The Birth of a King

Luke: The Person and Mission of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

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In one of the most well known passages about Jesus, we see God working through historical events to fulfill His plans. Jesus, the Messiah was born in the most lowly place and we begin to see the upside down nature of God's Kingdom.

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Good morning!

Thank you for the testimony this morning.

Last week we finished up Luke chapter one with the story of Zechariah’s prophecy following John’s naming.

We learned that Prophecy is an oral, divine message mediated through an individual that is directed at a person or people group and intended to elicit a specific response.

We also learned that anyone who is filled with the Holy Spirit could be a prophet as God leads.

We saw that Zechariah began sharing after He was filled with the Holy Spirit.

He recalls what God said He would do in the past and then shares what God is doing now to fulfill those promises.

Zechariah prophesied that John’s commission was to shine a light on those living in darkness, to prepare the way of the Lord.

We were all challenged to pay close attention to what God says and be prepared to share as He leads.

We talked about the importance of writing down what you believe God is saying so that over the course of time you can look back to see the consistency of the message.

By doing so we will gain great confidence in the message and our ability to hear clearly from God.

All that God was doing in John the Baptist's life and his family's life was preparation for the coming Messiah.

Today we will pick up at the beginning of chapter two with the birth of Jesus.

We will also see that same preparatory work happening in the life of Jesus.

As we read through chapter two, take note that Luke is intentionally comparing the birth stories of both John and Jesus with the intention of showing that while they are both a work of God, Jesus is clearly greater than John.

This distinction is necessary for people to understand that Jesus is not just another prophet.

We will see that come into play later in the book.

Luke wants his readers to clearly see that Jesus was in fact the promised Messiah.

Look with me at these first seven verses of Luke 2.

Luke 2:1–7 CSB

1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. 2 This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 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, 5 to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

This is a passage that I think most of us have heard many times.

This is one that comes up every Christmas.

In fact, we read through all of chapter two in worship on January 1st of this year.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this study, it has been a lot of fun for me personally to look at these passages outside of the context of Christmas.

Obviously, the birth of Jesus is what we are celebrating, but since we are not in the Christmas season, we have time to learn new things.

Today we have just two main ideas that God wants to highlight for us.

Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem as ordered to register for the census.

A couple of things of note:

This wasn’t something that was voluntary; it was an order.

Think force chocking by Vader if you don’t comply.

This wasn’t an optional road trip.

There is a great deal of debate over Luke and Matthew’s claim that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem for a census.

If we look back at historical documents today, there is no record of such a census, but that doesn’t completely rule it out. It would have been very normal for Rome to want to know how many citizens were there to ensure they were getting the correct tax revenue.

Also, Caesar Augustus was fairly new to power so it would make sense that he would want a legitimate headcount to fund his political and military campaigns.

It wasn’t typical for women to be counted in the census, however, there was a poll tax done in Syria around the same time and women were required to register. Therefore it is uncertain why Mary would have accompanied Joseph.

There are many opinions about why she went too, but it makes sense to me that the same guy that was over Syria, which required women to be counted, would have done the same in this region.

Interestingly though, this required census, and the requirement to do it in the town of your birth lined up with Jewish traditions and therefore made it culturally inoffensive.

God had instructed King David to conduct a census in this same manner during his reign.

All the fighting-age men were required to return to their birthplace to register so that David could access the size of his army.

While there is some ambiguity around the historical timeline of this text, there is no record of the other apostles recording anything different.

In fact, Matthew puts Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem happening during the reign of Herod, who was “king” that was put in place by Rome to be the Jewish leader over that region.

This fits within the historical outline of Luke.

If you struggle with any of that, feel free to go and check it out for yourself, (the history of all this is SUPER interesting), but I don’t want us to miss the point of what Luke is trying to show us.

Joseph and Mary went because they were ordered to go.

Luke is showing that God can and does orchestrate global events to fulfill his purposes.

How has God worked in your life through other “authorities”?

Think about what this means for the people that were living it and the people Luke was writing to.

They had lived under oppressive rule for generations, and the birth of the Messiah happened exactly as God said it would, even though those “superpowers” were in control.

Jesus being born in Bethlehem was to fulfill the prophecy of Micah, and it was the birthplace of King David.

Micah 5:2

Micah 5:2 CSB

2 Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.

Joseph and Mary lived a normal life and followed the authority that they were under.

To be clear, this journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem was not one that an expecting mother would want to do.

This journey was about 95 miles long.

On top of it being that long, the journey would have had an elevation gain of about 9300 feet and then a decent of 7900 feet.

This was not an easy trip, but they went because they were required to do so by the ruling government.

God worked in the simplicity and normalcy of everyday life to do something miraculous.

Why is it significant that God works through simplicity and normalcy?

Luke wants us to see this for ourselves because it is important in framing the way we see Jesus.

God had him born in this way to these people for a very specific reason.

What was that specific reason?

Luke is drawing on a common theme we will see throughout the book on the upside-down nature of God’s Kingdom.

From the time that sin entered the world, people’s perception of God has been skewed.

How has your perception of God changed as you have grown in faith?

No matter how much God did for His people and no matter how miraculously he worked among them, they didn’t understand.

The example that comes to mind right now is when God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt and they are just a few days in the wilderness and they want to go back to Egypt.

After all, they had seen God do, but they didn’t really see Him.

