Luke 2026

Luke chapter two verse one.

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 heavens 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 shepherd 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 that's that's the case. And If you've been shopping case. Or you've had your radio or telly on in the last couple of weeks, you'll know that Christmas is fast approaching. And we are certainly looking at one of the most well known Christmas texts today.

But I do hope that as we look at these things slightly away from all of the sentimentality that goes with Christmas, we will find a new appreciation for these incredible truths. So make sure you can see them, and let's pray for the Lord's help now. Father, we pray that you would please open up your word to us now. And we pray that the glory of the newborn king might be birthed in all of our hearts again. We pray that whether we've come into these things for the first time and...

Or whether these are just so familiar to us, we we pray, please, that you would transform each and every one of us. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You'll have to forgive my voice this morning. It's on the way out, I think, but we'll do do my best.

The last last census in The UK was in March 2021. Census happens every ten years in this country. And in case you don't know or you're new to this country, it is a... It's basically a big data gathering project. So the government sends out these forms and they want to know every ten years how many people there are living in the country and what those people earn and what those people believe and where they're from and how big their families are and so on.

And it's very, very interesting. Thank you, mate. Thank you. It's very interesting to sort of go through that data. So for example, in 2001, so this is twenty years ago, not the most recent.

In 2001, 71.1% of the population identified as Christian and 3% identified as Muslim. Now twenty years later in 2021, the number of people identifying as Christian had dropped from 71.7% to 46.2%. And the number of people identifying as Muslim had gone from 3% to 6.5%. So in one case, it's almost half. And in the other case, it's almost doubled.

And whether or not you are a statistics type person, that's pretty important to know, isn't it? It's pretty important to know for our prayers and for our evangelism. And because it brings with it social changes. Changes to the way we view things, changes to how we make laws and what laws we make. So it's good for us.

And for Christians in the twenty first century, we we ought to care about the set because it is quite a helpful thing for us that the census. But if you were a Jew in first century Israel, a Roman census would have another layer of meaning. It was on the surface just another exercise in data gathering. But more than that, it was an opportunity to profile the success of Rome to the nations, to raise money for its army and for its infrastructure and to increase its worship in the world with a census would come money, come temples, would come worship of Roman gods. And therefore, if you believed in the one true God of the Bible and in the coming kingdom of that God, being forced in this way under a Roman thumb to move around for a Roman census would have been galling, a bitter reminder, and a bitter pill for you to swallow.

This wasn't how you envisioned life as one of God's people. And remember, it's not just any Roman thumb they're being forced under. The Caesar in verse one was originally known as Gaius Octavius. He was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. And apparently, he was the first to be given the title in verse one, Augustus.

The word Augustus was not his surname. The word Augustus was a title, and it meant supreme one, worthy of reverence, the one without rival in the heavens and on the earth. In fact, there's a Egyptian inscription about this Caesar from the time in which Caesar is called a star shining with the brilliance of the great heavenly savior. That's what they said about Caesar, Augustus. A star shining with the brilliance of the great heavenly savior.

And so, of course, if you were a Jew who believed in the greatness of the heavenly savior, this was a blasphemous splinter in your side. Every time you handled a coin and every time you used a Roman road, it would be the splinter giving a little dig of pain in your foot as you were reminded of the times. And then you've got to remember the national mood at the time. At this point, it's now been seven hundred years since the Lord made this promise in Micah five on the screen. But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times.

They had words like this, that one day from the old little town of Bethlehem, smallest among the clans of Judah would come a ruler whose origins are of old and from ancient times. There was an expectation that the God of gods and the king of kings would come out of the smallest, humblest place to take his rightful place in the world. Seven hundred years. But what have we got in Luke two? We've got Caesar on the throne.

We've got a census being rolled out, rubbing it in the face of God's people. It's bad times for them. And yet from our position, we marvel at the sovereignty of God in history, don't we? Two points this morning. Here's the first and it will be on the screen.

The sovereignty of God, Caesar decrees, but God determines. Look at how it's laid out for us in verse one to four. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a censor should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was the governor of Syria. There's some interesting historical things about that, which you can talk to me about afterwards if you like.

And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. So our text begins with Caesar, and he's the most powerful man in the known world. And one day, has a great idea. He's going to have a census in order to boost the economy of Rome.

And with a boost in economy will come a boost in ego. But little does he know that over his decree is this weighty, eternal movement of God. It reminds me of those little fish. You know, those little fish that swim under basking sharks or great whales. And you look at them on the nature documentaries and you see that little fish swimming along thinking that he or she is making waves in the world, not realizing that there is this purposeful weight over the top of them that is guiding all that is happening to them in the oceans.

God, the father, and Jesus in the womb, and Micah chapter five. This is the purposeful weight that sits over the little decree of verse one. It's all directing the king's heart as if it was water in the hands of God. You see what we're being shown here? That as Caesar lifts up his finger to tax the world, he does so because God has decided to lift his finger in order to save the world.

