December 17, 2023 / Shepherds, Sheep, and Mary

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest

questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search

and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead

pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth

for the life we're searching for. We are so thrilled you're here today. Please take

your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 and our characters of Christmas,

Luke 2 · chapter mention Luke 2 · chapter mention

we are focusing today on three characters that you're very familiar with, the shepherds,

the sheep, and Mary. Let me just say this as well as we start this morning. I'm encouraging

us to do something very simply over these next few weeks and that is to be welcoming

and wise. Welcoming and wise. Now there's a couple of things to that first of all. In

being welcoming to people that are new to our congregation, we want to be able to be

in the room as early as you can for our worship time at 11 o'clock and we emphasize that of

course at our other service time. But get your coffee, get your things done, get in

early enough so you can meet people who are new to our congregation. You know, guests

always show up on time, almost always. Members don't always do that and so what an important

thing for you to be in the room so you can meet them, greet them, let them know why you

love Cross City and encourage them as well. Secondly, wise. And that is from the beginning

of the message to the end, try to be as stationary as possible and minimize any leaving or coming

back in. And that's not for me, that's for the folks in the congregation around you not

to be distracted from the message. You know, I've watched God over the years use a message,

even a point, even the reading of one verse, to absolutely turn a life around. We believe

that. And so we want to be welcoming and wise in how we get here and how we hang in there

during the course of the message and I'd appreciate if you'd help us with that. Now Luke chapter

two today, would you stand with me as we read a number of verses. Luke chapter two and you're

saying, haven't we been here before? And the answer is absolutely. We've been here for

three weeks in Luke chapter one and Luke chapter two. We are thoroughly covering the Christmas

story today, beginning in verse eight, we pick it up in this verse. It says in the same

region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their

flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord

shone around them and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid

for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For

today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising

God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he's

pleased. And when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began

to say to one another, let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that

has happened, which the Lord had made known to us. So they came in a hurry and found their

way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger. Let's bow together in

prayer for just a moment. Father, thank you so much for this amazing story, which we got

to revisit year after year. Father, so many points of meaning for us, so many points of

application, Lord, so many ways that you show your love, your concern and your command of

the heaven and earth in this story alone. And Father, I pray today you'll help us see

what we need to see today to trust you even more. We ask this in Jesus' mighty name, we

pray and everybody said amen. Please be seated if you would. You know, the Christmas story

can be told from all kinds of different angles and I'm sure you've heard it from a number

of different angles. You can talk about it from the theological angle where you're only

looking at the incredible theological truth that God became a man. John 1 is the best

chapter in the Bible for that. Sometimes you hear it from a historical angle. You hear

all the different historical details that kind of make it make sense. We've heard the

Christmas story from a relational angle, how everything in this Christmas story points

to the fact that God wants a relationship with you. When you hear the Christmas story,

there's often an emotional angle to it as well because you feel this story in a big

way, especially if you've heard it year in and year out over the years. You see it on

stages, you watch it in theaters, it's in movies, and certainly in music. I think I

preach more than 100 Christmas messages in my lifetime, 40 years in ministry, usually

about three messages a year that have to do with Christmas. So at least 100 to 120 messages

that I preach on Christmas alone, just in my ministry. And I try not to repeat any of

them because of all you folks out there that take detailed notes in your Bible and come

up to me and say, oh, you preached that in 2010. I make sure that we are fresh every

year. But I've never preached on the characters of Christmas. I've never really taken time

to walk through each of these different characters that are in the Christmas story and look at

the story from their angle. So it's kind of a unique thing for me to do that. And I've

enjoyed every moment of it. And as we began a few weeks ago, looking at Zachariah and

Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist who were old and past the age of childbearing

and she was barren, we saw Gabriel the angel appeared to him and say, you're going to have

a child. You're going to name him John. And Zachariah didn't believe it and he was doubtful.

And so the angel struck him mute. And that message teaches us that faith is important.

If you want to be able to talk, faith is important. And eventually Zachariah saw what the Lord

wanted him to do and said his name should be John and everything worked out really good.