God had worked through Moses and Aaron to do all these miraculous things, and yet the people still didn’t trust God.

Their understanding was weak, and their perception of God had been skewed by generations of hearing about the Egyptian “gods”.

Even though God was working in their midst, they couldn’t understand.

We see this same storyline playing out repeatedly in the history of God’s people.

It was not an isolated event.

We see this very same thing happen in the church today.

The revival at Asbury is another great example.

God was moving in that place and rather than encouraging it, many in the American church leadership were either criticizing or being skeptical to its authenticity.

This is why Jesus had to come.

Jesus came because God’s people didn’t know God.

Jesus had to reveal to us the nature and character of God.

All through this book and the new testament, we see this upside-down nature of God’s kingdom.

How have you experienced the “upside-down nature” of God’s kingdom in your life?

Kings aren’t born in lowly places or laid in feed troughs.

You might think that Jesus was born in the “city of David”, but remember, David was the son of a Shepherd.

Bethlehem and Nazareth alike were the homes of nobodies.

We are going to see Jesus spend the vast majority of His time with the nobodies of his day.

It wasn’t the rich or powerful that Jesus is ministering to and taking care of; it was the poor and destitute.

God had Jesus born into such a humble estate because he wants us to understand that the things that we think make someone important don’t matter.

Luke Luke 2:7

The irony of the most important event in history taking place in a manger should not be lost sight of; it reveals how God elevates the lowly and humble and rejects the proud and mighty of this world.

I’ll be the first to admit that this is a character trait of God that the American church needs to learn.

I don’t remember where or who exactly, but I do remember being taught early on in Youth ministry that we need to attract the popular kids at the local schools i.e. athletic leaders.

They would in turn attract more kids from those schools to your youth group.

Gah, it sounds gross just saying it out loud, but unfortunately I bit; hook, line, and sinker.

I know I’m not the only person to have been taught that.

And we see this ministry practice happening today as churches focus all their attention on attracting a certain kind of people.

This could not be more opposite of what God wants, and we see in the life of Jesus.

Just look at the details that Luke gives us of the birth of Jesus.

Luke 2:6-7

Luke 2:6–7 CSB

6 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Other translations say, “there was no room in the inn.”

I remember learning and being in Christmas plays that painted the innkeeper as some, cold-hearted man that looked down on Joseph and Mary because of their societal failures.

But after studying this, I find that this isn’t the case at all.

I saw this worded in a couple of different ways, but look at how this commentator describes it.

Luke (Luke 2:7)

Because there was no room for them in the inn. This does not refer to a lack of a “hotel room” but lack of a suitable “place” for Mary to give birth to her son. It does not imply any rejection on the part of the much maligned innkeeper. The “inn” probably refers to a public caravansary (a crude overnight lodging place for caravans), which was the one lodging place in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem was such a small town that there was no “inn.”

And, if you think about the structure of homes from that time period, the houses were very small and usually housed a family and what we would consider the extended family.

Especially with the influx of people for the census, it becomes apparent why there was no place for them.

The overnight lodging was no more than what we might call a lean-to that all those that were traveling would spend the night under.

Poor Mary just wanted a private area to have her baby.

So they find either the lower area of a house or a cave, both of which were used for housing animals so they could get away from the crowds.

This does not seem unreasonable at all.

But, according to the standards of their day or ours, this is no place for the birth of a king!

This is why God has Jesus born in this way.

Jesus’ birth is God’s announcement to the world that His son, this King, this Messiah, is not like everyone else.

God is flipping the status quo on its head so that the world can see that what they value and what God values are far from one another.

How has God changed what you value as you have grown to know Him?

What are some specific examples that you can share?

There are two important lessons we can take away from this passage and they are things we don’t necessarily talk about at Christmas time.

God is bigger than us and works through the authorities in our lives.

When Caesar called for a census, God was working through that to orchestrate His plan.

God was calling the shots, not Caesar.

The same is true in our lives, and it doesn’t matter if you live here in America or in another part of the world.

God is bigger than the government, and He will do what He wants, and He can use them to accomplish it.

It may very well be that God does mighty work through you in a circumstance that is less than desirable.

I can almost guarantee you that Joseph and Mary did not want to make the 95-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

But God used that to fulfill his plans for all of humanity.

Do not assume that God’s goals and agenda are the same as the world’s.

They are not.

God can work through this world, but what God places a priority on is not the same as what the world puts a priority on.

If you look up one day and your life as a follower of Christ doesn’t look like the rest of the world’s, that is okay!

As you grow in your faith, you are going to become more like Christ.

Jesus made it abundantly clear through His life that the world does not approve.

Followers of Jesus should not be surprised if they are not accepted by the world.

Our priorities are going to be different.

The way we spend our time and money should look different from the rest of the world.

The people we choose to spend time with and care for should look different from the world.

If we are purposefully trying to be different, we are missing the point.

We are different from the world as we are more like Christ.

Followers of Jesus willingly and purposefully allow God to mold their lives to be like His.

Jesus was born in a lowly estate and laid in an animal feed trough to show you and the rest of the world where our priorities should be.

It’s not about being rich, powerful, or well-known.

Jesus wants us to understand that His desire for us is to know Him.

This, in turn, should be our desire for the world.

Our focus in life should be on knowing God and making Him known.

Let’s pray.

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Easter Egg hunt next month.

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I’m preaching at PDC tonight.

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