Take your New Testament now and turn, if you would, to the text for our sermon today, which will be from Luke chapter 2, starting at verse 8. Luke chapter 2, starting at verse 8. Once again, please, your attention, because this is the Word of God. And 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 great fear. And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of 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 cloths 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. And 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 has been told to them. The word of the Lord.
Oh, may he add his blessing upon preaching that word at this time. You may be seated. Join me in prayer as we ask the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching and the reception of that word. Let’s pray. Almighty God, we come to you once more, and we remember the shepherds of old were full of your praises, saying that all they had heard and seen was echoed by what they had been told, and we pray now Dear Holy Spirit, move among us, be with us powerfully, for you are a powerful Lord, that we might too hear and experience the wonder and joy of the living word, Jesus Christ, as we seek to be transformed by this, your word, the written word, even now. And so we pray, bless the preaching, the hearing of this word, and may you receive glory through all of these things. And all God’s people said together, amen, amen.
Well, every year during this season, we see, and usually comment on the gross commercialization going on of this season. We rightly find it distasteful, and we rightly see what we are celebrating isn’t buying, spending, and giving and receiving material things, but rather God entering into creation, becoming a man, and indeed fulfilling His promise to rescue us from the curse, salvation for His people. Besides the commercialization of Christmas, of the Advented Incarnation, there’s also the corruption of Christmas, if you will, in the mixing of the holy and the profane. I recall I have mentioned to some of you before watching popular TV series that began with the little girl, sweet and precious, at her bedside, and she’s saying her evening prayers, and she’s praying. And then if you listen closely, she’s praying to dear Santa, to Santa Claus. And that kind of captures some of this corruption of what Christmas is. Or we’ll see at stores or in front of houses the mixing of Nativity scenes with cartoon characters. How many of you have passed a nativity scene with Santa bowing before baby Jesus in those yards? Or you hear on the radio, we hear the mixing of these things. We hear things like silent night or joy to the world right along with jingle bells and here comes Santa Claus. As if they were on par with one another. And this can have the effect, whether we’re cognizant or not, of the normalizing of the holy and elevating the secular tradition. It can rob that which is glorious and most important of its significance and its truthfulness and its value. So I want us to see this morning, in this very familiar passage, The truly amazing glory and the foreshadowing and the fulfillment contained in this announcement to the shepherds given long ago. And I want us to reflect upon that announcement, the angels heralded of the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. This passage, this sermon will be outlined by the passage, which we’ll see first, we’ll talk about the significance of the messengers, the significance of the messengers. When we clear away all of the cultural interpretations and inventions, we see that the Bible gives us quite a different picture about angels and the purpose that they serve of God and his unfolding plan of redemption. And then we’ll see the substance of that message that they heralded. And I want us to think about this passage that the angels proclaimed to the shepherds and why it was so important. And then third, we want to see the response of the shepherds, the shepherds response to this message that the angels proclaimed on that glorious evening.
