Revealed to the Humble • Luke 2:1-20

56:25 Teaching begins

Notes

It’s the night of the Messiah’s birth. He is the One people have been waiting for ever since God promised the first man that a saviour would come.

There are exalted places in the world to be born but God doesn’t choose them. There are powerful men in the earth, but God doesn’t reveal Himself to them.

The Messiah is born of a humble mother. He is born in a nowhere place. God announces His birth to lowly, humble men. It’s true, He does send angels, but He de-emphasises their glory. It’s about the Messiah, and He is revealed through what God says.

The big message is: God reveals the Messiah to the humble through His word.

1. Luke has rooted the gospel account in history.

A. A historian of ancient times would relate the events he wrote about to the reigns of kings and important personages. Luke says the birth of Jesus was dated by the census ordered by Caesar Augustus and he mentions Quirinius being governor of Syria.

B. Both these men are historical.

1. Caesar Augustus is the more important one. Augustus was born in 63 B.C. as Caius Octavius, the grandnephew of Julius Caesar. He eliminated his last rivals for political power at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. and became sole ruler of Rome. He restored the Senate and made it look like a return to the Republic so people wouldn’t get nervous about one man having all the power. But the Rome he ruled had become an empire of nations, and he became its first Emperor. He didn’t want to be known as king or dictator. So finally he proposed the title Augustus, which means “revered”. And he was revered, for literally saving the world. The Roman civil wars tore up the West and the successors of Alexander were tearing up the East. Augustus was the last man standing, and with him in power there came peace that would last another two hundred years under the rule of Rome.

2. Quirinius was born around 51 B.C. He was a soldier who rose through the ranks and began to be appointed to consulships beginning in 12 B.C. He was proconsul of Asia, the western half of modern-day Turkey, and at the time of this census he was the governor of the province of Syria. The Emperor spoke at his funeral, but he was more remembered for how mean he was to his wife when he was trying to divorce her.

C. We want to notice how God prepared the world for the birth of His Messiah.

1. With the emergence of the Roman Empire there was political stability.

2. The Roman system of roads made travel easier and safer. The Empire provided less restrictive borders. The Empire also cleared the seas of pirates. Shipping and commerce became safer and profitable.

3. The Empire provided Greek as a common language for its diverse peoples.

4. Nations were deemphasised in favour of great cities. With the Jews widely scattered there were in these large population centres synagogues where the Scriptures were read and taught.

5. The one thing Rome could not do was satisfy the soul. They could pick and choose the best of each culture, but of all the religions, philosophies and superstitions nothing produced certainty or peace. Was there nothing better than “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die?” There was a universal longing for salvation, and therefore, God created openness for the gospel.

2. It’s right at this time that God fulfils His word with power, vv. 3-7.

A. The Messiah is to be born in the location of which God spoke. Micah 5:2 says “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” The One from God, who is God, will be born in Bethlehem. That’s how the priests understand it when Herod asked them, where is the Messiah to be born?

B. Mary is in Nazareth, about 60 miles from Bethlehem. She’s nine months pregnant. How is God going to fulfil His word?

C. He fulfills His word independently, with no help from anyone.

1. Augustus is the most powerful man in the world. If you asked him he would say he knows what he’s doing. “Hey, I’m raising tax money for the state and for me. I’m Augustus. The end.” He doesn’t have a clue that in all the machinery of state he is being maneuvered in order to maneuver a pregnant woman to a village to deliver a baby. The most powerful man in the world is a lever in the hand of God.

2. Mary and Joseph have nothing to do about this. Joseph didn’t say, “Hey, love, sorry to put a damper on your day, and I know you’re nine months pregnant and life is no fun, but I was thinking, we need to get to Bethlehem right away because of something I read in the prophet Micah.” The two things they don’t want to do right now is pay taxes or travel but they have no choice.

3. People are doing what God wants, not even aware that they’re doing it. God is perfectly capable of fulfilling His promises.

3. The birth of the Messiah is humble.

A. They arrive in Bethlehem and the traveller’s inn is full up with people paying their taxes. This is little better than four walls and a roof. No room service or restaurant. Just a stable, a cave, where you can put your animal.

B. But imagine, they get a place all to themselves, away from the crush and noise of people. And they even get a place to put the baby in when He’s born. It is a feeding trough, but it works.

C. The birth of the Messiah is humble. It’s like every aspect of His life on earth, not exalted, not showy or attracting attention to Himself. He is not outwardly attractive, appealing to the senses. He looks like a normal baby.

D. The value of something is not in what it superficially looks like, but in what it actually is. Here, the Messiah expresses the exact character of God. God is humble, and every good thing comes out of humility.

4. God shows His goodness when He makes this birth known to ordinary guys, vv. 8-20.

A. These shepherds are not exalted and powerful like Caesar Augustus or even Quirinius. They’re just guys working a shift job looking after sheep. God out of His goodness chooses them to see and hear angels.

B. The angel suddenly appears and blows their mind with glory and with good news.

1. This is for all people. Jews of course, because God promised them. But this is also for people who are not Jews, who have no promises from God. This is for everyone who needs a Saviour. That’s good of God to save people.

