Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Luke chapter 2 as we celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and that you don’t lose the focus of the reason for the season, Jesus Christ. It seems that today, many large churches are taking the day off today, saying it is a family day. The reason it is a family day is because of the Lord and I can’t imagine not having a time where we gather to worship and praise Him for all He has done for us. I can’t believe we are that busy we can’t take the time for Him. Now as you are turning to Luke chapter 2 this morning, let me set the stage for what we will be looking at this morning with this story of a movie that you might be familiar with. We are told:
Contact, staring Jodie Foster, was a hit movie released in 1997. Based on Carl Sagan’s book of the same title it tells the story of astronomer Ellie Arroway’s search for extraterrestrial life. It is more however than a movie about aliens. It raises profound questions about life, faith and science. Ellie’s parents both died while she was very young, and she is left with a keen sense of aloneness and a drive to discover some sense of meaning and purpose to life and existence. Her chosen path to truth is science. She refuses to accept anything on the basis of faith. Only that which can be scientifically demonstrated can be intellectually embraced.
The other central character in the movie is Palmer Joss, a spiritual adviser to the president. Ellie and Joss find themselves attracted to each other, but their relationship forces them both to explore the place of faith and reason in their lives. Ellie challenges Joss to prove that God exists. Ockham’s razor demands that the simplest explanation is the best. On this basis she asks “So what’s more likely? That a mysterious, all-powerful God created the universe, and then decided not to leave a single evidence of his existence? Or that He simply doesn’t exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn’t have to feel so small and lonely?”
Joss responds by asking Ellie if she loved her father. She affirms that she loved him deeply. Joss then turns Ellie’s demand back on her. “Prove it.” Joss explains that although he may not be able to scientifically prove God’s existence, he once had a deeply moving experience where he felt overwhelmed by the presence of God. It’s on this basis that he believes.
Ellie however can’t accept this. If it cannot be proven it cannot be true. Then one day, as Ellie is listening for signals from outer-space contact is made. Aliens from deep in space have returned radio signals to earth and then send details for the construction of what seems to be a time machine. After one person has died when the first machine explodes, Ellie is chosen to travel in the second. When Joss asks her whether she is willing to die for this she replies: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for something, some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer . . . I don’t know, I think it’s worth a human life. Don’t you?”
So Ellie finds herself sitting in a small metallic sphere suspended from massive circular arms. The arms start rotating furiously, reaching a point where the sphere is dropped. This time the machine doesn’t explode, the sphere simply falls to earth. Nothing has happened . . .
Or at least that’s how it appears to inside observers. Ellie’s experience within the capsule is extraordinary. She finds herself hurtling down a “wormhole”, a doorway through space, until she emerges on a beautiful beach. A figure walks across the sand toward her. It’s her father . . . in fact an alien life form coming to her in the guise of her father so that she will feel comfortable. Finally Ellie has overcome her sense of cosmic aloneness, perhaps found some of the answers she is looking for. In some poignant line the alien says: “You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
After 18 hours Ellie has to return. When she does she finds herself confronted by the same skepticism towards her experience that she showed to Joss when he spoke of his experience of God. From the viewpoint of everyone observing from outside the capsule nothing happened. Surely Ockham’s razor demands the simplest explanation – that nothing did happen other than Ellie being fooled? Surely they can’t be expected to accept Ellie’s story on the basis of nothing but faith? Ellie’s confronted with a terrible dilemma. Can she now embrace her experience on the basis of nothing but faith?
It seems her answer is “Yes”. She says “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and how insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but . . . that continues to be my wish.”
- Scott Higgins, based on the Movie Contact
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in extra-terrestrials or U.F.O.’s but I do believe in God, that He is real and my desire is to let others see Him so that they can enjoy that eternal life with Him. You see, I believe we are all here for a reason and that reason is to bring glory and honor to God, we were created for that purpose as Revelation 4:11 tells us and this is from the King James Version of the Bible, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Why are so many people frustrated with life, depressed, have no purpose? Because they are not living what they were created for and that is where true joy, true happiness is found, in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and serving Him!