Messengers
And so first, the significance of the messengers, the significance of the messengers. What does the Bible have to say about angels? This is a word, angel, that is, again, so distorted and has so many cultural inventions and misunderstandings that we’re familiar with. It’s one of those words that we wish we could replace with something else, just do away with it and start over. When they hear or read the word angel, many people think of like women or effeminate men with wings flying around or fat winged babies, right? It’s a common cultural thing that we see. That’s not the description of angels that we find in Scripture, however. And God’s word portrays angels quite differently, right? The word we can replace with angel, angel with would be messengers, right, messenger. Angel is simply transliteration of the word from the Greek New Testament that’s translated, a translation of the Old Testament word that means messenger, right? Angelos, messenger. And that’s what we have here, the angels, or the angel giving the shepherd, the shepherds, a message. a message, so they’re messengers. The Hebrew word for messenger is malach, and we all know this word, even though you probably don’t think you do. It’s the book of Malachi, right, it’s not the Italian prophet. It’s the prophet, his name means my messenger, malach, I, right, we always have that I at the end, it means my, right, so this is my messenger is what malachi means. That’s what the angels were in the Old Testament and the New Testament, they’re messengers. And so let’s look for a moment next at their function, the function of these messengers and historically in history. And notice when we do again, how different we see God’s angels, his messengers are to what we find in common culture around us. And we’ll see their function, the angels function in redemptive history. What God ordained them to do is unrecognizable to what culture has portrayed them to be. And so very briefly, we want to think biblically, not culturally. We want to be informed by Scripture. Scripture corrects our misunderstandings. And so very briefly, we see when we look at Scripture that the angels appeared to Abraham, recall, to herald a message of judgment prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So it’s there they came to herald a message of judgment Not quite the fat bow and arrow wielding winged babies that we see on cards and in TV or in cartoons, right? They preached God’s they preceded God’s people in the Exodus the angels did they go before God’s people in the conquest of the land We read for instance in Psalm 78 49 He let loose on them his burning anger wrath and indignation and distress a company of destroying angels, or second kings. And that night, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 Assyrians. We see in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, we read much about the angels, the messengers of God, heralding the judgment against the unbelieving world in Revelation 8 and 16, them pouring out God’s wrath upon the earth. in that book of Revelation, right? And so we find that a brief survey of redemptive history shows us that God’s messengers, this angelic host, they’re very often used by God to be heralds of his judgment upon the earth in their rebellion.
Message
And then notice also man’s reaction to these messengers, to these God’s angels, and the message that they deliver, man’s reaction to that. They regularly elicited fear and trembling to those to whom they came. Think of Balaam, remember Balaam. The angel appeared before him and the donkey upon which he was could see it, but Balaam couldn’t see it. The donkey stopped and was terrified, recall. And then the angel revealed himself to Balaam and Balaam was terrified, he was fearful. Once again, think of the apostle John, we read in Revelation 19, Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Right? He was terrified. He was fearful. An angel came to him, and he was so afraid that he fell at the angel’s feet. That’s how incredibly extraordinary these angels are in their appearance to men. These messengers, God’s servants in redemptive history, were not merely heralds of good news, but also heralds of bad news, of judgment. And so encountering an angel would elicit worry and wonder. Would it be a bearer of good or bad news? And for this reason, these angels are very much fearsome creatures before man. And so we understand why it says the shepherds were so full of fear. I remember the old language of this verse that says, they were sore afraid, right? They were sore afraid. The shepherds knew what they were beholding. They were beholding messengers of the almighty of God, the creator of Yahweh. And they likely knew the angels role in redemptive history. It wasn’t foreign to them. And they could announce messages of judgment. And I imagine these shepherds also knew well the history of Israel. And they were well aware of the judgment of the angel of the Lord and those 185,000 Assyrians that were struck down by the angel of the Lord. And then in verse nine of our passage in Luke two, it says, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear. And so this means something different than just an anemic reading of a sentimental season, right? You know, the background of what’s going on the angel of the Lord appeared and the glory shone around them. They were filled with great fear. They didn’t know what would happen. They were scared out of their minds because the glory of the angel was that significant. It really wasn’t out, literally, it was out of this world. And they were greatly fearful