Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Pastor Bill Luebkemann shares a bird's-eye view of the announcement of Christ's birth to the shepherds.

Bill Luebkemann: Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests."

All of a sudden, this one angel comes. The glory of the Lord is shining all around him. The angel says, "Don't be afraid." He gives the shepherds this news. You're going to find this baby's going to be wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. Then all of a sudden, at that point, someone kicks on the floodlights and there's a whole company of angels up there. And they're all singing and praising God. And this is what they're saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Guest (Male): The Christmas story serves as a great example of God's majesty and wonder, but it also serves as a reminder that God's ways are not our ways. For example, the announcement of Christ's birth. Instead of announcing it to the kings and magistrates, God chose to announce it to a small band of shepherds, the outcasts of society, thus laying the foundation of the humility that would mark the life of Jesus Christ.

You're listening to Hope From the Word from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We'll be in Luke chapter two today as we continue our detailed study of the Christmas story. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: You kind of get the impression here, you kind of see the contrast between the glory of the Lord, which is shining around these shepherds, a good representation of the kind of people that he came for, and over here you have Jesus being lying in a manger, a feeding trough, in a back alley or in a cave somewhere.

Today I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Good news here is evangelize. It's the gospel message. It's kind of like these people are being given the gospel right here. That's what the word gospel means. It's kind of like you get the idea these angels are even preaching in a way to these shepherds, telling them what the good news is and why it's good news.

Verse 11: "Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord." This town of David, well, this is Bethlehem. This is where David was from. Of course, Joseph was of the house and lineage of David, so that's why he's going back to this place to register for that tax. At the time, Israel was waiting for a savior. I suppose they still are.

But they were not looking for a savior in the sense that Jesus was a savior. They were looking for a savior in the sense that he would be a king, a powerful leader, someone to kick butt, if you will, kick the Romans out of town. Israel was not a sovereign nation at this time. Israel hadn't been a sovereign nation since they were carried away into captivity in Babylon, and that was around 580 BC.

For almost 600 years, they hadn't been a sovereign nation. And they weren't a sovereign nation again until after World War II. So here they have the Romans in control. They don't have any sovereignty. They haven't had sovereignty for 600 years. They don't even know what it is like. If you take today's date, subtract 600 years, you're back to 1408. That's how far back it was that Israel had known being a sovereign nation as of the time of Christ. So it was a distant recollection.

And they're expecting a savior who's going to kick the Romans out and set up their empire and restore the kingdom and their sovereignty, so that they can be their own nation again and run the other guys out of town. I don't think they imagined that they needed a savior to forgive their sin. I don't think people imagine that today.

If you talk to a non-believer today, that's not the first thing that comes to their mind: "I'm a sinner and I need a savior." If you're born again, of course, you know that. But the average American probably thinks that they're saved just because they're an American. We celebrate the 4th of July. How can we not be saved? Independence Day and everything.

But that's not the news here. The news is that today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. This is a savior to save you from your sin and to save all of us from our sin. And yes, we need one. It's like we're out in the ocean sinking in sin and a big vessel shows up and they lower down a boat and come out to get us. Or they throw us a life ring and say, "Hold on, we'll pull you up." Mankind was drowning in sin and still is for those that have not accepted the finished work of Jesus Christ.

And this savior at this point had only been born. He still had some things to do before he ultimately paid the price for the sin on the cross. But what the angel said is, "This good news of great joy for all the people, the greatest news that could ever be had, is that a savior has been born to you." Not just to the leaders. He's talking to the shepherds. The savior's been born to you. And I might add that applies to all of us here today. He was born for all of us. He is Christ the Lord.

Some people say today he wasn't the Son of God, he was just an important person. But the Bible says he was Christ the Lord. Some people say he wasn't Christ the Lord when he was born; he worked really hard and prayed a lot and served God a lot and he became perfect over a period of time. No, that's not what it says here. It doesn't say he will be Christ the Lord at some point in the future. He was born and he was Christ the Lord. He is Christ the Lord. He was at that time Christ the Lord.

