Christmas 2015; Angels announce Savior, Christ, and Lord; Luk 2:11.

Title: Christmas 2015; Angels announce Savior, Christ, and Lord; LUK 2:11.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

We have recently done a brief study on God’s name sake. What is done for the sake of that name is great and in that name there are many names, proper nouns that identify the character and nature of God, that which is Him. When the birth of the Lord was announced to the shepherds, the angels used three such names: Savior, Christ, and Lord.

 

LUK 2:8 And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night.

 

LUK 2:9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.

 

LUK 2:10 And the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people;

 

LUK 2:11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

 

"Savior" - swth,r [soter] = savior, deliverer, preserver.

 

He is the preserver since He gives to all life and breath and all things. Being preserved alive so that we may seek Him.

 

ACT 17:24 "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;

 

ACT 17:25 neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things;

 

ACT 17:26 and He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation,

 

ACT 17:27 that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

 

ACT 17:28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His offspring.'

 

This is the first half of the fifth line, word for word, of an astronomical poem of Aratus, a Greek who three centuries prior lived in Cilicia, the same place that the apostle Paul grew up. Undoubtedly Paul knew of his work as a young man, and in coming to know Christ as the Preserver, Paul came to see fragments of truth from God in the very things he once thought to be thoroughly false. This phrase is found also (nearly as here) in a religious hymn of Cleanthes of Troas, a contemporary of Aratus.

 

God even preserved the pagan Greeks so that the fragment of truth that they took from Him would be preserved and might then lead some to the One from whom that truth came.

 

ACT 17:29 "Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

 

ACT 17:30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent,

 

ACT 17:31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

 

He is our deliverer and so we have hope:

 

1TI 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope;

 

To be hopeless is to have nothing and no future. It is of the most desperate of places to be hopeless. Hopeless people lose all want or desire of good. They say, “Why bother, all is lost, all is gone, there is no hope.” Many have such lives though they disdain to admit it. Yet because our Lord is the one true Soter, every believer has a living hope and an intriguing, sure, and eternal future; all due to Him, the babe come into the world as the Savior.

 

Our Savior Christ Jesus has revealed the true spirit of power, the only good news, our salvation and calling, and life and immortality.

 

2TI 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

 

In Him is truly the Christmas spirit - that of power, and love, and discipline or obedience. All three harmonize like a symphony in the heart of a man to give him an undying spirit in life. He appeared so that we may have this gift.

 

2TI 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,

 

2TI 1:9 who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works [a gift], but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,

 

2TI 1:10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

 

“What’s under your tree? Immortality!”

 

2TI 1:11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.

 

Paul jumps right from the gifts that the Savior has brought to his own calling which is due to those gifts. It wasn’t a calling of burden but of necessity since the gifts given propel us and inspire us to His very life.

 

God has even gifted us with the call to spread the message of the true spirit of power, the only good news, our salvation and calling, and life and immortality to our little corners of the world. It cannot be kept to itself inside of us any more than the obscure birth of a child in a cave in an obscure town like Bethlehem could be kept silent. Angels announced it to shepherds and in time they announced it to the world.

 

John communicates the same spirit. The Savior, the revealer of all true life, the Savior, the Deliverer, the Preserver propels us toward Him and His life.

 

1JO 4:14 And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

 

1JO 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

 

It is confessed openly to the world around us. Imagine the awe and excitement of the angels who were witness to God becoming a man in order to be their Savior, something that was never done for them, but to this far lower creation than they, He become one of them and the best of them. This One, the best of them, would serve all of them as their Savior, Deliverer, and Preserver.

 

LUK 2:11

for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

 

"Christ" - cristo,j [christos] = anointed, translates the word Messiah in the LXX (Septuagint; the Greek translation of the OT done in the third century B.C.

 

‎This term in the OT is applied to the priests who were anointed with the holy oil, particularly the high priest. The prophets are called anointed of God. The king of Israel was described as the anointed of the Lord, and even Cyrus the great, king of Persia and unbeliever, is called God’s anointed.

 

So then Christos comes to mean chosen for a purpose or a task by God. It is used of someone who has been selected for a special purpose.

 

It is infrequently used for Jesus in the OT.

 

PSA 2:2

The kings of the earth take their stand,

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His

Anointed:

 

DAN 9:25 "So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah [Christou in the LXX] the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

 

DAN 9:26 "Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

 

In the NT it is only used of Jesus, and starting right in MAT 1:1 it is used 521 times for Him.

 

He was chosen for a great purpose, the greatest purpose. He was chosen as a prophet, priest, and a king. He was chosen to bring salvation and redemption to a world full of sinners. He was chosen to reveal the Father to mankind. He was chosen to reveal the love of God as well as the righteousness and justice of God. His birth is the day in history when that choice was made a reality from which all of us should rejoice.

 

Immediately after His birth He is sought for under this title.

 

MAT 2:4

And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born.

 

Known to come to the world a Samaritan woman reveals this:

 

JOH 4:25-26

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."

 

A drastically changed Peter, witness of the resurrection of the Christ, beneficiary of His life and prayers, and blessed with the authority to lead the Lord’s brethren, speaks boldly and passionately of the Christ and makes clear that the One spoken of in the OT is certainly Jesus, the One born into the world.

 

ACT 2:29 "Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

 

ACT 2:30 "And so, because he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants upon his throne,

 

ACT 2:31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay.

 

ACT 2:32 "This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.

 

ACT 2:33 "Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.

 

ACT 2:34 "For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:

'The Lord said to my Lord,

"Sit at My right hand,

 

ACT 2:35 Until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet."' 

 

ACT 2:36 "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified."

 

Imagine the changed Peter from the first he heard of Him:

 

JOH 1:41

He [Andrew] found first his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ).

 

MAT 16:15-16

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

 

Imagine how you have changed since you first heard of Him.

 

Peter could speak so confidently about the Christ in the OT because the resurrected Christ loving showed the apostles these OT verses and explained how they spoke of Him [LUK 24:44-45], the One to be born into this world as Savior and Christ and Lord, who was to die at the hands of the very evil He came to save, but to rise again in glory bringing light and life to all who would believe in Him.

 

What a season Christmas is? Never let it become the commercialized busy routine that it has to most of the world. We know that He wasn’t very likely born on the 25^th of December, but no matter, this is a day and a season that should be thoroughly celebrated with joy and cheer and goodwill by every Christian.

 

His accusers even claimed that He was the Christ. God uses all to proclaim Him.

 

LUK 23:2

And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar [lie], and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King. [true]"

 

MAR 14:61-62

Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" And Jesus said, "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."