because they were aware of the role the angels played, announcing judgment at times. And there’s another thing about the angels that we find in the pages of Scripture, and that is that they typically come on the scene for significant events in history, times when significant redemptive shifts are taking place in the timeline. When the redemptive history is advancing, we see them show up. So it wasn’t just the awesome spectacle of these messengers that was happening, but their presence also signaled a massive shift in redemptive history, that something of great, the greatest fulfillment of significance, rather, was unfolding in their midst. And so they were appearing to announce a very important event. And then one last thing about the significance of these messengers. And that is we must, well, when we look back at the Old Testament and we look at the appearances and the encounters of the angels, most of those angelic appearances happen in small numbers, right? An angel here, an angel there, a few here. But in this case, because of the absolute magnitude of this announcement regarding the history of redemption, what did we see? What do we see? We see an entire host of angels appearing. Verse 13, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God. And this is because it was the most important message, the most important announcement that the world had ever known, which brings us to our second point, and that is the substance, the context of the message. The message that the angels heralded in spite of their fear-inducing presence, that message, blessedly, was one not of destruction, Rather than a message of judgment, they brought good news, right, good news. Verses 10 and 11, and the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. A friend to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Right, what a sense of assurance, right? The angels, the fearsome creatures, not bringing a message of judgment and doom and bad news, but they’re bringing this word of peace, a message of peace into the world and of a savior, Christ the Lord, Jesus the angel, the messenger, right, Christ. And so the shepherds were scared, frightened, and terrified. And yet the angels tell them, it’s okay. We bring a message of joy, we bring a message of hope and peace which will follow. And they announced the birth of the Messiah. Imagine that and think of this happening as if you were one of these hearing this for the first time. Think of that longing finally fulfilled. I mean, think about how long you wait for something. You might wait for something in your life and then it finally happened. There’s a sense in which the faithful of Israel had been waiting for a thousand generations for this promise to finally come. Ever since God had promised Adam and Eve in the garden, that seed of the woman would crush the seed of the serpent. And so now they were finally beholding that message that he had come, the announcement of the birth of the Messiah. And this is another occasion where we could benefit from remembering that Christ means Messiah, right? Christ means Messiah. He is Jesus Messiah, right? It’s not his last name, Jesus Messiah. And all the longing and all the waiting for that promised Messiah all throughout scriptures, the shepherds heard that. He is finally here. He’s the Messiah of Psalm 2, the one that God would install on his holy hill. It’s difficult for us to imagine the multitude, something of that multitude, and the magnitude, rather, of what was going on. We are so fast-fed in our lives and impatient and spoiled in our lives, usually. We usually don’t have to wait very long for anything. We put something in the microwave for, you know, five minutes, and we think, man, how long is five minutes, right? We grow impatient. In our lives, we don’t necessarily wait for anything. But imagine generation after generation after generation, and the passing on the promise of God generation after generation, as faithful Israelites would look as expectantly to the horizon of history, wondering, would this be the year? Would this be the day? Would this be the time when God would finally announce the advent of the Messiah? He was to be born in the city of David, David’s long-awaited son, confirming his royal lineage. No earthly king had ever received any type of royal heavenly announcement like this, like the birth of this king. But as awesome as this announcement was and is, right, the skies full of the angelic host heralding the announcement, the birth of the son of David, the birth of the Messiah, the birth of God in the flesh, this was at the same time not only marked by this great glory, but it was also marked by great humility. Something that we looked at last week. And we see that, right? They say that they would find the child wrapped in swaddling cloths, not the vestments of royalty, not the garments of magnificence, simply strips of cloth. He was born Jesus the Messiah, not in a royal gem-covered cradle fit for a king, but he was placed in an animal’s feeding trough. When I think about that, I think that’s gross, right? It seemed pretty awful. It’s probably not very clean. You probably wouldn’t hang out there at the feeding trough. You probably wouldn’t celebrate there. You surely wouldn’t put your newborn baby anywhere near the feeding trough. And nevertheless, here’s where the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords as an infant lies in an animal’s feeding trough. And so as glorious as this heavenly host was, the angels announced his birth to the lowest of the low, the class of people in Israel, to the shepherds, right? The