There is a picture that my oldest daughter, Larissa, found some years ago. I think when we were at my mom's house, and it's of me on Christmas morning, and I'm coming down the stairs. We couldn't come downstairs until our parents said it was okay to come downstairs, and I'm on the stairs with my brother and sister, and kind of hanging on the railing there, and my foot is up like this. Literally in the picture with a big smile on my face. You can remember back maybe all of you when you were little, or if you're little now, that's how you're feeling now, but we can all remember how we felt at that time, and I know I think back to why I was so excited, and it's usually because of the sparrows, right? The cranberry sauce, kids love that, because of the presents that we get, we're very excited about this. The kid gets presents, toys, maybe lots of them, things they have had on a list, or wanted for a while, and at least for the last part of the year, your parents have said, well, maybe you can get that for Christmas if you're really good. If you're old enough, you know that that's what was told to you. It's a wonder. Pre-Amazon Prime Days. Does some degree have a good parallel, for what we see with the angel and the shepherds here. If you look in the last path, it just where we'll focus. As I say, a few words tonight. The birth of Jesus announced the shepherds in Luke 2 versus 8 through 20, and we'll look at versus 8 through 12, there, mainly, as we look at these things. But there are a few interesting things that we see about this passage as we look there at these first four or five verses from that passage starting with Luke 2, 8. The first is to notice who gets this news of great joy. Who gets the good news of great joy? And we see in verse 8 there, the very beginning of that, that there were shepherds. Believe it or not, in all these years, and pastors hate Christmas, you know that because they have to preach from the same few passages every year. And I don't hate Christmas, but it's very little is said in the birth narrative about Jesus. But it's a good idea if you're a pastor that you preach from the Maldisember and then an extra little Sermonette on Christmassy, and so that, and I've never repeated any of that. So you have been around a long time and have never heard the same thing over again. But yeah, this good news of great joy. One thing I noticed for the first time as I was looking at this Monday is that it says this. You probably have heard if you've been around in the church, you know, shepherds were the lowest of the low. They were people who were somewhat despised. They had a very low job, a low position in society. They were religiously kind of despised because they had to take care of sheep and so they couldn't obey the Sabbath properly and worship properly because if they did, their sheep would be who knows where. But what I noticed is that it says here that the shepherds were living. See that there? That first line there. Look, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby. If you're a fan of the office, you know an angel that comes on a hard time. She's looking on her computer for tents from Walmart and her office made Oscars, sees her, and says, no angel, you're coming with me. These shepherds are living outdoors. No homes are living outside. And that's a clue for us about who this good news goes to on Sunday mornings. We've been in Luke this year and we've been looking at one of the big things that Luke brings out to. It's just that the good news goes to those who are low in the society. Every possible pulse is not many of us who are noble or of high birth. And that's shown to us, I hear in this passage right in that first verse that we see there. The good news of great joy goes to these shepherds. So secondly, what does this represent for us today? None of us are shepherds, I presume to say here in this group of 50 or so, here, not literal shepherds. Is it the financially poor? It can be. God doesn't exclude the financially poor. He kind of almost prefers them. We see in Scripture, he doesn't exclude the rich. But it's not exactly talking about that. It can be the financially poor, but the real key is seeing something that's included in Jesus sermon on the Mount where he says, blessed is this and blessed is that and blessed is this and he describes the Christian person and all these blessed is this and that. And one thing that says in Matthew 5, verse 3, is blessed is the poor and spirit. Blessed is the poor and spirit, Jesus says. What does this mean? In spirit is somebody who is not prideful before God. Somebody who is humble, who doesn't think God owes him anything. I used to think God owed me something kind of pretty much because I thought it was a pretty good God growing up doing this at that time in my life. I was a nice guy, my teachers liked me, my coaches liked me. I was good enough, smart enough, and dog-gone if people liked me. I'm sure it's small, I would say. And so I wasn't tremendously worried, a little bit shaky about eternity, but I kind of pushed that down in my own soul because the people around me were saying, oh, John's a nice, slow guy there. I was the youngest in my family, they called me John Boy, that was a Walton's reference in the 70s there. But that wasn't being poor in spirits. Being poor in spirits is those who see themselves as impoverished before God. This is having, as the song says, nothing in my hand I bring. God doesn't need me, God doesn't owe me any time. This is being poor in spirit and Luke shows this to us, even in the gospel narrative, the birth narrative of Jesus, that the angels go not to the powerful. They don't go to Herod in Jerusalem. They don't even go directly to the wise men who come probably from Babylon or modern-day Iraq, people of learning who do come and humble themselves before Jesus. But the angels come to those who don't have bones, those who are poor in spirit, to those who have been religiously excluded by virtue of their profession, working when everybody else is free to feel that your weak just stays there when you go to worship, but your sheep don't. So Jesus says, these things throughout his life on earth, Mary had said this in the chapter before in Luke 151, listen to what Mary says when she finds out that this king coming from David's line is going to be born from her by the Holy Spirit and that he would be a savior. Here's what Mary says, God has scattered those who are proud in their innmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. He has lifted up the humble. And that's one of