Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 2. Luke 2.
Last week, we started a little series on the Themes of Christmas. For the next several weeks, we are going to talk about the four things that have been traditionally emphasized leading up to Christmas:
- Last week we talked about Hope
- This week we will talk about Peace
- Next week we will discuss Joy
- And finally, the Sunday before Christmas, we will talk about love.
Are you feeling festive yet? We got our Christmas decorations up this weekend. We are preparing hard for the Christmas cantata in a few weeks.
The Christmas parties have started. In our family we've already had one Christmas party, and we have several more coming before Christmas.
By the way, don't sleep on the church Christmas party - it's always one of my favorite things that we do as a church. We'll have great food, we'll have games, we'll have a fun gift exchange. It's one of the great family things we do around here.
Christmas is about all anyone thinks about this month, so we are talking about Christmas - and what Christmas really means - in church this month.
And this morning we are going to consider the theme of peace.
If you are in Luke 2, let's go ahead and read verses 1-14.
[!bible] Luke 2:1-14 - KJV
- And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
- (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
- And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
- And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
- To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
- And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
- And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
- And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
- And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
- And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
- For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
- And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
- And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
- Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Just about everyone knows this story - the story of the coming of our Lord and Savior. How God came to man in the humblest of circumstances.
Joseph and Mary making the trip from the very top of Israel - Nazareth, down to Bethlehem for a census, because they were both descendants of David, and David was from Bethlehem.
The city being so overrun with people that there was no room for them in the inn, and they had to stay in a stable.
Mary giving birth to Jesus in some stable, in the most humble of circumstances, and laying Him in a feeding trough because there was no crib for Him.
We all know this story. But the part I want to focus on this morning starts in verse 8:
[!bible] Luke 2:8 - KJV 8. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
Nearby to where baby Jesus lay was a bunch of shepherds, doing their thing. These were third shift shepherds. Their job it seems was to stay up all night long and make sure nothing came and got the sheep. They were on the lookout for thieves or predators.
Which when you think about it, is a pretty boring job. Their job was like the job of a night time security guard - stay awake in case of the unlikely event that something happens.
And shepherds in Jesus' day, especially these kind of hired-out shepherds - they were considered the lowest of the low. This was the most basic job you could get, and the people who did it were considered the very bottom of society.
They were also considered untrustworthy - so much so that they weren't seen as good witnesses in court.
And yet, this is who the angels decided to reveal themselves to.
Think about this - we know from scripture that angels fill the throne room of heaven, where they are constantly praising God. These angels are like the choir in the grandest royal court in the universe.
And yet these angels didn't think it was too low for them to go a little town outside of Jerusalem and make an announcement to the humblest characters there.
What I want to do this morning is to break down what these angels said and think about the seven things that the angels told us about Christ and God's plan of salvation - this is going to bring us to our theme today "peace."
Look at verse 10 again. This is the beginning of what the angel said, and it tells us the first two things about God's plan.
[!bible] Luke 2:10 - KJV 10. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
The first thing to see here is...
1. Jesus coming should bring us great joy
We'll talk about joy next week - but let's just say that the coming of Christ is something worth celebrating and it has brought great joy to men now for thousands of years.
God's plan for the world is not to come and make us all miserable. God wants us to truly know joy and not just any joy - but great joy.
I find it interesting that the fruit of the spirit is first love, then joy. If you are living as God intended, you are living in joy.
And that joy comes to us through Christ and the salvation He offers. It is the joy of having our burdens lifted. It is the joy in knowing that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us.
We see a second thing in this first verse and that is...
2. Jesus coming is for everyone.
It says "great joy that shall be to all people."
God didn't send Christ for just a few people. God didn't send Him just to the jews. Or just to the religious and moral. Just to the "good people." Christ came to all people.
My family loves to read a book and watch a movie at Christmas time called "the worst Christmas pageant ever." (We like the movie so much we have thought about having a Christmas movie night next year at church and watching it together.)
