Shepherds

Good morning, Good News Church. So we are beginning a new series for this holiday

season. It is called Characters at Christmas.

And before we even jump into our text this morning, I have some general observations

about holidays that I would like to lay out for you, okay? And I'll start with a story.

Recently, I was on a cruise ship.

And it was last week, and it was interesting being on a cruise ship on the week of Thanksgiving.

In fact, on Thanksgiving Day, we were out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

And so that's kind of unusual, but on Thanksgiving Day, the cruise director

got onto the intercom that talks to all the staterooms at the same time,

and he said, today at 5 p.m., everybody go to the atrium, and we're going to

have the Thanksgiving celebration.

And I thought that this was unusual, I guess for a couple of reasons.

First of all, as best as I could tell, usually people that are on staff with

cruises, they do not try to get everybody that's on the ship to all go to one place at the same time.

Okay, if you've ever not been on one, I'll just let you know.

It seems to me those ships are sort of designed, if there's 2,000 people on

it, they're designed for the 2,000 people to be spread out all over the ship

and not all of them to go to one spot at the same time.

So that was kind of unusual. But that's what he said. He said,

everybody come to the atrium at 5 p.m. for the Thanksgiving celebration.

And so I get there, and I was thinking some stuff to myself even ahead of time.

The cruise director, as best as I could tell, because I was able to observe

his behavior up until that point, as best as I could tell, the cruise director

is not a Christian, okay?

And the cruise line is not a Christian cruise line. In fact,

I don't think there are any Christian cruise lines, but Carnival certainly isn't one if there is one.

So I'm sitting there going, this is going to be interesting.

We're going to have a Thanksgiving celebration, but what's it going to be like?

Because the purpose of Thanksgiving, if you didn't know, the whole purpose of

the holiday is for human beings to reflect gratitude back to God for the blessings

he's given us because he's the source of all the blessings we have. So we thank him for them.

So I'm sitting there going like, how are we going to have a Thanksgiving celebration

where we talk about our thankfulness, but we can't speak about who we're thanking,

right? We have this gratitude to who?

We don't speak about that. We just talk about the gratitude generally,

but like, who are we grateful to?

And so I'm sitting there thinking, well, I don't, I can't imagine that the guy's

going to get up there and say, let's all have a moment to meditate on the Lord

from whom all blessings flow.

Like, there's no way that is going to happen. But then I'm like,

but then what, how do, how are we going to pull off a Thanksgiving celebration

if we can't recognize who we're thankful for or who we're thankful to?

And so I was thinking this could be like a theological train wreck.

So I was kind of excited to go and see.

And my expectations were certainly met.

It was a theological train wreck. The guy gets up there and now we're all gathered

together, jam-packed in this little place.

And he says, he starts off by saying, I think we can all admit that we all have

a lot to be grateful for, you know?

And people are, and I'm sitting there going, yes, I agree. But like, we're grateful to who?

Like, where do you go from here? So I'm waiting to see, where do we go from here?

And so he talked about, he said, one thing I think we can be grateful for is

all of the people who are around us.

And I didn't know if he meant that metaphorically, like our friends and family,

or if he literally meant all the people that we're jammed next to in the cruise.

But I think he meant it metaphorically. And then he started talking about human kindness.

And then he said that he's had all the people that were there.

He said, I want you to like cheer and, you know, cheer and scream if the thing

that I say applies to you.

And so he said, he said, how many of you have ever opened the door for someone

else and let them through? And the people all went, woo!

They're all cheering. And he said, how many of you have ever smiled at someone

that was having like a rough day and you encouraged them, right?

And the people all went, woo, yeah, and they're all cheering.

And he said, how many of you have ever done the dishes or you've done a chore

in order to help your family out? And the people, woo, they're cheering.

And I was sitting there and I was like, oh my, I can't believe this is the direction it took.

Like he took a holiday that's about us like celebrating and thanking God for

what he's done, and he turned it into a celebration of ourselves and our goodness.

