[Slide 1] Merry Christmas to all of you! I love the songs that we sung today. Thanks to the children who sang beautifully, and thanks to the worship team for leading us into the joyous songs of Christmas. You all should have been here at Sunday night when we had the Christmas carol sing-along. It was a great time to sing together and have some fun! And we are going to continue sing before I share the message for today. We have been on a series called Song of Christmas and talking about the first Christmas carols actually in the Bible. [Slide 2] Today, we are going to talk about the familiar Song of the Angels. This beautiful song was sung by angels, not just one angel, but a great company of heavenly host. They suddenly appeared on that Holy Night that Jesus was born to sing this amazing song. To introduce us to mediate on what that night was like, we are going to sing a Christmas carol we all love called O Holy Night, written by a 19th Century French poet, and put to music by a Jewish composer, later banned by the church, but translated and brought to America by an abolitionist in the 19th century (he especially loved the third verse of the song). It is a beautiful song that envisions that night that Jesus was born. So, I want to ask the Worship Team to sing that song, and for us to mediate on the words of that song, and afterwards, we will read the passage that led to the angels song and the angels song: [O Holy Night] [Slide 3] Let s read Luke 2:1-20 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 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. [Slide 4] 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in 1
cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (I was looking at the original language of this word and it is a combination of three words: mega phobe phobe; of course, phobe means fear; we get the word phobia; it s not just fear, it s mega fear fear; that means what they experienced was pee-in-their-pants fear) [Slide 5] 10 But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, [Slide 6] 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. 15 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. 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. [Slide 7] 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. [Slide 8] Let s talk about the setting first. 2
This is a pretty unique setting for the most amazing song ever sung on earth. I would love to have been there. What other time in history have the angels of heaven, the entire worship team of heaven, a great company of them, actually come to earth to sing a song? I don t think it has ever happened before. It happens again in Revelations a couple of times, but that is a vision of what is to come. I know of a lot of songs that David wrote in the Psalms, but they are all songs written by human with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They are not the songs of angels. What we have today are the songs of the angels? I think we if we can book this gig and actually sell tickets to this concert, we could easily pack this out. We can probably sell this for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. This could be the hottest ticket in town. But, it wasn t sung at the Coliseum in Rome. It wasn t sung at the beautiful amphitheater in Caesarea. At the time, there was a beautiful amphitheater in Caesarea that Herod the Great built. That amphitheater is still there and in use. This wasn t sung at the Temple in Jerusalem. The temple was one of the great architectural marvels at the time. It was sung to a group of shepherds lying outside at night in the field nearby Bethlehem. Shepherds were not considered to be high in social ranking during that time. They lived outside with the animals, they smelled because they live with the animals, and they were not considered to be respectable people of that society. Why? Because unlike you and me, God obviously considers the shepherds to be important and worthy of the honor. We have a tendency to create hierarchy regarding who is important and who is not important. We put certain people on the lowly list and some people in the highly regarded list. You and I have a tendency to do that. Creating social hierarchy is something that we are so used to, we don t even think twice about it. But, the setting of this song tells us that that is not how God thinks. Our social hierarchy is far from the way God think in terms of who is important and who is not. I know we can sometimes feel like we are worthless. We sometimes feel like we at insignificant. Some of us struggle with self-worth. Maybe that is what you are 3
