Sermon in Minneapolis 25.12.2011

May the peace from the Christmas Prince of Peace, the love of our Heavenly Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each and every one of us now and always. Let us join in opening these services with prayer and thanksgiving.

Our dear Heavenly Father, we humbly draw an eye on you in prayer, asking for your presence and blessing for these services this Christmas Day. Father, you know how your children in this world suffer and are tempted, tried in many ways. Father, you sent your Son into this world so that we could, by Him, own peace with you. The forgiveness of all of our sins by believing upon Him as our Savior.

Father, we ask that you would allow this light to so shine in this world that all would be able to comprehend that gospel message. Seek for their own hearts and souls that righteousness which He prepared for us through His suffering and death on the Middle Cross of Golgotha. Father, because we have so many dear friends, relatives, and neighbors who are not partakers yet of faith, grace, forgiveness, and peace, we ask that you would not close the doors of your kingdom, but keep them open until all have been able to come to comprehend and believe through the gospel message preached from your kingdom.

We pray on behalf of all those who are not able to gather with friends, family, and other believers during this time. Those who are so far away from the services of the children of God. Refreshing and strengthen each and every one of them. And give them power to believe, to have peace in their heart, and strength to take another step on this narrow way of life.

Father, we especially pray on behalf of those who are serving our nation, far away in foreign lands and country, or even stationed on this continent. Be with each and every one of them. And allow them also to feel that peace of heart which comes from celebrating the true Christmas. Having Jesus in our hearts.

But our prayers and our petitions, Father, are weak, often imperfect and failing. And so we enclose all, said and unsaid, in that prayer as your Son has so taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

I shall read for our mutual study this morning from the familiar Christmas Gospel in the second chapter of Luke. We hear these words read in Jesus' name as follows.

And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, onto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in the manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings and great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger.

And suddenly there was with an angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in the manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning his child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them. Amen.

Amen.

The message of the gospel, the Christmas gospel, is at the same time a message that is over 2,000 years old and is also a message that is fresh and renewed daily. And especially, of course, as we celebrate Christmas. Because it is a message of faith. There's a message that speaks of how God sent his son into this world to suffer and die so that we can have peace and be righteous before him.

And without that personal faith of the heart where Jesus has come into the manger of our heart to live and dwell, no one can have true Christmas peace. God does not allow other ways, other approaches. But it speaks to us also of the power of God and the will of God.

I sometimes thought when I pondered the roles of Mary and Joseph, they were no different than you and I, of course. They ended up having a very special place in God's plan and salvation history for all of mankind. But still, they carried the same sin corrupt flesh you and I carry. They had the same carnal rationale. They have the same battle against the threefold enemy that we have.

And so, sometimes wonder that as you sisters have experienced in the daily battle where the trials are often the fieriest, when the mind is so close, the doubts surround. I'm sure Mary had similar doubts. The enemy, of course, was tempting.

So, what did she return to again and again? It was, of course, that visit of the angel and the message that he brought, but also the message that she rejoiced over with Elizabeth when she went to meet her. Elizabeth, who would give birth to John the Baptist.

And when Mary saluted her, greeted her, when she came to the house, Elizabeth says, the babe leaped for joy in my womb. So, the two sisters shared that revelation of God and of the Holy Spirit that he gave unto them and rejoiced together.

And we can believe that that gave Mary strength against those battles of the flesh and mind that she had to fight.

But the scriptures also relate to us of Joseph, how he was tried in the same questions. That here his engaged betrothed wife to be has become pregnant. And as Matthew records, he thought to reject her privately so you wouldn't make a public example of her.

It actually speaks volumes to us all of the heart and desire of a child of God to care for matters. And as Jesus instructs in the church law of Christ where between thee and him alone, that we don't need to make such things public. These do not need to be public.

But Joseph also received that vision and that instruction. And he also was obedient and took on to him Mary, his espoused wife.

But still, there they are up in Galilee, in Nazareth, trying to get their life together started. And Joseph as a carpenter doesn't have a lot of resources, wasn't making a lot of money. They were very poor.

And because they knew the scriptures, they also knew that this Savior, this Messiah, is not supposed to be born in Nazareth, but he's supposed to be born down in Bethlehem. But they weren't going to go there. They didn't have to. Why would they? They wouldn't have the resources to travel there to make that journey.

