Campbell Chapel. Bob Bradley, Pastor

Transcription

1 Campbell Chapel Bob Bradley, Pastor

2 Our Savior is Born Sunday, December 23, 2012 Bob Bradley Luke 2 1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because (he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. 15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. 16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. 18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. Jesus Christ I guess we could say a lot of things about Jesus Christ s birth. However, for us to be where we are at today, and for us to be saved tonight, and for us to have a hope of heaven; Jesus Christ had to come. God chose this way to that. God could have brought His Son into this world many different ways. We will talk about that in just a moment.) God had a plan. God did things after the counsel of His own will and He does things after the counsel of His own will. Jesus here is born. When you go back here and read, we know that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem. That is the scripture that tells us

3 that. He is compared and it is said many times that He is the son of David. We know, as we look at His lineage, He can trace His lineage back to David. We understand that. We understand that the prophets, many times, spoke of how the Messiah would come and about Bethlehem being the place as read earlier. You can back to Genesis 49 where it talks about some things back. We will talk about those things some other time. Jesus Christ was going to be born in Bethlehem. In the fullness of time, when it came time for Jesus, the Son of God, to be born; He visited a little virgin down the road called Mary. We know that God, the Angel of the Lord, visited her and told her that she was with child and was going to have a son. She was going to call His name Jesus, Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. We know that happened. We understand all those things. There is a tremendous in that. There is a tremendous message in Joseph and how great a man Joseph was. They were not married yet. They were just betrothed, or what we would call engaged. They had never come together yet. Their marriage had never been consummated. They were just waiting till the time they could get married. As things began to work out, God spoke unto her and said she was going to have a son. This was going to be the Son of Almighty God. Mary was probably just a teenage girl. However, God had a plan that His Son was going to be born in this world. Listen. When God has a plan, God is going to bring His plan about just exactly like He said He would. We know that Joseph and Mary lived up the road in a place called Nazareth. We know that Nazareth was a despised city. Nobody liked too many things that went on. They did not like too many people that even lived in Nazareth. However, when it came time that Christ the Messiah; Jesus, the Son of God was going to be born a guy down the road said, We need to tax some people. I don t know whether God instituted the taxing, or just used the taxing. I don t know. It is really the same thing anyway. When God does something, God always does it right. The Bible tells us here that Joseph was going to have to go down unto the City of David, unto Bethlehem to be taxed. He had to go down here and take the Census. They had to count them. Listen. God is going to do some great things. The Bible says they traveled the mileage and they get down there. While they are there the Bible says she delivered her Son. Listen. She did not deliver her son a very comfortable place. When you look at where Jesus Christ, the Son of Almighty God was born, He was born in a shelter somewhere. He was born where animals stayed. God could have brought Jesus into the world in many different ways. However, He came in poverty. He came in a very humble way. The Bible says Mary did not have the nurses there taking care of her when she brought forth her son. The Bible says she wrapped her son up and laid Him in a manger, or laid Him in a feeding troth. Listen. God was bringing His Son. You might say, Why did He do that? Why didn t Jesus just appear on the scene? Listen. For Christ to be able to redeem you and me, He had to be acquainted unto you and me. He had to be our blood relatives. He had to take on humanity. He had to be born of a woman. That is exactly what God did. Since, Jesus Christ became acquainted unto you and me through the birth that He had. Not only that, but I m glad of something else. He was willing to pay a price for you and me. Not only was He willing to pay the price to redeem us; He had the price to pay and that price was His blood. To be a redeemer you had to be acquainted. You had to be a blood relative. You had to be a close blood relative. You had to be willing to pay the price. You had to have the price to pay. God