If you're familiar with the apostles creed, you might know this line up on the screen from the creed. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our lord, who was conceived by the holy spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Do you notice the same arrangement in history? He suffered under Pontius Pilate. There was a man once upon a time employed by Rome who made a decision about the fate of Jesus Christ, but he was only ever doing what God's power and plan had already determined should happen.

Which is why you come to John 19, and you see Jesus with a crown of thorns on a head, bruised and broken, looking at Pilate in the eye and saying you would have no authority over me if it were not given to you from above. And so for our day, here's another AI whistleblower promising human extinction imminently. Or over here is another global power making big boasts and big decrees. There's a war breaking out somewhere. There's some new disease escaped from a lab.

There's some law that's been made in the halls of power. And sometimes Christian people have no choice but to go along and to move with the decrees of the age. But we remember here that the most high is sovereign over the kingdoms of men. And therefore, when Rome decides to take a census or when there's a war in Europe looming or an AI apocalypse coming and we're having to stockpile food and Islam is on the rise in the West, the Christian can look at all of that and know that there are real challenges that that will bring. But we can also say to ourselves, I wonder how God will be using this decree to move his Marys and Josephs around the world.

Because brothers and sisters, in every human decree, that is what is happening. There is a sovereign plan over all the decrees of men to bring glory to Christ in the littlest towns and in the little fields outside of those towns and in the big cities surrounding those towns. And therefore, this new thing or this next thing, whatever else it's gonna bring with it, is gonna bring with it an opportunity to further the work of bringing glory to Christ in the world. I get a prayer letter once a month from an old friend who used to be in commission, and he's now serving the Lord in The Middle East and trying to plant churches in Muslim majority countries. And it has...

There are very many challenges with that ministry. And in his most recent prayer letter, he was talking about Christian who'd converted from Islam and had come from another country where there is a decree that really all Christian worship of any kind is is banned by anyone. And this believer had made his way to this church in the country my friend is at. And he just writes about the significant encouragement it was to meet with this believer who hardly knew any others and to meet with other believers in a similar context and to be able to send him back to his country full of faith and renewed joy in the world. And it reminds you there, isn't it?

There's a sitting over the decree of that country that Christians must not worship and must not gather is a sovereign God who's moved the little Joseph to another country in order to encourage him and send him back full of gospel faith to his own country. And so the most high sits over Caesar and the decrees of Caesar, and he works to bring glory to Christ in the world. And we just need to settle that in our hearts, don't we? That there are not two equal and opposite powers in the world. It's not that sometimes Caesar is getting his way and sometimes God is getting his way and they're competing.

No. God sits over all the decrees and the kingdoms of men. That is the worldview the Bible gives us. And so we look at verse one and we say, here is Caesar lifting his hand and issuing a census. But the only reason he's doing it is because God is now ready to bring Jesus Augustus into the world.

Jesus supreme. Jesus without rival. The true Augustus is ready to come. And so that's the first thing that we see here. The sovereignty of God sees a decrees, but God determines.

Let's have a look now at the second thing. The glory of God, Christ is born, and Christ is preached. Let's come to the moment in verse six. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son, which on one level tells us that Mary would go on to have other children. Jesus was her firstborn.

She would not remain a virgin forever. But mainly that word firstborn in a remarkably brief little sentence is a gem from the old testament. Here it is from Psalm 89. You can see on the screen. I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.

He will call out to me. You are my father, my God, the rock, my savior, and I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the exalted over the kings of the earth. Mary's firstborn in Luke two is that firstborn from Psalm 89. We do need to spend a bit of time just meditating on that, don't we? That at this time in history, should you imagine it?

At this time in history, a poor Jewish girl was tied by an umbilical cord to the most exalted of the kings of the earth. And he was delivered into the world by the most unlikely of midwives, Joseph. And that God himself, the most exalted of the kings of the earth, was covered in all the mess of childbirth, and he was waving his tiny little limbs and digits into the air. And he was washed up and he was cleaned and he was put inside a feeding bucket for cows. Because in all of the big wide world, there was no room available for Jesus.

And we need to remember that this isn't some kind of, like, trick that God is playing on Mary and Joseph. You know, it's not as if they were looking at him from the outside, hearing his cries, and watching him look at his hands. And they were saying, oh, look. He's just discovered his hands. But on the inside, Jesus was thinking, I'll do the hand trick now.

And this is brilliant because they think I've just discovered my hand. But actually, I'm just admiring the brilliance of my creation. I got them with that one, didn't they? They really think I am a baby. You know?

It's not that that was... No. No. This this is true God bonded to true man right at the start of man's life. True God bonded to infant humanity.