But God saw to it that they would go to Bethlehem.

Isn't it amazing to think that Caesar Augustus came up with this idea to essentially take a census of all the people of his realm and also see how much their value was to see what they would be worth so he could tax them.

And as Luke here writes that all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. In other words, into the city of their tribe where their lineage was. People of the house and lineage of David, they went to Bethlehem.

It was a long journey on foot, of course, to go down to Bethlehem. And it wasn't that kind of journey that would have taken them even weeks, but certainly days to get there.

And they weren't, of course, the only ones going there. There were hundreds and probably thousands of others who also went to Bethlehem.

And like we sometimes complain about our government and its bureaucratic systems, we can imagine under such a thronging of people that whoever was the person who was assigned to that area to take this accounting and taxing of the people was stressed and had to one by one take each family, each person to count and to evaluate what their worth was.

So it wasn't easy and it wasn't quick. But all of this was according to the plan of God so that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem as the prophets had prophesied.

That out of thee, Bethlehem, are not the least of the princes of Judah. From thee shall come he who will be the ruler of my people.

The other aspect of that taxing or census taking that Caesar caused to happen is the prophecy of Israel as a nation and the power to be a nation would end. The scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, until the Messiah comes.

And taxation and that power which the government of Rome took, obviously they had already conquered that area, ruled the people of Israel for many years. They had their king set up who was their ruler in place, if you will, for the Roman emperor.

But that power to tax, which the government, the Caesar in Rome declared, essentially moves all of that authority out from Jerusalem.

And even though the Jews rebelled often, throughout the time of the Roman ruling, Romans ruling the area of Israel, and other areas, but especially the area of Palestine, there were groups arise from time to time who would rebel, gather for themselves an army, people, other Israelis who were so patriotic, they could not stand to be subject to the ruler, the governorship of Roman Caesar, and they would rebel, and the armies would come and destroy them.

And finally, this final measure happens where Israel is part of the census and the taxing of all.

And of course, it still didn't destroy the patriotism of the Jews. Even Jesus was tempted with the question, is it lawful to give money unto Caesar or no?

And he, of course, knowing the thoughts and knowing what they were trying to accomplish to get him tied up in his words, he pointed out their hypocrisy and he said, show me the coin, whose inscription it is.

And they had to admit, of course, it was Caesar's coin, his coinage. He said, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.

All of this just points out, reminds us again, that this world, the world even we live today, is still just in the same way as it was then, is today spinning because God has so willed.

He has yet those in this world, his elect, whom he will call sanctify, justify, bring into his kingdom.

God still works, he is still the creator, the almighty God, keeps this world spinning as he always has until that time shall come that the last one is called in and this world is no longer needed and the kingdom is no longer needed and the doors are closed and God soon calls us then home.

Fortunately, none of us know, nor do we have to know, what is God's will, what is his time, what is his order, but we rejoice that we live such a time that we can freely gather and freely worship and freely rejoice around the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Mary and Joseph were of course, like I said, they were not the only ones there in Bethlehem and because there was no room in the inn and because they had no money they had to find some place some roof to be under someplace for Mary in order where she could give birth to that child while they were waiting for their own turn to be counted and to be valued to be taxed.

And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

No place in this world for the son of God to be born. No room in the inn.

It is a wonderful spiritual picture what happens to the heart of man when sin and temptations and the enemy fill it with all manner of defilement and lust of the flesh.

And God is not able to cleanse that heart to make it a place, a manger for the Christ child.

There is no room then for Christ to come in.

Christ himself said that the gate is so tight or straight and the way so narrow that few there are that find it.

It is so difficult to get through that gate of repentance into the kingdom of God because one has to give up of all that is of their own. Everything.

One of the brothers wrote a sermon that he commented on. It was an elder man who received the grace of repentance.

But he said one of the most difficult things that he sorrowed over and had the greatest difficulty in believing he said is it really true that all those good works that I did were also sin.

Well they were certainly as a good work and the work in itself is not a sin but the sin is in attempting to justify himself before God with that work.

And so this brother in speaking of it commented that this battle of the mind is a battle on all fronts.

