Luke chapter 2 Yes, sir Really Wow All right any other prayer requests Look chapter 2 we're going to start reading in verse 1 of our text this morning Those willing in able to I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please as we share together the reading of the Word of God Beginning in verse 1 Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth. to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days were accomplished for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in claws, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men, with whom he is pleased. When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing which has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. So they came in a hurry and they found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger. Father, we thank you so much for the preservation of this beautiful story that we have of the coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the magnificent way, actually, that you brought him to be born of a virgin, laid in a manger, live a holy and righteous life, ultimately choose your will to die on a cross for our sins. This was no small feat for us. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the beautiful promise that we have of eternal life because of our personal relationship that we have with you through this babe that ultimately came and was laid in a manger. We thank you for the reality of knowing you personally and also having the assurance that this baby laid in a manger, died on the cross, and His blood was sufficient enough to cover our sins, our sin and our sins. This truly is the gospel. This truly is the good news. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that we will be reignited with the reality of Jesus Christ. It's so easy for us to get caught up with the fast-moving culture in which we live. It seems like from the time we get up to the time that we lay our heads on our pillows, that life is filled with all sorts of activities and things to consume our mind and our attention, besides that which is the most important thing It's having a relationship with you. Lord, would you bless us in a special way this morning with your presence, with attentiveness to your word, with the reality of our worship. In these things we pray and we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Thank you and please be seated this morning. So I, like most people, I enjoy the Christmas season. It's a time of joy. It's a time of celebration. It is a time of festivity. It's certainly a time for families and friends to get together and to renew friendships and to renew our bonds. And who doesn't like the lights? You gotta love the lights. You gotta love the trees. You've gotta love the the brightness of the season. It's great. The expressions of thankfulness that we have, the new things we get. It's a time we express our love for each other. I trust that we do that. I know there's a lot of commercialism that surrounds this time of the year and there's a lot of talk about brotherhood and peace and joy and the birth of Christ is even mentioned still a little bit, you know, in some of our conversations today. But the truth is that the birth of Jesus Christ was much different in reality than what is portrayed as today. And while the world is certainly stepping further and further away from including anything religious and certainly anything Christian at this time of the year, I think it's getting to the point, though, that even Christians misunderstand what the birth of Jesus Christ is really all about. It's so glamorized today We can't see much of the truth because of the brightness of the glitter that seems to surround the simplicity of the birth of Jesus Christ. It's like we're keeping the truth of the birth of Jesus Christ hidden in a beautifully wrapped box, and we see the bowls and the ribbons and the shiny paper and the neatly tied knots and the ruffles, but we never really open the box to see the real gift of the birth of Jesus Christ and the truth of the birth of Jesus Christ. You know, you get some gifts at Christmas time and they're so ornately decorated and they're so perfectly packaged with all the wrappings, with all of the ribbons, you know. And when I get a package like it, it's almost like you don't really want to open it because you're just enjoying the beauty of the wrappings. And the reality is the gift is in the box. Sooner or later you have to tear open the ribbons and the shiny paper and you have to get into the box and you have to see the gift because that's really what it's about. The same thing is true with the coming of Jesus Christ. There's the wrappings concerning the circumstances of His birth, but we want to see the real gift. We want to see Jesus Christ. We want to see what that's about. And so we're looking here at the story of Luke as written inspired. And we see what the coming of Jesus Christ really is all about. Notice with me in verses one and two of our text what the Bible says. Now in those days the decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth This was the first census taken while Quirinius was the governor of Syria. So there's a lot of technical stuff, right? In verses 1 and 2. Luke very specifically connects time with significant people. The life of someone and the time in which they live go together. That's why we have tombstones, you know. Tombstones say this person lived and then we set a time in which they live. There's a connection between time and the existence of a person and we call that history. We call that history. History is more than just a record of events. It is fundamentally a record of life and time synchronized, working together. That really is what history is about. You know, people get on their favorite social media venue and they post pictures of their events, you know, past events. It could be a past vacation, family pictures, school pictures, whatever. But it's an event in the past. It's a reality. Picture is there you know sometimes we get a kick you ever go back and look at some of the old pictures You ever look at some of some pictures of your mom and dad when they were really