struggling with this Christmas. It gets accentuated because of broken relationships. And it gets worse during the Christmas holidays. That might be why some of us are struggling with depression. Often, we don t even want to admit that we are struggling with this issue. Our defense mechanism does not even want to identify the source of our sadness. But, the Creator of the Universe, God Almighty, finds you worthy! Don t look at yourself with the lens of this world. Don t look at yourself through the lens of your employer. Don t look at yourself through the lens of how much money you make, where you live, how educated you are. And don t look at yourself through the lens of how good you are. Your goodness is not what makes you worthy. That s not the way God looks at it. That s not the way you should look at yourself. We need to function in the realm of reality, and the truest reality is God s reality. It s the way God looks at it. God s perspective on what s important is reality. And God says to you this morning that you are important. That s what Christmas message is. You are worth coming for. You are worth singing to. You are worth dying for. Now, that s the setting. [Slide 9] Let s look at the song. What caused the angels to sing like they did, and what did they sing about? In order to get a sense of what caused them to sing the way they did, we have to think about it from the perspective of the angels, right? They are in the presence of God. We sometimes think that angels are omniscient and know everything but that s not what the Bible says. There were certain things that were hidden from even the angels. [Slide 10] 1 Peter 1:10-12, for example, says: 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they 4
spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. This passage tells us that there are things that even angels don t know. It s like they want to know. They long to see what God is going to do. They long to see how God will save us. But, they don t know fully. They know enough to be curious and long to see. But, they don t know. But, when they found out, they can t help but to break out into singing. I don t think God sent a company of angels to have them glorify him. I don t think that s how it works in the presence of God. I don t think angels are slaves who robotically worship God. They have freewill.- They know God, and they can see that He is glorious, and worthy to be worshipped. And so, they delight in him by worshipping him. But, they found out something that they were longing to see: the mystery of God s redemptive plan to save all people and was absolutely delighted and shocked by it and couldn t help to declare praise to God and sing about this good news. It gives me goose bumps to just think about the breadth and the power and the magnitude of God s redemptive plan, and to think about the angels of God, these heavenly hosts breaking out into singing. They have been longing to find out, and now, they see it happening. And they suddenly broke out into singing. It s like they could not contain their praise of God and they needed to express it to us. What were they so amazed at? What caused the angels to come down in mass and breakout into singing like this? They were amazed about the good news, the gospel. [Slide 11] In verse 10, the angel said to the shepherds who were pee-in-the-pants terrified: Do not be afraid. I bring you good news (that s the word for the gospel) 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. It is the gospel of grace that the angels longs to see, and it is the gospel that has astonished them. The gospel, the good news, will cause great joy for all the people. The gospel that we preach every Sunday and that we live by everyday will cause joy, this 5
happiness. Our life in God is not supposed to be a drag. It s pleasure. It s joy. This gospel has caused great joy among the angels. What is it about the gospel that causes joy in us? Joy is something that we talk about a lot in Christmas. It comes from this verse. That s why that word is so used. But, how is the coming of Jesus so joyful? The angel said, it is because a (1) Savior has been born, because (2) he is the Messiah, and because (3) he is the Lord. [Slide 12] A Savior has been born. In order for us to acknowledge the joy of a savior being born, we have to acknowledge that we are in the place where we need saving, and that we can t save ourselves. If we don t see this, we don t see anything to rejoice about. Sometimes, we think the world is honky dory, that things are okay. But, if we just open our eyes, there is oppression everywhere for so many people in this world; there is hate just look at what happened in Pakistan this week, what happened to 2 police officers yesterday in NYC; there is darkness; there is evil. It s not just out there. It s in our hearts as well. Jesus taught us that our heart is full of evil. Our heart is a heart of darkness. We are caught in sin, a perpetual sin. We are addicted to pride, we are addicted to substances, we are addicted to getting life from things other than God and we destroy everything in the process. Some of us might think, well, it s not that bad. Well, I think it might depend on what you compare the situation to. In many ways, people can adjust to all kinds of things. When I walk around Skid Row, it is pretty amazing what people can get used to. People can get used to a pretty bad living situation. In the same way, we get used to the state of our world, the state of our heart. What happened in Pakistan this week didn t even stay in the Headlines. 140 people executed in Pakistan. We are dulled to what s going on. I am not blaming us. I am just saying that that s the way we are. When the angel appeared to the shepherds, the shepherds were mega terrified. Why? Because the glory of the Lord shone around them. When we compare our state to the glory of the Lord, when we are exposed by the glory of the Lord, we are lost. We see that we live in darkness. You see, the glory, the holiness, they power, the majesty of the Lord, when we see the distance between how good it can be, and where we are, then we know we need to be rescued. 6
