I love this Advent series and if you haven't been with us the last few weeks where I'm packing or breaking down the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2, the Gospel of Luke 2nd chapter, the most comprehensive account we have of the arrival of Jesus on planet earth.

The first week we looked at the very first few words. If you have your scripture today you can already park in Luke chapter 2 if you already aren't there.

And in the first week we looked at these words, the first three words in those days. That was a whole message two weeks ago.

And I said it last week, so I'm glad we were out of town on that one, because that doesn't sound all that inspiring.

But it actually is pretty incredible because in those days told us that man makes decrees but God decides history.

And so Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man in the world decided what everybody was going to do in the season of time that Jesus was born.

Everybody's going to go, as you may know about the story, to their own town, the town of their origin in register and be taxed.

And so he decided what everybody was going to do. But while he decided God made history happen.

And Caesar Augustus was only a part of God's plan. He wasn't the plan.

Last week we looked at this little word in the phrase in verse 8 and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby.

And we talked about how Jesus was born, the miracle of all miracles. God in human flesh and nearby there were people doing all sorts of things.

And what we said last week was that we may feel that we're far away from God but God is closer to us than we think He is.

And these shepherds didn't know how close they were to the miracle activity of God.

And you may have come into the door today thinking, I don't even know God. I'm not even anywhere near God.

I'm not one of the church people or one of the God people but I just want you to know today God's not as far away from you as you think He is.

He's closer than you think.

And then today we're breaking it down a little bit more and you say, well I hope we're going to go at least two or three or four more verses today, Louis.

Because we're not going very far into the Christmas story. Well we're going to go a couple more words today in verse 8.

And this is where we're going to get if you have your scripture read it with me.

It says, and there were shepherds. Now can you just say shepherds? We need to get that into mix today.

Can you say that with me? There were shepherds, okay?

Living out in the fields nearby. And what were they doing? Have you know this already? Have you had this from memory?

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