INTRODUCTION
• Oh my, it is December already!
• How many of you love the Christmas season?
• Last week Jerry started us off on a Christmas series entitled Behold!
• Today we will continue with that series as we will be spending our time together in Luke 2.
• Jerry stated last week that we are obligated to preach on Isaiah 7. Well, I have another must-read passage for today, Luke 2:1-20.
• Christmas is about gifts.
• We often laugh about the boring (like socks) or undesirable gifts (like ANDROID PHONES) that we receive this time of year, but every now and then, the gift of joy comes to us unexpectedly.
• God delights in surprising us.
• A well-loved scene in the film A Christmas Story shows Ralphie and his little brother Randy rushing downstairs on Christmas morning, where Ralphie opens a rabbit costume from his Aunt Clara.
• “He looks like a deranged Easter bunny,” declares his father.
• Only later, unexpectedly, does Ralphie receive his long-awaited Red Ryder air rifle (A Christmas Story, directed by Bob Clark (Beverly Hills: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983).
• I STATED that Christmas is about gifts; however, not necessarily a Red Ryder air rifle, but rather, the gifts of God.
• Have you ever received that proverbial rabbit costume?
• What about that proverbial Red Ryder air gun?
• Christmas is about the greatest gift of all, the gift of salvation that is offered through Jesus!
• This is the greatest gift one can ever receive.
• Today as we work through the story of the birth of Jesus in Luke 2, we are going to make three observations concerning the gifts of God.
• Our God is so awesome, and what He has done for us awesome!
• Gifts from God are a wonderful thing, I pray that everyone I know will one day enjoy this wonderful gift.
• In our situation today, we need hope and we need joy!
• The BIG IDEA for the message today is, By faith, we rediscover the joy of putting trust in Jesus Christ.
• Let’s turn to Luke 2 together.
Luke 2:1–7 CSB
1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered.
2 This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.
3 So everyone went to be registered, each to his own town.
4 Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David,
5 to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant.
6 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.
7 Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
SERMON
I. Gifts of God are miraculous.
• Gifts from God are miraculous to us, but to God, it is just another day in the office.
• Throughout the Old Testament we read prophecy after prophecy concerning the coming Messiah.
• When one ponders the circumstances of the conception and the birth of Jesus, we just have to shake our heads in wonder.
• Mary was a virgin, yet she was pregnant.
• Joseph, the man she was what we would call engaged to, had every right to have her pay the price for getting pregnant without him.
• Joseph would have to deal with the shame of his wife to be, already being pregnant.
• God revealed many promises concerning the Messiah through the Prophets.
• God had promised that the Saviour would be a human, not an angel (Gen. 3:15; Heb. 2:16), and a Jew, not a Gentile (Gen. 12:1–3; Num. 24:17).
• He would be from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), and the family of David (2 Sam. 7:1–17), born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14) in Bethlehem, the city of David (Micah 5:2).
• One of the things that needed to happen was for Mary and Joseph were some eighty miles away (in Nazareth. Luke 1:26) from the birthplace of the Messiah, and the time for Mary to give birth was fast approaching.
• For us, eighty miles is nothing, even if your wife is pregnant; however, in the days when this was happening, an eighty-mile trek with a woman who was close to giving birth was another story.
• I am sure Joseph and Mary would not have made that trip for no reason. For God, no problem.
• Augustus Caesar was ruling, but God was in charge, for He used Caesar’s edict to move Mary and Joseph eighty miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfill His Word.
• Rome took a census every fourteen years for both military and tax purposes, and each Jewish male had to return to the city of his fathers to record his name, occupation, property, and family.
• Luke, being the careful historian he was, gives us historical events to anchor the birth of Jesus. The events listed give us a birth year between 6-4 BC. Most likely 6.
• When it seems like there is no hope. When the circumstances appear to be insurmountable, God can move mountains! Gifts from God are miraculous!
• We are not digging into many other miraculous issues tied to the great gift from God.
• The virgin birth, that doesn’t happen without a miracle.
• Joseph not having Mary stoned, and accepting her story, that is a miracle that was helped along by the angels appearing to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-24).
• Put yourself in Joseph’s position.
• Your finance’ with whom you have not stepped out of line with is pregnant. THEN she tells you she is still pure and that she was impregnated by God!
• I do not know about you, but that to me sounds like someone has lost it!
