The Shepherd King and the Shepherds

The title of the message today is the Shepherd King

and the Shepherds. Now, this happened because someone asked me

to preach on the shepherds. You did that, and look

at here. We have a whole sermon on it. And

I've never preached this sermon before. I had new ideas,

new thoughts on the subject. The title is the Shepherd

King of the Shepherds. The Dutch Renaissance schullar Desiderius Erasmus

often quote an unknown wise man who left his one

laner of wisdom behind to warn us all of the

danger of accepting bad kings. Who wants to live under

a bad king? He often wrote that in the Kingdom

of the Blind, the one eyed man is king. History

is full of kings with no eyes at all, or

one eyed kings who are little more than blind guides

and bad shepherds. When people chose King David, the optimal

king in ancient Israel, they chose a man that was

after God's own heart. God had anointed him to be king.

God had blessed him with the qualities of character that

made him a leader. David was a man that God

chose who would love the sheep more than the king.

Who would put himself out in behalf of the people.

And so he was the model king. In fact, whenever

a king was good or bad, it was always he

was always compared in the chronicles and kings to.

King David, be it good or bad.

After the captivity in Babylon, the prophet Zachariah looked for

a good shepherd king to gather the sheep, to bring them,

to bring the people back to God, because they have

wondered from God. Who would be the model and his

behavior has love, his care for the sheep. Look at

Zacharai tenverse two for the terrifim utter nonsense, terifiming these litols,

and the diviners see lies. The dreamers tell false dreams

and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wonder, like sheep.

They are afflicted. And what does the Bible say for

want of a what a shepherd? Need a shepherd in

their lives? This notion that you can live and you

can run your own life and you don't need God

directing your life is nonsense. Ultimately, we need a divine shepherd.

Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. He's talking about

the twenty third Psalm, and he's scooping up all of

these prophecies in the Old Testament to point to his

divine character as shepherd.

Prophet.

Ezekiel also look forward to the time when there'd be

a true shepherd of God to lead God's people, a

shepherd king who would not lead them with lies, or

corrupt their faith with idols, or destroy them with compromise

and backsliding or willful apostasy. Let's face it, you know,

it takes a wise shepherd king to know how to

rightly divide the word of God, how to model that

for the people of God, and to lead God's people.

When the shepherd goes wrong, the people go wrong. The

prophet saw a day when a new David, as the

true Shepherd of God, would lead God's people Ezekiel thirty seven,

twenty three and twenty four. For they shall not defile

themselves anymore? Isn't an amazing statement? They shall not what

what does the body will say? Defile themselves anymore with

their idols? And we have idols in our time, and

they're detestable things.

Boy, you just look at the.

Entertainment in the industry and it fits right ind or

with any of their transgressions. We all fall short, and

we all mess up, and we can mess up bad.

But God says, but I will save them from all

the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them,

and they shall be my people, and I will be

their God. Can't you feel the passion of God saying, Look,

you've messed up, but I'm gonna fix it.

Now. Look at the next verse.

My servant David shall be king over them, and they

shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances

and be careful to observe my statutes. You see, the

fix is not in being good people. The fixes in

having the good Shepherd in our lives. It's having the

true David come into our lives, one who has the

power of the moral character to lead us so that

we can worship him and thus be transformed by that relationship.

Just before Jesus was born that first Christmas, there were

shepherds in the field watching their flocks by night, while

there were false shepherds in Jerusalem who could care less

about the sheep and didn't watch the flock of God

at all. We could spend a long time this morning

trying to figure out why false shepherds appear in the church.

But they do, and maybe that is all that matters here,

is that we recognize that they exist. Just because someone

has the title of being a spiritual leader does not

make them spiritual. And just because someone is ordained does

not mean they're ordained of God. You will know them

by their fruits. Jesus said, they do appear false shepherds,

So let's in our own mind just be aware of them.

Let's be aware of the fact. I have found in

my experience that false shepherds often appear as philosopher king

men who present their new ideas like they are the

smartest people in the room, new ideas that really are

old compromises with truth and moral truth proven to be

soul destroying in the past, but they come up with

it as if it's something good for now. These compromising

ideas lead God's people into disobedience, faithfulness, the very things

we see described in the scripture, away from Jesus, Christ

and God. False shepherds present a false gospel, and they

teach the sheep to believe that you can pretty much

do anything you want to do and still be good

sheep with God. These false shepherds feed the sheep on

emotion pablum, anything but the Bible and the clear word

of God. False shepherds don't follow the Bible. They twist

the Bible. Jesus said, beware of wolves that come in

sheep's clothing. They are not sheep, and they are not shepherds.

