Would you take your Bibles, please, or maybe the Pew Bible in front of you and turn to Dr. Luke, Luke chapter two, which is the famous Nativity story is called the Christmas story We're joining What literally will be millions and millions perhaps a billion other Christians around the world today this evening and in Some places is already Christmas morning in some places it has not become Christmas Eve yet, but It's a time for us to read this story together and to think about its great significance for us Luke chapter two The account of the birth of Jesus Christ according to Luke in Those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered This was the first registration when Quarineus was governor of Syria and And all went to be registered each to his own town and Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David Which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his Betrothed who was with child and While they were there the time came for her to give birth And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn and In that same region there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night and An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them and They were filled with great fear and the angel said to them Fear not For behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who was Christ the Lord And this will be a sign for you You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased
children when I When I was growing up I didn't grow up in the Presbyterian Church I grew up in a different church called the Roman Catholic Church It's a bigger church than the Presbyterians. There's probably 100 or a thousand Roman Catholics in the world for ever Presbyterian. There is that's maybe why the Presbyterians can all themselves the elect because they're so few But it's a different church and one of the things that made it different and one of the things it was kind of exciting about it is They had a headquarters unlike the Presbyterians. They had a place in the world where They had a group of leaders called cardinals Because they dressed in red or cardinal colors who kind of ran the church and the chief among them was the Bishop of Rome And you might have heard of him He's sometimes called the Pope from the word Papa which means father in Italian because he is the father the leader the the chief pastor of the Roman Catholic Church and every year on Christmas Eve the Pope would go in St. Peter's Church It's the largest Christian church in the world in fact if you go in this church, children, and it's just it's huge It's maybe like 50 times as big as this sanctuary It is two city blocks long and one and a half city blocks wide and There are bronze strips across the the floor of this and it has the name St. Paul's or St. Sophia's or a macchina concession and it shows you Where those other big churches end and how much bigger it is than them and that place will be packed In fact just in about a couple hours because in Rome, it's already Christmas morning And the Pope will give a sermon. He does every year. It's his Christmas address and I'll tell you exactly what it's going to be on Because it's been the same message probably for a hundred or two hundred years He's going to turn to this text and He's going to read the words Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom God is pleased The Pope will speak tonight On world peace. He always does he always has I Still listen to him whenever I get a chance on Christmas Eve Usually when everybody else is in bed. I stay up and listen to him and he always speaks on the same thing He speaks on peace in the world And when I was a little boy I used to think that peace in the world was coming pretty soon because after all the Pope was preaching on it every year It had to come pretty soon But then as I grow older Things began to happen children to my life and to the American people that made me wonder about that First time I really wondered about it was way back Long before you or even your parents were born in 1962 when When we almost went to war with Russia over some Some missiles some nuclear missiles they had put in Cuba not far from Florida And I remember that fall when President Kennedy who was the president then was talking about how dangerous this was and how He would have to invade Cuba and attack those missile sites if the Russians didn't take them out of there That I said to my dad dad are we gonna go to war and he said yes, son. We are Well, we didn't At the very last minute Mr. Krushchev and Mr. Kennedy worked out a deal that kept the word from going to war again But I remember thinking as a young boy just about 12 or 13 years old then I remember thinking wow We really don't have world peace if we almost came this close to war The very next year I remember being kind of sad at Christmas time Because that was the year that President Kennedy had been killed He was killed right before Thanksgiving that year and Dallas, Texas someone shot the president and killed him And my hero when I was a young guy. I was 14 years old then was Jack Kennedy who was the president I thought he was a great person And it was sad for me to think that in our country there were such lack of peace and violence that someone would kill our president But that's what happened and I again began to doubt that there would be peace in the world I remember when I graduated from college 1971 I Became an officer in the army a lieutenant in the army and The very month that I went into the army president Nixon was president then He said that he was going to take our soldiers out of Vietnam and bring them home And and rather than bring peace in Vietnam that caused even more conflict and some of my friends were killed in war that year And I was spending that Christmas on what was