And John the Baptist was there. Then we took a few moments and look that next week about

angels. Everything the Bible says about angels. It's not just about Gabriel appearing to Mary

and Gabriel appearing to Joseph and the angel appearing to the shepherds that we'll look

at today for just a few moments, but it's about the fact there are angels, about the

fact that God created angels before he created Adam and Eve and there will be angels all

into eternity. And we looked at the whole realm of angels and we came to the conclusion

that God is awesome and angels are awesome. That there's a whole world out there that

we really don't think much about or talk much about. And these angels exploded on the scene

in the book of Luke. Last week we looked at a number of different characters, including

Augustus Caesar and Quirinius in Luke chapter two. And we learned the fact that God controls

outcomes that we don't always have people in the play that we like so much. We don't

like Caesar Augustus so much. He was a pretty wicked ruler. We don't like Quirinius, but

everything that they did was God orchestrating them in such a way to bring Joseph and Mary

to a place called Bethlehem. That's why they're in this place at this time because God uses

pagan leaders to bring about godly causes. So God orchestrates conclusions and aren't

you glad God orchestrates conclusions? Because otherwise everything's at chance, everything's

at risk. Everything just happens in a random way, but we know that nothing happens in a

random way because God is on the throne. And today we're going to be looking at the major

scene for just a few moments. We're going to look at shepherd sheep and we're going

to look at Mary again. And of course we look at Mary a whole lot. And then of course we're

going to talk a little bit about the center of that major scene whose name is, help me

out here, Jesus. We're going to talk about Jesus for a few moments today. I want to put

a caricature on the screen. This is something I had an artist draw. And this is a major

scene and this is a major scene that pretty much depicts what we're looking at right here

in Luke chapter two, verse 16 and 17. So you've got Joseph and Mary over there on the right.

You've got the baby Jesus and this manger that has hay in it. It is a place where animals

literally ate. And then you've got the shepherds all around him beholding Jesus. Now this obviously

is a picture that's kind of humorous. Children would see a picture like this and have these

warm, enduring feelings about the Christmas story and they ought to have. The Christmas

story is warm. It is endearing. It is nostalgic. We love pictures like this. We love scenes

like this. You may have an activity scene in your house somewhere, in your yard somewhere.

And all that points to the amazing historical event of Christ coming. But beneath all the

details and all the characters of Christmas are incredible and deep truths that literally

change our lives. And I want you to come away with a sense of depth from some of these things

today, the shepherds, the sheep, and some of the things that we see Mary doing here

in this text today. So I'm going to ask a few questions, try to give a few answers today.

First of all, why the shepherds? Why the shepherds? Have you ever wondered why the angels came

to the shepherds first? There's a reason for that. And if you look in your text in verse

eight, it says in the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and

watching over their flock by night, keeping watch over their flock. And interestingly,

some shepherds, there's kind of an unusual rendering of that. It's not just shepherds

watching flocks, it's some shepherds watching their flock singular on that particular night

at that particular time. Does you know that shepherding is one of the oldest professions

in history? I mean, shepherds have been around ever since Abel, the son of Adam and Eve.

Abel was the first one we knew to be a shepherd of flocks. Moses was a shepherd during a big

portion of his life, at least the last, the middle of 40 years of his life on the backside

of the desert, he was a shepherd. You know in the Old Testament, David, who eventually

became king, was a great shepherd of the sheep. In fact, God taught him what it meant to have

courage and what it meant to trust God while he was a shepherd over the flock. The prophet

Amos was a shepherd. Zephaniah and Zechariah were all shepherds. But shepherding was a

common job. It wasn't an elite job. Shepherding was a tough job because it required courage,

it required patience because sheep are not easy to herd. It's like herding cats, sheep

don't like to go in a certain direction just because you want them to go there. It's also

a 24-7 job. You can't just take off from herding sheep. You've got to be with them all the

way around the clock 24-7. And you've got to shepherd some of the dumbest creatures

on the planet. I don't know how much you know about sheep, but they don't know much. And

it's not a compliment that the Bible often calls a sheep without a shepherd. I've seen

this YouTube video a number of times where a modern day shepherd is pulling a sheep out

of what looks like a very steep drainage ditch. And he gets him out of the ditch and he works

a great effort to get him out of this ditch. Finally he pulls his hind two legs and pulls

him out. It looks like the sheep is trying to stay in the ditch for whatever reason.