young You know it's kind of funny to see them when they all had all their hair, and you know they They look so young, you know. And so we go back and we look at these pictures and it's kind of funny to us to go back into history and see pictures of people that we knew. It's a reality. We didn't experience it with them necessarily, but it's still a reality. The picture is there to prove it. I want you to look at something real quickly with me. I want you to turn back to chapter two. I want to show you something here in Luke chapter one. In Luke chapter one, I want you to see Luke chapter one, verse one. inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they have handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, it seemed fitting to me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, O excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have being taught. And so Luke says, hey look, I have investigated these things. I have gone into them and I have searched them out so that you, O Theophilus, may know the exact truth about the birth of Christ. The life of Christ and the birth of Christ. So what he's reading here is a historical fact. Sometimes we approach the birth of Christ from a fairytale perspective as though it's mythical and it's fanciful and it's been commercialized and certainly that's true and certainly when it's commercialized sometimes it makes it look like a storybook. But the reality is this is a fact. The birth and the time in which Jesus Christ was born is a historical fact. And I realize there's a group of people out there who are part of the cancel culture group, you know, and they want to rewrite history, you know. But they're living in a fantasy world. The cancel culture group is living in a fantasy. History, like math, is definite. But we're living among a bunch of people today who want to ignore reality. They want to ignore the facts. And I'm telling you, they are under the influence of Satan. When you see somebody who wants to deny reality and rewrite reality and make their own reality, I can promise you, they are under the influence of demons, really and truly. All of this virtual reality, and I know there's some good to it, and there's this augmented reality. We're messing with all this reality stuff. I'm telling you, it's going to influence people in the wrong way. People think that they can make up their own reality. People hate reality so much that they're trying to make their own reality today. That's what we are in our culture. Sin is reality. They don't like sin. Sin is reality. They don't like that which is righteous. Righteousness is reality. All reality is, is belief, all of this virtue, making up your own reality, all this making up your own reality is believing a lie. It's believing a lie. Denying reality is about as satanic as a person can get. We don't have to be ashamed of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a reality. We don't need to give up on it. We don't need to surrender it. We don't need to back away from it. We don't need to shy away from it. We don't need to be quiet about it. It is a fact. It is a fact. Caesar Augustus made a decree that a census be taken of all of his empire. You're not going to deny the reality of the existence of Caesar Augustus being the emperor of Rome at this particular time. That is a reality. And it was fixed by the eternal decrees of God. God is the one who ultimately set up the reality that Caesar Augustus make this decree at this particular time. Daniel prophesied this in his own prophecies hundreds of years before Christ was ever born Daniel said here's going to be your future reality that there's going to come a kingdom where Jesus Christ is going to be born under and it's going to be a Roman kingdom. He prophesied all of that stuff in the book of Daniel Reality was set in God's kingdom Before whatever happened even The second historical fact, of course is the record of corinthians and there's a lot of ideas about who he was, but apparently he had a government assignment in Syria at the time of Jesus Christ. The point is that there's nothing sentimental here. There's nothing sentimental. These are hard, cold facts concerning the reality of the birth of Jesus Christ, ultimately by the design of Almighty God. You don't have to be intimidated, folks, or hesitate to claim that you believe in the birth of Jesus Christ, who's the Savior of the world, who came to die for the sins of men. Verse 3, And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and who was with child. Reality number two, a perfect place. Not only was he born at a perfect time, It was a perfect place to be born. And all this is by the providence of God, okay? And this is fulfilling a prophecy again. In Micah chapter 5 and verse 2, it says, But as for you, Bethlehem, Ethratah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from days of eternity." This is Micah prophesying the coming and the birth of Jesus Christ to the little city of Bethlehem 700 years before it ever happened. There are some 11, at least 11 prophecies that Jesus Christ fulfilled during fulfilled during his birth or at his birth. Bethlehem's probably about five miles south of Jerusalem. It was basically a nothing place. There was nothing really important about Bethlehem outside of the place that it was where David's, it was David's hometown. But God does what God often does and he takes something that's insignificant and he makes it extraordinary. He takes something insignificant and he makes it extraordinary. You know, I don't know where this idea came from, but we have this idea floating around in Christendom today that you've always got to ask God for something big. God, give me something big. God, help me to do something big. You know, we have this idea that somehow or another we've got to go get big for God. And I don't know where that idea came from. It certainly did not come from the Bible. Something big for God is if God is in it. If God is in your daily life, then yes, you are doing something, quote, big for God just by living your life daily being faithful to him. That's big because God is in it. God doesn't measure