually, the angel's not in the sky yet. The word there in verse 9, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, means that the angel was actually standing next to them, standing among them, and his glory filled the night around them.
He's not in the sky yet. And they're filled with fear. And then you get this announcement from the angel. Verse 10, the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. It's an extraordinary announcement, isn't it? I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people of the world. For unto you is born this day in the royal city a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
It's an amazing statement. Who knows how long this angel had the job description of on the night that the Savior is born. You're going to go announce it. For the first time in human history, you get to be the guy, Leroy, who goes out there and announces the birth of the eternal Son of God. And Leroy's probably going, oh, yes, sir. And you wonder how long he had to wait, right? Did he get the assignment like 10 minutes early, nine months earlier, 900 years?
When did he get the assignment? Well, whenever he got the assignment, I bet he was not dreaming about it in the way it happened here. My guess is that as Leroy thought about it, he was thinking, I'm going to make this announcement about the Christ, the Savior, the Son of the living God being born in the royal city, and it's going to be in front of Herod and all his courtiers in the throne room of the palace. And I'm going to wow them. And then there was the addendum that came that day. No, no, no, Leroy, over there. The shepherds.
It's just an incredible thing to think about, right? Why shepherds? Why does God send the message of the gospel to these normal people? Even no account people. Well, it's because of what Isaiah had prophesied. It is because the gospel comes to those who are in the deepest darkness. On them, a light has shone. Friend, how deep a darkness do you think you're in today?
How deep a spiritual darkness do you think you're in today? I promise you, the worse you think about yourself, The worse you think about your own moral and spiritual state, the more primed you are to hear the message, fear not. Because I bring you good tidings of great joy that a Savior has been born. For those who are in the deepest anguish, for those who are in the deepest, deepest darkness, on them light has shone.
You've got several things going on in this statement here, in this announcement from the angels. I mean, first thing there in verse 10, look, it's good news. It's just good news. I mean, it's a fairly normal phrase. It's announcing the coming of a king, and that is good. It's also going to result in great joy for all the people. The word all there is really important. The Jews divided the world up into two different groups. There were themselves, the Jews, and then there was everybody else, which they called all kinds of things. They called them Gentiles. They called them goy. They called them the nations. They called them barbarians.
They called them dogs. So for the angel to come and say, this is good news of great joy for all the people, not just you guys, but also the dogs, as you call them, is a shocking thing for him to say. This is not a limited joy. It's not an exclusive joy. And the old man Simeon, a few days later, would grab this baby and hold him up and say, he's a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. Both sides, to everyone.
Look also, second thing to notice here, not just that it's good news that will bring great joy, but look what the angel says about who this baby is that's just been born. You got the reference again to David, right? Fear not, behold, I bring you good news of great joy. It's going to be for all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David. And then he just piles up these three titles for this baby who's just been born. There's Savior and then Christ and then the Lord.
And Savior is a glorious word, but people would have been familiar with it. It was one of the words that was applied to God. It was one of the words that was applied to the coming Messiah. It was even a word that was applied to just normal human beings. It's an old word used all over the Old Testament. And it just means someone who delivers. Someone who sees someone else is in trouble and goes and saves them. And becomes their Savior, Christ. Also a fairly normal word. It just means anointed one. It was used of all the kings of Israel.
Like all 40 of them would have taken the title Christ, right? If they had spoken Greek, instead they would have taken the word the anointed one of Israel. They're the king of Israel. Fairly normal word. But then there's Lord. Then there's Lord, which would have been a very strange thing to stack up next to Savior and Christ and apply it all to a human baby. Very strange thing to do. But Jesus, later in his life, would point out from Psalm 110 that it means that this baby right here in the manger is greater than David ever was.
It points to sovereignty. It points to omnipotence. It points to power. It even, if you look back into the Old Testament, it points to divinity, as we saw in the book of Isaiah. Then you get verse 12, more words of the angel. This will be a sign for you. The word sign there doesn't just mean look out for this. It's not just a signpost. It's not just here's the set of circumstances that will flag you to the fact that you found the right baby. He'll be wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. No, it means more like a wonder. This will be a wonder to you.
This will leave you slack-jawed in amazement. Even after everything that you've seen, the angels that you're about to see in the sky, the angel that's standing right next to you giving you this announcement, This is going to amaze you, that the Savior, the Christ, the Lord himself, is right now lying in a feeding trough. Let that be a wonder to you. When the announcement's done, heaven explodes with praise, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. That's when you get the angels in the sky. I don't know if the one that was with them joined them or whatever, but then the angels start to sing.
And it's wonderful what they say there. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Peace. That's what the Savior had come to bring. No more enmity, no more separation, no more warfare, no more flaming sword guarding the way to the tree of life. No more thick curtain separating the holy of holies from the people. No more of that separation. Now there's peace between God and man. And all because the Son of God is sleeping in a feeding trough.