called Orange alert, meaning that I could be sent to Vietnam with the phone call from a commanding officer And I remember wondering whether that would be the last Christmas I would get to spend with my family Whether I have to go to Vietnam and whether I would be killed and I began to wonder whether there would be really Be someday peace on earth. It sure didn't seem like it and then in 1990 when I was a pastor In fact, when I was a first In a church. I was this is the first time I was a pastor in a place called Merle Beach And and we had a war with with the people of Iraq called the Gulf War and We had a lot of people in our church who were pilots at Merle Beach Air Force plane and they were all called up all these dads and husbands and they had to get in their planes and fly over to Saudi Arabia And it was kind of a melancholy Christmas for us because a lot of the men whom we loved were over in In that part of the world and we wondered whether they would be able to come home whether they would survive Then I remember in 2001 Some of you children would have been born by then The Christmas after we had the twin towers in New York Bombed by terrorists and all these people died I remember singing these Christmas heroes that we'd just sang about peace on earth and goodwill towards men I began to wonder whether we were really living in a dream or Clinging to something that was a realistic hope and you know even this year if you turn on the television Your moms and dads can turn on the news and there are riots in Missouri There are concerns about a terrorist group called ISIS who might attack our country during this holy day called Christmas There's hardly peace and goodwill and harmony People aren't getting along in Washington DC and our government doesn't seem to be able to do anything So to read the words glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased seem to be a far-fetched idea and yet That is exactly the message of Christmas the Pope is right What God wants for the world is peace the peace of God through Jesus Christ You'll notice in this story that there was a king a really powerful king Caesar is is another way of saying King and this guy named Augustus, which means the great the great one Caesar the great one Had decided that everybody in the world that wasn't everybody in the world, but everybody in his world everybody in his kingdom Had to go and register with the government so he could find out how many people he had and he could take more tax money from them And the little family that Jesus was born into was a poor family His dad was just a manual labor probably a carpenter or Or a stonesmith someone who laid Bricks or things like that. He was a construction worker and His mother was a farm girl They didn't have money to give to Caesar and yet they had to go to where he had been born in his family and the town of Bethlehem And they had to register with the government and pay even more money than it already paid and they weren't free people like we are children They were not in a free country They had a country called Israel but Rome the Romans had overtaken that country And they were treating the Jewish people harshly they were being mean to them and so there was a lack of peace in the world When Jesus came into the world But what I want us to see children and parents alike and grandparents tonight is that the angels when they sing this song Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased They are not saying a prayer and they are not expressing a wish They are making a statement a fact They are praising God for the fact that in Jesus Christ The glory of God had shown itself in the world and there was peace and Goodwill with those with whom God was pleased What kind of peace? Well, if you'll turn over from Luke chapter 2 to Romans chapter 5 You'll find that Paul describes that piece What's interesting is if you read the story again that we just read You'll find that there were certain Certain kinds of words that jump out of this Christmas story again and again whether it's in Matthew or in Luke the words joy And the words hope and Peace and faith And when Paul talks about peace He talks about peace with those same words Look what he says in Romans chapter 5 the first five verses Therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Through him we have also obtained access by faith Into this grace or what we would call favor In which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that that suffering produces endurance and Endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us It is amazing, isn't it that the same words the glory of God peace from God hope Love faith the same things we find in the gospel story of Christ's birth occur in Romans chapter 5 as Paul describes how this peace from God comes to earth now if you and I We're the king of the universe Here's how we would do it We would want to bring peace to the earth and so we would do what what kings and presidents and army judges would we would just decree that there was peace We would take everybody's weapons away and we would say now you get along with each other or you'll be punished and You know exactly what would happen Maybe for a couple weeks or a couple of months even maybe for most of a year people would get along with each other And then they do what you do with your siblings your brothers and sisters all the time They begin to fight and scrap They failed to get along with each other I see brothers pointing to little sisters But I think the finger could go back the other way as well Because you can't make people be at peace with someone else listen to me When they have no peace inside themselves and that's why God Is a better king than Caesar Augustus and even a smarter leader of the church than the pope Because he realizes