Like, we were all essentially, like, extending our thanksgiving to ourselves

for how good we are, and even how good we are.

I mean, the things, the examples of our goodness were lame.

Like, opening a door and smiling, like, that's like the lowest common denominator.

I mean, serial killers open the door for people and smile.

Like, this is lowest common denominator morality, and that's the thing that

we were celebrating. That was the pinnacle of our gratitude. I was like, what is this?

So, and I mean, then I went and ate a bunch.

So what I wanted to do is I wanted to start off this holiday season with this thought.

Apart from God, there are no holidays.

I don't know if you ever thought about this before, but to say like,

we're going to have this holiday. We can't mention him, but we're going to have this holiday.

Listen, apart from God, there are no holidays.

A holiday is, first of all, the word holiday is made up of two words. It's holy and day.

Okay. So at some point people realize there are holy days. There are days that

are set apart as special for a special purpose.

These are holy days. And then after a while, they just combined it into all

one word, holiday. Okay, but a holiday is a holy day, a day that's set aside for a special purpose.

Without God, there is no special purpose for any day. In fact,

without God, there is no purpose for anything at all.

We are, you and I, if there is no God, we are a collection of chemicals that

just happen to be in this form at this time, right?

You and I, if there is no God, we are essentially a bag of chemicals.

We're made of, I guess, I think carbon, a whole bunch, and I don't know,

there's calcium in there, I'm sure.

There's oxygen, hydrogen. I don't know all the things we're made of, but we are.

You and I are a bag of chemicals that happen to be in the position that we're

in at this point in history, and we are on a spinning rock in a vast and meaningless universe.

And there is no higher purpose, and there is no right or wrong, right, apart from God.

And you say, no, no, I believe that there's right and wrong.

Yeah, but I might also believe something's right and something and it might

be different than what you think, okay? So who's to say?

Who's right? Like, who's the tiebreaker above both of us who says what actual

right and wrong is? If there's no God, there is no actual right and wrong.

There is no should be or shouldn't be.

There is no ideal. Sometimes we talk about that like, this is the ideal because

we are living according to our design.

Apart from God, there is no design.

Right? Without God, there is no way any particular day ought to be.

But interestingly, when a person or a group or a culture rejects God,

they don't always ditch the holiday that was attached to him. Right?

However, when they remove God from it, this is interesting, they typically replace

him with something else.

Right? Once God is gone, we don't replace him with nothing.

Once God is gone, we don't gather together and celebrate nothing.

Once God is off the throne, we often just put ourselves there.

And that becomes what makes this day so holy.

We are a religious people, whether we like it or not, and we always worship something.

We always give weight to something.

We always appreciate something, even if it's our own goodness or whatever other

thing we want to value at any given moment.

And so there will always be holidays and some God will be honored.

Psalm 107 says to give thanks. I think it's commonly known as a Thanksgiving

psalm. You can read it this afternoon if you want.

But Psalm 107, when it says to give thanks, it doesn't just say give thanks, like generically.

Psalm 107 doesn't just say, like, just be thankful. To who? No,

we don't need to talk about that. Just give thanks.

Psalm 107 not only says give thanks, it says give thanks to the Lord.

But it not only says give thanks to the Lord, like in a generic way.

Well, we just thank the Lord for what? I don't know. We just thank the Lord.

No. Psalm 107 says not only to give thanks, not only does it say to give thanks

to the Lord, it says to give thanks to the Lord for what he's done.

The thanksgiving is to a particular person for a specific thing,

right? That's the meaning of thanksgiving.

Let me move on to another holiday. Exodus chapter 12 is the section of the Old

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

Testament that gave the Hebrew people the holiday Passover, okay?

The reason there's Passover and everybody knows about it is because Exodus chapter

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

12 was recorded, which was the first Passover and the time where God told the

people how to conduct the Passover, okay?

