Luke 2:1-20 - A Savior Is Born For You

Main Idea: You must personally turn to Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.

WE ALL NEED A SAVIOR

• We need to be saved from our sin.

  • Sin - The things we think, say, or do that go against God’s Law and His intrinsic character.

• We need to be saved from the punishment for our sin.

• We are already on the path of punishment, God does not have to intervene to send us

JESUS WAS BORN 2,000 YEARS AGO TO BE THE SAVIOR

• He is God the Son, eternal, perfect, and holy.

• He became human, lived a sinless life, and died in our place.

• He was buried for three days, then rose again, victorious over death.

JESUS CAME TO BE YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR

• You were created for a relationship with your God.

• You have to believe in Jesus, turn from your own way, and ask Him to be your Lord (the One in charge of your life).

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

We've been going through, as a church, during the month of December, a study of Luke 1 and 2 called A Savior is Born for You. And that also happens to be the name of the message this morning.

And we're going to be turning to a very familiar passage of Scripture.

If at any point in the last 50 years, you have looked at, you know, movies that might come on TV at various points during the month of December, you have likely heard this passage read by a young man, animated with a blanket, and got to watch Charlie

Brown Christmas with my kids not too long ago. And this same passage that was read and has been broadcast every year since then, this passage that for 2000 years has guided the Christian understanding of who Jesus is and what the basis of our faith

is, this has been kind of one of those guideposts. And so today, as we look at this passage, we're gonna see one central thought. You must personally turn to Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.

Christians today, don't tune out because this is the gospel, and tune in because this is the gospel.

For every single moment of our lives, we make a determination of who's going to be the one in charge, of who's going to determine our time, our schedule, our responses, our words, our thoughts.

And it's either going to be ourselves, other people might determine it for us, or we can determine to have Christ the Lord be the one that guides us.

So I want to challenge everyone here today, you must personally turn to Jesus as your Savior and as your Lord. We're gonna begin in a word of prayer, and then we'll look at Luke 2, one through 20, let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for today.

Lord, thank you for the songs that have been sung, the scripture that's been read. Lord, thank you that we don't serve fairy tales, we don't serve myths.

Lord, we worship a real God, who really came in human history, who loved us, who lived a perfect sinless life, who died for us, who rose again from the dead victorious.

And Lord now calls out to each and every person, no matter who we are or where we've been, and you want a relationship with us.

God, we ask that today, if there's someone here that does not know you as Savior, that today would be the day that they make that decision.

And Lord, for those that do know Christ, may we walk away from today with a fresh view of what you've done for us and of what your call is on our life. We love you, and we pray all of this in the only name that's worthy, Jesus Christ, amen.

Gonna have the words to the scriptures on the screen. There's also some Pew Bibles in front of you if you would like to follow along, or if you have a physical copy or an app.

We want to make sure that we put as much attention as we can towards the word of God as we go through. As just by brief way of background, the Gospel of Luke is written by a man that was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul.

He was also one that had spent time in the church at Jerusalem and at Antioch, and had gotten eyewitness accounts from those that had interacted with Jesus, that had been there for the accounts of his life.

And Luke wrote to a man named Theophilus, and he said, I want you to know that what you've heard about Jesus is true. So I went to the eyewitnesses, and I learned about what took place, and I've written it down for you.

So that's where we find ourselves now in Luke 2 and chapter 1. One unique thing about the Bible is it's placed in real time, in real human history. It's not once upon a time this happened or that happened.

Here, there's a worldwide known thing, this Caesar Augustus, one once called Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, and one that would usher in what was known as the Pax Romana, or the Roman Peace, in which there was great peace throughout the

Roman Empire during the time in which Christ lived. And scripture says this, In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. And this first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

This would place it at about 8 to 4 BC. With the initial call going out, everyone needs to be registered, and then taking a few years for that to take place. So everyone went to be registered, each to his own town.

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.

That's important because as we heard earlier from Isaiah chapter 7, this was the line where Emmanuel, God with us, God the Son, was going to come through the line of David.

It says Joseph went to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant.

As we discovered last week, this was because the Holy Spirit was the one that had given Jesus, that Jesus was not born just like any one of us or like my kids.

Jesus was conceived by a virgin and the Holy Spirit, just as he had done the initial miracle at the beginning of creation in bringing in Adam and Eve, those first humans where before there was none.

Now, he was bringing in God the Son into the world through Mary. Verse number six says, while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. No one wants to be far, far away from home when they are giving birth to their first born child.

Verse number seven, then she gave birth to her first born son and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.

Due to the registration, the census, all of the taxing that was taking place, Bethlehem was kind of overrun with people. And it wasn't that there were just rooms available and a particularly stingy innkeeper was barring the way.

There was just no room. And so they laid Jesus in a manger. It wouldn't have been something nice and clean and made of wood and perfectly made.