The actress in the movie, Jodie Foster, wants tangible evidence for God, not just faith. I believe the Scriptures give us both. God has clearly shown us by His Word that He is real and we must take that and then apply it to our lives, that is where faith comes in. I don’t know everything about God but because of what I do know, I believe He is real. My prayer this morning as we go through this study is that those of you who know the Lord, your faith would be strengthened. And for those of you who don’t know the Lord, that you would see that He is real and you would ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. You see, God truly gave the greatest gift ever given, His Son and we rejoice in the finished work He has done for us and the work He is still doing in our lives. With that said, let’s begin reading in Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 8 and see what the Lord has for us this morning.
I find it interesting that the birth of the Messiah was not announced by the angel to the religious leaders of that day but to shepherds. Folks, shepherds were not the most honest people around. You couldn’t trust them, when you talked with them you would have one hand on your wallet otherwise it would be gone! Thus, they were looked down upon, kind of the outcasts of society. They could not even be trusted in a court of law to testify, they were not honest. And yet God spoke forth to them through the angel about the birth of the Messiah, God incarnate!
Some of you here this morning may feel like outcasts of society. You may feel unworthy of God speaking anything to you. Folks, we are all unworthy and God is not a respecter of persons, He came to save the sinner and guess what, all of us qualify!
Now there are those who think they are good, they are worthy and guess what, you won’t hear until you are broken of that pride and realize there is nothing you can do on your own to save yourself. It is when you reach that point that God can reach down and save you, all you must do is ask!
Also notice that this message is not just good news to the Jewish people, but to all people; the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the king and the slave, the Jew and the Gentile! And the Good News is that a Savior is going to be born. Again, what did they need saving from? Was it the Roman persecution they were facing? Many felt that way but that is not why Jesus was born!
Today many feel that God was born to save us from financial ruin, to save our marriage, to save our home, to save our job, to save us from disappointment, to save us from getting sick, and the list goes on-and-on. But that is not why Jesus came. On the other end of the spectrum, many today have no idea why Jesus was born in the first place as this story illustrates for us.
There was this television interviewer who was walking down the streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. And he found that like in America, Christmas shopping in Japan was a big commercial success. As he was walking the interviewer stopped one young woman on the sidewalk to ask her a simple question. He asked her, “What is the meaning of Christmas?” The woman began to laugh and said, “I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?”
The reality is, Jesus was born to die, so she was partly right, even though she did not know it! Yes it was still some 33 years down the road before He went to Calvary to pay the penalty for our sins, but He was born to die! But why did He have to die? Because sin separated man from God and Paul tells us in Hebrews 9:12-15, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
In other words, the sacrifices that were made in the tabernacle and later in the temple could not take away a persons sin, all it could do is cleanse a person outwardly, more of a ceremonial cleansing. But Jesus, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world was a perfect sacrifice and by the shedding of His blood Jesus has set us free from sin. Our sins have been cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more. He gives to us a new heart; He cleanses us from the inside out! That is why God became flesh and dwelt among us, to set us free from sin and to restore fellowship with the Father. He is the Mediator between God and man, the bridge-builder who represents God to us and us before the Father.
As we continue on in this story in Luke we see that the birthplace of the Messiah is the city of David, Bethlehem! Now here is one reason that I know that God is real and His Word true – PROPHECY! There are over 300 prophecies related to the first coming of Jesus Christ and to have that fulfilled in any one man is beyond any mathematical probability!
Let me explain. Peter Stoner in Science Speaks shows 8 prophecies related to Jesus and figures out the probability of just these 8 coming to pass. The 8 he looked at were: 1 - Born in Bethlehem, 2 - Preceded by messenger, 3 -He was to enter Jerusalem on a donkey, 4 - Betrayed by a friend and Hands and feet pierced, 5 - Sold for 30 pieces of silver, 6 – Money to be thrown in God’s house and Price given for potter’s field, 7 – Dumb before accusers, 8 – Hands and feet pierced and Crucified with thieves (crucified). With just these 8, listen to the probability of them coming to pass in just any one man! We are told:
We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.” In order to help us comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that “we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom. Now these prophecies were either given by inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they should be. In such a case the prophets had just one chance in 1017 of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in Christ. This means that the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 1017 of being absolute.”