"This will be a sign to you," the angel says. "You will find a baby wrapped in cloths." I hate that. The NIV just ruined it. It's supposed to be swaddling cloths, and they made it cloths. It doesn't sound as romantic here. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Wrapped in cloths is no big deal. What else would you do with a baby but wrap him in something? That's what they had available at the time. If the wise men had been wise women, they would have shown up with Pampers and stuff.

But what was unique was where the baby was going to be placed: in that manger. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The manger was the difficulty. The virgin birth was the difficulty. The lowly estate was the difficulty. The fact that he was going to forgive us for our sin was the difficulty for the people who said, "We don't have any sin. We don't need a savior. We need a guy that's going to come in here and take over."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests." All of a sudden, this one angel comes, the glory of God is shining all around. The angel says, "Don't be afraid." He gives the shepherds this news. You're going to find this baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Then all of a sudden, at that point, someone kicks on the floodlights and there's a whole company of angels up there. There's a whole heavenly choir of angels. And they appear, and they're all singing and praising God.

And this is what they're saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests." Look again, we're driven to look at this contrast. Out in the field, you have the angel, you have the glory of God, and now you have all these angels singing. And in town, you have Jesus lying in this trough on hay with animal slobber all around. What a contrast it is. It seems like the angels are in the wrong place, but nothing in the Bible ever happened wrong when God set it up and organized it. He set this up the way he wanted. He wanted these angels to present this news to these shepherds.

And these angels were singing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests." The first thing they're doing is praising God and giving glory to God. And where is God? In the highest place there is. In heaven, in a place that we cannot compare to Earth in any way, shape, or form. In some other dimension, outside of the universe, outside of space and time, whatever, he's in the highest place. The best place. It doesn't get any higher or better than that, and they're giving glory to him.

"And on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests." This was one of the things that Jesus Christ came to do: was to make peace between us and God. And the men on whom his favor rests are those who choose to accept him and to follow him. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Blessed are the peacemakers, the Bible says. And we're all in favor of peace, and we don't like war. If something can be negotiated or worked out, peace is better than war. But this is talking about peace with God. This is talking about peace that surpasses all understanding. This is talking about the peace that you can have before they wheel you into the operating room, or before you have that big test, or before the big event in your life. Something that would scare you or make you nervous.

The peace you can have before you get in an airplane, if you don't like to fly. Joe Foss says whenever he's at the airport getting ready to fly, he always looks around all the people there that are going to get on the plane with him and he tries to ask himself the question, "Do these look like people that God is finished with?" So if you don't like to fly and you need peace, then shooting through the sky in a tube like that is crazy.

Whatever it is that's happening, when it's at the doctor's office, this is peace with God and peace that surpasses all understanding. In other words, peace that cannot be explained. There's no rational basis for it. This is not the kind of peace you can get from going to a shrink and laying on a sofa and he says, "Have you contemplated your navel enough? Maybe you need to do this or that or the other thing. Here's what you're doing wrong." This is not some kind of peace that you can make up on your own. This is the peace that only God can bring. And he brings it to those that call upon his name.

Verse 15: "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.' So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

So what did the angels do? Well, the angels left. They went back into heaven. When the angels had look, make no mistake, these were not men that were traveling through the area that just pretended to be angels. These were really angels from heaven and they went back to heaven. It says it here very clearly. And when the angels had left and the choir shut down for the night and the glory of the Lord wasn't shining there anymore and it was dark again and they were there with their animals.

And they were saying, "Did you see what we saw? Were we just imagining that? Are we crazy? Slap me upside the head. Did that really happen?" And these shepherds said, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." I think we can see two things here at least. The first is urgency. They didn't say, "Write that down. Sometime, someday, I hope to get over there and see that."