And it's interesting, the instructions that God gives are not merely celebrate Passover.

Like God doesn't just say, cook the lamb this way, bake the bread this way,

and make sure you do it once a year, okay?

If you read the text in Exodus chapter 12, it says that they are to celebrate

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

Passover and that it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord.

But not only does it say it's a Passover sacrifice to the Lord,

in the section where the people are told how to explain this to your children

and their children so people know what is Passover for.

It says it's a Passover sacrifice to the Lord for what he has done.

And in that particular situation is for rescuing us from the Egyptians.

That's why we have Passover. We are thanking, we are praising the Lord specifically,

and we're specifically praising him for something that he did,

right? He rescued us from the Egyptians.

That's what holidays are for. So this Christmas, I wanted to urge you to not

merely celebrate Christmas.

Like everybody does that. You put up lights, you exchange gifts,

like just if you're just celebrating Christmas is doing Christmas stuff in December,

like everybody does that.

Don't merely celebrate Christmas. Celebrate Christmas to the Lord and celebrate

Christmas to the Lord for what he's done.

And therefore, the content of this sermon series is going to be to cover some

of the specifics about the Christmas story.

What has he done, particularly as it's related to Christmas?

So we want to cover some of the specifics about the Christmas story as found in the Bible.

So the series is characters at Christmas, and the characters we're going to

focus on this week are the shepherds. If you have your Bible,

you can turn to Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

I'm going to read to you verses 8 through 20. This is the account of the Christmas

story that includes the shepherds.

Luke chapter 2, the shepherd section is verses 8 through 20.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

This is very famous stuff that you've heard read at like Christmas pageants

and stuff, perhaps all your life if you grew up in this country.

Okay, Luke chapter 2, I'm going to start reading in verse 8.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

In the same region, shepherds, there they are, shepherds were staying out in

the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.

And then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone

around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good

news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Today, a Savior who is Messiah, the Lord, was born for you in the city of David.

This will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped snugly in cloth

and lying in a feeding trough. That's what a manger is.

Suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel praising

God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people

he favors. That glory to God in the highest we sang in Latin in the first song of the service.

That's Gloria in Ixelsis Deo. Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on

earth to people he favors. Verse 15.

When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to

one another, let's go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened,

which the Lord has made known to us.

They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the feeding trough.

After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child.

And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and

heard, just as they had been told.

So that's our text for this morning. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to

organize my thoughts around three questions.

Okay. Like everything that I want to say sort of comes, falls under three headings.

The three questions are number one, who are these shepherds?

Number two, what did they see and hear? And number three, what did they do in

response? Okay. So that's, that's where we're going.

Who are these shepherds? What did they see in here? What did they do in response?

So let's start with who are these shepherds?

Who are these shepherds? Well, in one sense, it's real easy.

Well, these are the famous Christmas shepherds that everybody knows about.

You've seen them in Christmas plays.

You've seen them in Christmas pageants. We all know the Christmas shepherds.

But the real question I'm asking is, who were they before they were the Christmas shepherds?

Like we know them as that now, but before the angel showed up, who are these people?

Before they were on every Christmas card, who were they?

And as best as I can tell, this is the answer, okay?

These shepherds were total strangers to everyone else in the story.

These are random blue-collar workers who happen to be outside working the night

shift that particular evening.

I don't think they are friends of Mary and Joseph. I don't think they are relatives

of Mary and Joseph. I think the story would have been written in a different

way if they had known the other characters.

For instance, if you look at verse 12, when the angel tells them how to find

the baby that is born, that is the Messiah, the Lord, the Savior,

how do they tell them to find the baby?

They say, this is how you're going to figure it out. You'll find a baby wrapped

snugly cloth and lying in a feeding trough.

Okay. So my thinking is this, there were probably multiple babies in Bethlehem that evening.

So they couldn't just say there was a baby born, go find the baby.

They'd walk around and go, well, several people have babies.