4 brought His Son into the world the way He did to be able to fulfill what He said. That is the book. Isn t it? We know that. Don t we? The Bible says that He is born here. We know that the Bible tells us here that she takes her first born son this is not her 12 th child, but this is her first born son (get that). That is very important in our foundational things as Christian people. Mary was a virgin and she brought forth her first born son and that first born son was Jesus Christ. 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Keep that in mind. They were out here on the hillside, the shepherds were. If you looked at shepherds during this time, they were people who were not well-liked. They did not get to come to synagogue a lot. They did not bring a lot of offerings to the temple and participate in worship. Most people when they looked at shepherds; they looked down on them. They were dirty. They were not very clean. They were despised people. Do you know who that reminds me of? That reminds me of me and you. That is where you and I were at; one time in my life and you in your life, I was dirty. I was despicable. I was polluted. Thank God, Jesus Christ, the God of heaven spoke unto us. I m glad for that tonight. Aren t you? Praise His name! He is a great God! These shepherds are on a hillside. They are out here of the night watching their sheep. If we were going to be announcing the birth of the Son of Almighty God, do you know what we would have done or at least our politicians would have today? They would have called a press conference. They would have got the press there. They would have everybody around to make this big announcement. The God of heaven announced it to some despised shepherds over here on a hillside one night taking care of their sheep. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. Here you are on a hillside out here wherever they are at around the town of the Bethlehem taking care of their sheep. They had done this all their life. However, they are going to see something on this night that they had never seen before and that was the glory of Almighty God. The Bible says the angel came and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. That means that whole place lit up. It lit up because the presence of the God of heaven was there. They were on a mountain side. It may have been dark but thank God, when God showed up, light showed up. I promise you something, if you would have been there it would have scared you too. If you would have been there laying with your head on a rock watching your sheep half dozing, taking a little nap; when the light shined, when the glory of God appeared on the mountain side on that night it would have got your attention. Today, I thought about how blessed we really are, how blessed we are as people. I m so very glad that I can remember a time when God spoke unto me. He spoke unto me. He began to reveal unto me that I was lost. I was doomed. I was damned. I was headed on the way to a lake of fire. He revealed himself unto me. He has done the same thing unto you. God loves us enough that He has spoken and I praise

5 His name for that tonight. Had He not spoken, we would be lost. Had He not spoken we would not be here tonight. Had He not spoken, He would not have shown up here tonight. Amen! The Bible says they were scared to death. The Bible says here that they were sore afraid, as we all would have been. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. I want you to understand that. I want you to think about that for a moment. Here you are lying on a hillside. Your sheep are bedded down for the night. They are watching their sheep. The angel of the Lord appears unto them; the glory of the Lord, a bright shining light. If you would go back over in the book of Matthew and different places and read when Jesus was on the mountain; the Bible says He was transfigured before them. Do you remember reading that? They saw the great light. These guys on this particular night saw the presence of Almighty God. They were scared to death. The angel knew they were afraid. The angel knew what was going on in their hearts. The angel said, You don t have anything to be afraid of because I have a message for you and the message is that I am bringing you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. I m glad that when Jesus came, He not only came to save the Jews, but He also came to save us. He has come to save whosoever will. They can come and drink of the water of life freely. When Jesus died, His blood was shed so that every man could be cleansed. That is great joy! That is good tidings. That is great Joy! That is a great message for a world that is walking doesn t know which way to turn. They don t know what to do. Look to heaven and there is an answer there for you. He is sitting on the right side of the throne. There is an entire host up there; there are untold millions of angels that are there. God the Father is sitting on the throne but right beside God the Father is God the Son and if you need any help tonight, look to Him and He will help you. Amen! He is alive tonight folks. He is alive! Aren t you glad for that? I don t know what tomorrow holds. I don t have any idea. I don t know what January 1 holds. If you turn on the TV s now all you hear about is the physical cliff. We are going to go off the physical cliff. That may happen. There is a good possibility it may or may not. I don t know. You can t believe what they report to you anyway. They only report to us what they want us to hear anyway. Here is the thing about it. If there is a January 1, and when we fall off the physical cliff or whether we don t fall off the physical cliff; God is still yet on the throne. That is the thing we need to understand. I don t have the answer to all of the problems. I don t have the answer to everything that is going on in the world or even in your own life, or even in my own life I don t have the answer. I do know one thing. There is one sitting on the throne tonight that has us in the hallow of His hand and I know that there is no storm that is going to come. There is not going to be one thing that is going to disturb the peace in the tranquility and the power that is in heaven. There is something that may happen, that may shake the power of this world. It may shake Washington. It may shake Moscow. It may shake Jerusalem. Listen. The power on the throne tonight; there is nothing that is going to happen that is going to shake that. Amen! I have a good verse for you. It was talked about Jesus in a manger which had a little snow on him. John said, when he was on the isle of Patmos in Revelation 1 and he is there on the Lord s Day