It is not just a battle against sin but it is a battle also against self-righteousness.

It is a battle that can only be won by the power of the Spirit of God.

For it is a battle that all must partake of and cannot avoid.

So Mary and Joseph have to be in this essentially a barn to lay their child into a manger. In other words the feeding trough for the animals that were in that barn.

And all she has is swaddling clothes.

I looked that up this morning just for my own curiosity where that word came from.

And the original Greek language essentially says that they were swaths of cloth.

In other words she didn't have clothes to put on the baby.

She didn't have, as we put on our little children, soft sleepers.

She wrapped him with swaths of cloth.

And maybe it was the complete custom, the typical custom for that time. We don't know.

At least I don't know. I've never studied that side of that history of what was the typical approach.

But we do know that, Luther writes of it, that a child, because they been in the womb up until their birth, they ended up towards the end of their growing in the mother's womb.

It is a very confined place for the child.

And so it is a very tight place to be.

The child is very compressed in that womb.

And we still do today for little ones just born. Wrap them up tightly because it helps them feel more secure, more like the way they felt in the womb.

And of course that is part of what Mary was doing with the cloth, with the swaddling clothes, was wrapping Jesus so he would feel secure as a newborn babe.

Luther says that it also represents spiritually that Jesus from his conception on through his birth was wrapped so tightly in the prophecies and the law of God which he came to fulfill that nothing would be left unfulfilled.

That he would be able to say there on the cross all is fulfilled.

So he was from his conception and birth on throughout his life fulfilling all that was required so that we can have peace with God. True Christmas peace.

So God gives on to us through his gospel and the forgiveness of sins.

And of course I've always marveled that the angels didn't appear onto Mary and Joseph.

They were left there in that stable in Bethlehem to wander and doubt perhaps even.

I think of myself at least if I was Joseph I would have doubted.

Is this truly how the Son of God is to be born into this world? Such a lowly place here amongst the animals laid upon a bed of straw.

But the angels appeared to the shepherds.

Shepherds of course were believing otherwise the angels would not appear onto them.

And we can think that around the hills of Bethlehem there are probably many many flocks of shepherds with their sheep.

And perhaps those if there were some there such who were not believing may not even have seen the angels because there was above all a spiritual vision given to those who believe.

Even as it is yet today it is a spiritual vision, a spiritual understanding.

It is not a carnal vision, a carnal understanding, but it is spiritual.

It is a revelation of God.

So the angels came to the shepherds that they as believers could go to see Mary and Joseph and bring on to them a message that heaven was well aware.

Heaven was watching.

Heaven knew what was happening in their lives and sent us, the shepherds, to tell you that this is the Son of God.

And the angels were rejoicing and singing praises.

And so Mary and Joseph also were then again able to rejoice through the other believing brothers and sisters who came to share with them of the joy of the salvation, of the birth of the Savior, that they could also rejoice as the shepherds rejoiced, as so God had ordained and planned, that the shepherds would be able to come to see that Savior.

If he had been born Indian, if they had had room, and Joseph and Mary had money, so they could afford a place, the shepherds wouldn't have been able to come.

They were too lowly, too stinky, they wouldn't have been allowed in.

But when Jesus was born in the manger, the shepherds could come and share the message.

And so it is yet today.

The kingdom of God is often overlooked and despised and ridiculed, but it is set here in such a lowly place that all who seek, all who desire to hear, who desire to believe, the message of salvation are able to come and hear for their own sin-sick soul and hearts the salvation, the message of God, that he came into this world, suffered and died, so that you also can have peace, Christmas peace with God.

Isn't it a wonderful thing that this message is not enthroned or placed in such high places that it requires extreme study and diligence and research in order to attain and reach and believe it, but it is still the same as it was then, the small, the lowly, the humble.

Even little children believe and are able to preach the message of forgiveness and peace.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.

And they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings, a great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you was born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, that shepherds said one to another, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in the manger.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

The shepherds were not silent.

They not only went to see Mary and Joseph, but they continued proclaiming to all around how God had revealed unto them, given unto them this message that they so willingly shared, that God did send his son into this world.

He is now here in our midst, and we have seen him.

The angels told us that he is here, and we went to see him.