the messages we see here from this Christmas narrative, from Luke 2. The God brings down those who are proud before Him, those who don't think they need Him, those who think God owes them something, but He lifts up those who are humble, who are afraid to look up as Jesus speaks up in Luke chapter 14, who beat their breasts before the temple and are afraid to look up because they say, I am unworthy to be before God. So this good news, to whom does it go? Well two things, good news is for the poor in the Spirit, not for those who boast before God, not before those who boast before men about themselves as I did as a little guy and occasionally do now. The good news goes to those who recognize that their sins are many and truly believe that they have no true basis, no true basis to boast before God. That's who the good news goes to. This is where a humble before God. This also tells us what the good news is. The angel comes before them and tells them, I have good news that will cause you to greatly rejoice. And the good news is this. He says there you can see it in your passage there, in the town of Tadei and the town of David toward the end of that first paragraph there. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. That's the good news. The good news is that a Savior has been born to you. We may want the good news to be something else. We have someone who just basically graduated from college here sitting amongst us. That's good news. We may want the good news to be that your retirement has taken care of. You may want the good news to be. You've got this, you've got a Ferrari now. You may want the good news to be. You got that chief presence that you've asked for, and that's sitting under the tree for you right now. But the angels give us this as the good news. A Savior has been born to you who are poor and scared. He is Christ the Lord, Jesus. The good news is that there is a Savior, one who saves Jesus. Jesus' name means God saves. But that's not good news or something you even care about if you don't think you need to be saved, like me, if I was growing up. When I heard anything like that, you need to be saved as a first of all, saved from what? Why do I need to be saved? Many other people need to be saved. And those who are, as Mary said, proud in their inmost thoughts. That was me, proud in my inmost thoughts. Maybe other people need to be saved, but I'm doing pretty well here. Things are going well. My parents love me. My older brothers, sister love me, I enjoy playing sports and going to school. And all that kind of thing. So it wasn't that great of a great news for me. Someone like me, like you, if you're like me, are saying, I don't need to be saved. Maybe other people do, but not me. This good news is also not good news for someone who just thinks we die and that's it. If that's all there is, first of all, that's a bet. You're all recognized. That's a bet. Nobody knows. None of us are dead, or at least I don't think any of us are. But until you've died, you don't know. No matter how competent someone there is, that there is no God, that there is no life after death, or eternal death after death, until someone's gone through death and knows whether there is a heaven and hell, it's all just a bet for anybody. But if someone's thinking it's trying to convince themselves there's nothing after life, then this isn't good news either. But to the poor in spirit, Christmas in this news of Jesus is good news, and what is it bring? Great joy. Great joy. So, the question for each of us that Christmas and all the time is this, this is the news of Jesus' birth, bring you joy. It's the fact that somebody born on this earth named Jesus in Bethlehem, whom people died for like Jesus' apostles and others through the centuries, dying that they knew Him and that they saw Him raised from the dead, and they would not give up this testimony, even though it meant their lives were taken from them for their faith. This is news of Jesus' birth, give you joy, great joy, if it doesn't, if your joy of Christmas comes from, as it did for me, just from presence or from family gathered, or maybe family not gathered, depending on what you think of your family. If it comes just from cookies and pie and all the things are fine, but if it comes just from those things, and not particularly from a Savior being born for you, who's Christ the Lord, then you haven't seen your need for a Savior, and Jesus has not saved you. I needed to hear that at one point in my life. I was in the eighth grade, and Christmas had just happened, and my sister had just heard that from a friend of hers on the cross-country scene. She was a senior in high school, and she shared with me why it was that Jesus died. I had never really understood that before, and even though I thought I was a pretty great person and had said that to my sister about how great I was, literally, she shared with me this news that I was a sinner, and that the reason Jesus came to the earth was to die, and that that was not a surprise to him, and that he was born on this day we celebrate tomorrow to die for my sins, to transfer my sins to himself, and to take the penalty for my sins, which was death and eternal death at that. And for the first time in my life, maybe December 26th, 27th, or 28th, in 1980, my eyes were opened. It was a big aha moment, and I understood, oh, Jesus died for my sins, I get that now, before that those were just words to me, and Christmas became good news of great joy, of great rejoicing to me. So great joy is to her and to him who know their need of being saved, and when my sister shared that with me, my defenses went down. I realized, yes, I do need to be saved, yes, I am a sinner, and I could admit that because I saw there was a solution to that, I could quit pretending that I was good enough, because God was saying to me, in this message of Jesus coming to the earth, you're not good enough, and eternal death is in line for you. Therefore I've sent my son, and that's good news of great joy. So this invitation to be saved by this Savior child, born to you in Bethlehem, wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals, I didn't know that so I was an adult. All these farm words that my dad knew from being a farm kid that I didn't know. That is out for all of us, it's out for every person. We have Christmas truly be good news of great joy beyond the presence, beyond the hot cocoa, beyond the apple cider, beyond the eggnog if you like that, I do. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord, that's the good news.