Invited

Good morning.

I hope you guys are having a good morning this morning.

I'm excited about what we're going to talk about today.

We are actually going to look at a story of some very unexpected VIPs at an incredibly important event in history.

And so this week, as I was preparing and praying and asking God, how do we start this?

I asked him to remind me of a time where I was a VIP and it was a mistake.

I shouldn't have been a VIP, I was a mistaken VIP, and I thought I would share this story with you right now just to kind of get our minds, our imaginations going before we read what God has for us today.

So I was 19 years old, and my father had just passed away, and we were going to bury him, and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

So it was a really big honor.

And we buried him on Memorial Day weekend.

And Memorial Day weekend at Arlington National Cemetery is just covered with people coming to take tours and to pay their respects.

And so there were all sorts of people there that day.

Now we drove from Baltimore, Maryland, all the way to Washington, D.C.

And that's kind of a long drive, especially when you're mourning.

And so we decided as a family that we were going to rent several limousines so that we could caravan and stick together and not have to focus on the traffic while we were going through what we were going through.

And so we have the funeral and we're getting ready to leave the cemetery.

And my mom and I, my brother and some close family and friends, were in the lead car.

And as we were driving out of the cemetery, we we came upon President Kennedy's grave site.

And my dad respected and admired President Kennedy, and my mom did, and so she thought it would be a nice tribute to my father that we would stop the car and that she and I would go up and put a flower by the gravesite.

So we stop, we're in the front car, and then the other two limousines stop behind us, and we step out of the car and we are in our funeral clothes.

So we're dressed up and we're wearing all black and we're very sombre because we've just buried my father.

And my brother and our family friend were gonna escort us up the stairs.

And so they step out and they're in black suits and a white shirt, black tie, and dark sunglasses.

So you can imagine that if you are a person who is standing there and you're looking at all of this, all of these limos and these people coming out, and these are those are those agents with them?

And so we start walking up the stairs and we get to the top, and there's this plaza, which is where you walk up and you can see the grave site for for President Kennedy and his wife Jackie.

And so there's a Marine and he's there guarding, and there's a partition all the way around this beautiful red velvet partition rope with brass legs, and it's all the way around keeping people at a distance.

So we get to the top of the stairs, and this marine, without hesitation, unlocks the partition and steps to the side.

And he invites my mom and me right up, right up to the graves.

And so my mom lays down a flower on both of those graves.

We walk back, go down the stairs, we get into the limousine, and the driver turns around, he goes, I had everybody coming up to me asking, are those the Kennedys?

And I told them, I'm not at liberty to say.

So for just a moment, I was a Kennedy.

Thank you very much.

No, I tell you this story because we're gonna be looking at a story of some very unlikely VIPs at a very important event, a very important moment in human history.

We're gonna be looking at the story of the shepherds and how God invited them to come and be the very first witnesses to the birth of the baby King Jesus and that call for them to go out and tell the world.

And so let's look at this story together.

We're gonna read it.

It's in chapter two of um of Luke, Luke chapter two, starting in verse eight.

This is right after Jesus was born, okay?

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.

Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them.

They were terrified, but the angel assured them, Don't be afraid, he said, I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.

The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David, and you will recognize him by this sign.

You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.

Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to those with whom God has pleased.

When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem, let's see the thing that this is that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.

They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger.

After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.

All who heard the shepherd's story were astonished.

But Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often.

The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.

It was just as the angel had told them.

Amen.

So today we're actually gonna look at these shepherds, and we're gonna try to discover what it is about their story that has something to do with our story.

And so, first let's understand these shepherds and who they were in society.

Okay, so shepherding is one of the oldest professions in all of the world.

The very first human being, Adam, was charged dominion over the entire animal kingdom.

And his son, Abel, was called a keeper of the sheep.

And we see shepherding as a common theme all the way through scripture.

We see some significant and experienced shepherds, Jacob and his sons, Moses, David.

In the Old Testament, we see God the Father referred to as a shepherd, and in the New Testament, we see Jesus referred to as a shepherd.

So we see shepherding throughout Scripture.

But there's a downside to shepherding.

There's a downside, and that's because the Pharisees looked at these shepherds as the having the inability to remain pure.

