The Glorious Fear of the Lord

Luke 2:8-14 ESV

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 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. 10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

I want you to imagine for a moment that there is a middle-aged man who was an extremely devoted, faithful fan of the Chicago Bulls back in the 90’s.

He loved to watch the Bulls play every chance that he could get, but there was one player who he was enamored with the most: Michael Jordan. He knew everything about Michael Jordan, he knew his stats by heart, he knew everything about his personal life, he was a Michael Jordan fanatic.

Well let’s say that one day that this man is riding the subway through Chicago and while he’s sitting there minding his own business, Michael Jordan walks up and sits down next to him and smiles and says, “Hi! How are you?” and all that this Michael Jordan fanatic can do is look at him wide-eyed, mouth wide opened, and mumbling and bumbling and fumbling.

He is in the presence of his idol, and he is so overwhelmed that he is speechless. But though he is overwhelmed and speechless, you better believe that he is not going to get up and find another seat. He’s wrapped up in fear. But it’s the good kind of fear.

Solomon tells us in the book of Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I’m sure that we all have heard that verse cited time and time again, but what does it mean? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, what does that mean?

Well, wisdom, in this context is in reference to the commitment that keeps one on track. We say that the Christian’s salvation is eternally secure, and the reason why that is the case is because God blesses the true Christian with this wisdom, this determination to stay on track, to never waver from Him.

And Solomon says that the beginning of this wisdom, or, what gets us started on the path to begin with is the fear of the Lord.

Now, I remember before I was a saved man that I certainly feared the Lord, but the fear of the Lord that I experienced was a sinful fear. When I say sinful fear, what I mean is that whenever I thought of God, whenever someone would mention God, I would be fearful. God seemed dreadful to me. I was afraid of Him.

But a right fear of God, the kind of fear that Solomon mentions in the book of Proverbs is a fear that is hard to explain. It’s a fear that is solemn, reverent, filled with awe. It’s a right fear.

It’s that feeling, that reality that we who are Christians experience all throughout our Christian walk when we are overwhelmed by God at the recognition of His awesome nature and we know that we are not worthy of Him, we realize that He is too awesome, too holy to be approached, and so we fear and tremble; yet we find Him so stunning, so beautiful, so glorious, so lovely that we don’t want to leave.

When we have that experience of God, not only at our conversion, but all throughout our Christian walk, we say, “There’s no way that I’m ever leaving Him! I may stray for a while, but He is too good to leave!”

And you know, sometimes we may be surprised who possesses this kind of right fear of God.

There may be a man who is influential, powerful, wealthy, not afraid of anyone or anything, and we say, “that is the kind of man who God favors!” But whenever the realization of the holy comes over him, he trembles and quakes with fear. He fears God all right, but not with a reverent fear.

There could also be a man who lives in much more humble circumstances. He doesn’t have very much of anything at all, he has no influence whatsoever, so nobody really cares what he thinks, and he knows that there are men greater and more powerful than he, so he doesn’t try to stand up to them.

But whenever he is overcome by the God of heaven and earth, he is overwhelmed with wonder, adoration, love, right fear. This is the man who God favors.

And ironically, we see this kind of right, reverent fear being shown by an unlikely source in our text for today, in verses 8 and 9, where it says:

Luke 2:8-9 ESV

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 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.

The scriptures speak a lot about shepherds, and part of the reason why is because sheep herding was a pretty common profession in Israel.

Israel has a very mountainous terrain, Israelis aren’t flatlanders like us here in Illinois; you notice that there aren’t many sheep around here, and that’s because everything is so flat. Sheep thrive most in mountainous regions, and because of that, sheep are very common livestock in Israel.

But though shepherds are so common in Israel, they have always been considered pretty insignificant in Israeli society. It was a pretty basic job that didn’t require a large skill set. So, the general population would say things like, “Who cares what that guy thinks? He’s just a shepherd!”

But right after the Lord Jesus, the God of gods, the King of kings was brought into this world, that very night, in the darkness, the silence, the tranquility of the pasture, there were average, everyday shepherds who were stuck with the graveyard shift, tending to the flock.

And suddenly, in the peace and tranquility and darkness, boom! There appeared before them a glorious sight, an angel of the Lord! Surrounded by the Shechinah! The glory of God! The presence of God Himself!

These are not the kind of guys that we would picture God manifesting His glorious presence to. But as He makes His presence felt, the shepherds are frozen with fear.