God's shepherds have a moral center. They're not perfect people,

but they're God's people. They're committed to doing the right thing.

They grow, and they yearn to know the Lord more.

And they care about the sheep more than they care

about themselves. And they care about the word of God

and the Lord to God for the sake of the sheep.

And so a man or woman of God is a

Bible centered shepherd. Ezekiel thirty four, verse ten, Thus says

the Lord God. Behold, I'm against the shepherds, and I

will require my sheep at their hand and put a

stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the

shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths,

that they may not be food for them. Imagine shepherds

eating sheep, you know, roasting the sheep instead of caring

for the sheep. Next verse for thus says the Lord God, behold,

I myself will search for my sheep and will seek

them out. This is an amazing statement. God is saying, Look,

because the shepherds have failed, I will be the shepherd.

I will be the one that will find my sheep.

The true shepherd ultimately must be God in our lives.

Next verse verse twelve, as a shepherd seeks out his

flock when some of his sheep have been scattered abroad,

So will I seek out my sheep, and I will

rescue them from all places where they have been scattered

On a day of clouds and thick darkness, God says, look,

I am the good shepherd. Ultimately, shepherds have failed. I

will find my sheep. I will save my sheep. I

will rescue my sheep because I care more about the

sheep than the king than the shepherd. This first Christmas,

there were shepherds in their field that were browbeaten and

banned from coming to Jerusalem to eat the Passover lamb

because they were considered unclean, and they were considered unclean

by the false shepherds who were really spiritually unclean. We

know from rabbinical sources that the shepherds at Bethlehem were

raising the sheep that would be used for the Passover

sacrifice and meal in Jerusalem in the spring, and because

of the attitude against the shepherds, they had no place

in that Passover service. They were making the sheep, preparing

the sheep that they themselves would never experience in a

salvation Passover deliverance kind of meal because of the rabbis.

The ancient rabbis taught that the shepherds were unclean and

thus an abomination of God, like the doglike gentiles. In fact,

if the word barbarian comes from the idea of bark bark, bark,

bark bark, a barbarian is a dog, and the Jewish leaders,

the rabbinical Jewish leaders, taught that the gentiles are dogs,

They're unclean, and so you can't touch anybody, forget their land,

it's all rotten. We're good where the height of the world.

Ultimate racism you found embedded in the thinking of the rabbis.

And in this matter, the rabbis agree with the ancient Egyptians,

but not the Bible or the character of God. In

Genesis forty six thirty three, Joseph is speaking to his brothers,

and he says, when Pharaoh calls you and says, what

is your occupation? Verse thirty four, You shall say, your

servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even

to now, both we and our fathers, in order that

you may dwell in the land of Goshen. For every

shepherd and what does the text say is an abomination

to the Egyptians. Well, the Jewish people who had been

delivered from Egypt had adopted the attitude of Egypt, and

they come to believe that every shepherd is an abomination

the Jewish people, even though Israel Jacob and his sons

were shepherds, an amazing transformation of their thinking. In the

Hebrew Mishnah Sanhedrin twenty five A, shepherds were not allowed

to serve as judges or witnesses because they were assumed

to be dishonest people from the start. In Tosefta, commenting

on twenty five B, he was claimed by the rabbis

that shepherds were sinners by definition, and the Babylonian Talmud

Rabbi Tzarai argued that shepherds are untrustworthy. They cannot be

trusted in any legal dispute. They were also considered ritually unclean,

disease ridden, and just playing bad people in general. So

when you were talking about a shepherd at the time

when Christ was born, this was like talking about someone

who came from the bottom of the barrel, who was

pure of trouble. Stay away from shepherds. Accordingly, they had

no place in the temple worship and in the sacred

feasts of Israel because the shepherds near Bethlehem, and we

know this from rabbinical sources, they raised the sheep for

the Passover in Jerusalem. They could never offer those defiled sheep.

They could never go and with confidence participate in the

very reason that they existed to produce passover sheep. Their

cleanness by some rabbis was limited to this one task.

Some rabbis as well, you can't have the shepherds fully unclean,

because if they're fully unclean and the sheep that they

bring to the Passover unclean, so we'll make them clean

only in the fact that they're raising passover sheep and

all other areas they're unclean. Amazing the rabbis treated the

gentiles and all heathen lands as intrinsically unclean. With the

whole world of bad dogs out there righteous saints, and

here barbarians beyond the gates. Don't touch, don't interact. We're

the best. Forget them. And they put the shepherds right

in the middle and the mix of the unclean world

they despised. These were the shepherds of Israel. The shepherds,

in contrast, eked out their hard fought existence, trying to

earn a meager living in the cold in the night,

with no spiritual shepherd for them, no leader in their

life that would save them, that would encourage them, that

would show them the light the way into the future.