that in order for there to be peace on the earth Everybody first has to have peace with God. Isn't that what Paul says in Romans. Therefore Since we have been justified by faith in other words since we've put our faith in Jesus Christ We have peace with God Peace has to come one person at a time because sinners stand before God as one sinner at a time We don't all sit in the same way in all the same times in unison. We send one at a time Look at your brothers and sisters Look how they send in different ways how some are prone to some sins and you're prone to other sins I could say without trying to be sarcastic or cute, but Every person is a creatively unique center And therefore every person has to deal with that sin individually with God through Jesus Christ It's not enough to just say to people All your sins are forgiven There's peace on earth stop fighting No each person has to encounter Jesus Christ individually and when they do Four things come into their life. First of all they do have peace They're able to be at peace with God. They no longer feel that God is their enemy that God is angry with them They have been forgiven by God and they have this great assurance that there is no condemnation no punishment for them Because they have put their faith in Jesus Christ and God is no longer seen as someone to be afraid of But a father in heaven who loves them number two They like the people in the Christmas story a filled with hope They have the hope that a better world is coming because it has begun in their life They in a sense are a new creature Born for a new creation a world yet to come where there will be complete peace and harmony between God and all men They have not only peace and hope But they have joy They're happy in their hearts and They're full of love They love God and they love Jesus Christ and they love the children born of him That gives them great confidence in their faith They're confident in a difficult Chryseless godless war like unpeaceful world Confident that a better day is coming You see that in the story of Christmas with every person who meets Jesus Christ take Mary for example Mary doesn't Volunteer to be the mother of Jesus Christ in fact People thought that Mary was a bad girl and wasn't moral and that's how she had a baby when she wasn't married and they thought that Well for the rest of her life Very few of them really believed the truth that God had put Jesus in her that it was God's idea and So they shunned her they had nothing to do with her They gossiped about her, but you know when you see Mary in the Bible. She's filled with hope and With joy and with peace and love and she has great confidence She says Lord you do to me whatever you want to do because I'm your servant She's confident that God is going to do a good thing in and through and with her Joseph he was engaged to her and he thought she had gone often and Been sinful with another young man and his heart was broken so he said I'm not going to marry her. I'm going to break the engagement But then God sent an angel to Joseph and said don't you be afraid? That's what he said don't be afraid And he said this little baby that's in Mary's womb is from God and Mary has is a virtuous woman and you should marry her and so Joseph believed in the angel and He had this great hope in his soul He had great joy and peace and love and confidence They talked about Joseph too as a foolish man who married an immoral girl But he knew that was not true. He had confidence that God was going to change the world through a son that was going to be given to him Look at these shepherds They had nothing going for them. They were poor people People kind of who lived off by themselves. They live more was sheep than they do with other people They were lonesome and kind of considered by people the The not so nice members of society and when the angel came and told them to go see the baby lying in a manger It says they rejoiced with great joy and Their faith was strengthened. They had hope And joy and peace and love and great confidence Confidence so much that they went and told other people what they had seen and heard There were three men who came from another country Probably a place called Persia. They were Christians or Jews They were not Christians at all But they were following some strange star and it says in Matthew chapter two when they saw the star over the place where the baby was laying they were filled with joy and Gave praise to God and when they saw Jesus Christ, they were filled with hope and With peace and with joy and love and great confidence In fact everybody In the Christmas story when they encounter Jesus Christ when they go see this little boy who is God in a human body They are filled with joy and peace and love and hope and Confidence except for one person There's one person in the Christmas story who Has none of those things His name is Herod He's another king He had heard About Jesus Christ. He had heard That a child would be born But you know what? Herod never went to see him In fact Herod was so upset That Jesus might take his kingdom away from him That he sent his soldiers into the town of Bethlehem to kill Jesus and all the children they found You know my friends. I've all asked myself this question. I fact. I ask myself this question every time I read this story What would have happened that night had Herod? Actually done what he said he would do to the Magi When you find the baby Tell us where he is that we too might go and worship him What would have happened to King Herod had he gone to that place and seen Jesus Christ. Well, maybe nothing Maybe he'd have killed him. We'll never know But it does seem to me significant That in the Christmas story he's the only one who doesn't see Christ He does not have a personal encounter with Christ. He just hears about him and His life is not changed He's filled with hatred and violence Not love and peace He's worried and and desperate about his kingdom. He has no hope and he has no confidence