One way we know we live in darkness and sin is by examining our hearts and acknowledging our sins. But, there is another way to know we live in darkness and sin: experience the glory of the Lord. Examine his holiness. Examine his love. Examine his glory. When we see him, our instinct is to be terrified because we live in darkness and sin. But, the good news is that God has not come to judge us and condemn us. He has come to rescue us, to save us. He is the Savior! [Slide 13] Then, the angel said that he is not only the Savior, but also Messiah. This would be a great source of celebration for the people. You have to remember that they have been waiting on God to send the Messiah to centuries. The Old Testament repeatedly promised the Messiah. And finally, God has kept his word. This was the hope of the people of Israel. What hopes do we have? What are we waiting for? What is it that you have been saying that if it happens, things will finally be okay. Maybe it is finishing school. Maybe it is getting married. Maybe it is seeing our family. We have things we long for, that we put our hopes in. And here, the angel is announcing that that which we are hoping for is here. The greatest hope that we have is here. He is finally here to do something about the mess. He is here to turn things around. The Messiah is here. The promised one of God is here. Rejoice. [Slide 14] It s not just a Savior, Messiah, but also the Lord. The more I research the use of this word, the more I am struck by its revelation. The Lord was the word used by Hebrew people to replace the word, Yehweh. If you look at your Old Testament, everytime you see the word LORD, it is actually the word Yehweh, which is the name of God. It was considered so holy that they didn t use it. So, everytime they read the Scriptures, they replaced the word Yehweh with the word, Lord. Here is the greatest revelation that made the angels sing: The Lord himself is the Messiah. God himself has taken on flesh to save us from our sins. I think the angels knew God loved us. Yet, I don t think they knew the extent of his love for us. For God himself to come down. For God himself to take on flesh. For 7
God himself to be born in a stable and laid on a manager. For God himself to become a helpless baby. They saw his glory. They saw his love. But, they never saw the extent of his glory and love. Do you only see generally God s glory and love? Do you see the extent of his love for you? Do you see what kind of person he really is? Do you see his plan to redeem you and bring you into his glory? Do you see his love that embraces all people? Do you see the glory of the Creator of the Universe that comes down to a boon dock town and dies for us sins on a cross? Do you see how much he has come to save you? And even after knowing this good news, do you think God is out there judging you and condemning you? Do you think he does not care for you? Do you think you are not significant? Do you think you are not worth anything? Look, our God has come down for you. He loves you. He values you. He wants you. His love for us is greater than we can ever imagine! But some of you might say, I have to clean myself up first. I have to stop messing up first. That s not the good news. The good news is not that God has come to tell us to straighten up. What the angel told the shepherd is interesting. He gave them a sign. He said they would find Jesus lying on a manger. As you know, manger is a feeding trough in a barn. And a barn is a pretty messy place. What is this a sign of? Why was that so important? It is a sign that God loves us so much that he is willing to enter into our mess. That s more than a sign. It s his signature. He announced his coming to messy people, born in messy barn, laid in a mess, hung around messy people, and died a messy death on the cross, all so that we can be rescued from the mess. He took all of our mess upon himself and took it to the cross to save us. That s our Savior, Messiah, and the Lord! [Slide 15] That s why the angels suddenly broke out into singing: Glory to God in the highest heavens! Glory to God! His glory is revealed when he is willing to leave his glory for us! His love is revealed when he is willing to leave everything for us. Do you see this glory of God? Are you singing glory to God? And on earth peace to those whom his favor rests. The word for favor here literally means pleasure. So, it is praising God for the peace that come to those whom 8
God s pleasure rests. Who are the people whom God s pleasure rest? Remember what the angels said at first that the gospel will cause great joy for ALL PEOPLE. So, who does God s pleasure rest in? You. You. And You. And me. Yes, God s pleasure rests in all of us. He wants to be with us. It s not that he is holy and he is sacrificing himself to be with us. He wants to be with us. His pleasure rests with being with us. That s good news. And when we live in his pleasure, there is peace. There is peace in our hearts. There is peace in our relationship with God. We rest in his pleasure. That s what Christmas is about. There is no more strife. There is no more enmity. There is no more struggles. We are living in his pleasure. And God is calling us to rejoice in the pleasure of God. Oh, how beautiful it is. Joy to the World Our Savior Has Come! Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee. 9