The Promise Realized

We are almost ready for Christmas!

In fact, today is the last day our church family will be together before Christmas.

If you have been with us for a few weeks, you know we have been joining with Charlie Brown and asking, “What’s Christmas All About?”

If you remember the Charlie Brown Christmas special, you know that he was frustrated with how commercial Christmas had become. He was frustrated with his friends because they were more concerned with being popular or getting presents than they were with finding the true meaning of Christmas.

In a moment of clarity, Charlie Brown’s friend Linus steps to the center of the stage and says, “I know what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

He proceeds to quote from this morning’s passage, so go ahead and turn over to so we can look at it together this morning.

As you are turning, let me remind you what we have discovered so far about what Christmas is all about.

We have seen that Christmas is about a broken world where we pushed God away.

Yet, we have seen that God promised to send someone to fix what had been broken.

For the last two weeks, we have been getting closer to that promise as we have seen the people God was going to use to bring it to fulfillment.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen God promise to give two different babies. One was to a couple who was too old to have children, and their son was going to prepare the way for the Messiah, the one who was the fulfillment of the promise God made.

The second, as we saw last week, was a baby that would be born from a young woman named Mary. This would be a miraculous baby in even bigger ways than the first, because Mary was still a virgin.

Mary’s humble response to God’s call reminded us how we need to respond when God calls us to follow him, even when it seems impossible.

Today, we are going to

Now, we are going to see what it looked like when the promise was finally realized.

The passage is a little long, but read along with me as we look at together.

There are so many incredible realities in this passage, but we want to simply narrow our main focus to one verse: verse 14.

What is Christmas all about? These angels declared it: glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors.

Let’s take a few minutes to look at those together.

First, Christmas is about:

1) Giving God glory.

The word “glory” shows up several times in this passage, so let’s figure out what that means.

When the angel first appeared in verse 9, it says that the glory of the Lord shone around him.

The other angels ascribe glory to God in verse 14, and then after the shepherds go see the baby, they leave “glorifying and praising God.”

So, is glory something you have or something you give? In a sense, it is both!

Let’s start with the glory God has. Luke tells us that God’s glory shone around the shepherds when the angel first appeared to them.

glory (divine) n. — the manifest presentation of God’s infinite and majestic nature; normally conveyed to humanity as superlative brightness.

Here, the word glory means...

glory: the manifest presentation of God’s infinite and majestic nature; normally conveyed to humanity as superlative brightness.(Logos Bible Word Study - ‘δοξα’)

In other words, if you were to take all those things about God that make him so much bigger and better than anything else in all creation, it would show up to us as something brighter than we have ever seen or could imagine.

If you remember when we talked about Moses, God’s glory is what Moses was able to see hints of there in Exodus 34.

In the Old Testament, the word used for “glory” has the idea of the weight of God’s presence.

You could think of it this way: you can tell when something heavy has gone through somewhere, right? Try driving your truck through your yard after a rain to see this—the weight of the truck is going to change the way the ground looks.

God’s glory is that weight

That glory is what is shining around the shepherds when the angel appears.

Here’s why that is so incredible: At one time, God’s glory was manifested in the Holy of Holies, which was the innermost area in the temple.

In fact, the first time God filled the temple with his glory, the priests couldn’t even get near it:

2 Chronicles 7:1–2 CSB

When Solomon finished praying, fire descended from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests were not able to enter the Lord’s temple because the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord.

2 Chronicles 7:1-

He was aglow with the glory

From there, God restrained the visible expression of his glory to the area in the innermost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies, where the priest was only allowed in one day a year.

So at one time, God’s glory was clearly reflected among God’s people.

However, because Israel refused to worship God and honor him like they should have, he removed his presence and his glory from the temple.

Now, we see the glory returning with the birth of this baby.

This angel is showing that God is coming back to his people in a new, but familiar way.

This is just a continuation of what we already have studied, isn’t it?

Remember that we saw back in that we were supposed to enjoy God’s presence without fear.

We pushed him away, though, and sin entered the world, which divided us from God.

Now, when God’s glory shows up, people are terrified. That’s the last thing we see in verse 9.

That’s when the angel delivers incredible news: God has kept his promise to make things right, and he is bringing the world back to himself through the birth of this baby who would be the Savior of the world.

What is remarkable is that this baby, who is God in the flesh, has no glory at all! Instead, he is wrapped up in the same kinds of things any child would be, and his crib is a feeding trough.

The God whose glory shone when the angel appears came to us, and when he did, he laid his glory aside.

After the one angel proclaims this to them, the shepherds are blown away as the sky fills with angels.

What are they saying? “Glory to God in the highest...”

You could add the word “be” in there if it helps you, so they would be saying, “Glory be to God in the highest.”

We would probably say something more like, “We give glory to God in the highest heaven.”

How can we give God what he already has? That gets into the flip side of what we were talking about—giving God glory.

Giving God glory is acknowledging that he really is as big, as good, as powerful as he is.

Giving God glory is acknowledging that he really is as big, as good, as powerful as he is.

We give God glory when we tell our own heart and those around us about the glory he has!

In the Old Testament, the word used for “glory” has the idea of the weight of God’s presence.

You could think of it this way: you can tell when something heavy has gone through somewhere, right? Try driving your truck through your yard after a rain to see this—the weight of the truck is going to change the way the ground looks.

Giving God glory is allowing your heart to feel that gap between how bad we are and how good God is, drinking in his majesty and his wisdom and all those things that make him so much greater than we are.

That’s what the angels were doing in light of this baby that was born, and that’s what we see the shepherds doing as they leave the place where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were staying.