And it pulls him out and gets him over to the side and kind of sets him loose. And then

within a second or two, the sheep starts hopping up and down right back into the same ditch.

And I've watched that over and over. I can't quit watching that because it looks so much

like me and you sometimes. Our shepherd delivers us and we hop right back into the ditch. David

as a shepherd said that he fought off the lions and bears and of course the wolves in

the hills of Israel. And if you didn't grow up around bears, then you don't really know

how big of a statement that is. I didn't. But those bears and those lions are some of

the most powerful creatures on the planet. Yet a shepherd was out there and between those

vicious animals and the sheep, he was devoted to do the job. He had to be somewhat of a

survivalist expert to stay out there 24-7, to stay alive from all the things that were

happening in those fields protecting those sheep. And in that wilderness where the sheep

most often were herded. So you got this picture here of shepherds that were courageous, kind

of dirty, kind of stinky, 24-7. But during the time of Jesus, shepherds had kind of a

low esteem. In other words, not everybody respected shepherds in spite of what all they

had to do. They had a bad reputation because rabbis considered them to be law breakers.

He wouldn't keep the Sabbath. Of course they couldn't keep the Sabbath if they were going

to be shepherds during that time. They had to stay out in the fields. They had to move

around with the sheep. A Jewish sage named Phido made this statement. He said, shepherds

are mean and glorious creatures. They're not among the elite. They're not sophisticated.

They're not found in the temple. They're not found in the synagogue. These are guys that

are outside in the dark all the time. And I think it's really interesting that God comes

and announced us to the shepherds just after he announced us to Joseph and Mary who obviously

need to be forewarned a little bit about what's about to happen. He goes out and tells the

shepherds first about the good news of the Messiah who's coming to save the son of the

whole world. Why did he pick the shepherds to be the very first messengers of this great,

great news? And I want you to know today, and I'm going to say it several different

ways several different times, he's coming to show us that God is revealing himself to

the everyday ordinary man and woman. He's getting real with us. This God with us, this

Emmanuel is not just for the religious community at all. In fact, the religious community had

to come to the place of humility and willingness to repent before Jesus would actually reveal

himself to them. He came first to the outcast, to the lowly, to the dark, to those that might

smell a little bit, to those who know they're in danger constantly, to those who are always

in need. That's who first gets to know. And I think one reason he does that is because

they know they have needs. They know they need a savior. They know they need help. And

so the Messiah was revealed first of all, the shepherds. Notice the angel did not first

approach the religious leaders, the self righteous or the self sufficient. Instead he came and

approached the humble and the lowly everyday people. That ought to make you feel pretty

good that your God would want to be near you and reveal himself first to a group of people

that are most like you. God loves you. He knows where you are. So important. So the

shepherds were there for a really, really big reason and they were in the fields at

night. Now there's only about five miles between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And if you're in

the middle between those two, if you look towards Jerusalem you see the lights of a

city even at night. You hear the music coming out of that city. You're not that far away

that you can't hear it. You can tell that the city of Jerusalem is filled with celebration

and filled with all kinds of festivals and feasts. You can know the traffic's going

in and out of there. You hear the sounds of music and you see the lights of a populous

city. It's a religious capital of the world. It still is considered the religious capital

of the world in many different perspectives. But if you look to the other side, to Bethlehem,

you see the exact opposite. You're not going to see lights and you're not going to hear

music. You're going to find a little town. And even though the song, Oh Little Town of

Bethlehem, sounds quiet and soft and gentle, it is a dark, dangerous, and wicked city.

Recently someone who's a tour guide in Israel said, because it's still the same way it was

back then, I'll take a busload of people to Bethlehem but I'm not getting off the bus.

It's still a dark place. It's still a dark place. And there's these shepherds in these

fields. We're not beckoned to go to Jerusalem where the lights are, where the religious

celebrations are. They were beckoned to go to Bethlehem where it's dark, where it's dank,

where it's dangerous because that's where this baby is going to be born. And in part,

the angels are saying go there because they're going to fulfill and they're going to see

scripture prophecy fulfilled when they get there. And that Messiah is in that little

manger that we've talked about before in the city of Bethlehem. Here's a prophecy in Isaiah

chapter nine verse two. It says the people who walk in darkness will see a great light.

Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. And I hope you can see the

contrast today. The shepherds out in the fields where it's dark, not looking towards Jerusalem

where a little bit of light's coming but looking up and all of a sudden the brilliance of angels

points them to a place still darker and saying to them, go there. Go to the darkest place

you know of, that little place called Bethlehem because that's where my Messiah is going to

be born. And the shepherds went because they were told to go look for this Messiah. You

know, I think God came to shepherds first to make this announcement, made them the first

messenger because God himself is a shepherd. Did you know that? God himself is a shepherd.

He describes himself as a shepherd. In Ezekiel chapter 34, God is describing his role with

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

Israel, what he calls the sheep and the flock of his pasture. He says, for thus says the

Lord God, behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd cares

for his herd in the day when he is among the scattered sheep. So I will care for my sheep

and will deliver them from all of the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and

gloomy day. I love that prophecy because this reminds us of what shepherds do. Isaiah chapter

Isaiah 40:11

40 verse 11, like a shepherd, he will tend his flock and his arms, he will gather the

lambs and carry them in his bosom. He would gently lead the nursing ewes. That's a beautiful

picture of our God, isn't it? Now these shepherds were doing this exact thing when the angels

came. They were doing all the things that symbolize what God says he is to his people.

These shepherds were being as faithful as they could be. And the prophecy says, I'm

going to come to them in a gloomy world. I'm going to kind of build on that word gloomy

for just a moment. I was reading a very interesting article the other day, and it was a secular

article, and it was writing about the condition of the world and the condition of our country

as well. It was an American writing about the world and about America. And he said if

America had a national mood, it would be gloomy. Because we look around at war, the Ukraine

war in Israel, we look around at things that are not going well. And we don't see as much

hope, don't see as much light, all kinds of division, all kinds of angry people everywhere,

and the world is in gloom. The Messiah came to the world just like that. By the way, wherever

there is not a Messiah being elevated, it will always be gloomy. Always. And when the

Messiah comes, there will always be light. It's a shepherd with a light who says, I'm

the answer to all this gloom. And I'm going to come meet you right in the middle of that

gloom to show you how I can transform your life in the middle of the darkest, darkest

mood. Sin is still real, darkness is still real. The Savior who meets us in the darkness

is still real. And it's important for us to keep that in mind. So these angels coming

to these shepherds, watching these sheep to bring this good news, it's a powerful reminder

and I don't want you to forget it. Our Savior is a shepherd. Aren't you glad our Savior

is a shepherd? Aren't you glad our God is a shepherd? I was in a funeral yesterday and

it seemed like at the end of the year, it seems funerals are more frequent. And in that

funeral, I didn't take much time to talk, but I did open up Psalm 23. And although the

person that passed away is a full believer, we know to be absent from body is to be present

with Christ. Everybody in that room when they heard Psalm 23 was lifted. The Lord is my

shepherd. I shall not want. How powerful is that? That even though I walk through the

valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. You're with

me God. And you're with me because you're a shepherd. You're with me because that's

who you are because I'm a sheep in your flock and because you have come after me. So the

first announcement of this Messiah outside Joseph and Mary was to this group of people

called shepherds. And that's one reason why he came with them first to remind us that

our God is a shepherd. But why the sheep? What about these sheep? Notice first aid.

It says shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock. I have

all kinds of questions here. For example, if these shepherds were rough, dark men, why

did they become so excited about the announcement of a Messiah? How did they even understand

what was going on? And most to write about these shepherds and these fields say that

these shepherds were looking for more than just sheep. They were aware of the need for

a Messiah. They were aware that God was going to visit them at some point. John MacArthur

in his commentary says the fact that they were singled out for this announcement suggested

that they were devout men, even though they were shepherds who believed in the true and

living God. It could be like Simon and Luke 2 25 and Luke 2 38. They were looking for

the constellation of Israel. They were looking for the redemption of Israel. These, some

shepherds are interesting figures. Some even suggest that they might have been priestly

shepherd. Now we have no way of really knowing that apart from the location where they're

at. They're watching a special flock of sheep, not flocks plural, but flock singular, a special

group of sheep. Now I want you to notice the phrase in the field there. Now in the field

sounds very natural to us if you're not a shepherd in Israel, but if you're a shepherd

in Israel, it's most likely that sheep were being herded out in the fringes of the wilderness.