Luke doesn't record, none of the gospels speak of any others having the same great need and desire as the shepherds have to go to see.

Only the wise men from the east came later to find that child.

And even they weren't followed.

Nobody followed them from Jerusalem as they left, even though the whole city was in a great turmoil.

The world, its enticements, its temptations, is so encircling and binding.

It is as if it makes people, it makes those around us in the world, to be so bound up in their own righteousness, in their own path to heaven, that they will not humble themselves to admit, to hear, to come to seek for the peace of their own undying souls.

So, Jesus was there in the manger with his parents, Mary and Joseph.

And the shepherds came, but apparently others didn't bother to go see, in spite of what the shepherds said.

Perhaps from Mary and Joseph's point of view, it was better that they were able to be left in peace and in obscurity for a while, because as we know, later on, the king Herod, when the wise men did not return, sought to kill the child.

God had to send that little family out into Egypt to avoid the wrath of the king.

But the kingdom of God yet today works in exactly the same way.

Preaches the message of the manger child, the Lord Jesus.

He is here in our midst.

Come see him.

Come hear for yourself.

Come rejoice together with us.

Come enjoy this same gift of peace which all those who believe have been able to receive and rejoice over and be as the apostle Paul writes to the Romans.

Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ.

This is the message of Christmas, the message of salvation, the message that God wishes to sound forth into this world, that there is a way to obtain peace, true Christmas peace.

Peace.

That means peace with God.

The angel's message of glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men.

God's will and desire is that all would be saved.

He is not pleased over the death of the unrighteous, as Scripture says, but he sent his son into the world as his son promised to come, that the father would curate and the son would come and redeem.

And as the psalm writer says in his words, that it is my joy to be with the sons of men.

Christ rejoiced that he was able to be here in this world in our midst, that he could bring us once home to heaven.

This message of Christmas peace is what the shepherds rejoiced over, and it is the message that Mary and Joseph also rejoiced over.

They were, like you and I, sin-corrupt people.

They would eventually have other children also.

Paul writes of his visits with the apostles in Jerusalem, that of the other apostles, he met with Peter, but then he said of the other apostles, I saw none save James, the brother of the Lord.

So he straightforwardly brings forth this issue that there were other siblings.

Things, but they had the same temptations and corruption and difficulties that we have.

They had trouble believing that this, their brother, is truly the son of God.

And the evangelist notes that his brethren did not believe upon him.

James later received the grace of repentance.

He was one of the apostles.

So, the battle is a fiery one.

It is a battle that is impossible to win on one's own.

It is a battle that is fought against the threefold enemy.

Enemy.

And there's a battle that cannot be won without faith and without access to the gospel.

Faith it is that opens the gospel message which cleanses the heart.

An unconditional gospel message cleanses the heart that all sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and blood.

One brother rose of a sister, an elderly sister, in one of the battles of the heresy from years gone by.

When she was struggling with those in her congregation who attempted to set up this requirement of self-righteousness or more righteousness or more works in order to attain salvation and have peace with God.

And she told him that the deal has already been made.

All of my sins were forgiven and I'm not going to undo or break that covenant.

I'm not going to give up on believing that all of my sins are forgiven.

This, dear brothers and sisters, is that message that Christmas brings to us.

That all sins are forgiven.

In Jesus' name and blood.

Unto peace, freedom, and joy.

And with that message we have peace with God, which gives us true Christmas peace.

We are righteous before him, holy, and acceptable because of the merit works of his son.

Never, dear brothers and sisters, give up but cling to that message.

For therein, God gives you power and strength to take one more step.

And that's all that's required, is the step for this day's journey.

It is sufficient.

We don't need to believe for tomorrow.

We do not need to believe for next week.

But today, when you hear and believe, you are having an acceptable, holy and righteous before God.

And you have Christmas peace.

I also ask for my own soul and heart.

I came to serve tempted and tried.

Can I believe my many sins and doubts forgiven?

So I desire to believe together with you.

And I would like to say, closing that, to wish you all, Seneca, on my behalf, a very blessed Christmas and a wonderful new year.

May the Christmas Prince of Peace dwell in all of your hearts.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

The Lord bless us and keep us.

The Lord make His face shine upon us and be gracious unto us.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us His eternal peace.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.