It's dealt with here in six words. She gave birth to her firstborn, which is quite brief for the incarnation of God. But we know, don't we? The weight of mystery and glory that is tied up in those six words. Veiled in flesh, the godhead sea.

Hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel. And now that he has arrived, he must be proclaimed. We were looking last week at Exodus chapter three in the mix. If you remember that scene from Exodus three, and we were looking at the moment where a shepherd who was watching his flocks out in the hills sees a bright display of the glory of God and talks with an angel of God about salvation and was a little bit scared by the whole experience. Moses had been a man of significant power, hadn't he?

Grown up in the palace of Egypt. But in Exodus chapter three, he's an 80 year old shepherd, past his best, we might say. But God had a gospel for him. And do you notice the similarities in verse eight of our passage? And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks as Moses was doing.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them as it did to Moses. And the glory of the Lord shone around them as it did to Moses, and they were terrified as he was. Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the enslaved people, all the people in Egypt. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you.

He is Messiah, the Lord. Earlier in the week, I took this newspaper to the to the International Cafe. I don't I don't buy a newspaper very often. But I I just thought I would buy one on that day in order to see how much good news there is in in the average paper on the average day. And it turns out there is remarkably little by way of good news.

There is just sad and worrying news and largely irrelevant news. That's what you get, very little good news. But there is some. There is some good news. So on the back page, I discovered some good news about the England football team.

They seem to be doing pretty well at the moment and that's good news. But it's good news only for a very small selection of the people, isn't it? Not every nation is so happy that England football team is doing well. And actually, very few in this room really care or would consider that to be good news. There was another piece of good news about some new shoes that have been developed for people who've got Parkinson's disease.

And this really is good news because this this shoe has got sensors in it, which helps them to to measure their walk. So if their walk is starting to be a bit off center or they're starting to tremor or lose their balance, the shoe reads it. It's like a smart shoe that helps them to to measure their progress with the disease, which is very... Really good news. But again, it's good news for a subset of the people, isn't it?

It's good news for those who have that particular condition, certainly. It's good news for loved ones who are wanting to care for those people. And it's good news for those of us who might in the future develop a condition like that. Good news, but still belonging to a subset. Then there was some good news that applies to a much larger group.

So on page three, there's a headline that says... Yes. No. It says, just forget that. Don't panic.

The plague is unlikely to make it to The UK. That's good news for a lot larger group of people, isn't it? Not so much if you happen to be living closer to Russia where that pneumonic plague or whatever it is is broken out. It's not good news for you if you live over there. But for most of us, at least for the time being, that's pretty good news, isn't it?

Good news for a much larger group. And then on the front page, there's this plan that the conservatives have promised something called a Britannia dome in order to protect The UK from missile attack, which struck me as both good news and a bit worrying news. I I I thought, I mean, good that we might have something that protects us, bad that we might be subject to missile attacks in the world. But anyway, you read through and you you get the point. It's mostly bad, mostly irrelevant.

And even the good news that there is only applies to a very small group of people. But you come to our text this morning, and we're told there will be good news of great joy for all the people. And you think, well, okay. What what type of news then could be good news of great joy for all without exception? And the answer is there in verse 10.

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. Romans three twenty three tells us that all people, not some people and not most people, it tells us that all people, all the people have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. We might imagine a a long jumper who's attempting to run up to and leap over a gap in a big canyon. And no matter how fast they run and no matter how powerful their spring is, they always fall short of the other side and fall down, down, and fall into the canyon.

Just as we have fallen short of God's glory and of God's words and of God's vision for our lives. Some of us would have tried very hard to make it to that standard, but we've jumped and still fallen short. And some of us won't have tried at all to make it to that standard, and we've fallen short. But here is our common problem. We are all at the bottom of the canyon.

We have fallen short of the glory of God and what he has called us to be. And yet the birth of Jesus is good news of great joy for all the ones in the canyon, for all who have fallen. Today, in the town of David, a savior, not a general, not a committee, not a president, not an angel, not a prophet, not an influencer, not a guru. A savior has been born. He is a true man, true god savior to meet the biggest need, which is to reconcile us to God and to deliver us from our sins.

Three times in this section, it says, you will find him laying in a manger. And you wonder why that particular detail three times. Why that particular detail? Well, of course, because it speaks to his humility. But it's also about access, isn't it?

The manger strikes me as the most accessible of places. As far as I'm aware, you don't need any prior qualifications to visit a feeding trough. You don't need any letters after your name to go and see a feeding trough. You don't need any passport control in order to check you're the right nation for the feeding trough. You don't need to scan some kind of QR code before you're gonna get access to the feeding trough.

No. If if there if there is a heart to see Christ, and if there is a willingness to renounce our sins and to confess him as Lord, the manger is the most accessible of symbols, isn't it? So accessible. It's humble, but it's accessible. You can come.