• What is amazing concerning gifts of God is that they defy logic, they are miraculous in nature. This doesn’t mean they are always miraculous in the big ways, but even in the small.
• When I look at the course of my life, and how God brought a young man to be able to meet a young lady who lived 45 miles away and for those two people to be in Technical school at the same time taking different courses of study.
• Sometimes I think about how one little thing in either of our lives could have stopped us from being together. My wife is a gift of God to me and I pray I am the same to her.
• God’s gifts are miraculous to us because we are not in control and we think that if we cannot control things, no one else can either!
• In verse 7, we see the humble beginnings of the birth of the Son of God; He was not born in majesty and splendor, rather in a feed trough, wrapped in simple cloth.
• When you receive gifts from God, always remember they are miraculous!
• Let’s turn to verses 8-15.
Luke 2:8–15 CSB
8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.
9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:
11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!
15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
II. Gifts of God inspire a sense of awe.
• Who do you go to when you want to announce the birth of someone very important?
• Probably not the shepherds, but that is who God made the proclamation of the savior of the world!
• At the birth of Jesus and the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy from 7:14, the first outsiders to be told the good news are shepherds.
• The kings of Israel, from David onward, were understood as shepherds of God’s people.
• Nevertheless, socially, in first-century Palestine, shepherds were amongst the lowest of the low (Elisabeth Johnson, “Commentary on Luke 2:1–20,” Working Preacher, Luther Seminary, December 24, 2011, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1157).
• It would be difficult to miss the point that Jesus has come to be seen and known by the “least of these” (Matthew 25:40).
• I love verse 9.
Luke 2:9 CSB
9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
• That verse cracks me up. OF COURSE, THEY ARE TERRIFIED!
• In verse 10, the Angel tries to get the shepherds to calm down a bit.
Luke 2:10 CSB
10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:
• What the shepherds are commanded to behold is the birth of a Savior who will bring not just joy but mega-joy, GREAT JOY!
• The angels are well acquainted with such mega-joy as spiritual.
• When the angel finished the announcement to the shepherds, the scene became even more AWE-INSPIRING!
• A multitude of the heavenly host WITH the Angel began praising God!
• This announcement was so wonderful, that God sent the whole band down to praise Him!
• Gifts of God inspire a sense of AWE! This scene had to be the scene of the ages, this scene was so awe-inspiring that the shepherds made a decision.
Luke 2:15 CSB
15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
• The shepherds were so moved by the experience that they had to go check it out.
• Gifts of God inspire a sense of awe, gifts from God move us to new heights.
• When we receive the gift of eternal life from God through Jesus, we will never be the same.
• I would imagine that these shepherds were never the same after what happened on that blessed evening.
• The presence of God should move us and inspire us to be different.
• Let’s turn to verses 16-20!
Luke 2:16–20 CSB
16 They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger.
17 After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child,
18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.
III. Gifts of God are meant to be shared.
• When you receive a great gift, what do you do with it? You share with others, in the sense that you show them, you joyfully tell them about the gift and by doing this, you are sharing the joy of the gift!
• When the shepherds came upon the scene, they shared what had been given to them by the angel of God.
• When the shepherds share the gift of God they received, all who heard it were amazed and Mary treasured what was said in her heart!
• Gifts of God are meant to be shared because they can be life-changing!
• Look at verse 20 again.
Luke 2:20 CSB
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.
• The shepherds returned praising God for all they had seen and had been told.
• When you receive gifts from God, how could you not share that gift.
• The drive to share is part of the reason so many have died for Jesus, why in many parts of the world, people will risk their lives to go to church.
• We are living in a mess right now, and we live in a fallen world. We need some hope, we need some joy, and those things can be found in the gift of God, Jesus Christ!
CONCLUSION
• We can be so blinded by what is circling around us that we can lose sight of what is important in life.
• Imagine Joseph. He could be been so caught un in the fact that his wife to be was already pregnant that he could have missed the joy before him.
• Mary, she could have been so upset and distraught over having to talk to Joseph along with facing the social shame she would endure because of the situation that God placed her, that she could have missed to joy set before her!
• Our application for the message is this: We need to keep our eyes open to the unexpected ways that joy arrives in our lives because God delights in surprising us.
• What is taking your focus off of the gifts of God in your life?
• During this Christmas season, let us place our hope, faith, and focus on the greatest gift of God, Jesus Christ!
