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See Christmas Like God does • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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See Christmas like God does: Joy
Luke 8:8-14
November 24, 2024
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I am willing to bet that there are two types of people in this room. The difference between the two is captured perfectly in a story I want to read for you.
It was quarter past dawn... All the Whos, still a-bed,
All the Whos, still asnooze When he packed up his sled,
Packed it up with their presents! The ribbons! The wrappings!
The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!
Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Crumpit,
He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it!
"PoohPooh to the Whos!" he was grinchishly humming.
"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!"
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
Then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry BooHoo!"
"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!"
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
For years I was proud of my stance against the commercialism of today’s mockery of Christmas. Up until just recently, I thought it was a worthy crusade to make sure everyone around me understood that Christmas is not a time of Joy but rather greed. For some reason, it was as if I was commissioned to make sure that joy was replaced with my ambition to straighten everyone out on the faults of Christmas.
So, originally this sermon series was born to prove a point. But as soon as I started praying over it, God quickly showed me that I need to view Christmas as He views it, not how I want to view it. So, over the next several weeks, we will look at Christmas, as best we can, through the lenses of the One who gave it to us, God our Loving Father.
Today we will focus on the joy of Christmas as God has joy for the single most important event in human history. Through the writings of Dr. Luke our author today, we will see the most complete and detailed representation of the birth of Christ. Luke is one of the synoptic writers meaning his intent was to give an synopsis of Christ’s earthly ministry.
Luke presents Jesus as “Son of Man” and “Son of David” and offers a polished and educated narrative and beautifully incorporates OT Psalms (in our passage today) specifically His humanity. Matthew and Mark do a great job seeing Jesus as the Messiah, King and servant. Luke’s intent behind our passage today serves as a clear message from God as to the source of our Joy.
1. God shares the Joy: Through Christ.
Vs 2:88 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. [1]
If you were to invite someone to a birthday party, these are not the ones you would rush to invite. The first shepherd was Adam’s son Able. As time went on and growing crops became the primary source of food, shepherding was viewed as a subclass of people. The youngest sons (less important) were hirelings, and slaves became shepherds. Farmers hated shepherds and most of the culture viewed them as little more than common slaves.
These are the ones who God tells the greatest story known to mankind and not by accident. He chooses the lowly shepherd. It fits with Christ's earthly ministry. Although a king, He was to come lowly and humble. It fits that the first-party guests are lowly and humble as well. As the OT prophet Isaiah proclaimed +2000 years before that He would come to the poor.
From the start, Christ’s mission of coming to those who the world has discarded was being demonstrated. The shepherds were the first party guests to welcome the coming Joy of the world. The lowest, most filthy were at the bedside of the ruler of the universe. What joy this must have been for them! Imagine that invite! Us? Really Lord? Me?
The messengers are equally important. God always has His messengers. Be it prophets or angels. Amos 3:7 “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. [2]
He uses prophets for some messages, but for this one, a direct message from angelic beings is what He used. The angels are never to be worshiped as they are only messengers. They are not human and in almost every exchange starts with:
“Fear not”- in response to the “great fear” of the shepherds. Imagine please, there are no street lights. In the dark or dead and quiet of the night with only the noise of the lambs a burst of light blinds them. No light though can compare to the amount of visual intrusion. Imagine please, your eyes are not yet accustomed to brilliance due to the darkness of night. Then, all of a sudden, the light bursts into your darkness.
The NASB says “And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near them,”
Ever wonder how “near” near is? And to happen suddenly, in the night, and oh by the way, these beings are not people! Step into their sandals for a minute! Ever been camping, and just before you drift off, you hear a noise? Think how unsettling that was now, put a NON human, brilliant being there with a light that your eyes cannot process. Are you terrified? YES!
The Bible says that they were filled with “great fear”. Do you think Luke? Great fear or as the Greek puts it, great terror.
I don’t’ think we understand this light. The light or as the text says “…and the Glory of the Lord shone around them…” May I direct you to another passage that will provide a bit of context.
Exodus 34: 29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.[3]
The Shekinah was the blazing, blinding glory of God Himself. When that glory was visible on this planet, people hid their eyes from it, they were overwhelmed by it, they were driven to their knees in front of it, because there was nothing in nature that could compare to the Shekinah glory of God. RC Sproul.
Now, imagine being around that source of light. The Glory of the LORD’s light is not like anything you can imagine. The sun does not leave you glowing after the noon day’s heat. So, our concept of light does not even come close. Would that startle you?
Now that I have spent some time describing the setting, we need to understand what news necessitates this level of splash? Why all this fanfare and extravagant entry?
2. God shows the Joy of Christmas.
Okay, we just saw that God shares the joy but now we are going to see God show the joy of Christmas. How did God feel about this event, and how does it apply to you and me? Showing, to me, is more powerful than telling me.
One of the reasons for me to do this series was because I recently found a feature on my iPhone. When I scrolled to the left on my home screen, I found the memory tab where the iPhone created a story with music through my pictures of a scene that happened five years ago. It was Christmas and my boys were young. The still photos were all canned and staged with smiles. None of them caught the real mood.
But, one clip activated a video portion of the memory and the tone was caught. You could hear my stress telling the boys to not fight, not do this, not do that and so forth. There was absolutely no joy in my tone. I caught myself remembering all the times that it was intended to be joyful and my hard comments robbed my family of joy all because of my attitude.
But, in our passage today, the Father’s attitude toward this event is not hard, jaded or calloused. Rather, His joy was on full display. He was showing a plan that was in the works from eternity past and now was the time!