These shepherds outside of Bethlehem longed for the true shepherd

prophet side of old Ellen White in the Desire of

Ages page forty sive the pen of inspiration shares with us,

and turn to that slide if you don't mind. The

pen of inspiration shares with us. What they were doing.

Just before the angel showed up in the fields where

the boy David had let his flock, shepherds were still

keeping watched by night.

Through the silent hours.

They talked together of the promised Savior and prayed for

the coming of the king to David's throne. You see

those angels didn't show up by accident that night. They

were welcomed that night they were yearning for the true

shepherd King. They were right there on time, fulfilling Bible prophecy.

And heaven didn't visit Jerusalem where the theologians, the smart,

fat cats, and the others were all gathered. They went

to that out back place of the field and the

night where these poor despised shepherds were yearning for the

true shepherd king. All this is the context that is

in play in Luke two verse eight, when we were

introduced to the shepherds out in their fields by night

Luke two verse eight. And in that region there were

shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock

by night. How many times have we said that at Christmas?

Don't we read that all the time. That's just one

of those standard Christmas verses. Now, let us not read

too quickly.

Through verse eight.

Here there are seven truths in play in verse eight

that need our careful notice, and you can write them down.

I don't know if we have slides or not. I

didn't make them.

Truth number one here it is there were shepherds. That's it.

That's the first truth that means God has shepherds. There

were shepherds. You may have had a mess in Jerusalem,

you may have had real hard kind of leaders in

that one place, but there were shepherds. Truth number two,

There were shepherds in that region. Notice that the false

shepherds in Jerusalem were not the only shepherds in the land.

There were shepherds nearby. God always has his faith shepherds

somewhere nearby that can be found. Truth number three. The

shepherds were outside. They were not in on the inside

and the clicks and the clubs of the power groups.

They were on the outside of the theological circles, the

religious committees, the gatherings, the whole affairs of the arrogant

spiritual leaders in Jerusalem. Truth number four. The shepherds were

in the field. A field is a place for harvest.

We often say, I'm going into the field, do labor

for God. They were in the field for flocks and

gardens labor. That's what we think of We think of

the field. The potential for danger is in the field,

but life is risky and the rewards are great when

you earn a living in the field. The field is

a place pregnant with possibilities, shouting volumes that something good

can sprout from the ground in the field. It's fertile ground.

Just ask anyone who was camped out in the field.

We an't want to camps out around here. No camping out.

Come on, pathfinders, raise your hand.

You know you gonna come on.

We ought to be we ought to be the best,

you know in the field people around. I mean, if

I had to go in the summer of spring and

take it easy, I would want to go to the

field and just lay out a tarp, get my binoculars,

look up at the sky, watch the astronomy of it,

you know, hopefully no comments flying it, Planet Earth, that

kind of thing, and just enjoy the beautiful sky that

God has given. That's for me, is it? And go

fishing the next day. Savage River State Park is one

of my great spots. I've talked to Dana said, Honey,

you know we need to get a camper. Well, campers

are expensive. I said, well, let's get a cheap camper.

They're still expensive. She says, I want if you do

the math, Mike, and she talks to me this way.

She says, if you do the math, but how much

it cost to buy a camper, and how much it

costs to stay in a hotel. When you do these things, look,

the hotel is the way to go. Oh, she said,

I want to stay in a hotel. Well, that's all right.

So I have a solution for that. I don't have

a camper. I just give me a nice tarp that

costs about ten dollars from Walmart, and I just sleep

out under the stars. If it rains, I go into

the car and call her to day.

You know.

But there's something special about being in the field, all right.

Truth number five. The shepherds were watchful in an ation

full of darkness. These honest shepherds were looking for truth.

They were watching their environment. They were watching the sheep.

They were watching for the sky. They were looking for anything.

Their senses were at tuned, both spiritually and physically. Truth

number six. The Bible says the shepherds were watching over

their flock. That means these shepherds were mindful of the

fact that they must take care of the sheep. Their

flock was not a flock. The flock was their flock.

They cared about their sheep, their flock, like true shepherds should.

Truth number seven and finally the shepherds were watching by

night over their flock. They weren't watching and it was

easy to watch. Times were hard, and at that point

in time darkness was in the land. They were watching

in the night. You know, the Bible says we should

be awake of the time of the end. Jesus is coming.