In fact, in the Mishnah, the rabbinical code actually specifies that the shepherds were

to take the sheep outside, away from the fields and on the fringes where the wilderness is.

That's where they were supposed to go. I think you probably know that sheep, when they graze,

pull the whole grass up, all the grass, the roots and everything, right? So there's nothing

left when sheep come through. That's why sometimes ranchers don't like sheep, and that's just

the way it is. So they send the sheep to the fringe of the wilderness where it meets at

the fields, but they don't put them normally, typically, in the fields themselves unless

they are a specific group of sheep that are designated for a specific cause. And that's

what I'm suggesting, and I think that Christopher is suggesting that here. It's highly likely

that these sheep in the fields and not in the wilderness are being prepared for sacrifice

in the temple. You do know in the Old Testament temple that sacrificial lambs were selected,

groomed for, picked out because of their imperfections and brought into the temple to be sacrificed

for sin. It's highly likely that that's what's going on in this particular picture. If this

is true, we don't really have any way of exactly knowing it, but it could be that both the

shepherds and the sheep are symbols of what's going on and has been going on for many years

in the temple and is about to be completely fulfilled. It's just like our God to take

care of every detail just like that. Now I want to take it a step further. The prophet

Micah prophesied about Bethlehem being the place where the Messiah is born, and in Micah

chapter four verse eight refers to a certain place near Bethlehem. It says, as for you,

tower of the flock, and in Hebrew that's the word, mcdawad, ador. Hill of the daughters

Zion to you will come, even the former dominion will come, the kingdom of the daughter of

Jerusalem. In other words, this was a well-known prophecy, and the shepherds may well have

known this prophecy in this location, and that's why they didn't need a star, like

the wise men needed to guide them to go. The Bible simply says they went very rapidly,

the space of only a couple of miles, to find immediately the place where this baby was.

And it causes me to wonder if these were not the sheep that were destined for temple sacrifice,

if these were not the shepherds that were going to be the ones that watched them until

they were sacrificed. And it would be very appropriate for our Lord to have said to these

shepherds and to these sheep that I want you to go find the one, lamb of God that's being

born that will take away the sins of the whole world. Think of the significance of that.

Notice what it says in Isaiah chapter 53. I consider Isaiah 53 one of the greatest chapters

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

of prophecy about the crucifixion of the Messiah and the reasons for his crucifixion. Notice

what it says in Isaiah 53, six. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us through

his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. Now regarding the

Messiah's actual crucifixion, notice what it says in verse seven. He was oppressed and

afflicted yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb he is led to slaughter and like a sheep

that is silent before his cheerer so he did not open his mouth. Everything in the Christmas

story points back to the Old Testament sacrificial system and then points forward to the ultimate

sacrifice Jesus Christ gave on the cross. When you think about sheep and those shepherds,

you think about the sacrifice for sin. And when you think about that baby, you think

about the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And you're getting the gospel

in the middle of your Christmas story, which is exactly what it's designed to be for. And

in that manger, in that manger scene, and those shepherds looking at that baby with

Mary and Joseph, we see the one, the one person who takes away the sin of the world. He takes

your sin away from you. He takes all of our sin away. We put our faith and trust in him.

That's this Jesus. That's what is happening here as all this unfolds. Our Savior is a

shepherd, but he's also a lamb, a sacrificial lamb who gives his life for us. Then I want

you to notice the third thing. I want to ask the question, what about Mary? What about

Mary? If you jump down to verse 19, the Bible tells us that all this conversation is going

on with these shepherds and with Joseph and Mary as the shepherds arrived there. In verse