It's about a how one family of derelict children - the Herdmans - who are the terror of their town. We are talking about a 12 year old who smokes cigars and boys who steal everyone's lunch and set the school on fire kind of bad. This family ends up taking over a church Christmas pageant by force and they seem like they are going to ruin the whole thing. And in the end of the movie, the stuck up town people are reminded that Christ came for everyone - even the Herdmans.
The fact that these angels were singing to the shepherds - to the lowest and humblest of men - shows us how serious God was that Christ was for all men.
Let's keep looking at what these angels said. Look at verse 11 again:
[!bible] Luke 2:11 - KJV 11. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
Here the angels teach us two more things about the coming of Jesus.
3. Jesus is the savior
Jesus came to save. In Matthew 1:21 the angels told Joseph
[!bible] Matthew 1:21 - KJV 21. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
What mankind needed was not someone to come with a better checklist. We didn't need a lot of advice. We didn't need a personal trainer to whip us into spiritual shape. We were far too gone for all of that.
What we needed was a Savior. And Jesus came to be our Savior. He came to be the hero that we needed. The rescuer that we needed.
We were oppressed and enslaved - and He came to fight against the powers that enslave us and be our hero - our Savior.
There is a fourth thing the angels teach us in this verse, and that is that...
4. Jesus is the Messiah
He is "Christ the Lord."
"Christ" is not Jesus' last name. He was not Jesus Christ. "Christ" is a title. He was Jesus the Christ.
And Christ is the New Testament word for what the Old Testament calls "the Messiah" or "the promised one."
Here is what this means - Jesus coming wasn't random. The baby in the manger in Bethlehem was the fulfillment of all of the prophecies in the Old Testament. He was "the Christ" - the one that Isaiah and Ezekiel and Micah spoke about.
But it goes further than that.
- Jesus is the seed of the woman from Genesis 3:15 that would bruise the serpent's head.
- Jesus is the God would provide himself from the story of Abraham and Isaac.
- Jesus was the passover lamb whose blood covered the doors of the Israelites in Egypt and secured their safety and freedom.
- Jesus was the whole point of the Tabernacle and later the Temple.
- Jesus was the son of David that would rule on the throne forever.
He is the Christ. He is the Messiah.
The prophets spoke of Him. The sacrifices pointed to Him. And now the angels are announcing — He's here.
Now that brings me to the last three things these angels told the Shepherds, which is really the thing I wanted to get to.
Look at verse 14:
[!bible] Luke 2:14 - KJV 14. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
The fifth thing the angels tell us about Jesus coming to save man is...
5. Jesus coming glorifies God
Listen, nothing makes God look better than this - He sent His only begotten son for us.
God the son became man. Emmanuel - God with us. God the son walked on this earth and showed His great love and generosity. Then God the son died in our place and it was all God's plan.
What a good God we serve! What a great God we serve!
You can search all of the sacred writings of the ancients, with their millions of gods, and you won't find anything like this: God dying for man.
The gods of the greeks were petty. Our God is generous and good - even to his enemies.
The gods of the canaanites demanded they sacrifice their children - but our God sacrificed His only son for us.
All of this points to the cross - where we see two things in sharp relief:
- the sinful wicked heart of mankind
- and the good, merciful heart of God.
Glory to God in the highest. He deserves it now and forever more.
Now let's look at the end of this verse and see the sixth thing these angels teach us. They said "on earth, good will to men."
So...
6. Jesus coming shows God's good will to men
God isn't out to get us.
- God is not some capricious and angry being - ready to shoot us with lightning bolts at the first infraction.
- God isn't some angry old man, grumpily shouting "leave me alone" to anyone who dares bother Him.
- God isn't some merciless taskmaster, demanding our offerings and even our children or He'll destroy our crops and our families.
No, God has "good will toward men."
Good will means God is for us, not against us. He's not waiting for us to fail — He's reaching out to rescue us. Good will is God's favorable disposition toward us, His desire for our good, His initiative to bless rather than curse.
He wants to help us. He wants to do us good. He doesn't want there to be any bad blood between us - and as a great symbol of that, He's given us His son. He's given us Jesus.