Blessed those who are awake have their garments, that they

will not be found wanting. Jesus makes that intervention in

the Six Plague revelation. These shepherds were watching when it

was hard to watch. The Jewish leaders had sold out

to the ideas of the Greeks, and they had corrupted

themselves morally and spiritually by rejecting the clear truths of

God's word. Now, there are two books which you could

read that are not scripture, but from many centuries they

were published alongside of scripture, First and Second Maccubees, and

First and Second Maccubees are non inspired books. They give

a history of what Israel did in what we call

the Hellenistic Innertestament period. And it's very clear to see

the compromise that came into the Jewish religion, the compromise

with the Greeks, with their sports. You can go through

the whole list, and it's talked about as it led

to the moral decline of the Jewish people, and it

was it was just in time to corrupt the nation

for the coming of Jesus. When Christ came to this earth,

the Jewish people were more Greek and secular in their

thinking than they were people governed by the word of God.

Suddenly the night, Suddenly the night, the dark Knight, that

awful night of compromised God chose to reveal his glorious

truth to these shepherds of the sheep. Outside the gates

of Jerusalem looked two nine, and an Angel of the

Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord

shone around them. Now wait a second, here, angels, not God.

This is not the Angel of the Lord, because that

was Jesus born in Bethlehem. Who is the Lord? And

Angel the Lord appeared to them, and yet the glory

of the Lord shown around them. What is that glory

if it's not Christ and the Manger, it's not Father

on his throne, its Holy Spirit, light and glory that

illumined the night with those angels brought the glory of

God with them and they were filled with fear. They

were filled with fear. In the Bible, there is a

fear that overcomes fear. The fear of the Lord is

the beginning of wisdom. Friend, don't think for a minute

that light and truth, as it says they are the

same thing, is an easy kind of thing to embrace

in this world. When a man or woman faces the light,

when they face the naked truth of God, it's a

fearful thing to face the truth. The shadow is in

all of us. Carl Jung wrote extensively in his clinical

research in Geneva that we possess the shadow. We don't

come to rips with that which we ourselves, the darkness

within us. It's not natural. We project to escape it,

and it is intrinsic with human in human nature. Now,

that's nothing new, David said, teach me truth in the

secret heart. That's the shadow that Carl Jung identified. The

shadow is in all of us, and it has no

place for light because of the smallness the fragility of

human nature. The night cannot stand before the dawn of

a new day. The angels brought God's light into those

shepherd's lives, and they had sinful human natures just like us.

And they discovered that there is a fear that overcomes

their fear, their fear of themselves, their fear of failure,

their fear of being belittled, their fear of sinning, their

fear of facing the judgment day without a savior. Friends,

when you tremble before the majesty of God, that is

the very moment you discover that God loves you, that

God cares about you, that the awesome God of power

is the personal God of forgiveness, peace and acceptance of you.

Job had been through the whirlwind. He had actually shaken

his fist that God. He'd said, God, why are you

shooting your arrows at me? And yet when God appeared

in the storm, in the whirlwind, he says, now my

eyes see THEE and I melt in the Hebrew. I

melt into insignificance in the vision of the God he

could not fully understand. He experienced the presence of God

that met his need, that said, in volumes loud, even

though I have no answers, even though there is no

solution to my loss, I have God. God loves me.

And that's what carried Job for the rest of his life.

God restored his fortunes, but he never restored his children,

because he trusted himself to God and to the future.

That's God's These shepherds discovered, there's a fear that overcomes

fear when others could care less about you. And the

vision of the glory of God in the night. You

discover that God is your light. God is your father,

God is your friend. And so you are afraid of

the night when you see the light. But the light

is good. It is the glory of the Lord. Lieke ten, two,

ten and eleven. The Angel said to them, immediately be

not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of

a great joy which will come to all the people.

Amazing language here for to you is born this day

in the city of David, a savior who is Christ

the Lord. Is one thing to tell someone to not

be afraid. It's another thing to tell them why they

are not to be afraid. The Angel said to them,

as angels often say to us today, be not afraid.

Jesus said that often. Also.

The very first thing that Adam said to God, when

the Lord came after him after he had sinned, he

said this, I heard the sound of thee in the garden,

and I was afraid. Have you ever been afraid of

God like that in your life? Yeah? I went to

church and I heard of you, and I'm afraid. Really,

I don't know if I want to have a relationship

with God. I have all these reasons in my life

and other things going on. You know, I don't like

the way some people act in church. That could be

one reason. Or I lost somebody in my life tragically,

and I can't explain why I heard the sound of

the in the garden and I was afraid. We are

born with human, fallen natures that are afraid of the

glory of God. When we come to God. We often

run from God. In coming to God, we hide from God,

the God who seeks us out in all his glory.