There's a lot of things around the country that I would like to see. I saw the Grand Canyon and a few other things, but there's other places I want to go and places around the world that I want to go and I'll get there eventually. And if I go somewhere and don't see everything, I always say, "Well, I have something left for the next time. We could put this off." Let's make a note the next time we go to Bethlehem to buy milk at the Wawa there, we'll stop in and see this. But there's an urgency here. This angel choir came, the sky lit up, and they got to see this now.

Right away they say, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened." So I think urgency is one thing we can get out of this verse. And another one is certainty. They didn't say, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see if this really happened. Let's go to Bethlehem and see: is this really true? Did this really happen? Did these angels make this up? Let's go check it out." No, they said, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

There is no doubt in their mind that it did happen. They're not confused here. They're not wondering about it. They don't say, "Better check it out." They say, "We want to go. We want to go now. We want to see this thing." And off they go. So they hurried off and you get the idea of urgency again in the beginning of verse 16. They hurried.

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. Still in the same place where he was put after he was born. And you can only imagine while they were there that they spoke with Mary and Joseph about what they had seen. It doesn't really say that here. You can only imagine that they told them, "Yeah, we saw this angel choir and the whole sky lit up and they told us to come here." I don't think they just said, "Hi, we were just walking down the street, wanted to see who was crying back here."

And you can only guess Mary and Joseph shared with them some of their experience. Mary told them about the angel speaking to her, telling her she was going to be with child. It was the same angel. She said, "How tall was he? What did he look like? Did he give his name? What was he wearing? How was his hair combed? Did he part it on the left or the right?" You can only imagine that they shared something. That Mary shared something about the angel appearing to her and how blessed she knew that she was and how this baby was destined for great things.

Joseph shared about how he had been spoken to in a dream. He was going to send her away, divorce her quietly. He was a good guy. He wasn't going to get her stoned to death or anything, but she was pregnant and they weren't quite married yet. He was going to put her away quietly. But an angel spoke to him and said, "This is of God. Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife."

You can only imagine they sat around sharing and pondering and reflecting on these things. And we should share about what the Lord's doing in our lives today. We're not going to witness the birth of Jesus Christ because that already happened. But the Lord is working in all of our lives in different ways and we should be reflecting on it and pondering on it and thinking about it and talking about it.

When they had seen him, verse 17, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. They went out, they were like evangelists here. They went out and told people about it. What did they tell them? It says first when they had seen him. They heard the choir, they went and checked it out, they saw it for themselves, and now they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.

So they're telling everybody. "An angel appeared, he told us this, we went, we checked it out, we found it out. This is Christ the Lord. He's a savior. He's been born." Micah 5:2 says he's going to be born in Bethlehem. This is Bethlehem. They were sharing what they knew. They didn't know the whole plan of salvation at this point. They didn't know how it was going to end up. They didn't know exactly how the Lord was going to save mankind. They just knew that this was the savior.

And they took what they knew. They had only heard it a few hours ahead of time. And they went out and they spread the word telling everyone what had been told them, what they heard. And what was the result of that? Verse 18 has the result: "And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." Everybody was amazed. A heavenly choir, the glory of the Lord, a baby. The angel told you the baby's going to be there and you went there and there he was, and he's Christ the Lord. They were amazed.

I don't think they knew how to process it through completely. Again, they didn't know the plan of salvation either. They just knew that something great had happened, something wonderful had happened, something that was great news of great joy for all the people, for everybody. So they were out spreading the word around and people were amazed.

But meanwhile, what's Mary doing? Verse 19: "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." I don't think she knew the whole plan either at this point. She was just reflecting and pondering and thinking about what the Lord was doing. And as I said, none of us are going to witness the birth of the Son of God. He already was born. We're not going to give birth to him. But we can still ponder and reflect on the things the Lord is doing in our lives.

He's doing great things. We don't know a lot about what he's doing. In your life, you're wondering exactly, "What is God doing here and why is he taking so long to do it and what is going to be the outcome of this thing that's going to happen in my life?" I think we can take a lesson from Mary here. Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. She was just thinking about it, soaking it all in. She was replaying in her mind what Gabriel said to her nine months before.

