Big Idea: What does the Good News of Jesus mean to you? We find several responses from those who surrounded the events of Jesus’ birth in our text. What might we learn from them?
6 Responses to the Good News of Jesus as Savior:
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Luke 2:15 (ESV) — 15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
Obedience is always the true indication that the truth of something has taken hold in the heart.
James 2:26 (ESV) — 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
John 10:37–38 (ESV) — 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
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Luke 2:16 (ESV) — 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.
Psalm 51:7–12 (ESV) — 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
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Luke 2:17 (ESV) — 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
Good news is not to be kept to ourselves. When we have ascertained its truth, we are to tell it to others, and we are especially to tell the goodness of salvation. Tell it, O you who know it in your own hearts by blessed experience! Tell it, though it will sometimes be with broken accents in the feebleness of your flesh, yet even then tell it in the ardor of your heart’s affection, and God will bless your testimony, and others will learn the good news through you. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 52, sermon 3177)
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Luke 2:18 (ESV) – 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
God is beyond our limited capacity to make sense of what he has done, but that does not mean that what he is doing is not real. God is bigger and more powerful than our finite ability to make sense of His world.
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Luke 2:19 (ESV) — 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
The hen that straggles from her nest when she sits a-brooding produces nothing; it is a constant incubation that hatches the young. So when we have only a few straggling thoughts, and do not set a-brooding upon a truth, when we have flashes only, like a little glance of a sunbeam upon a wall, it does nothing, but serious thoughts (through the Lord’s blessing) will do the work. (Thomas Manton, Several Sermons upon the 119th Psalm)
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Luke 2:20 (ESV) — 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Question to Consider: How might this text challenge you to respond to Jesus as Savior?