6 and he hears behind him a voice of a great trumpet. He turns around and sees who it was. He sees Jesus is who he sees. When you go home, read that and go down through there a few verses. As John is looking at Jesus he sees his head and his hair as white as wool. Not only that, but it says it is as white as snow. Amen! He was there. There is a great thing in this book about light, things that are light, things that are pure and things like that. That is who our Jesus is tonight. He is all those things. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Do you know what the God of heaven is doing? He is announcing unto these shepherds here that the Messiah had come. The Son of Almighty God had come. Emmanuel had been born. He had been born just down the road a little ways, in the City of David, in Bethlehem. I could just imagine the joy that must have been in these guys hearts when they heard this message that the Messiah had come. They may not have known much but they knew enough to know that the Messiah was going to come and He was going to do some great things. I m not looking for Him to come as they were looking for Him to come. Do you know where I am looking for Him to come? I m looking for Him to come and appear in the clouds. I m listening tonight for His voice. I know the same Jesus that was born in this manger lived for 33 years or so. He suffered. He bled. He died. I know that they buried Him. I know He got up from the dead. I know He ascended back unto heaven. I also know there is a day that He is coming back to planet earth. He is coming back to get you and me. I say glory to His name. If you are not ready to meet Him, I would plead with you that you get ready tonight. He is coming. One great thing about heaven is that there is not going to be any sinus problems there. Isn t that going to be great? It is for me. It probably is for you too. It is probably going to be good for you that I don t have sinus problems. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. That happened. He wasn t in the Inn. They would not make room for Him there. Human nature is the same whether it is 2000 years ago or tonight. Here is a woman that is about ready to give birth to a child. No doubt, there were all kinds of rooms at the Inn, but everybody wanted their own room for themselves. There were not willing to help a young girl here that was about to give birth to a child. They would not give their room so that she could have a place to have her child. Human nature is the same. It s all about me. It s about my comfort. It s about me being in my comfort zone and staying in my comfort zone. I hope God shakes us and gets us out of our comfort zone. It is high time we woke up and understood some things. We are not going to breeze our way into heaven. We are not going to slide our way into heaven. If we get to heaven, we are going to go there by following Jesus Christ. That is the only way we are going to go there.

7 Listen. I hear this all time. Preacher, I would to do this but I don t have time. I would love to help you but I don t have time. My husband is doing this. My wife is doing this. My kids are involved in this. The reason you don t do anything is because you don t want to do anything. That is the only reason. Don t make up excuses to me. I wasn t born last week. I ve been around for a day or two. I know and understand that you will do exactly what you want to do. I know sometimes we may be sick and we can t do it. We may have some kind of a physical ailment that keeps us from doing things. However, when I have the health I do exactly what I want to do. When God has something to do we should be standing upon our feet and saying, Lord, where is it at? Lord, what do you have for me to do today? Lord, what is your assignment for me today? Instead of doing that we don t want to ask God to use us. We don t want to ask God what He has to do. Do you know why? It is because we really don t want to know. It is because we really don t want to do anything. That is why we don t ask God to give us something to do. The Amen quiets down a little bit. Didn t it? Do you know why? It is because most of us are guilty. You might say, "You don t know how busy I am." Move up the road about 100 feet. Follow me just one day. The phone calls, going here and there, doing this and that; I m not complaining about any of it. I m getting old. My hair is falling out. I m thankful that I have the health and strength to go any number of hours that it takes to get the job done; I thank God I ve got that strength. There are many people my age that do not have that. There are many people my age that are in the ground. Here is the thing. These shepherds heard the message. They heard what the angel said. Do you know what they did? 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. As you look at the scripture here the Bible says there was a heavenly host. When you look at the word host it means the armies of heaven. They had come down with this angel that had made the announcement here to these shepherd boys. There was a whole army of angels that had come down. They were praising the God of heaven that His Son, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ had been born. I pray today that we will be energized. I pray today that God will flame the spiritual fire that we once had deep down in our souls. I hope God will wake us up. Many times it takes tribulations and hardships to get us woke up. There is nothing in your life that will get you to pray like hard times. The great thing is when God speaks and starts dealing with us and we start drawing closer to Him, God can get us in a place that He can get glory from our lives. We need revival. America needs revival. Lawrence County, Ohio needs revival. Campbell Chapel needs revival. Amen! The whole world may be veering off and going in the wrong direction. We can look at all the tragedies happening. It is everywhere. We can look at the sinfulness of men, and the sinfulness that is in our governments. Everywhere we look there is sin. That does not give you one right to quit. It may all be falling apart but that should be something that energizes you to get on fire today. We are the voice of God in this world. Christian people are the vessels that God uses in this world. He could have chosen