Okay. So they're saying, no, the one, the baby that's the one we're talking

about, the one that's the Messiah is the one you're going to see in a feeding trough.

Okay. That's how you know which baby. So what I'm trying to say is if these,

if these shepherds had any sort of connection to this story,

the angel would have said, this is how you're going to find the baby.

It's Mary's baby. You know, your cousin Mary, like, you know,

like, go, go find Mary. It's her baby.

They don't say that. Why? These people don't know Mary. These people don't know Joseph.

They say, you're just going to walk around and you're going to find babies.

And eventually one of the babies is going to be a feeding trough.

That's how you're going to know the baby we're talking about.

These guys are just shepherds. They're just random shepherds that were there

that day. They aren't particularly important.

Their names are not listed. I mean, they had names, but who knows what they

were. They're just called shepherds.

Other people in the Christmas story have names. Mary and Joseph's name is listed

specifically, right? Jesus has a name.

Even like more minor characters in the story have a name. If you read Luke's

account, I mean, Elizabeth is named.

John the Baptist is named. Zachariah is named. Even Simeon and Anna are named.

They're mentioned by name. They don't even make it into most of the Christmas

pageants, and they made it by name. But the shepherds, who knows what they're called?

Even the magi, it's interesting, they got names eventually, okay?

The wise men, which I guess we'll talk about them next week if the Lord wills,

the wise men did not have names at the time that the Bible was written.

Like Matthew's account does not mention their names. But I guess at some point

in history, somebody said, well, these guys are like, they're important.

They're magi. They need names.

Somewhere around the 7th century, they were named Caspar, Melchiar,

and Balthazar. Have any of you heard that before?

If you were in a Christmas play and you were cast as a wise man,

sometimes that's the name that's in the script.

Melchior, Caspar, and he says this to Balthazar, those are the names.

Those come from the seventh century. They're not from the Bible.

But somebody thought those guys were important enough, we've got to give them names.

As far as I can tell, there is not any point in history where anyone thought

these shepherds, we've got to name them. They're important. Okay? They never get names.

Why? They're just ordinary people.

Now, there's a lesson in that.

The Christmas story, in the Christmas story, we see that the message of the

Messiah came down to ordinary people.

I just want you to think about this. The God who created the universe,

when he decided to announce the birth of his son, he did not announce it to

Caesar and Caesar's household.

He did not announce it to King Herod and his court. He did not announce it to

the priests and the Sanhedrin who were there in Israel.

He announced it to regular people. And then look at verse 10.

This is part of the announcement.

But the angel said to them, don't be afraid for, look, I proclaim to you good

news of great joy that will be for who? All the people.

The message of Jesus is for all kinds of people, not just special people.

All right, so that's who the shepherds are. The second question is,

what did they see and what did they hear?

Well, they saw an angel, and then eventually they saw a whole multitude of angels.

And then the thing that just strikes me as a really big deal is the passage

says, and I didn't catch this as a kid, I just thought angels,

that's a big deal. The passage says, the glory of the Lord showed up and shone

around them and they were terrified.

Now, when you think, well, what does that mean? The glory of the Lord,

this must be something that like, this is like something unique to the Christmas

story. This had never happened before. Oh, not true.

The glory of the Lord showed up multiple times in the Old Testament.

So we can see like what this is, okay? This is something that was not unprecedented.

There are times, special times, where the glory of the Lord shows up and it's

this cloud and it's this brightness that is amazing.

So, let me show you one of the times. Now, I don't know for sure what these

shepherds, how familiar they were with the Old Testament, but I'm guessing if

they're outside of Bethlehem, they're probably Jewish people.

They probably have learned about the Old Testament as they were growing up.

They may very well have known about the story that I'm about to read to you.

But this is one of the times where the glory of the Lord showed up.

It's Numbers chapter 16. If you have your Bible, you can turn there.

Numbers 16 · chapter mention

The context here is the guy named Korah sort of rises up in rebellion against

Moses and Aaron at this time in Israel's history.