big by the size of your building, by the number of people. God doesn't do counting stuff for big stuff. God measures big in terms of character. That's how God measures big. Being faithful to Him, loving, kind, gracious, all these things, the fruits of the Spirit. This is what God is going to judge us by. If a man's witnessing, and let's say you have a guy that witnesses to 10,000 people, compared to a man who witnesses to 10 people. Who's to say that the man who witnessed to 10,000 people is more faithful than the man who witnessed to 10 people if the man who witnessed to 10,000 people was supposed to be faithful and witnessed to 12,000 people. But the man who witnessed to 10 people was faithful through and through. That's all God gave him to witness to. At Judgment Day, we're going to appear before him. We're going to stand before him. We're going to get an accounting of how faithful we've been with what God has given us in our daily lives. Size and numbers don't count on Judgment Day. That's not how God measures things. God chose Bethlehem. to be the birthplace of his son, Jesus Christ. Now, as a result of that, Bethlehem has become one of the most recognizable cities on the face of the earth. And the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem changed Bethlehem. Just like the birth of Jesus Christ, when we experience the birth of Jesus Christ in our own lives, trusting in our personal Savior, we're born again, we're changed. We're never, ever the same. But I want you to know something else here in this passage of scripture that we looked at. Jesus also has the perfect genealogy. The Bible tells us in this particular passage of scripture that he came from the house and the family of David. Now, Joseph was of the lineage of David. And I know that genealogy is probably not something that makes you sit on the edge of your pew, you know, and to us, you know, we're grateful for our grandparents, you know, and maybe even our great-grandparents, but our genealogy doesn't go much beyond that. However, as a Jew, genealogy was very important. I mean, if you were, if you happened to be of the lineage of somebody great, you know, Some somebody who had great position great power, you know, like Barney Fife, you know Somebody like that, you know, you might be proud of that. But if you were the lineage of Abraham Lincoln you would be you would be Okay with people knowing that you know or even Winston Churchill Somebody great in history if you were of their limits you would you would you would advertise that? Joseph was of the house and lineage of David and But really, even though he had royal blood pulsing through his veins, it wasn't that big a deal at this particular time because of Rome. Now, he still had royalty, obviously, in his lineage, but if Joseph were to try to claim his loyalty and say, hey, I am of the lineage of David, the king of Israel, can you imagine what the response of the Roman government would be to that? Not very good. So he had the lineage all right, but he really couldn't claim it. He really couldn't live it out. But God sees things from a different perspective. Matthew and Luke, writing under inspiration, both revealed to us that Jesus was the descendant of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and eventually King David. But this is nothing more than what? Another fulfilling of the prophecy. This is God working again to prove that this man is the Messiah, the one that they are looking for. Another prophecy that Jesus would come from the lineage of David is another brick in the reality of Jesus Christ. He's building a firm foundation that this is the Christ so that we can believe in Him, trust Him, put our faith in Him, not just because we do it of faith, but because in our minds we're looking at what God has written here and we're testifying with our minds and thinking with our brains that yes, this matches up, this is Jesus. Not only is it a faith issue, it's an issue of logic as well. We read the scriptures, we understand what the scriptures are saying, we see it come together, and then the evidence of it is that we believe with our hearts. See, well, what's the result of all that? Hopefully it's courage. Hopefully you have such a strong belief and such a grip on the reality that Jesus Christ is the Son of God that you're unashamed to go out and confess it to the world in which you live today because you don't have anything to be ashamed of. It's the reality. It is said that Jesus Christ fulfilled 456 prophecies. according to Alfred Edersheim. I don't know where he got all those prophecies, but that's what he said. There's a lot. Let's look at verse six with me. Verse six. And so the scripture says, while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end. Okay, we all know this one, we all know this verse. Finally, Jesus came and laid in a perfect manger. is a perfect manger. You see, what do you mean a perfect manger? What does it have to do with the birth of Jesus Christ? We don't know how long they got to Bethlehem before Jesus Christ was born. Maybe they got to Bethlehem on the very day of the night that Jesus Christ was born. Maybe they got there two days earlier. Maybe they got there three days earlier. The scripture's kind of silent about that. But what we do know is that they arrived too late to be able to have a room of their own. The Bible says that there was no room for them in the inn. Kataluma is kind of the Greek word there, and that particular Greek word is very broad, the term for inn, kataluma, the inn. The term really isn't very specific, it's not very definite. It could have been any kind of a shelter. It could have been a house. It could have been a lodging place. It could have been a hotel, some kind of a residence, you know. Many houses in that day had two stories where the cows or the lamb or the, you know, whatever animals they had would stay in the bottom floor and the family and the guests would stay on the floor above. A lot of houses had that kind of situation. It could have been that particular situation. And so we find that they're in the place where they're keeping their cattle, and there's obviously