Of what God is going to do in his life. In fact, just the opposite. He's desperate. You know Everybody in this room fits into this Christmas story somewhere Men and women and children Some of us have heard about Jesus Christ all of our lives And what we've heard about him is disconcerting it unsettles us That he's a king That he's in control of our lives That he will judge us someday when we die And we're afraid We don't have possessed this peace and this love and this joy and hope and confidence of Christmas There are other people in this room Who've come to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ They have received Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior And in their hearts although not perfectly here There is growing every year despite all of the things that happen around us Newtly armaments and Presidents of assassinations and war and terrorism and Gridlock government. There is a growing sense of hope And joy and peace and love and confidence Tonight children you will go home and some of you will open up your presence on Christmas Eve others will have to agonizingly wait till morning I vote for Christmas Eve if it's any if it's any leverage with your parents Now those presence that are all wrapped under the tree are yours If you receive them That means this if you unwrap them And take them into your life they become yours if it's a toy If you play with it it becomes yours if it's One of those things that your grandmother sent you some nice piece of clothing for Sunday that you don't really want If you wear it it becomes yours if it's a book that your uncle gives you And your mother makes you read it on a rainy day if you read it it becomes yours, but what happens What happens if you just take those things And you put them in the corner of your closet and they never become part of your life You know what you never really receive them And so although they were gifts for you They never became a source of joy For you a source of hope and love and confidence and peace And that's how it is with Jesus Christ I'm not speaking just to the children now We can know about Jesus Christ We can see him unwrapped before us in church Sunday after Sunday and especially on Christmas Eve But unless by faith we take Christ into our lives and he becomes part of us Living with us every day In times of distress giving us his confidence And times of loneliness giving us a sense of his love And times that are disconcerting and dangerous filling us with his peace And times when we discourage giving us this hope That is irrepressible the Bible says
Unless we have these things Then the joy of Christmas remains a gift That is not ours So glory to God in the highest And on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased One more thought How do we get this joy? How do we get this peace Our hope Or love or confidence well not by pursuing those things People who pursue peace never find it People who want to be happy are never happy People who go after love seldom have someone to really love them People who go after confidence are always insecure It is an odd thing about this world That the things we pursue without Christ we never get The angel says It's the glory of God That gives us peace on earth Goodwill towards men joy and love and confidence Mary and Joseph The magi the shepherds The reason they ended up so full of Christmas joy and peace and hope and love and confidence Is because they pursued the glory of God And Herod did not It's only when God's glory becomes the thing we want the most in this world That we get all the other things we really want What is man's chief and what is his primary purpose it is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever And so as you go home just a few minutes I want you to ask yourself this question Is the thing that is foremost in my mind this Christmas The glory of God in Jesus Christ Or am I looking for something just for me That's the difference between someone with the joy of Christmas And someone without it Joy Hope Love Peace Confidence they're all yours If you seek to glorify God And to enjoy him By enjoying his son The gift of God For you and your family Let's pray Father I pray specifically tonight for the children of our church That in this excitement of Christmas With all of the gifts in them And the presence and the toys and the treats that they will participate in with their family With the joy of having their grandpa and grandma there and aunts and uncles and cousins and spending time with their families That they would realize that these are not the things That enrich their life forevermore But rather Jesus Christ and the glory of God he brings in himself Teach us this Christmas time How to pursue that which gives you glory And let us be surprised as We always are when we received a gift we didn't ask for Let us enjoy the peace and the hope The joy and the love and the confidence that comes From the glory of God in with and around us That glory found in Jesus Christ alone Open up our hearts to receive him this night As our only hope A source of joy and love The peace of God with us are confidence Into eternal life Help us to receive him as our Lord and Savior As the gift that you have given us for you so love the world that you gave Your only begotten son that we who believe in him We who make him a part of our life Who take him into our souls Might not perish But have everlasting life And do this we pray not just for our good But mainly for your glory Be glorified in us as you are in Jesus Christ And glory to God in the highest In Jesus' name we pray Amen