She was thinking about how Joseph said, "I had a dream and the Lord told me to take you as my wife and that this thing was of him." She didn't know it was going to result in the cross. She didn't know exactly how it was all going to come down. And then she gives birth and she's probably thinking, "This is funny. The Lord does this, and the least he could do is arrange for accommodations of some sort, and he leaves me out here in some alley, in some cave. He doesn't even phone ahead and make a reservation."

She probably thought, "Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I really didn't hear from God." She even considered that possibility. And then it doesn't say anywhere that Mary and Joseph publicized this event. It doesn't say they took out a birth announcement in the local newspaper, put the baby's photo on their cell phone camera and passed it around to their friends on the internet.

I just thought that was amazing that we could email everybody in our church a photo of the Malaves' new child just two hours after she was born. He took it with his camera, sent it to Mike, Mike sent it to me, and I emailed it to the whole list. In two hours, everybody had a picture of their newborn. They didn't have this back then.

Mary's just treasuring these things up and thinking about them and pondering them. And then these shepherds show up, and they tell her this crazy story about these angels and the choir and the glory of the Lord. The orchestra was fabulous that went with these angels singing. She's just thinking about what is this all about. What's the Lord doing?

And as I said, things going on in our lives may not be as great as the Son of Man being born, but we all have things going on in our lives, in our relationships, in our careers. We all have things going on where we're wondering what the Lord's doing there. We're praying for unsaved friends or relatives and we're wondering, "When is the Lord going to draw them? I've been praying for them for a long time. What's he doing there?"

And we can know that God's always at work. We just have to kind of watch what he's doing, be along for the ride, and not get in the way. And we should be treasuring up in our heart and pondering the things that the Lord's doing in our lives and around us. And be thinking about them and realizing that God's really he really is there. He really is alive and well, unlike what the cover of Time magazine said so many years ago.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. So these guys see the angel, the heavenly choir, they come in, all this dramatic stuff. They're led to the baby in the manger, ordinary there. Less than ordinary, lying in a manger. And yet they were glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen.

You could understand they'd be glorifying and praising God for the heavenly choir and the angel that came to them. That's pretty dramatic. But glorifying and praising God that a baby that was born is lying in a feeding trough in a back alley or a cave somewhere? That doesn't sound like something you'd be praising God for. You'd be thinking, "God, why didn't you get those people better accommodations?"

But they were these shepherds had it right. They were glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen. They were glorifying and praising God for everything that God was doing. Stuff that they understood, stuff that they didn't understand. Stuff that seemed logical, a king is born and an angel choir comes. That sounds pretty logical. But the king is born lying in a feeding trough. That doesn't sound logical.

But they weren't asking questions here. It doesn't say they were scratching their heads wondering why did God do it that way. They were telling everybody. They were spreading the word. People were amazed. And they went back out to their sheep there and they were glorifying and praising God when they did so for everything they had seen and heard, which it says were just as they had been told.

Guest (Male): We're going through a Christmas series here on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. For a CD copy of the message called "Christmas Series #4," call 856-983-1662. That's 856-983-1662. You can also replay today's program and catch what you may have missed at ccmarlton.org.

Another great way to listen to a program you enjoy or access other teachings from Pastor Bill is through the Hope FM app. Go to ccmarlton.org to download the Hope FM app today. It's available on all platforms and it's free.

We want to invite you to join us here at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We have a Sunday morning service which begins at 10:00. We also have a midweek service as well on Wednesdays at 7:00. It would be great to have you here with us. Look for our directions and more information about the church online at ccmarlton.org.

And would you please send us an email sometime today? It would be nice to hear from you and learn how the Lord is using the program in your life this Christmas season. You can also email Pastor Bill from our website at ccmarlton.org or just call us if that's preferred: 856-983-1662. We'll have more Hope From the Word from Pastor Bill's Christmas series next time. We'll see you then.