19 it says, but Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. I don't know

about you, but birth scenes inspire questions. When you are a witness to a birth of a baby,

you have all kinds of emotions going on inside of you. I was one of the first generations

of dads that got to go into the birthing room with moms. 42 years ago or whatever it was,

my oldest daughter, my first child was born. I got to go in the birthing room. I take you

through all kinds of classes to get you ready, breathing exercises that you're supposed to

coach your wife through. I got to say, you don't want to get on her nerves while she's

in that room giving birth to that baby. I've learned that. You need to be really, really

subtle in what you do. You're supposed to help her and encourage her. I got so into

that role that once my daughter was born and we were assured that she was safe and all

that was wonderful. I actually asked the nurse, does any other woman in this hospital need

a coach because I enjoyed that experience. At which point my wife grabbed my collar and

said, be quiet, shut up. I don't blame her at all, but I was so moved by emotion. The

emotion of the moment was off the charts. Birth moments inspire questions. I know one

of the questions that came to my mind when our first child was born was, did my wife

and I really create this beautiful child? Two years later we had another child and one

of the first questions I had after that baby was born is, how are we going to afford all

these kids? When our fourth child was born, he was really big, 10 pounds, eight ounces

at birth. I asked the question, how did a grown man get inside my wife's womb? He was

a man child. We don't call that a baby, we call that a man child. Wow. That inspires

all kinds of questions, don't they? Well this question comes about in this verse where Mary

pondered these things. She's treasured all these things in her heart. Don't you know

that this young virgin mom had all kinds of questions about what the future was going

to be for her, for this child? I mean it inspires so much. Mark Lowry is a songwriter who wrote

the song Mary Did You Know? Everybody knows the song Mary Did You Know? 13 questions.

She asked 13 questions in that song and I'm going to go through some of the lyrics so

that I don't worry I'm not going to sing these lyrics and you can thank Jesus for that but

nonetheless I'm going to tell you some of the lyrics because they're great lyrics. Did

he walk on water? Did you know he would save sons and daughters? Did you know he came to

make you new? That he would soon deliver you? Did you know he would give sight to the blind,

calm the storm, walk where angels trod, kiss the face of God, help the deaf to hear, the

dead to live, the lame to leap and the dumb to speak? Did you know he was Lord of all

creation? Did you know he was real nation? Did you know he was heaven's perfect lamb?

Did you know he was the great I Am? It's a great song. 13 questions though. And I walk

through these 13 questions and I have an answer for every single one of them. So I'm going

to give you the answer to these 13 questions if you're taking notes have your pen ready.

And the answer is maybe, yes, yes, yes, maybe, maybe, no, no, yes, yes, no, and yes. I'm

being humorous obviously. Okay. So correct. She had these questions. She pondered all

this in her heart. But here's what I want you to see about this passage. In this passage

is a conversation between the shepherds and Joseph and Mary. The only three groups of

people that for 500 years have seen or heard from an angel, the three groups of people

in the planet that could have this conversation were centered around the manger. Now, now

when you read these verses 17, 18 and 19, it looked like the shepherds go everywhere

and tell everything they know. And they did do that after the manger scene. But at the

manger scene, only those three groups of people, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds are having

this conversation. Can you imagine what that conversation must have been like? The shepherds

are coming in and they say, is this the baby? Is this the baby the angels told us about?

I can imagine Joseph saying, who are you? And what angels? You saw angels. And I can

imagine the shepherds saying, yes, we saw angels. They told us the child would be born

in the city of David. And here we are. We're here to see this child. And as Joseph turned

to say, well, we saw an angel too. And the angel told me that I was going to have a son,

but it was going to be the son of the most high and we should call his name Jesus. And

at that point, Mary would have to have piped up. The angel came to me first and told me

I would be with child without having known a man at all. And he also told me to name

him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sadness. And maybe the shepherds were

well versed enough to say, do you know the name Jesus? Do you know that it means, in

the original language, it means Jehovah saves. Is this going to be the savior of the world?

Mary, is this baby going to be the one that takes away the sin of the world? Is this our

Messiah? Is this our King of Kings? Can you imagine that conversation over those few moments

there where the three people, three groups who had seen the angels are talking together?

What a moment. If you'd seen an angel and I'd seen an angel, you better believe we'd

be comparing notes about what the angel said to us. And you can bank on the fact that we're

going to be writing this down and pondering this and cherishing this in our heart because

this is really, really big stuff. What a conversation that they had.