Friends, I just want you to take a moment, like above everything else, I just want you to take a moment and stand and wonder at that. This is what we Christians call the incarnation. We talked about it at length last week. The mind-blowing reality that God became human. I mean, think about it. It's as if the eternal Son of God rose from His throne in heaven, laid aside his crown, stood on the rim of heaven and dove headlong through the stars, the planets, the countless suns, the millions of quarks and galaxies and all the rest, all the way through the clouds and the atmosphere and into the arms of a carpenter who laid him on his mother's breast, who wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a feeding trough.
There's a poem that I often read right around the Christmas season. It's by a woman named Lucy Shaw, and it's called Mary's Song. It's a beautiful poem. But I think this line captures some of the wonder of what we're talking about here. Quiet, now he lies, whose power hurled a universe into being. He sleeps, whose eyelids have never closed before. God became man.
And you know what's just as amazing? God became man. It's just as amazing. Not just that God became something less than him, but that God became one of us. And why did he do that? We talked about it last week, but to put it just in a nutshell, it was so that he could identify with us. It was so that he would be able to stand with us. So that the curse that hung over us might rightly be able to be inflicted on him. So that he might be able to stand before his father and say, I, father, am not different from them.
I'm not pleading with you to save them from sort of a distance. No, I am standing with them and now I'm pleading with you to save them. So let the sword that would have lodged in their hearts find its sheath in mine. I am with them. let me die so that they can live. It's amazing love that led the Son of God to do that. Now, I wonder sometimes if that little baby in the manger, if he knew.
I mean, it's a fascinating question that we argue about at the Christmas season. Mary, did you know? I think it's even more fascinating to say, Jesus, when you were a baby, did you know? And did you understand, as a little baby who's trying to sleep in the hay, did you have any understanding of what this would cost you? Did you have any understanding of the weight of the mission that you were taking on? One of my go-to songs at this time of year, I only listened to it a few times in the season.
You'll never, for some reason, hear it on Christian radio. I don't know why, but you have to go looking for it on YouTube music or something. but it's Mercy Me's song, Joseph's Lullaby. And what the band does is that they imagine what it would have been like for Joseph to hold this little baby that had just been born to his wife, to know that this is my son, my adopted son, yes, but this is my son, this is the son of my wife, my wife, and what would have gone through his mind. And here's what they imagine might have gone through Joseph's mind, Joseph's Lullaby.
Go to sleep, my son, in this manger for your bed. You have a long road before you, so rest your little head. Can you feel the weight of your glory? Do you understand the price? Or does the Father guard your heart for now so you can sleep tonight? I believe the glory of heaven is lying in my arms tonight. But, Lord, I ask that he, for just this one moment, simply be my child.
So go to sleep, my son. Baby, close your eyes. Soon enough, soon enough you'll save the world. But for now, dear child of mine, oh, my little Jesus, sleep tight. For in this Christmas, find some time. Find some time to stand in awe of all of this. To realize again what all of this means. The Son of God became a baby. And even more amazingly, he became a human like you and like me.
So that he could die and you could live. For some of you, that's just going to be a matter of seeing it all again. Because you know that. It's deep down in your heart. You believe it with everything that you are. And what you need is just to see it all again. For others of you, though, you need to come to grips with it, maybe for the first time. You need to understand who you are as a sinner and rebel before God. You need to understand why all of this had to happen in the first place, and it's to save sinners just like you. You need to understand that this little baby eventually grew up, lived the life that you should have lived, died on the cross, the death that you deserved for your sins.
And now says that if you'll come to him in faith, if you'll turn away from your sins and come to him in faith and acknowledge him for who he is, he will give you eternal life. You need to come to grips with that. Don't let this Christmas season pass in just yet another flurry of cookies and gifts and tinsel. That would be silly. Friend, you've heard the gospel right here. God brought you here for some kind of reason. You heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now it's time to believe it.
Which brings us to the second point here, the heart of faith. Point number two, the heart of faith. In other words, how does faith work? When I say come to Jesus and put your faith in him, what am I talking about? Well, we see it here in verses especially 15 to 20. You see the response of the shepherds. So take yourself back out in the field, right? It's still cold and the sheep are still bleating and the stars are up in the sky and all the rest of it. and the angel has been there, and their minds have been filled up with the glory of the Lord as they looked up into the heavens, and then all of a sudden, it's all gone.
The darkness is back, the cold is back, the wind is still blowing. And they probably would have looked at each other, and they could have come to the conclusion, couldn't they? Well, that was trippy. Let's go build a fire, let's go sit around, let's go take care of the sheep, because we'll probably never see anything like that again, and we're certainly not telling anybody else about it. They could have made that decision, but they didn't. Instead, what did they do? They discussed it among themselves, and they decided to go to Bethlehem.