It was likely have been something carved out of stone, not particularly cleansed. You didn't have bleach or Clorox or anything back then. And so Jesus, on this not so silent night, was laid where angels would feed or not angels.

Animals would feed. Angels don't feed. Just we're clear on that.

In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.

This was not a noble job, by the way, though certainly the Old Testament sacrificial system would have some great honor for those that would be raising the animals that would be sacrificed at the temple. This was not a noble thing.

This was a job that would be stinky. It required incredibly long hours.

If you remember back in the story of David, all of David's seven brothers, when they went to go see the Prophet Samuel, they left behind their littlest brother in charge of the sheep. It was not a noble task.

Verse number nine, Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. I mentioned this before. This is how people react when interacting with supernatural beings.

It was not a cute little Cupid baby. It was not a beautiful girl with a long flowing, looking like a wedding dress type thing. I was not what angels look like.

You can look at Isaiah 6 and 7 and Revelation 4 and 5 to be able to see how scripture describes these supernatural beings, these ones that were in the presence of God himself in heaven, and now they come as heralds, the herald angels, to come and

declare that Christ had come, God himself had come to earth. But the angel said to them in verse 10, Don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

God's hope for your life is good, is great joy, and it is for everyone. There is no one that God says, well, I really like Jim, and I really dislike Laurie. God is a God of love, and he is the one that created us.

And so here, there is this great joy and this good news that is coming for everyone. Verse number 11, he proclaims, what the good news is, today in the city of David, a savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Who is the Messiah, the Lord? I want to take just a moment and talk through these three titles that are given to Jesus Christ here. First, a savior.

You need a savior if something is wrong in your life. You need a savior if you need rescue. Now, for many of us in this room, you might say, well, you know, my job is not killing it, but I'm doing all right.

I don't really think I need a savior for my finances. My family is doing okay, and maybe my marriage could be a little bit better, but I don't really know that I need a savior for that. And my life is fine other than when I'm driving down 695.

I'm safe most of the time. I don't know that I need a savior. And the truth is that we have a much greater need than what we would naturally assume.

You see, the Bible says that God created this world. He created it very good.

And he created mankind to be his companions, to be those that he would walk and talk with, those that would help form the earth into what God would want with gardening and naming the animals, all sorts of things.

But the Bible says that our first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, and everyone since then, we have a problem. And that problem is sin. It is rebellion.

It's things that we think and say and do that go against God's law and his intrinsic character. And the Bible says that when we rebel against God, that there is justice. There is punishment for sin, for wrongdoing.

In our world today, everyone wants there to be justice and equality and fairness. But if our holy God was just with us, we would be apart from him, condemned forever. You see, in God is love and life and forgiveness and joy and peace and a future.

And so to depart from the way of God is to leave life itself. It is to leave forgiveness. It is to leave any hope of a lack of condemnation.

And Jesus was our savior that came for us because there needed to be punishment for sin. And we could not get onto the path of God ourselves. The Bible says that everyone, all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

And it also says this, there is no one that understands, there is no one that seeks after God. We have all gone out of the way. So we were headed to condemnation.

When we live our lives without God, we are living it apart from his purpose and his plan and his goodness, the way in which he calls us to love and interact with one another, the way that he calls us to worship and adore him.

But not only that, not only do we live a life without God and that's a punishment in and of itself, but when we die, the Bible says that we can only go to one of two places.

There's heaven, where the Lord is, and there's hell, which is a place of eternal condemnation and punishment. But the Bible says God is not willing that anyone would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.

God has no desire for any person to ever go to hell. And the truth is this, that that's our natural state.

We don't have to get to the end of our life and hope that our scales balance out and that we've got enough good or we gave enough to orphans or to charity and hope that that counters the unkindness that we treated others with or that it atones for,

makes up for all of the bad that we've done. No, Jesus came to be our Savior. He died in our place. So that though we deserved justice, Jesus died in our place.

Scripture describes the gospel, the good news of Jesus as this, Christ died for our sins. But scripture tells us that Jesus didn't stay dead. You see, he came to this earth.

He became a human. Humanity were the ones that had sinned, that had rebelled, that had chosen not to follow God. And so a human would need to be the one that took that punishment for sin.

So Jesus became human. He lived a perfect, sinless life as God the Son. He was crucified on Golgotha, on Calvary.

He was laid in a borrowed tomb. And three days later, he rose again, emerging victorious from the grave. And now he has a call for you.

Will you accept his payment for sin? See, the Bible says the wages, the earnings, the punishment for our sin is death.

Both that physical death and that eternal death, that we're naturally on a road on, that God doesn't have to like intervene to say, well, you're good and you're bad didn't really outweigh.