Look again at verse 20.

You see that giving God glory is closely connected to praising God for who he is and for all he has done.

So what is Christmas all about?

It isn’t about packages and meals and family time, although those are beautiful things.

It is about giving God the glory he deserves, acknowledging that he is the powerful, beautiful, holy, incredible God of the universe whose presence would terrify us if we saw it reflected around us like the shepherds saw.

In fact, as Moses saw, if God revealed his glory in its fullest form, we would die!

Christmas is a time for us to celebrate and praise and honor God for sending us this incredible baby and keeping the promises he had made through the centuries to send someone to set it all right.

Let’s ask for a second: How much of what you have planned this week for your Christmas celebration is spending time reflecting and talking about the glory of God?

As the angels declared the night Jesus was born, this is what Christmas is all about.

In a group this size, though, I imagine there are some folks who don’t really know what we are talking about when we mention God’s majesty and glory.

That’s okay. We hope you will keep coming back and learn more about who he is.

However, let’s talk specifically about what makes Christmas a time to reflect on his glory in a unique way. We see that in the second thing the angels declared in verse 14...

2) Finding true peace.

Go back and reread verse 14.

Christmas is about true and lasting peace.

You see, the baby that was born that day is the baby who would bring peace between us and God.

Remember, we said earlier that we had pushed God away by choosing to do what we wanted and not what God created us to do and knew was best.

The Bible calls that sin or iniquity, and here is what Isaiah had to say about that:

Isaiah 59:2 CSB

But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen.

We were separated from God because of our sin, and we couldn’t make it right on our own.

God knew that, and that is why when the time was right, he sent his only Son to be born of a virgin named Mary in a town called Bethlehem.

Read again what the angel says about this baby in verses 10-12.

One of the titles used for him is “Savior”. That means he will save his people from something. So, what does this baby save us from?

According to what the angel told Joseph, Mary’s husband, he saves us from our sin!

Matthew 1:21 CSB

She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

This baby, promised for thousands of years, would one day grow up to save us from our sins.

He would go to a cross, which was a horrific form of capital punishment that the Romans used when they wanted to make a point.

On that cross, he would die the death we deserved and take upon himself all the wrath of God that we should have had to absorb.

He paid my debt with his own life, so now that sin that separated me from God could be removed and I can have a relationship with him!

That is the peace the angels spoke of—peace on earth to those he favors.

Although that phrase is a little tricky and is translated different ways in different passages, let’s put it in terms of Christmas.

As a family, we bought presents for a number of different people this year.

However, the most money we spent was on our kids. Why? Because we have a special relationship with them and want them to demonstrate our love for them by giving them things we know they will enjoy.

It isn’t because they have been good this year or did something to earn it; it is simply because they are my children that I want to show favor towards them by giving them more gifts.

Let’s then shift this to God: the baby in the manger that night is bringing the gift of peace to those whom God favors, those who are his children.

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible doesn’t actually teach that all of us are God’s children. We have all been created in God’s image and have equal value, worth and dignity, but not everyone is God’s child.

So, how does someone become God’s child and then find that peace only God can give?

John 1:12 CSB

But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,

This is why, if for no other reason, Christmas is a time to glorify God.

You can have peace with God through his Son’s birth, life, death, and resurrection.

He loved us so much that he would pursue us and offer us a peace that came at the cost of Jesus’ life.

Jesus’ death made peace between us and God. Where our sin had pushed him away, God took the steps to come and rescue us.

That peace that only Jesus can give also forms the basis for the peace we have with others.

Let me be transparent for a minute: Our house was a wreck yesterday. Samantha is fighting a cold and the kids are adjusting to being around each other more since they are on break from school. Add in how anxious they are for Christmas, and tensions were a little high.

In those moments, it is easy to start thinking, “Why don’t they listen? Why aren’t people doing what I say?”

You might find yourself in situations this week where you are around other family members who have hurt you deeply, and you are dreading seeing them again.

Jesus’ birth, life, and death can help us bring peace in those moments by focusing on what God did for us at Christmas.

He came to forgive us and make peace with us, even though it was our fault. If that’s the case, then can’t we seek peace with others out of the peace he has given us?

As you find yourself around the table with people you would rather not see, or if the tension around the house starts to build, look back to the manger and remember that you are a sinner first before you are sinned against.

We know that there is still a peace that is missing in the world, and that’s what we are going to talk about next Sunday.

Although Christmas is about a promise that is realized, there is an aspect in which we are still waiting for everything to be completely set right.

That’s what we will see next week, so make plans now to be with us.

Because Jesus came the first time to make peace between

Yet, for now, we can have peace with God that impacts the peace we have in our relationships.

If I asked you for a list of words to describe your Christmas plans this week, would any of them involve peace?

Is there someone you need to reach out to and make peace with before you celebrate the God who reached out to you?

By the way, peace doesn’t necessarily mean quiet. Some of you may be facing lonely, quiet Christmases without someone you love. What could you do that would reflect a heart that is at peace with God, even in the middle of the pain?

The peace that God brought to us through the baby the shepherds found in the manger that night should be more than enough reason for us to give glory to the God who lives in the highest heaven.

So, that brings us full circle.

What is Christmas all about? It is about a baby who was born to heal a broken world. That baby had been promised for centuries and was born through some humble servants.

As we look at that baby, we see that Christmas is about giving God glory for the peace he brings to those who are his.

If you don’t have the peace that comes from a relationship with him, why not cry out to him today and seek his salvation?

If you do know his peace, what can you do in your celebration this week to glorify him and rest in his peace?

May your Christmas be marked with the beauty of God’s glory and the comfort of his peace.