Jesus- Savior, Messiah, and Lord (Luke 2:1-20)
Notes
Transcript
Key Passage
Key Passage
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
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.
Introduction
Introduction
Today, we will look at the birth of Jesus.
And since we are looking at the roots of Jesus’ birth, we will pull the same passage we have used for the last few weeks
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
The genealogy of Jesus is important because we can see the legacy that God used to bring about His Messiah to this world.
In this series we looked at:
The faith, faithfulness and obedience of Abraham
The redemption story of Naomi and Ruth
The humility of David
This brings us to our final sermon in this series, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus.
How we will do this is look at the legacy of faith, faithfulness and obedience of Abraham and see how that lives out in Jesus.
We will see God’s redemptive work as we saw through Naomi and Ruth lived out in Jesus’ work.
And we will see the humility of Jesus and what that means for us.
Main Topic
Main Topic
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
We see the setting for these events aren’t contained to this story. They connect back to David, and before that Boaz and Ruth. And even before that, this is the land that was promised to Abraham.
When we see the name “David” what I want you to see is the massive ramifications of that name
To the Jewish people, David was the greatest king they had known.
Bethlehem was called the city of David.
The city itself carried with it tones of royalty.
During that time, land was passed from one generation to the next.
So if a king had land in one area, that land would be passed down to the next generation.
However, for a king, that next generation would be part of the line of people who would assume the next throne.
So to say, “City of David”, this is the city where the royal family of Israel is from. The expected and prophesied king would likely come from Bethlehem.
When we see this phrase, “City of David” it should immediately bring to your mind that this is a passage about royalty, kings, and kingdoms.
And we will see here that it does.
He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
They made the journey from where they were in northern Israel down to Bethlehem where their family property was.
This was to take a census with the Roman government.
While they were in Bethlehem, Mary goes into labor and gives birth to a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a feed trough.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Nearby to Bethlehem there were shepherds with flocks of sheep
Is this something that happened in this area?
Remember David when he was anointed to be king? He was in Bethlehem, keeping watch over his flocks.
These shepherds were in their fields watching their flocks.
If you could imagine being a shepherd in those days. You’d go home with stories like, “I watched the sheep again today.” Nothing good ever happened. It was either an uneventful day or a terrible day.
However, on this day it was completely different.
An angel appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them.
It scared them to death.
Angels with the glory of God will drop anyone to their knees
The angel said, “Do not be afraid”. I don’t think they were trying to be afraid. What they were observing was something that they had never seen.
The angel says, “I bring you good news”
Now, I want to take a small break here and tell you what they really said.
We know one of the words we highlight here is the word, “Gospel”
We also know that the word “Gospel” means “Good news”
Gospel is both a noun and a verb
It isn’t just the fact of what the good news is. It is the proclamation of the good news.
What this text actually says is “I am gospeling something that will change your world.”
They were proclaiming the good news.
And this gospel will bring great joy for all people.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
Do you know what the Gospel is? Here it is:
On that day, in the royal town of Bethlehem, a savior has been born to you.
A savior has been born.
Jesus birth brought us a savior, but not only that.
This savior is the Messiah
He is the prophesied King.
A savior has been born and this savior is a king.
Not only is he savior and king, but he is the Lord.
Not a lord, but THE LORD.
There is a supremacy about this baby who is to be born.
He is the Savior
He is the King
He is the Lord
We will break this down more as we continue through this passage.
This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Here is your sign, the baby will be:
Wrapped in cloths
Lying in a manger
This would be a pretty distinctive set of facts.
Many babies may be wrapped in cloths, but not many babies would be found also lying in a manger.
Then a heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven”
Also on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.
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.”
The angels left and went back home to heaven and the shepherds were left in awe.
Finally someone spoke up and said, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see what the angels were talking 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.
They went to Bethlehem and found the baby.
I don’t know how they went about finding the baby, but God clearly directed them to where Jesus was.
They saw the baby and spread the word about what they had heard and seen.
What had they heard and seen? They heard and saw the Gospel.
So these guys became the first people to proclaim the Gospel that Jesus is Savior, Jesus is King, and Jesus is Lord to the world.
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.
The shepherds were glorifying God like they had seen the angels doing.
This is the story from God’s word and I would like to dive into a few of the topics that we have uncovered over the course of this series:
Teaching
Teaching
Over the course of this series there are three concepts that we have uncovered and I want to lay these out in ways that we can see them all in the work of Jesus.
But further than that, as His disciples and in a way, we live out the legacy of Jesus in our world today. These concepts should be evident in our lives as well.
Humility
Last week, we looked at the life of David and highlighted his humility.
We defined humility as not thinking higher or lower than you are
We sometimes think of humility as only thinking less of ourselves. But some people also think of themselves as worthless. This is also a form of pride.
Whether you think of yourself as higher or lower value, the reality is that you are thinking all about yourself.
True humility is seeing yourself exactly as God sees you.
Not greater, not less.