We fear God. The Angel said, be not afraid, and

then the Angel gives the reason why they are not

to be afraid.

He said, for.

Behold, I'd bring you good news of a great joy

which will come to all the people. When you behold

something in the light, you see it outright. When you

are in the darkness, you can't see anything right. Suddenly

that dark night is full of light, and the Angel

commands its command is to behold the light and the night,

the glory of the Lord, Holy Spirit, Glory. The Angel said,

I bring you the good News. The Greek word for

gospel Youngelian is good news. The Angel said, I bring

you the good News, the gospel Friend. It wasn't a

prophet that preached the gospel really that first Christmas. It

was an angel who preached the gospel to the shepherds

who would then share the gospel. So it is the

gospel of God, as it says in Romans one, It's

not of man or of man. It comes from God

through angels to human beings that were inspired with the revelation.

Fear is fueled by darkness of a false knowledge of God.

When you are afraid of God, when you.

Ascribe to God these negative qualities of character because of

little syllogisms and everything we come up with in our

puny way of logic, you feel that God is out

to get you, when he's really out to get you

in the right kind of way, because He loves you.

When you believe the Gospel, the good News, you understand

that God is out to save you for your good

because He cares for you. He's a shepherd God does

not glory in your ruin. He does not glory in

the pain of the world. His glory and his character

are root in the deep truth of the good News,

of his divine character in the Gospel, the truth that

God loves you and that God has provided savior for you.

Because He is a God of love, He's no accident.

Jesus was born in a manger, a stone manger in

a cave, according to early Church tradition, wrapped in linen.

Clothes were very similar to grave clothes. Because the way

he enters the world is the way.

He leaves the world.

His mission is defined by how he arrives and that

manger in Bethlehem. His rendezvous with the tomb is certain

by how he was born. Christ did not come into

this world to benefit from us. Christ came into this

world to give himself his life as the good Shepherd,

and he starts the journey as a baby in Bethlehem's manger.

You can't save you without God. You can't change you

without God. You can't make your heart a good thing,

or fix the fears, the memories, the mistakes, the family

system issues. But you can see for yourself in the

night outside in the field that God has could, that

God has provided a savior for you. Verse ten has

three keywords or phrases that we should not quickly pay

us over good news, great joy for all the people.

That's Heaven's agenda for your life. The Gospel is not

good advice. The gospel's good news. The Gospel brings joy

into our lives because it's not based on how good

we are. It's based on how good God is. In

the gift of Jesus. God has provided for every one

of us a savior. It's not limited atonement like the

Calvinists would teach, which is an unbiblical teaching. It's an

unlimited atonement that can only be applied if you accept it.

Because God will not force his goodness, his character, his love,

his gift on you, but He will give it in

Jesus to you. The Angel said, Jesus was born for

all the people as the Savior. No racist God, no

exclusionary God. Doesn't matter if you're poor or rich. The

same Gospel saves us. All false shepherds teach and preach

on any and everything but the Savior. You know, I

was once in a setting somebody made a statement to me,

you have a messiadic complex. I do you know what

it is. I love Jesus, my Messiah. I think pastors

should be openly sharing Jesus among each other. This notion

that we can take the Savior out of our experience,

we can make him marginal in our church. It's okay

to pray in thy name, But I really am lifted

when people pray in Jesus' name, because Jesus is the Way,

the Truth, and the life. Friends, we cannot be saved

without Jesus. There will be people who make it to

the throne of glory. He never heard his name. We

know this because of Psalm's eighty seven. We know if

Romans two Acts seventeen, that the Gospel is able to

save people never heard. But they won't be saved because

they were good people. They won't be saved because they

somehow had this, or that they will be saved because

they did not resist the Holy Spirit that led them

to Jesus on the resurrection morning.

And we have been told by the hand.

Of Inspiration that they will be They will walk, you know,

beside Brooks and the like, and they will have to

be instructed in the plan.

But in Psalms eighty seven.

It will be said, if this one was born in Felicitia, Gath, Egypt, Rehab,

this one was born in Zion. Friends, we need a savior.

Christ is not just our savior. He's the savior of

the whole world. You know, last time I checked, we

as Avidist have the three Angels messages.

Right. Wrong, The world has the three Angels messages.

We are to give to the world that which belongs

to the world for the good of the world. We

are not the center of God's reality. We are a

method and a means to reach the people that God loves.