He's not coming to destroy our world or to destroy us - He's coming to help us.
And that leads me to the last point. The middle of this verse, where the angels said:
[!bible] Luke 2:14 - KJV 14. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
The thing I've been wanting to teach you this morning more than anything. The thing I want you to think about all week as you consider Christmas is this...
7. Jesus coming brings us peace
Now, what does that mean? How did Jesus bring us peace?
I think the primary thing God intended is that Jesus brings us peace with God.
When God created the world, there was peace. Mankind and God walked together in the garden.
But from the fateful day in Genesis 3 when man sinned, mankind and God were estranged. Man chose sin and death and separation from God and our world has known nothing but a lack of peace ever since.
- In delivering the curse, God said there would be a natural lack of peace in marriage.
- In Genesis 4, the very first son of man kills his brother.
- The story of humanity has been a story of wars. And that hasn’t gotten much better. When we think of the last century we tend to think about it in terms of wars:
- World War 1
- World War 2
- The Korean War
- The Vietnam War
- The Cold War
- The first Iraq war
- 9/11
- The War in Iraq
- The Afganistan war
- Now we have the war in Ukraine and few of us would be surprised if there was a war in South America coming.
We are not a peaceful people and at the root of all of that is this fact: naturally, we are not at peace with God. The King James says we are at emnity with Him.
Listen, mankind was the aggressors here. It was man who chose sin. It was man who rejected God. But God so loved the world He sent Jesus so we can be at peace with Him.
Listen to how Ephesians 2:13-18 puts it:
[!bible] Ephesians 2:13-18 - KJV 13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17. And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Peace on earth. Jesus came to bring us peace with God. He lived the perfect life we could not live, He fulfilled the law and died in our place so that He could reconcile us to God.
Every last ounce of bad blood between God and man was killed on the cross. We can have peace with God.
So what does this mean for you?
I think it could mean one of two or three things. Depending on where you are.
First, some of you are still estranged from God. You need to receive peace. You have not yet accepted Christ, you haven’t yet believed the gospel and so there is no peace yet between you and God - even though God has already done the work, God has already paid for that peace.
What you need to do today is to accept God’s salvation that is provided to you through Jesus Christ. When we look at the nativity, when we consider the meaning of Christmas - we need to remember that God is good, that God looks at us with good will, that God sent His son to be our Savior so that we can have peace with Him.
You need to trust Christ. In a few moments we’ll have sing a song of invitation, why not trust Christ today? Why put it off another day?
Second, if you already have trusted Christ today, then this passage should remind you that you need to share Christ with everyone. You need to share peace. Everyone from the shepherds to the senators, the the humblest to the greatest, everyone needs the gospel. Everyone needs to hear that God has good will toward men, and God has made peace with men.
Listen church, this is Christmastime. There may not be an easier time all year to start a conversation about Jesus. Would you commit to just trying to share Christ with one person this holiday season? Would you pray for an opportunity to have a gospel conversation with a neighbor or a coworker or a family member?
Finally, maybe there is someone today who you don’t have peace with and you need to reach out and make peace. You might think “but they are the aggressor, they hurt me.” Remember, mankind was the aggressor and it was God who provided the remedy.
- Maybe there is some son you’ve cut off, and you need to call them this year and invite them to Christmas.
- Maybe there is a brother you aren’t speaking to, and you need to call him up and show him love.
- Maybe there is some coworker you’ve been talking bad about, and you need to make things right.
God came to bring peace on earth, primarily that is peace between Him and us through Christ - but that peace we’ve received should make us peacemakers, and few things are as godly as us imitating God and being the ones who work to make peace.
The angels came to those shepherds on an ordinary night with an extraordinary announcement: God had come to make peace with man. That peace is still available today.
The same Jesus who was laid in that manger went to the cross to pay for it. And He offers it to everyone — to the shepherds, to the Herdmans, to you and to me.
Peace on earth. Not because we deserve it, but because God has good will toward us.
Let's pray.