8 butterflies or mules or anything; but He chose us to be the ones that He would speak to this world through. What are we doing about that? Amen! Sometimes we worry more about the presents under the tree than we do about His presence in our life. Amen! We worry more about what we are going to get. We worry more about the packages that we are going to get than Him being in our lives. Friend, if they give you the key to Fort Knox and you could down there and unlock it and get all the gold you wanted, any time you wanted it; His presence in your life is worth more than that. Do you know what your gold and stuff can t buy you or things can t buy you? It can t buy you happiness. It can t buy you joy. It can t buy eternal life. It can t buy you friends. It will buy some people to be around you but they are really not your friends. When the money is gone then they are gone. 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. 15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. Do you know what they did? The angels left. They had a prayer service on the side of the mountain that night. The angel and the whole army of angels leave. The shepherds say, We have to go see this thing that the Lord has just made known unto us. We have to go see this child. We have to go see our Savior. They left their stuff and they go see Jesus. That would be a good thing for us to do sometimes; leave some of the baggage behind and go where Jesus is at. It would do us a lot of good sometimes. 16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. Do you really believe that? That is the truth! That is the inspired Word of Almighty God. The shepherds came. They came to Bethlehem. They came right there to where the angels told them there would be a baby in the manger. They found Mary, Joseph and their Messiah lying in a feeding trough. That is where He was at. He was not in a palace. He was not in a golden crib. He was not in a golden bassinet. He was lying in a place where animals fed. There is a message there. We will talk about that some other time. 17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. They did not keep it to themselves. They found what they had been looking for and they wanted to tell everybody that they could find that Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, Emmanuel had been born. 18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

9 We hear that a lot. Don t we? We experience that a lot. We tell people about Jesus and how much He loves them. He died for them. They wonder about it. Don t they? Many times we don t see them do anything about it but they do wonder about it. 19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. They went back to their sheep, but they went back there different people. They had seen the Messiah, their King, the Anointed One; the One that had been spoken of for hundreds and hundreds of years that was going to come. Some dirty, despised and despicable shepherds were the first ones that God showed, revealed and told that His Son was born. Sinners the Jews looked at shepherds as sinners. Listen. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. He loves you tonight. He wants to have complete control of your life. He wants to be the master of your life. He is no longer in a manger in Bethlehem. He is no longer there. He is not coming back to a manger in Bethlehem either. He is coming back to earth. He going to come and appear in the clouds and take the church out of here in the rapture. We also know He is coming back to planet earth seven years after that but He is coming back as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. They will never again pull the hair from His face. They will never again spit in His face. They will never again tie Him to a pole and scourge Him and whip Him. They will never again do all those things to abuse Him as they did when He walked the earth here. When He comes back, He is coming back to take over. Amen! Takeover, He is going to do. He is going to rule and reign with a rod of iron. As the angel told the shepherds here about peace on earth and good will towards men; we have never seen that yet. We have never seen peace on earth and good will towards men yet. However, there is coming a day when there will be peace on earth and good will towards men. When the prince of peace comes, when He declares and makes known who He is and when He takes over; there will be peace on earth and good will towards men.