Sermon Tone Analysis

Christ The Saviour Is Born

/Text: Luke 2:8-14 (Key verse 11)/

 

Place Preached - (Mississauga International Baptist Church)

Date Preached - (12~/23~/01)

 

Introduction:   

 

This passage of Scripture is probably the most familiar element of the Christmas story to the world at large.

Yet it presents profound Biblical truths about a Savior, the Lord.

It speaks of the presence of God and glorifying God in the highest.

Seven hundred years before this baby was born a Hebrew prophet named Micah was inspired by God to write ….

*Micah 5:2*  /But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting./

God's Word always comes to pass.

It's always accurate.

It's always true.

Vs. 4 says, "She was in Bethlehem."

But, you know, it wasn't Mary & Joseph that assured the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Nothing in the Scripture indicates that either Joseph or Mary played any role in planning to be in Bethlehem for the birth.

The reason they were there wasn't because they planned to be there, the reason they were there was because God planned to have them there.

And God orchestrated the plan by, of all people, Caesar Augustus... a pagan, the supreme ruler of the Roman Empire for 45 years.

Caesar Augustus, who knew nothing about the true and living God, knew nothing about the OT, never heard of the prophet Micah, couldn't care less about the Messiah.

And what did he do?

He required a census to be taken for the purpose of registering everybody in the Roman Empire with a view towards taxation.

So he made a decree, according to verse 1.

And as a result verse 3 says everybody had to go to their ancestral town.

What we can assume is that God moved the heart of Caesar Augustus exactly the right time, exactly the right moment to get this thing in motion so that the census would would be taking place at the very time of the birth of Christ.

(Cf.

*Gal.

4:4*)

Now the census was authorized in 8 B.C., and the second one was at 6 A.D.  We also know that Jesus was born by all historical accounts 6-4 B.C.

So the census was called for in 8 B.C., it wasn't complied with in Judea till between 6 and 4 B.C.  Judea didn't comply probably because of the resistance of Herod.

So Herod who certainly wasn't anxious for another king to arrive, as we well know.

In fact he had massacred all the babies when he heard that a king had been born.

And yet Herod put up the appropriate resistance, to stall off the census the necessary years to be sure that Jesus was born at the right place, the right time in God's plan.

God can do *miracles*.

But this is *providence*.

And providence is a term that has to do with God not interfering with the normal processes of life but orchestrating all of those contingencies to effect exactly what He wants, when He wants, with whom He wants, where He wants.

Now that is amazing.

But that's what you have here.

This was the greatest birth in the history of the world.

And yet, so obscure.

Verse 7, “/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./”  in some kind of a traveler's shelter, kind of a lean- to with a loft

And when that little child came into the world and cried its first cry of life, nobody knew who it was.

Nobody realized that the eternal holy creator God of the universe had just entered the world in human form.

Joseph knew, of course, because he had been told to name the baby *Jesus* for He would save His people from their sins.

And he had been told that His name would be *Immanuel*, God with us.

Mary knew because Gabriel had told her the details that this would be the Son of the Most High.

But nobody else knew.

But, the passage for today breaks the silence in a most remarkable way.

A few hours after the arrival of the Incarnate Creator an angel appears to make the great announcement.

Now if you were planning the strategy for this PR campaign, you might want to go the high priest, you might want to go to the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel.

You might want to go to the chief priests or the scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees or somebody.

But frankly, the last people you would go to to make any kind of announcement of significance would be the shepherds.

And that's exactly to whom God went.

To those, who on the social ladder were the bottom rung - the shepherds.

Now this whole passage is summed up in one statement in verse 11.

The angel says, “/For unto you is born ….a Saviour/" Wow! That's the heart of the entire thing.

There has been born for you a Savior.

That's the New Testament!

That's the gospel.

That's the Christian message.

There has been born for you a Savior.

Being a Savior is not a NT concept.

It's an OT concept.

The shepherds would know what that meant because all who were in Israel knew God as Savior.

That is a Jewish concept.

There are liberal theologians who want to put a great gulf between the NT and the OT and they say that the Christ of the NT is a compassionate, loving, saving personality.

But the God of the OT is an angry, vengeful, hostile, punishing kind of deity.

But that is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

The God of the Old Testament was known to His people as a Savior.

Israel knew God as a Savior.

*Isaiah 43:11*  /I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour./

You can study religions and you're not going to find gods who are by nature saviors.

You're going to find in every religious system in the world a means by which somehow man can do something to save himself.

The best that could be said is that they are indifferent.

This is the god of the deists, the god who wound the world up and set it off in motion and then went away and couldn't care less.

The spectrum swings all the way over from indifference on one hand, to hostility on the other.

And you have a classic illustration of that in the land of Canaan in the god Molech.

Somewhere on that spectrum are all the gods of the world.

None is a Savior.

And what set Jehovah apart, the one true and living God, is that He is by nature compassionate, merciful, tender-hearted, filled with loving kindness and seeks to save people.

The Jews knew this.

They knew God to be wise.

They knew Him to be powerful.

They knew Him to be understanding.

But they also knew that by nature in contrast to all other deities He was a Savior.

In Genesis God said, "In the day you eat of the fruit of the tree you'll...what?...you'll die."

They ate, they lived.

And what does that tell you?

That's called mercy.

*Romans 2:4*  /Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?/

Now God in Egypt says, “Take the blood and put it on the doorpost and lintel, I'll pass by …I’ll pass over you" It's God's nature to deliver men from the consequence of sin.

And those shepherds would understand that God was by nature a saving God.

And they would understand that there never had been a sacrifice that really did it.

They of all people, because they were very likely shepherding sheep headed for temple sacrifices.

They slaughtered a quarter of a million of them in a few days at Passover, they were used to unending sacrifices trying to deal with sin.

They knew God to be a saving God but yet that salvation had never finally been effected by one sacrifice.

So when the announcement came there's been born today a Savior, they understood it.

*Psalms 25:5*  Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

*Isaiah 63:8-9*  For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.

*9*  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Take Mary*.

Luke 1:47* "/My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour./"