Vs 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.”
How do I know that God has joy? This is the plan for peace coming to the physical world. God’s Joy is because it’s Christ! We like to interject ourselves into this story and say that God has joy because it’s because of us that He sent His Son to the manger. While that is correct, it is not the entirety of the picture. The joy of God is that He is executing in accordance with the Glory to God statement. Why is God joyous?
“Glory to God…” This plan of Christmas is His Joy because it is His plan being fulfilled. Now, we are the beneficiaries of this plan, if we are at peace with Him. To be very clear, the joy of the Father is found solely in the one being born to a virgin and laid in a manger.
Our place in this story is found in the SOURCE of that joy, Christ. God wants those whom He is pleased to be completely joyful in the source of their Joy, Christ. That is His intent. As a result of God’s Joy in His Son and because of this Joy we too can experience His joy. But, before we are quick to lose focus on who is being discussed we need to understand verses 10 and 14.
Vs 10 “…I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…”
Vs 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.”
Now, is there a conflict? Verse 10 seems inclusive and universal whereas verse 14 seems exclusive. This is why reading the entire text is so important. We must understand who the “all” is and “with whom He is please” is. In verse 10 look closely at:
“all THE people”. Why is the word “the” there? It is important to understand that the word all is very important. It means all but not universal. Verse 10 must be read in the shadow of verse 14 where Luke is quoting several passages of note in Psalm 148 and others. Luke includes these passages and it is important to understand why.
Some manuscripts do not say “those whom He is pleased.” For example, NKJV says “good will toward men.” The way to understand this is that “all the people” and “whom He is pleased” are the ones who recognize the Joy of the Lord in that manger. It is not a universal joy to all people. There will be those who do not recognize the Joy of the Lord. The ones who do, the Lord is well pleased.
As I have taught and will always teach, there are those who reject the calling of Christ. There are those who do not see the joy in the salvation of the Lord. Then there are those who the Lord, in His mercy, softens the heart, calls the spirit and they come to the foot of the manger recognizing the Joy of the Lord as who He is, Christ Jesus.
Now, look back at our verse 14 where Luke records, “…peace among those whom He is pleased.”
Do you know what the greatest joy known to all mankind is? It is knowing that you have peace with the Father who has the power to bless you with His Joy or send you to eternal torment. That is the greatest Joy to man, knowing that you have peace with a loving Father who is offering you this Joy.
Isaiah 9:6 “6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. [4]”
Pat gave us an unbelievable message on Peace. In his message, he spoke of subjective and objective peace. The peace that Isaiah is speaking about is what we must remember.
3. Remember the peace you have with God.
Here is our application for today. I thought I was righteous about my attitude towards a commercially hijacked, culturally poisoned, and scheme to rob me of my life savings holiday. I thought that I was right when I viewed the world around people going nuts the day after Thanksgiving as they fought over tvs, Xboxes and made ridiculous lists of what they wanted.
I wondered all the time why this holiday was so off base. There was no joy for me as Christmas approached. I would argue that a lot of us struggle with this. We think and remember the proverbs that says:
“24 Be not envious of evil men,
nor desire to be with them,
2 for their hearts devise violence,
and their lips talk of trouble. [5]
In my righteous attitude, my joy gave way to isolationism. I pulled my heart from everyone who represented an attitude of joy over this holiday. Listen to me, please. Allow me to caution those who fit into my category. To isolate and become jaded about what God finds great joy in will rob you of the joy that He has designed for His Son’s birth.
Allow me to explain. Can we separate ourselves from the world’s view of Christmas with its trappings and commercialism and idolatry? YES! But, we cannot and should never isolate ourselves from the Joy that God the Father blessed us with. How dare we transfer our disdain for the world onto the joy and purity of what God has gifted us with? We should find great joy in that we have peace with our Father through Christ’s birth.
Unbeliever aside:
I have been talking about peace for a while. This is the objective of peace. You can have peace with the Father through the Son. Without the Son, there is no peace. Where there is no peace, joy is only temporary and fleeting. Allow me please to prove my point. Is Christmas empty to you nonbeliever? As soon as December 26throlls around and you say, now what? Are you still at odds with something you can’t put your finger with?
Hear me, unbeliever! This is a black-and-white position. You have peace or you do not. Those outside the Son of God have no lasting peace. James 4:4-6 says:
“4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”[6]
You have a spirit in you. It was gifted you by the Father. Now, whoever does not have peace with the Father is fighting Him. That is what that word “enmity” is. To not believe on the source of peace, Christ Jesus, you are friends with the world and that makes you an enemy.
But, He yearns over your spirit. He wants to reconcile you. He wants you to have peace and with that, the Joy of your salvation. He, through Christ, has provided a means to understand the joy of Christmas.
Luke is writing to believers, and now I want to speak to my brothers and sisters. Luke is showing you and me to remember this event for how God views it. Remember that we are not at war with our Father anymore!
Believer, do you know what the Joy of our peace looks like? Please turn in your Bibles to Galatians 5:22:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Believer, if your memory real popped up on your phone where it took a snapshot of your last 4 Christmases, would there be love, joy, and peace? Or would there be cutting comments, resentment, and frustration towards others? Would there be isolation and anger? Or would there be joy, peace, and love enough to overshadow the worst Grinch in the room?
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
"It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!"
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
And what happened then? Well...in Whoville they say,
That the Grinch's small heart Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light,
And he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!
And he, HE HIMSELF! The Grinch carved the roast beast!