glory of which there is no higher is announced to the lowest of the low. Many people in Israel at this point thought of the shepherds that they were thieves, they were despised. because they would let their animals graze on other people’s property, eating their grass and eating their plants. And they were despised for that. They were also despised because they were considered dishonorable for that they were far from home. They’d left their home unprotected and their families unprotected. This was the cultural perception of the shepherds. And they probably surely didn’t smell very well also. And so they were at the bottom of Israel, Israelite society. And yet this is the group to whom God chose to reveal the announcement of the birth of his son, Messiah. And consider in this glorious and splendorous announcement, where the angels filled the heavens as they heralded this wonderful birth of Christ, the fact that they were announcing it to the lowest of the low. And this begins to communicate to us to signal to us that Jesus, the king of kings and the Lord of lords, was coming to redeem the lowest of the low. It signals he was coming to save those who were under God’s judgment, those who are deserving of his condemnation and his wrath. and that this king is going to bow and to stoop to the lowest of levels to be able to accomplish this wonderful work of redemption for sinners like you and like me. It’s incredible. It’s an amazing thing. And we should all pray that we never allow these kind of texts to be read as just a ho-hum sentimentality, seasonal thing. This is glorious. It is the gospel, the very gospel. It’s amazing and praiseworthy and incredible. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. And so at this point, we have to make another correction that is pervasive in many circles in our culture. Many think that this verse is a declaration of the whole idea of world peace, right? And world peace, of course, is something that in some manner would be a great thing. There are many people praying not for peace, praying for world disharmony and ruin. But this is not the message of the heralds, the message of world peace universally. You see, it’s true that our greatest need in life is peace, but not simply peace with one another in the world, but ultimately peace with God, because peace with one another will flow out of our peace with God. as he dictates in his sovereign will. And our biggest problem is that sinful human beings are not at peace with God. We are at enmity with God in our flesh, in our natural state, and he with us. By nature, we are what? Paul says, children of wrath. The peace we need is the peace that God alone gives, right? And so think back, and particularly to the Old Testament, and specifically to the Aaronic blessing, remember. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, peace, shalom. It’s not just the absence of conflict. It’s a whole, weighty, full peace with God and all that that entails and all that flows out of that. This was the greatest and chief hope of the faithful of Israel, that the peace of God would be upon them. And this is precisely what God was going to bring. And this is why Paul says in Romans 5, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what the angels were heralding. They were heralding nothing less than the gospel of peace that brings peace to us, peace with God, knowing that his wrath is no longer upon us. knowing that our hearts are no longer filled with hostility towards him in his way because God has poured out his grace by condescending to us in the person of his son, Emmanuel, God with us. The son who was lying in the manger wrapped in those swaddling cloths among those animals, the same son who God would pour out that hostility onto in our place. And read it carefully. What is it saying here? It says that God’s peace rests upon whom? Upon those with whom he is pleased, right? Those with whom he is pleased according to his sovereign grace.
Shepherds
And so next, let’s look at the response of the shepherds, right? This brings us to this point, this final point, the shepherds’ response, right? Notice the shepherds’ immediate response there in verse 16. And they went with haste. They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. Right, it’s immediate, it’s active response. They knew at once the grand meeting of what was just, had just been unveiled to them through the angels. They heralded the birth of Christ to them. And so they immediately wanted to go and to find this baby who was the King of kings and the Lord of lords. They went with haste was their response. They went, they were active. They moved. And this is kind of contrary to the scenes that we see all over, which rendered them kind of lame because, right, they have just the angels kind of loitering, just standing around like they’re gawking. And then verse 20 says, And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Their hearts were moved also to worship, and they were filled with joy. this announcement. They knew that they had peace with God because of the birth of this child of whom the angels spoke. And they worshiped the one and true living God, giving thanks for the fulfillment of these long-awaited promises and prophecies. It had all been fulfilled in the birth of their Savior. They knew that they’d only have peace with God through the Messiah. And so they delighted and they praised their infant king and savior. Surely we don’t know the extent of their understanding. They didn’t know every aspect of how this infant king would bring about their redemption at this