2. Tonight this Saviour is born. He is human. At the same time, He is Christ the Lord. That means He is God. God, who promised, is now come to fulfil His promises. The Most High has come an infinite distance down to us. He is God with us. It’s good of God to think more of us than Himself and His own comfort.

C. Here’s the sign—you’ll find a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger.

1. That’s not a miraculous sign. There is no glow, nothing supernatural to see. It’s a dark stable with parents and animals and a baby.

2. Only the angel’s word tells you what it means. Otherwise you would not understand what’s going on. God is revealing Himself through His word. That’s good.

D. Then a multitude of angels appear to worship God for His glory and His good pleasure.

1. Glory to God in the highest. God is above all, just as much above the angels as He is above men.

2. The angels praise God for making peace on earth. He is of His own free will going lower than the angels. And though He is fully human, He is also fully God. He has emptied Himself, Paul says in Philippians 2:7. He has taken on the essence of a bondslave. He has become the Servant of God to take upon Himself all the sin of the world and die under the wrath of God.

E. The angels disappear and the shepherds say to one another, “We gotta check this out right now.”

5. The shepherds find that all the angel said was true.

A. They get to the stable and find the couple and they see the baby, lying in a feeding trough. There’s nothing meaningful about the feeding trough. It just means that the baby is who the angel said it was: Christ the Lord is born this day. That’s Him!

B. Then they tell Mary and Joseph how they knew how to find them. God is telling Mary and Joseph, “He really is the Son of God.”

C. These shepherds go back to their work, but they end up telling lots of people about what happened. What’s important is these are normal guys, neither practical jokers nor highly trained academic religious guys. This is not the kind of thing they’re used to, but God showed them, and it was just as the angel said. What would you say if normal guys started talking like this? God is doing something.

D. Mary treasures these things in her heart so she never forgets them. She wants to ponder them and grasp them and make them hers. The birth would have been so normal except for these shepherds who said they saw angels who said they would find the baby lying in a feeding trough. That was God, telling her, “I see you. I’m with you.”

6. So what?

A. The gospel about Jesus begins with the fact that God is good.

1. He has all power, He orchestrates on a global scale and on a personal scale. But it’s all in order to save people. That’s His good pleasure. He could oppress people with His glory and make them do what He wants but He doesn’t. He humbles Himself and fulfils His word by Himself.

2. Because God is humble God is completely good. Every good thing comes from thinking of others more than yourself.

3. If you have problems with God for any reason, you’re wrong. You don’t know God as He is. You need to change your mind and learn what He’s really like.

B. God saves the humble.

1. He doesn’t save many like Augustus or Quirinius. These guys think they’re okay because they’re successes, top of the heap. God saves the person who repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done? Be merciful to me, the sinner.”

2. You humble yourself before God. You look at your sin and you mourn for it like it was spilled water and you can’t get it back. You can’t change what you have done. Only Jesus can change that with His death and resurrection.

C. You learn about God from His word. There He has revealed Himself truly.

1. The Bible is not outwardly flashy, superficially exciting like fog machines and strobe lights and whizzy graphics. I’m not talking about other churches, I mean the way in which things are made impressive to look at and to see. It’s like watching Mission Impossible. It’s right there in front of you, but none of it is real. Tom Cruise is an ageing actor in makeup with computer graphics.

2. What the angel said wasn’t flashy but it was true. He told the shepherds three things: 1) The Messiah is born tonight, 2) in Bethlehem, and 3) He’s wrapped in cloths lying in a manger. So when they go to Bethlehem, there is the baby, He was born tonight, and He’s wrapped in cloths lying in a manger. So far the angel has told the truth. So what about the last statement, that this baby is the Messiah, born of David, who is God? Do you say, “Well, two facts and a lie. That’s only a baby.” So far the angel has told the truth so the third statement must be true also: He is the Messiah.

3. The gospel of God is not flashy but it is true. If you trust in what God says you’ll be saved. Jesus is the Son of God, He died for your sins, and He rose again from the dead on the third day. God has taken your sins away in Jesus.

C. God reveals Himself to the humble through His word.

1. To see angels is cool, but that’s not the big thing. The Messiah who saves is the big thing. The shepherds only knew what the baby meant by what the angel said.

2. You’re only going to know God as you humble yourself before the word of God and read it and pray, “Please teach me.” Then you will grow in your relationship with God and you will grow in likeness to God.

D. Beware that you do not ignore God’s word.

1. Your relationship with God will deteriorate and you will become arrogant before God and not be aware of Him. Plus you will not be believable as a disciple of Jesus.

2. Why should anyone believe the shepherds? Because they acted like guys who had seen angels who told them the truth. Have you received Jesus? Do you keep receiving His word? I keep meeting Christians who have never read the whole Bible in their lives. Why would anyone believe them that they are believers in Jesus?

3. But if you are diligently seeking and continually receiving from God’s word you will have a real relationship with Him and your life will prove that.

Let’s pray.