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And then look what happens in 17. When they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. In other words, when they went away, they made known to people around them what was said about this baby. God has done what he said he would do.
Everything that they were told had happened has now been proved to them, and they're ecstatic about it. They're thrilled. I think if you look at these verses, you can see a pattern of how faith ought to operate in our lives. This is how faith works. You can see it. If you look carefully at the shepherds and their response and what happens to them, you can see very clearly how faith operates in our lives. And it operates in a very specific order. There's word. It's got four steps. There's word.
Then there's belief. Then there's action. And then there's testimony. Those four things happen in the lives of the shepherds. Those four things happen in the life of every Christian who comes to faith in Jesus. There's word, belief, action, and testimony. So what do I mean by word? Well, the whole thing starts with the word of God, right? It always does. The way this whole thing starts in the lives of the shepherds is not that the shepherds are sitting around in the cold and dark of night and thinking, you know what, I think I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to be more spiritual.
And then the heavens break in response to their action. That's not how it works. They're not thinking about spiritual things. They're not thinking about the Messiah being born. It just explodes into their existence and into their experience. God speaks first. That's just a fundamental universal reality. Life always comes through God's word. It's true physically. Life comes physically through God's word. How did the whole of creation come into existence? It's by God speaking. Let there be light.
And there was light. Right? But also spiritual life. When God gives spiritual life, it happens through the power of his word. That's why you as a Christian were saved not by just your own first decision to look after God, but by the word of God coming to you in the preaching of the gospel. Somehow. Maybe it was from a pulpit like this. Maybe it was from a Sunday school teacher. Maybe it was from a friend. But whatever, the whole ball of you becoming a Christian started rolling by the word of God taking root in your heart.
That's always how it happens. And here, it's the announcement of that angel that lights the fuse. So word, that's the first thing. Second, though, is belief. And it's the question, all right, now that the word has come, you'll find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. He's the son of David. He's the Christ, the Lord, the Savior. Now that you've heard this word, the question is, are the shepherds going to believe it or not? And they do. Do you notice that in verse 15? Look at it carefully. And the angels went away from them into heaven.
The shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. Now, I think, again, if you're like me, you have probably spent a whole lot of time misreading that verse and misinterpreting it. Because I think in a lot of our minds, the way we read it is more like this. The shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see whether this thing has happened. You realize that's not what it says. it's let's go see this thing that has happened.
Once the word comes, they believe it. Same thing for you. Once the word of God comes, once you hear the message of the gospel, that you're a sinner and that Christ is a great savior, and that he'll give eternal life to anyone who comes to him, once you hear that word, the question is, are you going to believe that or not? The shepherds do. Next thing, though, is not just belief, but action, right? It's not just that they say, yeah, sure, yeah, I believe that. Let's sit down and talk about it around the fire.
No, what happens next is action. They have to do something. For the shepherds, you've got to get up and go to Bethlehem. For you, if you're a Christian, it's to say, yes, I believe this message. And then the action that's required of you is trust in Jesus. Make a commitment to him. Say to someone around you, I'm a Christian. I believe this. I'm a Christian. Now, what's next? That's not an easy thing to do ever, right? Because it requires a change in the direction of your life, right?
You're headed down one road, not a Christian. You hear the word of God. You believe it. It gets through to your heart. It's a really hard thing to turn to someone and say, hey, I am shifting the course of my life entirely in a new direction. Everything that I thought my life was going to be about for the next few decades is not all of a sudden what my life is going to be about. It's something different. That is never an easy thing to do, and yet it's exactly what Jesus calls you to, just like a king would. Action is necessary, and then, of course, testimony.
You see what happens. They told everybody. They told everybody, which is a pretty natural response, right? If the king has been born that we've all been waiting for for a thousand years, if the Savior is finally here who's going to save us from our sins, I've been brought into his kingdom and I'm now saved from my sins, then it's a normal thing to want to say there's good news, everybody. The king has been born. It's the same with us. Faith, when it comes in our hearts, when it blooms, faith finally always works itself out, not just in a silent ascent, but in a recognition pretty much to anybody who will listen that this is good and it's good for everybody.
Is that, Christian, how your faith is working out in your life? Is that how your faith is working out this Christmas? Who do you need to have a conversation with? Who do you need to have a conversation with about Jesus? Okay, second question. I really want you to have a name in your mind. Who do you need to have a conversation with? Second question, how are you going to get that done? I'm serious.
How are you going to get that done? Faith works itself out in testimony that this is good news for everybody. How are you going to get that conversation done? I want you to look here too at just all the various responses of people here. There's Mary in verse 19. Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. What does that mean? What does it mean that she treasured them all up and she pondered them?