With God, who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life.

False shepherds teach and preach any and everything but the Savior.

True shepherds seek the true and good Shepherd in their

lives to be king over the heart and the kingdom.

So look out what kind of preachers you listen to.

On one level, the Gospel is universal but broad in

its reach to save the world. Thus the Gospel is

for all the people. When whoever comes to the doors

of this church, God be praised the Gospels for all

the people. I don't care if they can't dress right,

I don't care if they don't look right. Let them

come to God. On the other level, the Gospel is

personal and focused in its reach to save you. The

Bible says, for to you is born this day in

the city of David, a savior who's Christ, the Lord.

Jesus was born for all the people, for the many

and the few, and yes, even you. Jesus was born

in Bethlehem's manger, where cows and sheep feed. Because Jesus

is Heaven's hey, Heaven's fodder, Heaven's food for the sheep.

Heaven's hey is the light we need in our lives.

That is the truth we see in them. God with

us Emmanuel, food for our souls, the gracious gift of

God that saves us. Heavens hey is the shepherd King,

that is the Christ Child, the true Son of God,

Christ the Lord, and nothing less. Keywords matter. Some people say, well,

Jesus was born as a demi god like thor No,

he is Christ the Lord, and the Greek word curios

for Lord is what is used consistently for Yahweh in

the Old Testament. Jehovah Lord. I could show you many

examples of comparing Romans with Isaiah and the like quotations

where that sounds used a savior Christ.

The Lord.

Yeah, created being can't save you. Where do you get

the idea that some created being can save you?

Can't?

God in Christ was reconciling the world and to himself.

Paul says, we come to Jesus. We come to God

savior Soterarian Greek means healer. He's a savior. Jesus is

a healer. Now, how many doctors we have here in

the mix? You got some doctors here? Come on, raise

your hand, doctor Butler? Are you the only one? Doctor Cyril?

You're a doctor, Doctor Schaeffer, I have PhD. Doctor, So

I'm thinking of medical doctors.

But that would work.

Oh, look, you don't want to go to someone with

bad credentials to be a doctor.

Right.

Let's say you're having a cardiac arrest and you're gonna

go to You're gonna go to. I gotta be careful

what I say, because someone may have this occupation. You

don't if you have a heart attack, you don't go

to an auto mechanic.

Is that fair enough?

Nopinion of auto mechanics here? Okay, you go to a doctor,

why because they know how to heal you? Jesus credentials

that saviors is given. Is Christ, the Lord Christ. Christos

in the Greek means Messiah, the anointed One. Now I'm

not the anointed one. You're not the anointed one, and

our church is not the anointed one. Friends, Jesus is

the one, the only one, the true Messiah, the anointed

one of God, God's chosen, who has the right to

choose you, no matter what you have been through in

your life, because He has merit and you have none.

God didn't give Jesus to the world so you would

be lost.

Hear me.

God gave Jesus so you can be healed and saved

divine intention. It takes the Holy Spirit to be healed.

It takes the power of God to lumin takes Jesus

to give us the Holy Spirit. Why because Jesus is

the anointed One, the Messiah. He has the spirit. He

gives the spirit Christ the Lord as Lord. Jesus is

more than just the anointed one. Jesus is king. Jesus

is the leader. Jesus is authority to show the way

because he is the way. Jesus as Lord is not

afraid of any devil, any weakness, any sin, any mistake,

any traumatized memory in your life that would tag you

as a loser for life. Jesus is the Lord, the

Lord Christ, the Lord, the Savior. And when you are

nothing in the eyes of others, remember that Jesus is

Lord Yahweh Jehovah, Lord, and his opinions are the only

ones that matter to God. So if Jesus loves you,

if Jesus has embraced you, that's all that matters.

No other verdict matters.

And when you are certain that you can never make

it in life, remember that Jesus is your life, the Way,

the truth, and the life. When you don't know how

to heal you and you can't fix your family, your

own selfish simple heart, remember that Jesus is Lord over

your heart and your family. Jesus didn't come into this

world to be your buddy.

Do you hear me.

Jesus didn't come in this world to be your buddy.

Jesus came in this world to be your king. Jesus

is Lord, the Shepherd King. Look two twelve to fifteen

and this will be a sign for you. You will find

a babe. Rapt in swa and lie in the manger

now why would that be a sign, Because the way

he enters the world is the way he leaves the world.

