Original Christmas Series #4
The Original Christmas Announcement
LK 2:8-15
I invite you to find Luke Chapter 2 this morning.
It was a chilly December morning as an elderly woman entered her small town post office and made her way to the counter.
The clerk asked her
"How may I assist you?"
She told him that she had all of her Christmas cards now completely filled out and addressed but she was in need of stamps.
The clerk asked
"What denomination would you like ?"
The woman said
"Has it really come that...
well then give me
10 Baptist
10 Catholic
and 20 Methodist."
I think he simply meant how many stamps did she want.
Christmas is the largest card-sending occasion in the United States, with approximately 1.9 billion cards sent to friends and loved ones every year.
Things have come along way in the announcing of warm wishes for the season of the Saviors birth.
It was 1843 when Englishman Henry Cole gave way to the idea of Christmas cards.
Since Cole was too busy to write a personal holiday greeting, He hired well-known London artist
John Calcott Horsley to design a card he could send to all his acquaintances.
Louis Prang, a German immigrant, is credited with bringing the idea of Christmas cards to America in 1875.
Then perhaps the most well known of all card-makers, Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915.
Each year Hallmark provides more than 2,200 Christmas card designs....and yet many of them fail to communicate what Christmas is really all about.
You see you could get a beautiful Christmas card, even a Hallmark and still if it has not announced the real meaning of Christmas then someone has come short of sending the very best.
The best Christmas announcement is the one that reminds us all, of that first Christmas announcement on the night Christ was born.
The original Christmas announcement was sent by God and delivered by His angel.
Are we sending that same announcement this Christmas?
(Play the angels clip)
I want us this morning to be challenged and even perhaps changed by God’s Word in understanding that we are to be the angel.
What do I mean when I say we are to be the angel?
The answer is simple, we ought to be doing the same three things the angel did in that very first Christmas announcement.
The angel gave an announcement that did 3 things for the shepherds that night.
The announcement -Calmed Fear
It Created Hope -and-
It Called Others to Worship
The best Christmas announcement we could give this year would be nothing less than this:
To calm fears, to create hope and to call others to worship Christ.
Let’s receive to our hearts this morning the reveling of Scripture in LK chapter 2 and pay careful attention to the original Christmas announcement the angel brought from heaven.
LK 2
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ 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,
14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men 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."
We can notice that at the start of this Christmas announcement there is a message of
I. Calming Fear
The angel’s announcement included a desire to calm the fear of those who were the recipients of God’s message.
The angel said in verse 10 "Do not be afraid."
Is there a need for calming fear in people’s lives today?
Most assuredly there is.
For as much as I wish it were not so, the truth is that we live in a society where people fear many things.
Some fear for- personal safety...
(how many of you lock your doors at night)
We would amazed at the number of people who sleep each night with a weapon of defense
( a bat or even a gun) within their immediate reach
of where they sleep.
People fear personal safety
People fear also for their provisional security- or to put it quite plainly many people are fearful that there basics needs of life might go unmet.
Will I be cold or warm ?
Will I go hungry or be fed?
Will I be able to make ends meet?
People fear sometimes their for their provisions security
People fear over many things,…
Yet, the concern that many never fear
ought to be the greatest concern of all…
The greatest concern of all people on planet earth should be the need of promised salvation.
That everyone would have the assurance of knowing that no matter what happens in this life, they need not fear the next life.
How do you claim that sort of assurance.
Only by placing one’s trust in Jesus Christ who has made a way for everyone even when their way on earth is done.
To all who have followed after Christ, we must consistently be the messengers of Christ who can help to calm people’s fears.
We must be making an announcement to others that where Christ is existing and at work in a person’s life...that there is meaning and purpose and a sense of calm that replaces fear.
Having Christ brings a calm to the calamity of life that we all desperately need.
2 Timothy speaks loud and clear to acknowledge that Christians...those who know Christ in their life, need not be timid or full of fear.
For we are reminded that in 2 Timothy 1:7
7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
The reason we can be God’s messenger’s, helping to calm peoples fears is because of the message we have to share with others...a message that
II. Creates HOPE
Think with me about the announcement that creates hope
What is your message?