And so something really interesting happens at this meeting of these people

who are opposing the leaders of Israel, Moses and Aaron.

So look at verse 18 of Numbers chapter 16.

Numbers 16 · chapter mention

It says, each man took his fire pan and placed fire in it and put incense on

it and stood at the entrance to the tent of meeting along with Moses and Aaron.

After Korah assembled the whole community against them at the entrance of of

the tent of meeting, so you can see what's happening here, right?

There's a little standoff happening.

So here's Moses and Aaron, here's Korah, and the people all show up. Now look what happens.

As they assemble the community against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting,

look what it says. It says, the, what happened?

The glory of the Lord appeared to the whole community.

Israel shows up for this meeting, and the glory of the Lord comes down,

and everyone's going, what is that?

So God's glory shows up, and then look what happens next. Look at verse 20. The Lord.

No wonder the shepherds were scared when the glory of the Lord shone around them.

I mean, if they were familiar with this story, they would have known that there

was a time in the Old Testament when the glory of the Lord showed up to kill people, right?

The glory of the Lord showed up in judgment.

Now, honestly, even if they didn't know that, I think they would still be terrified.

Have you ever been like in the dark of night and you think you're alone and

then suddenly someone is there that you didn't realize was there and you're like, whoa, right?

So that's scary enough. But then imagine that's an angel. Okay,

that's even more scary. And then if the whole glory of the Lord thing is happening,

that of course they were terrified.

And then if they knew this story, who knows what was going through their head.

But not all of them were like this. Not every time the glory of the Lord showed

up was it in judgment. Let me show you a good happy one in 1 Kings chapter 8.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

This is another time that the glory of the Lord showed up. First Kings chapter eight.

This is the point where Solomon has had the temple built and he is now dedicating

the temple to the Lord who he made it for.

And then look what happens. This is first Kings eight chapter eight, verse 10.

When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the Lord's temple.

And because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering

for the, there's our phrase, the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

When Solomon sat inside the temple, there was a point where the glory of the

Lord showed up and filled the temple and apparently was so bright,

the priests couldn't see anything anymore and they had to get out of there.

So this seems to be a time where the glory of the Lord shows up,

not in judgment, but the glory of the Lord shows up in blessing of the temple.

But either way, when we go back to our passage in Luke and we see the glory

of the Lord shown around these shepherds, we can see that God is holding out

this particular event, this part of the Christmas story, he is holding it out as special.

Just like it was a special time when the glory of the Lord showed up at the

rebellion of Korah, and it was a special time when the glory of the Lord showed

up at the dedication of the temple, The glory of the Lord shows up,

and this is a special event.

The glory of the Lord had probably not been seen by human eyes for years before this.

Like those stories that I read you from Numbers and Kings, that was hundreds

and hundreds of years before the Christmas story.

And so it was probably true that the glory of the Lord had not come down,

and no one had seen it for a long time, and then suddenly these shepherds are surrounded by it.

It is held out as a special event by God himself. this was a holy day.

Well, that's what they saw. Well, what did they hear? Well, they heard the birth

announcement of the Messiah. Look at verse 11.

The angel says, today, a savior who is Messiah, the Lord, was born for you in the city of David.

Again, for you, ordinary people was born for you in the city of David.

So this is a birth announcement. The Messiah has been born.

And in fact, three words are used to describe Jesus here. He's called the Messiah,

he's called the Lord, and he's called a Savior.

So they're saying this is, he's been born. Who?

A Savior has been born, the Messiah has been born, the Lord has been born.

So I just want to go through these real quick. First of all,

Messiah is a Jewish word that means the anointed king.

This would be the anointed king over Israel he was prophesied about in the Old Testament.

Lord is also a kingly sort of word, or a word that means something like owner.

Lord is important for us to realize that it is associated with Jesus because

when we say Jesus is our Lord, we are not saying, like, what that means is the

words that Jesus spoke are not things that we are to take under advisement, right?