They know that they do not belong in the presence of an angel of God, let alone in the presence of God Himself, yet they are strangely allured to Him. They know that they should run and hide, but they stand there frozen, enraptured with wonder, amazement, love for God, seemingly unable to go anywhere.

And as they stand there in this state of fear and amazement, the angel says to the lowly shepherds in verse 10:

Luke 2:10 ESV

10 …“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

This angel of the Lord tells these shepherds not to fear. Now, we may think that that sounds kind of contradictory, I mean, didn’t we just say that it is good to fear God? That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?

Yes, we certainly said that, but what is so unique about this godly fear is that while we don’t run for the hills and hide at experiencing the awesome reality of God and remain ever before Him, we still know that not only do we not deserve Him, but that what we do deserve is the wrath of God.

This is what these lowly shepherds were experiencing; wonder, awe, and amazement at being in God’s presence, yet also experiencing dread at recognizing that they do not deserve to be in the presence of God, that they instead deserve to be struck down for being in the presence of the holy.

Knowing that the shepherds were experiencing this, the angel says, “Fear not.” “Fear not, I don’t come to strike you down; so, don’t be filled with terror, for I bring you news… good news, news that will cause you and the rest of God’s elect people to rejoice!”

Then in verse 11, the angel tells the shepherds that good news that he has for them, when he says:

Luke 2:11 ESV

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Pay close attention to how this verse is worded. The angel begins his proclamation by telling these shepherds “unto you”. This shows that this message is reserved for, is good news for a certainpeople. And this certain people is the people of God, God’s elect people.

Thus, the angel says unto you, unto the elect people of God, for their sake, for their good is born this very day in the city of David, just as was prophesied, a Savior, One Who will save His people from their sins and the eternal consequences of their sins. He has come to save them.

And the angel tells these lowly shepherds that the Savior of God’s elect people is Christ the Lord. Christ, the One prophesied of in the scriptures, the anointed King of Israel Who fulfills the covenant promises made to David. It is He, Christ Who is the Savior of God’s people.

But He is not just Christ, He is not just King of Israel, He is Christ the Lord. This shows that Jesus is both fully man and fully divine. The God-man, the only One Who is capable of procuring such a salvation for His people.

The angel proclaims that he brings good news, and indeed, this is good news!

This is wonderful news! And this wonderful news was relayed to lowly shepherds, the kind of folks that you wouldn’t picture this wonderful news being proclaimed to. But the angel didn’t just tell them about Christ, no, he also told them where Christ the Lord could be found, when he told them in verse 12 of our reading:

Luke 2:12 ESV

12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

The angel tells the shepherds, “This will be a sign for you”, this is what you are to look for. And I’m sure that at hearing that, the shepherds were anticipating something grand. I mean, this is the Messiah, the King of Israel, so surely where He is to be found will be a marvelous place, a place with the utmost fanfare.

But the angel tells them that the sign will not be a strong, impressive man, but a humble little Baby, not robed with the finest of clothing, but wrapped in swaddling cloths, and not residing in an excellent palace with the finest amenities but lying in a manger, a feeding trough.

This is the King of kings, the God of gods, and had this message not been relayed to these shepherds by an angel of the Lord, they surely wouldn’t have believed it because it is the polar opposite of what we would imagine.

And immediately after this proclamation, these same lowly shepherds witnessed something even greater than the angel that they had already encountered. We see this in the remainder of our reading, verses 13 and 14, where it says:

Luke 2:13-14 ESV

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

These shepherds had just encountered an angel of the Lord, surrounded by the glory of God and if one angel of the Lord wasn’t great enough, now appears before the shepherds, a multitude of angels of the Lord.

And as they appear before these lowly shepherds, in all of their glory and majesty, they belt out “Glory to God in the highest!” They, in all of their heavenly glory, shout out praise to this little Baby born in the little town of Bethlehem.

They praise Him because He is Who He is, because He is able to do what they are not able to do and that is bring peace to those whom God is pleased with.

What humility this should instill within us! God came in the form of a Man and in the flesh, suffered and died for man, for God’s elect people.

When you compare man with the angels of God, you see that we are nothing. But even these mighty angels pale in comparison with the God Who created them. And these mighty angels bow down and worship before the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Baby lying in the manger.

And the Lord Jesus Christ came to die for us who are infinitely less than the angels. We deserve infinitely less than that yet love that is incomprehensible formulated the glorious plan of salvation to we who were dead in sins and trespasses.

Beloved, with fear and reverence may we praise the God Who possesses and expends this love usward.

Amen?