Well, it means that she remembered the things that happened, right? She remembered the story of the shepherd. She remembered the angel's announcement to her. She remembered the birth. She remembered the star. She remembered the wise men. She gathered all these things up. She treasured them. But then look what it says. She pondered them. She thought about them. She considered them. And apparently, it took her some time. She doesn't seem in the story that the Gospels tell to have gotten it all at once. I mean, there was even this time in another of the Gospels where she and her other sons that she has after Jesus try to convince Jesus to quit doing what he's doing and come home because they think he's insane.
She did not get it all at once. But eventually, having treasured all these things up, having pondered them, she understood. She pulled it all together, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, the scriptures. And eventually, eventually, at some point before Jesus was on the cross, it all clicked. It all came together into this blindingly beautiful hole for her. This, my son, is the son of God. And he's come to save his people from their sins. So there's Mary in 19.
But look then up at 18. The response of those who heard the shepherds' message. All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. It said that word wondered there is marveled. That's what it is. Which sounds great at first, right? All those who heard the shepherds' message marveled. They wondered at what the shepherds told them. Sounds great. And yet, if you look at the very first word of 19, that wondering at the story of the shepherds is contrasted with what Mary did.
It's not that they marveled and wondered, and in the same way, Mary treasured these things up and pondered them. No, it's different. They marveled, but Mary did this. So what does that tell you about the marveling? It tells you it was about that deep. They marveled at it. They wondered about it. They sort of gave the shepherds a fist bump and said, cool story, bro. And then they went on with their lives. They marveled, but just a little bit. They marveled. They wondered, but just for a moment.
And then they got on with their lives. Does that sound familiar to you? Maybe once a year at Christmas, you come to some Christmas program or you watch something on TV. Maybe it's even little Linus reciting Luke 2, right? And maybe for just a moment, you're like, wow, that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. But then you just go on with your life. Friend, don't let that be you this Christmas. Treasure these things up. Ponder them and believe them.
I want you to see one last detail here. Two words in the angel's announcement in verse 11. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior is Christ the Lord. I want you to look very carefully at the words unto you. They're critical. They're critical because this baby, this Savior, and Christ, and Lord, God himself, has been born to you. Now in part, that's an echo of Isaiah 9, 6.
Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. But whether the shepherds knew that or not, whether one of them heard that and went, Isaiah 9, 6, right? Whether they did that or not. What that meant is that this wasn't just a general offer. The angel looked them in the eyes and says, unto you, shepherd. is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord to you. There's a difference, right?
There's a difference between some company that you walk into or some store that you walk into saying, hey, welcome to whatever store. We have a gift for you this Christmas. You can gather it up at the door when you walk out, just like everybody else. There's a difference in that and someone walking up to you with a little package and saying, I got this for you. I thought about you. It's personal. It's for you. See, on this night, the Son of God emerged into the world and united himself to humanity.
As he was taken into his mother's arms and then laid in a feeding trough, as the angels split the heavens with singing, God looked into your eyes and said, this is for you. And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. But I mean, again, what? What's it all about? We've been talking about it all morning. You know, the CBS producers of Charlie Brown Christmas wouldn't let Charles Schultz put an entire Christian sermon in the show.
But have you ever noticed all the subtle details that Schultz did manage to put in that show? I mean, there's the fact that when Linus recites the story of Jesus' birth, he's standing, if you remember, he's standing center stage. Everyone else is off to the sides. He's center stage alone with the spotlight on him because the story of Jesus' birth all of a sudden commands all attention. There's that little detail. There's also the little detail, I think so subtle, you almost miss it.
Like it's almost off the screen even. Is that while he's reciting it, Linus drops his blue blanket. He drops his security blanket. And he does so, if you watch it very carefully, he does so at precisely the moment that he says the words, fear not. It's so subtle. You almost don't see it. It's so subtle and yet it's so brilliant because it really does capture what Christmas is all about.
That the birth of Jesus on that night lays our greatest fears to rest. It makes all of our other security blankets unnecessary. It frees us to find security and salvation in the one place it could ever be found in the first place. Enrobed in splendor at the right hand of the Father. Crowned with thorns and dying on a cross. Wrapped in swaddling clothes. And lying in a manger. Joy to the world.
The Lord has come. let earth receive her king let's pray our Lord Jesus we thank you for the great news of great joy that you the eternal son of God became man and dwelt among us and we because of your grace and because of your compassion and love for us we have seen your glory oh our lord we pray that you would help us to keep these things in our minds and in our hearts even this christmas even in the midst of all the busyness of it all help us to remember who you are and why you came we pray all of this in your name amen