He's born in a stone and placed in a stone slab,

wrapped in linen clothes, just like you'd place a corpse

in a tomb, wrapped in a linen shroud. And suddenly

there was with the Angel and multitude the heavenly host,

praising God and saying verse fourteen, Glory to God in

the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom

He is pleased. See the Bible is saying here. The

angels are saying that in Jesus, God is pleased with humanity.

Jesus is the new atom. He represents us before the Father.

He becomes the new focal point of our own worth.

It's no longer where where he came from. It's who

we belong to that defines our future relationship with God.

In verse fifteen, when the angels went away from them

into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, I like this.

Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing

that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

To us, dear heart, God cares about us. I don't

like cats. I don't like cats. Oh, I just lost

half the church, but I have learned to love them.

Can you give me a little room here? They've messed

my house up, and they've been costly in my life

in a number of ways. I had to do a

deep renovation that took years because a very sick, elderly

friend of mine left his two Egyptian cats on our

doorstep just before he went to the hospital to die.

I remember how he would come to church smelling awful

because he couldn't control his bladder. We didn't have the

heart to close the doors to him. Some of you

can remember our smelly prayer meeting when this precious man

showed up to play his viola. I'd later learned that

he was abused as a child. A teacher had molested him,

and he was traumatized for the rest of his life.

His marriage had failed, his children were offset because of

that trauma. But he came to Reaching Hearts church and

prayer meeting with his viola his treasure, his one way

of expressing himself. It was the only place he could

play and not be sent away. God has said that

he will make a man more precious and valuable than

the gold of over he put us to the test

with this promise for a few years. In our prayer

meeting at cedar Ridge, he brought those two He put

us to the test from cedar Ridge. Now this man,

his name was Russell. You guys know what I'm talking about.

He brought those two exotic Egyptian cats to our house

because those two cats he loved were all the family

he had in the whole world, besides his church family

that put up with his smell in prayer meeting, and

somehow told them that he them. I never will forget how,

doctor Butler, that's not you, doctor Butler. Your dad would

be standing there conducting prayer meeting. We could all tell

that it wasn't right.

What could he do? It was all he could do

to get to church.

He was overweight, he had legs that were swollen, he

had sores on them. He'd drag his viola and his

cello to church to that prayer meeting so he could

lead in music, and Sister Peru would play with him,

but play so that he would be a part of

our church. I don't know if we ever got anything

other than that out of it, but boy, that was

a different time in my life. I'm grateful for it.

So he brought us to Egyptian cats before he would

go to the hospital, which he would die shortly after.

I wasn't home good thing for the cats. Diana couldn't hear,

couldn't bear to turn them away. She just couldn't. And

Russell was crying or something like. At least you could

sense the sorrow that he was having to give up

his cats. In minutes, those two cats were brought into

our house. In minutes, they wrecked our house. I later

set up a cage outside with a heater plugged in,

spent a lot of money, wrapped it with blankets until

I could figure out what to do with those two

bombshell cats in the middle of the winter, after they

had nuked our house with an awful smell that was

uniquely theirs, because they left a genetically empowered liquid gold

all over the place. Tom was the mean one. I

call him the terrorist. When he got loose, Tom terrorized

every dog and cat in the neighborhood. He was the

alpha cat, the terrorist cat. And he'd make this loud

noise when he was facing down a dog. It wouldn't

just stop, it would just go on. I don't know

how he had lung capacity. I give up before he did.

I said, man, what kind of monster has come into

our neighborhood. It was Tom. Tom jumped on our Siberian

husky one day Avalanche and he tried to call him mistake.

Avalanche broke his back in an instant, and he grabbed

Tom and his jaws and hip and slung him back

and forth. Instinct I tried to save Tom. Tom took

I mean, my son, Donald took a board and whacked

Avalanche to get Tom out of his mouth. But when

we got Tom it was apparent we couldn't save him.

I put him on my lap, back inside the house

and near my easy chair, and I cried over Tom.

I mean, I can't stand cats, but I cried over him.

Even though he was a mean little cat who had

wrecked our house. I knew I had to put Tom down.

Russell hadn't died yet, so I called Russell on the

phone and said, Russell, I do anything to make your

cat live. He says, we can't do anything. We're gonna

have to let him down. Together, we both cried on

the phone over Tom, who had wrecked my house and

wrecked everything else around there and it was something. I mean,

I'm still trying to work through the psychology.

Of the whole thing.

I was there to comfort Tom when they put him down.

I've never cried so much in a hospital room as

I tied cried when they put Tom down. Not long

after that, the other one, the female Dan, I can't

remember her name.

What is it? Do you remember where you at? Sweetheart?

My eyes?