Let me set a couple of things in front of you today. Let me say first of all, like Mary,

you and I need to be treasuring and considering these things in our hearts. I know Mary's

the one that had the baby and Mary's the first one that saw. Emmanuel. But you need to be

having that thought in your heart. You need to be asking the question, what does this

mean for me? Not what does it mean for the Christmas story, not what does it mean for

the world, what does it mean for you? That God became flesh first and now to the lowly

shepherds, birth and given into a manger to hold, be held by, who came to take away the

sins of the world, the lamb of God. What does that mean to you? You need to be comparing

notes. You need to be thinking through what this Savior means to you. And for Luke to

word it this way, Mary treasured all these pondering those things in her heart, Luke's

way of saying, you ought to be thinking more about this yourself. You ought to be cherishing

this in your life. Are you making room to do that? I know this is the wildest time of

the year. I know it's the hardest time of the year to come aside and create margin and

find a quiet spot and think through everything that this means, but I will tell you, you

will never regret the few moments that you spend thinking about what this Savior means

to your life and being grateful for the fact that He's here. You will never regret that.

And then, like the shepherds, we should make this story known to everybody. Everybody needs

to hear this. The shepherds went out wildly going everywhere, telling everybody what they

had seen and heard and probably talking about the conversation around the manger and all

they'd seen about this baby in that manger. They just wouldn't shut up. They went everywhere.

They were fearless. They were courageous anyway, but they went everywhere telling the good

news. Let me ask you, is this news any less today than it was then? Is this baby any less

powerful today than he was then? Absolutely not. You still need to tell the good news.

There was a guy in my life years ago when I was first pastoring. His name was Golam Obathi.

He was from Iran. And when I was first pastoring, we lived not far, or our church was not far

from an apartment complex, and one day we went and knocked on every door in that apartment

complex to invite people to services. And I knocked on his door, and he opened the door.

And I introduced myself, and there was a little short man about this tall looking up at me.

I'm sure he was wondering, what's this guy doing here? And I said, I'm the pastor of

a church down the street. I'd like to invite you to our services. He said, it's the Christian

church? I said, yes. He said, do you preach Jesus? I said, yes. He said, what took you

so long? I said, what do you mean? What took you so long to find me? And he invited me

into the house, and we had this conversation where I learned of his conversion to Christ

while in a prison in Iran. He was under the suppression after the shawl of Iran was deposed,

if you know your history, and the Ayatollah community came in and ushered in a whole new

era there of repression and oppression, and he was in prison. He escaped. But while in

prison, he was given a translation of the scriptures. He came to faith in Christ all

by himself in that cell room, and when he escaped, he came to America. He said, the

scriptures tell me that there are people like me who believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah,

but I just never met any of them yet. What took you so long to come find me? Wow. I'll

never forget that because there are people everywhere waiting to hear good news. There

are people everywhere waiting to hear about a God who cares about them, a God who is real,

authentic, down to earth, who meets us where we are. And you know his name. His name is

Jesus, for it's he who will save his people from their sins. My dear friend, ponder those

facts and share those facts as frequently as you can these days. I want to leave you

with one verse that's so important, so important. By the way, in the end of everything, all

these truths point to one truth, and that one truth is that God has come to us and that

God has come for us. That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. In John chapter 10, Jesus

John 10 · chapter mention

as an adult, before he goes to the cross says, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd

lays down his life with his sheep. Nobody will do that for you and him, and he has.

In just a few moments, I'm going to lead us in prayer, and then I won't dismiss this just

yet. I have a couple of things I want to share with you before we end, but join me in a word

of prayer. And as we pray, I want to ask you to think through this pondering, this amazing

miracle in your heart, asking what does that mean for me? It may be that you've never put

your faith and trust in this Jesus, who is clearly, clearly God's Messiah, and you need

to do that today. I'll invite you to go to the decision stations in just a few moments.

Talk to somebody about that. We want you to know Jesus personally. Father, I thank you

so much that in Jesus' name we can be here today. We can talk about all these different

characters of Christmas, and we can be encouraged by the fact that you put all these characters

on the stage of the world so that we can see all of who Jesus is. And Lord, we never grow

tired of knowing more and more about Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us. Thank you

so much that you came to meet us. You came for us. You came to us. And today I pray,

Father, that you would allow us to know you personally, that no one will leave this room

today without making the decision to trust you as Lord and Savior. And I thank you for

all you've done for us and I ask this in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. A couple of things

before we dismiss. First of all, this is a day, we do this every year, by the way, where

we have proposed a budget for 2024. It's so hard to walk through a worship service and

go through a message and an invitation and then bring up a budget vote, but we still

do that as a church. And so we'll ask you to join us with that. Then we'll get to something

else in just a moment that's more fun. But bottom line is, the reason we present this

and the reason we share this with all of our congregation is because it takes all of us

to move the church forward week by week and year by year. And God has been so faithful

and so of you as a congregation. It's been amazing. But every year we form a budget.