a feeding trough there. And the scripture is very clear here that this was indeed a feeding trough that they laid Jesus Christ in. It was the place where the animals ate their food. Interesting to me, because this was a place that human beings, as a human being, you would not go out into your barn and put your food in an animal feeding trough and eat it. You wouldn't do that. A feeding trough is not something that you particularly gravitate for as saying, this is nice, this is good, this is wonderful. But the Scripture says this is where Jesus Christ was laid. Again, I want you to continue reading with me at verse 8 of our Scripture. In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over the flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people. For today in the city of David there has been born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men. with whom he is pleased. When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherd began saying to one another, let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger. The manger was significant. in the story. Verse 12 refers to it. Again, verse 16 refers to it. The manger was the focal point, really, of Christ's identity. The angel said, this is going to identify who you're looking for. This was how the shepherds knew that this was Messiah. That this was the one laying in a feeding trough. This was God's perfect way to introduce His Son to the world because it was opposed to everything that the world stands for. It's a feeding trough. God Almighty, who orchestrated the very timing of Caesar Augustus, God Almighty, who ordained the place where Jesus Christ was going to be born, ordained that he would be born and laid in a manger. God could have brought Jesus Christ in a most glorious way ever as God Almighty, but he didn't do that. He sent him and said, you're going to be born and laid in a feeding trough. The Son of God was laying on a feeding trough on some, what a disparity. You have the feeding trough, a picture of poverty, something that the animals ate out of, nothing that a human being would ever think about eating out of, and yet you have the Son of God laying there in the manger. Something that we would consider to be unclean, something we would not have anything to do with. There was the Son of God laying in the feeding trough. The idea represents us folks, the feeding trough. We are the unclean. We are the rejects. We are the undone. We are the ones who are full of iniquity. The Bible says there is no one who seeks God. There is none good, no not one. All have turned aside to their own ways. The feeding trough, the gays, the lesbians, those who murder their children by abortion, those involved in premarital sex, the proud, the arrogant, the liars, those who curse and swear and blaspheme God, that's what that represents. We are full of lust and selfish desires. We eat each other up literally with our anger and with our words and with our bitterness. We live in a culture today that is full of selfishness. You can't find the truth in our culture today. Our culture is full of lies. It is based on lies. Everything you hear today is just about a lie. And we ignore me as Christians when we come to God's house. All right, we come to God's house, but we say oh we don't need prayer meeting We don't need prayer meeting we can do without that You know, oh, I you know, I have so I'm so busy. I don't have time to do my personal devotions today Even we as Christians We as Christians, I don't have time to memorize the scripture The Son of God Was laid in a feeding trough He humbled himself so that he could die for our sins. The feeding trough represents our inability and our poverty. There's nothing we can do to pay for our sins. Not a thing. He came to pay for our sins. He was laid in the manger so that he could die for our sins. I'm going to ask Brother R.D. to come and help us with an invitation hymn this morning. You know, there was nothing really glamorous about the birth of Christ. There was certainly nothing glamorous about the death of Jesus Christ. But let me tell you something, folks. It was glorious. The birth of Christ might not have been glamorous, but it was glorious. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross might not have been glamorous, but I'm telling you, it was glorious. And that's why we shout and that's why we sing, to glorify our King. I'm gonna ask that you stand with me please as we prepare for an invitation hymn today. If you don't know Christ as your personal Savior, now would be a perfect time to repent of your sin, confess your sin, put your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and have your sins paid for. I'm going to ask Brother R.D. to introduce our hymn and then we're going to pray. Father, we thank you so much for the way that Christ came, how he so identified with the poor, those in need. That's certainly us. We are poor in righteousness. We stand before you in need because we have no power and no ability whatsoever to do anything that would somehow or another culminate in eternal life. We lay before You ourselves. We ask You to take us and to use us. We ask Heavenly Father to fill us. We ask Heavenly Father to abide with us. To call us into a closer relationship with You than we've ever had before. I pray Heavenly Father that we will not be ashamed of our Savior Jesus Christ. His coming is a reality. It's a fact. People may deny it. People may try to ignore it. People may try to act like it didn't happen. It's a fact. You saw our need. You saw our sinfulness. And you entered into history with your Son, Jesus Christ. And you sent Him that we might have eternal life. God, I pray that we will not take the gift lightly, the gift of eternal life. I pray that we will feel compelled to share our experience of salvation with those who are lost, who also need to be saved, who also Christ died for and came for. There is no sin so great that your Son cannot overcome it with His blood. Help us Heavenly Father, help us with the reality of the existence of Jesus Christ in our own life, in our own experience. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.