What is your announcement as you communicate to others around you?
Are you like that angel who brought the original Christmas announcement?
Are you creating hope with your message?
Some people are messengers of complaint
(ranting, raving, bellyaching to all who will hear and sometimes they do it even when no one is listening)
Some are the messengers of confusion
(telling half the story or an inconsistent story or an untrue story)
Those are messengers of confusion.
What is it that God desires for each of us to be a His messengers?
We are not to be messengers of complaint.
Nor are we to be messengers of confusion
but God calls us to be messengers
announcing Christ.
It is when we announce Christ to others that our announcement has it’s tremendous effect
Helping to calm people’s fears
and offering to all who will receive the message ..An announcement of HOPE.
What about your message?
What is it that you communicate?
Complaint?, Confusion…or Christ?
Look at verse 10 again...
The angel wasn’t complaining or sending a confusing message but it was a message that calmed fear and created hope
Verse 10
First the angel sought to calm fears saying
10 "Do not be afraid...
but then look at the rest of the announcement,
The angel said
" I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. "
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
The angel said here is your hope.
Here is good news for ALL PEOPLE, that includes you.
Then the angel punctuated it with a personal note when the angel said a savior has been born to YOU.
This is your hope, your happiness, your holiness, your help for all that you will ever need ...a savior whose name is JESUS….The message of hope
What would it take to create hope in your life today?
Young people have hopes of graduating high school
some have hopes of even going on to college and landing a successful carrier
Some people are hopeful of advancing to the next level in that job circle they are already in.
Some are hoping great things for their children or hoping great things for their grandchildren.
Some are hoping their financial investments are going to pay off big.
Some are hoping they are going to soar to popularity or a position of honor.
But the hope that we most need to find and appreciate and communicate to others is the
ETERNAL HOPE OF JESUS CHRIST.
The original Christmas announcement created hope because a savior was born that would set all who would trust in Him free from their sins and bring them eternal life.
The night Christ would first appear on earth was a night of hope.
Titus reminds us what sort of hope it was.
Titus 3:4-7
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us generously (how?) through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
When the Savior was born the announcement truly was: Here’s Hope People, God has sent His Son to Earth for you the gift of His Love, Eternal Life.
The message of Jesus is that He moves us from hopelessness to happiness in the hopefulness of His holiness.
He did for us what no one and nothing else could do so that one day… we could enjoy the heaven that awaits us.
What is there left to do when God has provided through His magnificent power and glory all that we could ever need or hope for.
What is left to do???
Celebrate and honor Him.
You see that is the last part of this original Christmas Announcement.
The message was to Calm Fear
and to Create Hope
and then what is left is to do …?
The announcement of the angel
III. CALLED OTHERS TO WORSHIP
It is to answer a call to worship.
The greatest thing we have to celebrate this Christmas is not gifts or good food.
We have more to celebrate than the presence of family and friends.
We can celebrate they we are a part of the Holy Family of God.
That God loved us enough and is awesome and loving enough to make a way for us to be His children.
Titus 3:7 says that through Jesus we have been justified by grace, that we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life
To be heirs means to be part of the family of God.
How magnificent that God would choose us to be His children.
Let our lives celebrate this great honor by honoring Him with worship and praise.
Our celebration is a call to worship that we might sing and say as the angels did that first Christmas
14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
Glory to God.
Is that your announcement?
Is that your message?
Are you being the angel and praising and worshipping God in the celebration of who He is and what He has done through Jesus Christ.
Have you received the message of hope?
Or…Are you still in calamity and needing Jesus to calm the fears in your life?
Come to the manger and see the Savior who came to live a sinless life and then to go to the cross so that you could have the eternal hope of heaven through His resurrection.
If you know today that you are a child of God ready to answer that call to worship Him let me ask you...
“Are you doing that through being His messenger?”
Are you being the angel?
What is your Christmas announcement to others?
Is it one that calms fears?
Is it one that creates hope?
Is it one that calls others to join in the celebration and the worship of Him?
Our Christmas announcement and the announcement of all of our days should be nothing less than this.
What announcement will you make to God and to others today and all of your days?
Source of illustration
http://pressroom.hallmark.com/christmas.html