You remember the name of the female cat? He gave

some Oh, Nephritiiti. Nephritiiti was the name of the cat man. Okay.

Not long after that, the other one, named Nefertiti. The

female slipped into my neighbor's car, messed up his car

with that same lip of gold that had wrecked our

house and caused the smell. Now, my neighbor is a

former Capital police officer, packed a firearm, among many other virtues.

I personally cleaned his car out and deodorized it. I

took a long time. It took a long time and

many apologies, and I don't want to go into what

else it took to repair that relationship with my neighbor.

It was hard, it was hard to find, but we

finally gave the other one a good home. Now, are

you supposed to make full legal disclosures when you give

a cat away or not?

You know?

Sometimes he was, Oh, we just love the cat, no

matter what, you can have her and nefertit. He finally

got a home. Neferty didn't die. There was someone out

there who loved that Egyptian female cat, and we gave

it a home. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Our other two

cats learned their bad behavior from these two Egyptian cats.

You see, they had infected the culture of our home.

Oh no, it took a long time for them to

pass away without putting them down. And I was promised,

and I promised, my heart of hearts, I did. I said, Lord,

I will never have a cat again in my house.

Can you see why keep them on the outside. It

took thousands of dollars to renovate our house, to put

it all back together, and I had to do it myself,

and with some help. I got one person helping me.

He's in the church here. And to free the effects

of the cats, I literally personally rebuilt our staircase. I

put in a new staircase because of these two cats.

I hated every minute of it this winter, and they said, Oh,

that's background to what's happened to me. Now this winter,

something happened that pulled on my heartstrings in the extreme.

I noticed the cat underneath the car and the cold

at night.

Oh you say, ah, come on, ah.

Yeah, looking at my trash bags and then running away

in fear when he saw me coming. He should be

afraid of me. I have plenty of reasons not to

like cats. That cat was and is afraid of me.

To this day, I have noticed deep tears in the

trash bags at times around my house.

Ah.

I figured out where it came from. A cat, A

feral cat, a wild cat. It's been eating out of

my trash bags. And so about a big bag of

cat food to solve the problem.

See I'm slipping.

Oh no, I put some of the food in a

dish outside on the porch. Oh, psychological cognitive dissonance with

some water beside it.

Why would I do that?

Because I was I had compassion on that cat, with

all those awful memories of the damage the cat had

done other cats. You see, they're a collective consciousness. For me,

I'd just stilln't like cats. And when it got real cold,

I couldn't help it. I cracked my garage door open

so that wild cat would have a place just sleep.

My wife said, honey, crack the door open. I did.

That cat is a wild, feral cat. It's nature does

not like me. It's afraid of me. I haven't seen

it very much. It hides from me like the enemy

it should avoid. But I'm the one that puts the

food in that little thing in the water so that

cat won't die. But I know this one thing. I

care about that little cat. My wife told me just yesterday.

Now there are two coming into the dish. The cat's

a missionary. I love that little cat that lives on

the outside of my house that I've scarcely ever seen.

That's only a picture in my mind. Even if that

cat doesn't have a clue, and it's fear that I

care about the cat. Dear heart, you may not feel

like God cares about you, But the gift of Jesus

is proof that He really does care about you. You

may live, you do. We live on the wrong side

of Eden's door. We live outside the house. He has

brought the dish, the bread of life to us outside

the house. God cares for you. He's opened the door

to the Church. He's cracked it so you don't have

to live. You don't have to live in the cold

in your life. You can come to God in the Church.

God cares for you and about no matter how long

and how hard your life has been on the outside

of the house. What should we do this Christmas? In

the light of the good news? The gospel, the one

the angels brought the to the shepherds that first Christmas,

the one the shepherds shared. Immediately, the true shepherds on

the outside in the field led the way that first

Christmas night to the manger full of light. They said,

as we should say to all our friends and neighbors,

let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing

that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

Dear Father, thank God for Jesus. Thank you, just thank

you for the ultimate Christmas gift. Thank you that in

Jesus God was in Christ. Paul says, we don't ever

believe a lie that he was outside of Christ. Thank

you for Jesus. Thank you that in that love triangle,

which was no bad triangle, that was the eternal nature

of God as one you gave us Jesus you cut

the god Head up to give us Jesus, and you

made yourself one of us. Lord, bless your people here today.

May they not believe the lie that somehow you're a

fiend or a monster, you don't care about them and

all that. May they just look into the manger and

believe that in Jesus God has come near. In Jesus,

God pardons and heals. In Jesus there is a savior,

the Savior Christ, the Lord in Jesus name.

Amen.