And living in a confident humility because you know God and know who you are in relation to Him.
Jesus knew who He was.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Jesus knew He was God. But Jesus also humbled Himself to be found in human form.
He humbled Himself to be born as a human infant
He humbled Himself to die on the cross.
The Almighty God was the living example of humility on earth.
The change from being the All-Knowing God, the Ever-Present God, the All-Powerful God to being a human being like one of us had to be quite a change of pace for Jesus.
But He modeled humility and entrusted Himself to God, which leads to my next point:
Faith/Faithfulness (Obedience)
Jesus’ humility was being in nature, God; taking on human flesh.
As a fully God, but fully human man, Jesus displayed the faith and faithfulness that
Jesus knew the plan of the father, trusted that plan, and obeyed.
Looking back to the stories of Abraham, we see that Abraham listened for the voice of God, then obeyed at the highest cost.
We saw this when God called Abraham and said, “Go to the place I will show you”.
Abraham packed everything up and went.
Then we saw a few chapters later, God tested Abraham’s faith and said, “Go to the place I will show you and sacrifice the son I miraculously gave you.”
Abraham packed everything up and went to obey.
In these descriptions of Abraham’s faith, we found a few principles to be true:
Abraham knew the voice of God
Abraham knew the voice of God. When God would speak, there was no question to Abraham that it was actually the voice of God.
Abraham trusted God
Abraham trusted God. He knew his voice, but he also knew that God was worthy of his trust.
Abraham’s faith was made complete by obedience
Abraham didn’t simply have faith. He knew that faith without corresponding obedience was worthless.
You cannot have faith without corresponding obedience.
Connect this to the life of Jesus.
As Jesus demonstrated in His life, we see all of the same elements of faith and faithfulness.
Jesus knew the voice of the Father
Jesus trusted the Father
Jesus’ faith was made complete through obedience
They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”
Even as he spoke, many believed in him.
We see in the life of Jesus the humility and faith that we saw demonstrated in those of his family tree.
But there is one other story that we have not covered.
We know that we have a part in responding to God and His truth.
But we serve a redemptive God.
Redemption (God’s Part)
When we looked at the story of Naomi and Ruth, we saw two women who had lost everything.
And through their pain, loss and grief, God redeemed them and raised them up in a hope that stemmed from their obedience and trust in Him.
In the same way, we see the story of redemption in the life of Jesus.
We see this in the conclusion of Philippians 2.
After the part we just read about Jesus’ humility, we read:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God exalted Jesus to the highest place
This is the picture of redemption.
Jesus trusted the Father and humbled Himself.
The father brought a type of redemption of Jesus through His resurrection and exaltation in Heaven.
How does this apply to us?
Let’s understand one thing first: we are called to be disciples
We do not take an ancient book and use it as a manual for rules in our lives
I was reading through some old notes and came across a thought I had a few years back.
We ought to read the Scriptures to hear, not to learn. It is a letter, not a textbook.
When we reduce the Scriptures down to a rulebook, we completely miss the heart of God contained within it.
Jesus’ call to discipleship was not so we would sin less in this world. It was not so we would cause a revolution in the world.
It was the simple truth that by following Him, I can know Him.
When I know Him, Faith becomes the biproduct.
And without faith, it is impossible to please God.
What is a disciple?
A disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus and living out the mission of Jesus.
Jesus demonstrated humility to us
He didn’t do this to be a cosmic embarrassement.
He did this in part so we would have an example to follow. Do you remember the first words of the Philippians 2 passage we just read?
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
That passage is not in the Bible to be a theological statement of the nature of Jesus.
It contains those facts. But it is in the Bible so we know how we ought to have relationship with one another.
We do this with the utmost of humility.
This passage gives us the example of the heart and practice of Jesus in relationship.
What is the first element of being a disciple?
Follow Jesus.
We must do this if we are disciples of Jesus
Our relationships with one another and our relationship with God ought to be marked with the greatest example of humility the world has seen.
When we live this out, we demonstrate our knowledge and faith in Jesus.
Do we live with faith and faithfulness?
Jesus example of this was only doing what He saw the Father doing.
He trusted God exclusively. His trust led to a perfect obedience to the Father while He lived here.
When we humble ourselves and trust God, our hearts begin to change.
We change as we obey. We see that God is glorified.
We remember that this is not our story. It is His story. We live our lives for His Kingdom, not our own.
We don’t redeem ourselves.
He is our redeemer.
We humble ourselves. We obey. We entrust ourselves, sometimes at a great cost or expense to our lives.
In our humility and trust of God, He is our portion.
That is something we read last week from Psalm 142:5
I cry to you, Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
He is our redeemer. We do not redeem ourselves
His redemption in our lives if for His glory and our good.
What does redemption look like?
I want to highlight some of the words we opened with today.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
Jesus is our savior
We must respond with faith
Jesus is our Lord
We must respond with humility
Jesus is our Messiah and King
He will redeem us.