“And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.'”
– Luke 2:10
This is one of the most well known Christmas texts so many people read, Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.
Luke 2:10 Narrates the Climax of Jesus’ Birth account
As a family or individually on Christmas Day and this and this is, in a sense, the climax, this proclamation from the angels, “Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” This is why we pray most every day on this podcast for unreached people in the world because there are three plus billion of them who have not heard, they’ve never even heard the good news of great joy, news that was intended, that is intended by God for them to hear. That’s the whole point in Luke 2, this angel from heaven is saying, “This is good news of great joy for everybody, for every single person in the world.”
And if there’s 3 billion people who haven’t even heard it yet, they’ve not been reached by it, then we need to be praying for this all the time and thinking about this all the time and our lives. Not just a few people here or there, thinking about 3 billion people without the gospel, without the good news of great joy in Jesus, this is something that should be on the hearts and minds of every single follower of Jesus that should drive our praying every single day.
Individually, as families, as churches, we should be talking all the time about how we can get the gospel to those who’ve never heard it. Why? Because from the beginning, Heaven has declared this isn’t just for some people, this is for all people and if three billion people haven’t even heard… three billion, then we work together, we give our lives to get the gospel to them. So God, we pray right now in light of Luke 2:10, in light of this angelic proclamation of good news, great joy for all the people, we praise you for this good news of great joy in our lives. We praise you for the joy we have in Jesus today for joy that nothing in this world can steal, for joy that supersedes our circumstances, for joy that will last forever, eternal joy, it’s found in you.
Luke 2:10 Is an account of Good News of Great Joy
Jesus we praise you that that we don’t have to worry as we’re in Christ of what will happen to us today or tomorrow because we know that death is just a doorway to everlasting joy and life with you and so we pray God for three plus billion people, even as we say that number over and over and over again, our minds can’t even fathom it, but you know every single one of their names and you love them, you’ve made them in your image and you’ve created that relationship with you and you desire to save them. And Jesus, you’ve died for them. You came to bring great joy to them.
So God, we pray, help us to share this good news of great joy with them. Help us to go and proclaim what this angel proclaimed in a way that we actually have a privilege to do that angels don’t even, to share the good news of great joy and lead people to life in Jesus. God, we pray help us to be faithful with this stewardship you’ve given to us. Help us to share the gospel with all the people, people groups around us where we live. God, we praise you for the opportunities to reach the nations with the gospel outside our front doors, in our communities, in our cities. God, help us to share the gospel with the nations right around us and far from us.
Praying for the Yemeni Arabs
And I think about Yemeni Arabs, I think about the lack of the gospel, the need for the gospel in Yemen. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel in Yemen, we pray for your strength over our brothers and sisters there, we pray that you would empower them, we pray that you would raise up more believers to join them, that the gospel would spread good news of great joy amidst just so much evil and suffering and starvation in Yemen right now. God, please cause good news of great joy to spread all the people of Yemen. And God, we pray for a 100,000 or so Yemeni Arabs who are in the United States. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel to them, we pray for the spread of the gospel here in ways that lead to the spread of the gospel there.
Oh, God, help us in the short time you give us on this earth to spread good news of great joy to all the people, our praying, our giving, our going right where we live, wherever you may lead us until you bring us home and we join with a throng from every nation, tribe, tongue and people, and we celebrate your joy forever and ever and ever. Spend our lives, we pray God, toward that end in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