Isn't that the point of these shepherds? They're nameless. They were at the time not allowed to testify in court because their job was considered to be so lowly. They were largely unclean because of all that they handled in the course of their job. And yet God has chosen the lowly things and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, and to say to us, if they can come, you can come.

It's just so different to how what we would expect, isn't it? You kind of think to yourself, if this Jesus story is gonna make progress in the world, to whom should the angel go? Well, send him to Caesar. Send him to Caesar and let him know that his reign is over. Or at least send the angels to Caiaphas, the high priest, and tell him that his high priestly duties are no longer required.

Or send him to Pilate, the governor, who can do something to advance this kingdom in the world. But God sends it to a shepherd with no name, who can't access the temple and can't testify in court and says, I'm gonna choose the despised things of the world to nullify the things that are. And it tells us that the kingdom of God is not going to advance as the halls of power are overturned. But as humble nameless people are visited and they see and worship and speak of Christ to people who will see and worship and speak of Christ. And in that way, the kingdom will advance.

The manger says, Jesus is open. Jesus is open to the nameless and the unclean. And I just picture those shepherds after hearing that announcement running down through the fields of Bethlehem like Olympic hurdlers. You know, and as they come to those low fences that separate the fields, they're, you know, like the sort of hurdlers do leaping the leaping the different fences, making their way down to see this thing that the angels had told them about. And when they find him, verse 17 says, they go with joy in their hearts.

They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And at this point, it's almost like the angels have handed the baton over to the shepherds. You you are now going to be the ambassadors for the gospel. Our our work is done. It's you now who must take the baton on and go and spread the news.

It has to be that way, doesn't it? Because when you think about it, there's only so much that angels can actually tell us about the gospel. They can give us the brightness and the announcement, But they cannot say like we can, I was lost, but now I'm found? I was blind, but now I see. I went to the manger, and I worshiped him, and I tasted his goodness.

And I myself have a testimony of redeeming love. The angels could announce it in a way. For it for it to be spread, it needed sinners to take the baton and go on to preach the gospel. And so, of course, for us, we do know, don't we, that there are there are gifts of evangelism that people have. But I don't suppose that all of these shepherds had the gift of evangelism.

But they do have joy, and they do have an experience of the newborn king, and they have something that they can pass on. It's amazing, isn't it? You for all of the conferences that we have on evangelism, and many of them were very good. And all of the books that we have on evangelism, and many of those will be very good. But the shepherds hadn't read a single one of them.

But they had everything they needed. They've been to the manger. They'd been pointed forward to the cross. They had joy in their hearts, and they had something to say. And in this passage, it's just the most natural thing in the world, isn't it?

You see, you worship, you share. It's really not a lot more complicated than that. You see, you worship, and you share. And so let's finish then with this with this question. These, I think, are...

Will be some of the most familiar words or stories to us, particularly if we've been in church for any length of time. And yet I think Luke wants us to say, have they transformed us sufficiently? Not do we know them sufficiently, but have they transformed us sufficiently? Because really, the the way that you know if you know this story is if we do what the shepherds do. You glory in the news and you make much of the news and you overflow with the news.

And the news becomes a theme which takes hold of your life and the news becomes a thought more precious to you than any other, a savior has been born to me. And I wanna just leave you with that this morning. You know, has it transformed you in the way that it transformed these shepherds? That's how you know if you know it. And if you're here this morning and perhaps you're visiting and or maybe you're tuning in online and you wouldn't wouldn't call yourself a Christian, you...

And you've just been through this story again. You know, the question the question for you is, has has this Christ who was born in Bethlehem, has he been born in you? Has he been born in you? Have you come to the manger and said, I renounce my sins? I need him who was born in humility and him who died in humility and him who rose in glory to be my savior.

And I'm gonna take him to be my savior and then spread the news. That's what Luke is fundamentally an evangelist. In fact, all these gospel writers, you know, they're called the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because they write to share and they write to birth evangelists in the world. Has he been born in you? Let's have a moment of quiet, and then we'll pray together.

Father God, we thank you that you are the most sovereign over the kingdoms of men. And we thank you that you can even work through blasphemous decrees in order to bring great glory to Jesus Augustus. We pray that you'd help us not to despair as the kingdoms of men make their laws, but to look for opportunities for how they might bring glory to Christ in the world. And we pray that you would help us like these shepherds to run as quick as we can for the first time this morning or for the thousandth time to run again to the savior in the feeding trough who became the savior of the cross that we might worship him and say to ourselves, wow. It is just as the scripture said it would be.

He is the savior. And that we would go with joy in our hearts to proclaim that message. We we know that no one can preach the gospel so well as sinners can. Lord, the angels can do their bit, but they can't do what we can do. And so help us, please, to trust you and to take this news of Christ into the world, we pray.

In Jesus' name. Amen.