Stoner considers 48 prophecies and says, “ . . . We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10157. This is really a large number and it represents an extremely small chance. Let us try to visualize it. The silver dollar, which we have been using, is entirely too large. We must select a smaller object. The electron is about as small an object as we know of. It is so small that it will take 2.5 times 1015 of them laid side by side to make a line, single file, one inch long. If we were going to count the electrons in this line one inch long, and counted 250 each minute, and if we counted day and night, it would take us 19,000,000 years to count just the one-inch line of electrons. If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and we tried to count them it would take us, counting steadily 250 each minute, 19,000,000 times 19,000,000 years or 6.9 times 1021 years. With this introduction, let us go back to our chance of 1 in 10157. Let us suppose that we are taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one. What chance has he of finding the right one? What kind of a pile will this number of electrons make? They make an inconceivably large volume. Such is the chance of any one man fulfilling 48 prophecies.”
But it was not just eight prophecies, or even 48, there are over 300 of Christ’s first coming that were fulfilled down to the tiniest detail. In fact, God is so sure of what He has said that He challenges anyone to speak forth what will happen in the future with 100% accuracy just as He has done. In Isaiah 44:6-7 we are told, “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me, Since I appointed the ancient people. And the things that are coming and shall come, Let them show these to them.’” And in Isaiah 42:8-9 we are told, “I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
Thus, in Micah 5:2 we see the prophecy of where the Messiah was to be born some 700 years before the event took place! And notice the specifics of this prophecy, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.” He says that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, which is in Judah, not the Bethlehem that is located in Zebulun!
And when you think of a birthplace of a king, of the Messiah, you would think of a beautiful town, a beautiful home but that was not Bethlehem. It was dirty, it was “little” which probably tells us they were so small they could not gather even 1,000 men for war. This city was not much to brag about!
Even today, after almost 2,000 years, it hasn’t changed much. It is still dirty. But this is where the Messiah was to be born, the one “from everlasting” or beyond the vanishing point, the one who is eternal is what Micah is saying here and the religious leaders of that period of time knew exactly where the Messiah was to be born. In Matthew 2:1-6 we are told, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.”’”
Tragically, as ignorant or I should say unwilling to see the Messiah as these religious leaders were, many today behave the same way. The reality is there, it is just that many are too busy or just don’t care that God became flesh, that He dwelt among us to save us from our sins. But that is the most important thing you will ever come across, “Who is Jesus to you?” If He is not God, if He is not your Savior, if He is not your Lord, you will die in your sins. I know, nice message on Christmas, but that is the reality. God has given to us the greatest gift ever, His Son, and if you reject Him you are basically saying to God, “No thanks, I don’t want the gift!”
Now as much as these religious leaders refused to respond to what was happening, all of heaven recognized this Good News that was to be proclaimed and they sung out, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:14.
And as these shepherds heard the Good News what did they do? Look at Luke 2:15-20 once again, “So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.”
They sought him out and they found Him and it transformed their lives – they now glorified God, they were full of joy, they were singing praises to the Creator of Heaven and Earth. My prayer this Christmas is that you would seek Him out because the Lord said in Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” God is calling to you and all you must do is respond to His call and receive that free gift into your life, Jesus Christ!
You see, I think the evidence is overwhelming that there is a God, far more evidence than for extra-terrestrials and yet look at the people who deny the reality of God and they believe in something that is not true. They both are related to faith to some extent, but as I have said, the evidence for God is overwhelming, just look at creation, look at the transformed lives, look at prophecy and as you do then humbly come before God and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.
For those of you who have received Him as your Lord and Savior, let every day be Christmas time for you, praising God and thanking Him for what He has done and that Joy He has put on the inside will come bursting forth outwardly and touch the lives of others. You will be like a Christmas tree all lit up for people to see Jesus!
As I close this morning, let me leave you with these words from James C. Hefley, who wrote:
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the Child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His Divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying – and that was His coat. When He was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Such was His human life – He rises from the dead. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the Centerpiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress. I am within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.
- James C. Hefley, quoted in J. B. Fowler Jr., Great Words of the New Testament