point. But they knew for sure that this was the king of kings and the Lord of lords. God’s messengers had confirmed this. Looking down upon this Christ child, this baby, Right? As they did, as a friend of mine would say, as they looked down upon him, we don’t think that they understood that the tiny hands of this child would one day have nails driven through them on a cross. And I don’t think they understood that upon this infant’s forehead would one day be thrust a crown of thorns into it. And I don’t think they understood that those small ears This infant would one day have contempt and blasphemy and hatred poured into them by so many. And I don’t think that they completely understood that those infant eyes would watch the crowds gather about him and gather at his feet to mock him and to ridicule him as he hung upon that cross. But I think they understood that on that night, On that night of nights that they beheld God in the flesh, they beheld their Savior. They beheld the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And they surely would have asked, why? Why, Lord God, did you see fit to announce to us the birth of your Son? Why were we invited to this shower? Brothers and sisters, I hope that this is something that dwells strongly in all of your hearts this day, that while we ourselves did not receive the announcement of the angelic host, nevertheless, God has visited us in his grace and in his mercy, and he has announced to us the birth of his son as we read it in his holy word. And I pray and hope also, brothers and sisters, that our response would also be one of joy and thanksgiving and worship of our great God, and that that message of hope, the peace that comes only through Christ, would rest in our hearts, and that it would give you hope in the face of hopelessness, and that it would give you assurance in the face of doubt, and that you would have assurance that on that last day, when you behold the face of Christ, he will rest his confidence upon you. and that you will know without any question that you have received his peace, the peace that only comes through Jesus Christ. You see the angels that were present there that evening signal this massive event in redemptive history, the incarnation of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the birth of the long awaited Savior has come. And this announcement they brought is nothing less than the hope of the gospel. And so at this time of year, as our culture is filled with the Christmas season, let us not lose sight of what it is that the gospel brings to us, that ultimately the message of Christmas is one of salvation. And let us remember as well that the angel’s presence reminds us of the absolute joy and glory of that evening. And let us remember and praise with all of our being, with the whole of who we are, Let us remember our great God and Savior for this wonderful and most costly gift that the world has ever seen or received, life and peace in Him. And so let us go back from this place as we descend from the mount of the Lord back into our lives with that peace and with that love and with that message as you live for Him. Amen.
Let’s pray. I love you, Father. You’re so grateful for this great and costly gift that you have given us in your Son. And we ask you, Lord, that as we reflect upon it, even this morning, that we would recognize the significance of these events as the angels heralded the birth of your Son, of God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. And even though we are removed from the events of that evening by millennia, Lord, we pray that you would press these truths deep into our hearts and that they would be just as alive to us this morning as they were to the shepherds on that evening of old so long ago. And we pray that though we have not seen with our eyes, that we would nevertheless see with the eyes of of our faith, and that we would behold the birth of your son, he who has brought us peace with you. He who has brought us joy, the joy of the gospel, and he who has filled our hearts with hope. Lord, we pray fill our hearts with praise and worship for you, our triune God, for this wonderful gift of salvation. Father, we pray for this church, we pray for the individuals here, the members and the visitors, Lord, we pray that you would protect, preserve, and strengthen us all, Lord, that you would meet us in accord with our various needs of which you know each one. Lord, lift our sorrowful hearts. Lord, lift our gaze that we would look away from those things of this world and of these sorrows and these pains. And that we would look to you, Lord, not that we would have an idealistic, silly escapism, but that we would know for certain to where we belong and to where we are going, and that the presence and love of Jesus and reality of who we are, our identity in union with him would pull us through all the things that we go through in this life, in this pilgrim land, and that we would indeed remember our Savior who you tell us through Paul in Ephesians is our peace. He is our life, Lord, and therefore we have hope and assurance. Lord, we pray that you would continue to guide us as we seek the best moves to make in regards to a facility that we worship in, Lord. We pray that you would reveal to us an opportunity and otherwise, where your plan would perfectly have us. So Lord, we commit all that we do. Lord, we do pray to the end that you would be glorified in this city more and more and better and better. Father, we thank you. We love you and we praise you. We ask all these things in Christ’s precious and holy name. Amen.