So now you were on your way to heaven, and now I'm sending you to hell. We were naturally going to hell. But Jesus offers, instead of the wages of death, he offers the gift of eternal life.

Ephesians chapter 2 says, by grace, by God's loving favor towards you, you have been saved. And that not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not from works, so that no one is able to boast.

No one will ever get to heaven and be like, oh man, I attended church 730 times. And so that's why I'm here today. No one's ever going to say, well, I gave $1 million to a church.

And so that's why I'm here. No, for every person, our only plea, the only way to heaven is through the work of Jesus Christ, that we say, God, I accept what you did on my behalf.

And that leads us right into that next title, that Jesus is our savior, the one that came to save us because we were apart from God, alienated and on our way to destruction and condemnation, so he was the savior.

Then he is the messiah, that is the anointed one of Israel. He is the one who is to be king forever and ever. Many times during this Christmas season, we'll sing Handel's Messiah and the Hallelujah Chorus, and he shall reign forever and ever.

He is the one who is going to be the king for all of eternity. Is he your king today? Is he the one that you are looking to for direction in your life?

Is he the one that you are consulting about your decisions, about your relationships, about your finances, about your job? Are you saying, God, is this what you want me to do? Jesus is our savior, he's the Messiah, and he is the Lord.

This was kind of the unique moniker given to God in the Old Testament. He is the Lord, Jehovah, or Yahweh. He is the one that is God above all gods.

Above him, there is no one else. And Jesus was the fullness of God in human flesh. Romans chapter 10 tells us that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and we believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

And the Bible tells us that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I did that when I was about nine years old. December 1st, my mom's birthday, actually.

And I had spent the day with my cousins. They'd been talking about a new movie that had come out that talked about some things from the Bible.

And I realized in that moment that though I had grown up religious, I knew lots of verses, I knew all the songs, I could dress the part that I had never asked Jesus to be my savior. I was in a Christian home, but I was not a Christian yet.

And so that night, I prayed and I asked the Lord something like, God, I know that I'm a sinner. I believe that you came and you died for me, and you were buried and you rose again. Please come into my life and save me and help me to live for you.

And since that moment, I have known what scripture calls being born again. That obviously I can see all you guys, you guys were born once, you were born physically. But God's call for you is to be born again.

That is that you would enter into a new spiritual life, a spiritual walk with God, where the Bible says when we accept Jesus' payment for our sins, that we are forever forgiven. We are eternally set apart.

We are placed into God the Father's hand, that we are never again under any condemnation because all of that was poured out on Christ. The Bible says that we are adopted into God's family, that we are his son or his daughter.

The Bible also says that he gives us, if you will, spiritual siblings, those that we worship alongside.

The Bible says that we are given God's own presence, is his Holy Spirit to indwell and to be with us, to guide us into what God wants for our life.

We are given God's word and we are given a home forever in heaven and a relationship with God here and now that can never be taken away.

So grateful for that because we needed the Savior, we needed this Messiah, we needed the Lord because God created you for relationship. With Him first and foremost and then with other people.

And He loves you far too much to allow you to simply live your life without knowing His love and His plan for you. So what do you do? Do you get dunked?

Do you give a bunch of money and an offering? Do you have to show up to enough Sundays? No.

The Bible says we believe in our heart and we confess with our mouth. We say, God, I'm imperfect. I'm not going to be able to do all of this right.

But I believe that what Jesus did for me is enough. And I believe what the Bible says. And I believe that if I call on you, you will save me.

I want to finish now the message with these last few verses. The angels declaring who Jesus was said, this will be the sign for you. You want to find this baby.

He didn't have a glowing halo around the back of his head. There wasn't, you know, a large group of Eastern astrologers that were there at that point. He says, here's how you'll find the kid.

You'll find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger. This would help to keep him warm. And this gave the location of where he was.

He wasn't in a house, he was in a barn. Suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts, the armies of heaven with the angel praising God and saying glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people he favors.

If you exist on planet earth, God has graced you, has favored you with the knowledge of Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done for you and what he calls for your life.

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.

When these guys realized what God had told them, it sparked immediate action. For you today, don't put off your relationship with God. Don't put off making that decision for Christ.

Make today be that day. They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger.

And after seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. If you're a Christian today, when was the last time that you told someone else about Jesus?

When was the last time that you told someone else about what God had done for you, a prayer request that He had answered on your behalf? These shepherds, once they knew about it, they went and they were telling everybody, who are you talking to?

Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.

Today, the call for you is what will you do with Jesus? I want you to think about your life. Do you believe that you are living your life in a way that is eternally consequential, that is making a difference in your world?

God has a plan for you, and he has a plan not just that you would exist. Jesus would phrase it, I came so that they would have life, and that they would have it more abundantly.

God has wonderful plans for you, but it starts with knowing that Jesus is your Savior and your Lord.