Jesus' words are to be obeyed because he's the Lord.

But then the passage also says, a savior has been born.

I want you to get this. Jesus Christ did not come here to teach us a formula

by which we could save ourselves.

He came here to actually save us.

The way I heard this, I heard this one time. I just thought it was so great. Actually, I read it.

This was in a devotional that I read my kids. When I was a little boy,

my mom was a brand new Christian, and she found this book in the bookstore called Little Visits with God.

And at night, she would read to me from Little Visits with God before I went

to bed. And then somehow we kept it in the family. And so when my kids were

little, I read Little Visits with God to them when they were little.

And there was one particular visit with God that the words in that chapter,

this really stuck out to me as so profound, much more profound than most of

the stuff you would find in a children's book. This is from Little Visits with God.

It says, Long ago, the disciple Thomas asked Jesus, How can we know the way to heaven?

Jesus didn't say, I'll show you the way. He said, I am the way.

He doesn't just show people how to get to heaven. He takes them there himself.

That is beautiful. I thought that was great when Nelson was baptized.

Did you notice that he said, Jesus is the only way to heaven, right?

Not Jesus is the one who shows us the way to heaven. Jesus is the only way to

heaven. That is correct, Nelson.

All right, so what did the shepherds do in response to this announcement?

Well, the passage says that they went and found Jesus. They looked at each other

and said, well, let's go check out the thing that they just said.

So they went, and they went around town, and I don't know how long it took,

and I don't know how many babies they found before they found the baby,

but at some point they found a baby in a manger. They found a baby in a feeding

and that's how they knew.

And so then they explained to the parents of the baby in the feeding trough,

guess what just happened to us? The glory of the Lord showed up,

And an angel said this, and Mary and Joseph are probably going like,

whoa, angels showed up to us too, and they told us stuff too,

but it had been a little while, so thanks for the update, right? This is good.

And then look at how the story ends. Look at verse 20, the end of our passage

this morning. It ends this way.

It says, the shepherds returned, which I assume means like went back to work,

right? Went back to herding sheep.

The shepherds returned, glorified, and praising God for all that they had seen

and heard, just as they had been told.

Like their reaction to what God had done was to not celebrate Christmas generically, right?

Was to specifically glorify and praise God for what he had done.

Their reaction was to praise God for what they saw and what they heard.

So here's the application.

We those of us who are in this room we should be

amazed that god has chosen to

reveal himself to ordinary people like us and therefore we don't just celebrate

christmas we celebrate christmas to the lord for what he has done which in this

case is was born here to be our savior year.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for this Christmas season. I thank you that even like the rest

of the country and even much of the world celebrates with us.

And yet I know they have mixed in a whole bunch of other stuff.

There's Santa and there's all sorts of, this is the season for giving,

but we don't worship anybody in particular.

And I mean, there's a lot of messed up in it and I'm aware of that.

Although they still haven't, still called Christmas. I love that a lot of people

don't even believe in Christ and they call it Christmas it's fantastic.

And so I thank you that we are in this season where there are some of us who

are, there are people around us that are gonna celebrate Christmas in some,

kind of like the cruise director, just in some sort of generic way,

not worshiping anybody in particular for anything.

And then there are some of us in this room that we have the opportunity,

this Christ mass, to worship you in particular for what you've done specifically,

and that is that you came here to save us.

And so I pray we would do that. I pray that we would take this December and

not lose that opportunity.

I pray that like Thanksgiving and like Passover and like a lot of holy days,

we would take the opportunity to worship you for what you've done.

And we love you that you are worthy of it. We thank you for coming for ordinary

people like us. Thank you for coming for sinners. Thank you for loving us while

we were still in our sins.

And thank you for being our savior. Thank you for not just showing us,

well, here's the way, here's all the hoops you gotta jump through.

Thank you that one day you will take us there yourself. We love you and we praise

you for that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.