We put it in front of committees who actually help form it and in front of our people. On

November 11th we did that. And then we have a day on Sunday morning where everybody has

a realization that we need to affirm this budget and walk together in it. So we're doing

that right now. And here's what I'm going to ask you to do. It's a very simple question.

I know you probably anticipated this for weeks and weeks. You couldn't wait for this day

to arrive, I know. But bottom line is that everyone has got a copy of this and we'll

ask you to affirm this by a showing of a hand. So we'll ask you to raise your hand in a moment

if you can affirm this. And then I'll ask if there is someone that doesn't affirm that

or people that don't affirm that, raise your hand to vote no and to not affirm it. Alright?

So we're going to do this in our early service which we did and now we'll do it now. So if

you're behind this budget, if you'll stand with us and pray with us about this budget

and you're rolling that, would you raise your hand right now in affirmation of the budget?

Alright. Thank you so much. You put that down if you would. If you're opposed to this, go

ahead and raise your hand. And I believe there may be one or two that are opposed to that.

Most people look around and go, what am I supposed to do now? And I understand that

fully. Well thank you so much for affirming that. Consider that a part of how you support

this church and how you worship and serve the Lord as you give week in and week out.

Now more fun stuff. Brad, why don't you come up on the stage? Anytime I call Brad on the

stage it's always more fun stuff. And so here he comes. And we're doing something very different

with our Christmas Eve services this year, right? Because sometimes we have a big presentation

in the middle of December and then Christmas Eve is sometimes a little unplugged, a little

laid back. What's happening Christmas Eve this year? Christmas Eve is no longer unplugged.

We're going hard. Cool? So look, we've taken all of the energy and resources that we usually

put into Christmas together, carols and lights as it used to be called, and we've taken that

and we've put it into Christmas Eve. And we've made that our big invite for this year and

we're looking to do that going forward as well. You're going to see 25 minutes roughly

of strong production presentation. I'm going to be beating on a drum, of course. The choir

is going to sing. If you were here last week, you remember the number that we did. O Come

O Come, Emmanuel. We'll be doing that as well. That's a part of it. From there we'll be able

to stand together and we'll sing Christmas carols together. Of course, Carrie Bermacome,

our children's minister, is going to be down here reading the Christmas story to all the

kiddos who want to come and join a word from our pastor. And then as we always do, we'll

end the night with candlelight singing whatever that song is.

Well, you said it all. It's going to be a great service. It's going to be a great service

on Christmas Eve. Each of the three are the same, so pick one of those and come and invite

people to come with you and we'll look forward to being able to meet those friends of yours.

Yeah, if you don't mind, really fast. So if you noticed something he said, the shepherds,

they went out and they would not shut up about telling people about Jesus, right? That's

our job too, okay? Tell people about Jesus. Invite them here, 11, 4, and 6. That's our

job. We have a responsibility, so do it.

There you go. Good word. All right, one last thing is three invitations that we give every

single week. And one of those invitations is if you want to talk to somebody about a

decision for Christ, we have our decision stations here and we would love for you to

stop by on the way out today and let us help you make that decision for Christ. Secondly,

I want to encourage you to invite people back to the Christmas Eve service as we've told

you today. It's really, really important that people get an invite and bring them back.

Thirdly, if you're a guest, and especially if you're a first time guest, we invite you

to guest reception, which is outside the center exit door and across the hallway. We'll be

giving away copies of my book this year that I came out with. God's not done with you to

all first time guests, so please meet me in the guest reception room and let's stand together

and I'll pray us out of here. Father, again, we thank you so much for all you've given

us in Jesus and today I pray that you'll let us leave with that thought for most, that

you've come to us and for us in love. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful

Lord's Day.