These religious leaders said, you can't hold the Sabbath, you are not pure.

And the reason they couldn't hold the Sabbath was because if these shepherds left their flock at all, they could have, those, those sheep could have been destroyed by wolves or stolen by thieves.

Well, because those those shepherds spent so much time in the fields, they were kind of separated from society.

They were alone, they were isolated.

Society looked down on them.

They were at the bottom rung of the ladder in the social status.

They were looked down so much upon that they were compared with tax collectors and the people whose job it was to sweep manure from the streets.

They were not looked at as credible.

They were never called to be a witness in court because they were not looked at as being trustworthy.

Okay, we're talking outcasts, isolated, alone, forgotten.

Why would God call them to come and spread this message?

Why would God call them?

I mean, I can understand why he wouldn't have called Herod or Caesar because they would have destroyed any threat to their throne.

But what about somebody who'd studied about the Messiah's coming their entire life and they were scholars?

Or what about somebody who had such influence in society that whatever they said everybody would grab hold of and say, oh, okay, yes, they had prominence.

No, God didn't choose them.

Why did he choose these shepherds?

Well, to human agenda or human perspective, we see things very differently than God, don't we?

God has a different agenda and a different perspective.

And today, I just want to take us through a journey to uncover this.

And here's the thing is this scripture, I mean, I don't know if you're a Christian or not, everyone here, and if you're not a Christian, gosh, I'm so glad you're here.

But regardless of who we are, we've all heard a portion of this story pretty much our whole lives.

I mean, it's on greeting cards and t-shirts and pillowcases and all sorts of things.

And even for those, and especially for those of us who are Christians, you know, there's there's actually a temptation when we hear scripture that we that we hear all the time, that we're very familiar with, there's a temptation for us, for me, to gloss over it.

And I really was struggling with that this week.

When I realized this was the this was the portion of scripture we're gonna look at, I was like, well, I know this really well.

What on earth can we pull out of it?

And then God reminded me, you are the discipleship pastor, Elon, and your job is to help people connect with God and help them grow.

And so I decided that, and if I hope you don't mind, I'm actually gonna take us through a little bit of a journey that I myself take whenever I'm studying God's word.

Um, especially when I'm when I'm coming on something that I'm either familiar with or super unfamiliar with.

And the first thing is that I always recognize what I'm working with here.

God's word is like his personal journal to us.

It tells us who God is, what he thinks about the world, what he thinks about his children, who we are, and what he wants us to do in response to that truth.

And so we have to understand that.

And then I ask myself three questions, and we're gonna go through these three questions and look at these shepherds and again see what their story has to say about our story.

The first question we're gonna ask is what does the scripture tell us about who God is?

Or what does the scripture tell us about God?

So early on in this passage, we see in verse 9, it says, Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them.

An angel of the Lord is a common phrase that we see through scripture.

And it can mean one of two things.

It can mean that either God Himself has come down in human form, it can mean that Jesus, it's Jesus in body form, or it can mean literally an angel is coming as a representative of God.

And the very first time we see this phrase, an angel of the Lord, is all the way back in Genesis at the beginning of the Bible.

And it's actually when God himself came.

And I love the story.

I love the story.

It's about a woman named Hagar.

You may be familiar with her.

She is the servant to a woman named Sarai, who later becomes renamed Sarah.

And Sarah's husband is Abram, who later becomes named Abraham.

And Abraham and Sarah were the ones that God said, I'm going to give you more descendants than there are stars in the entire sky.

But the problem was they were really, really, really old, and Sarai could not have children.

And so what do we do when we feel like God is taking a sweet time on something that we want from him?

We take matters into our own hands, and that does not usually go very well.

And so Sarai comes up with this idea.

Hey, you know what?

Let me give my servant Hagar to my husband and let them have the promised child.

That's how we're gonna get the promised child.

That didn't work.

It didn't work very well for Sarai because Sarai got insanely jealous, and as a result, she started treating Hagar horribly.

Horribly.

Now, Hagar didn't have very many rights.

She was forgotten, she wasn't important in society, just like our shepherds.

She was treated so poorly that scripture says that she ran away to the wilderness, which meant pretty much sure death.

So it was better in Sarah in Hagar's mind that she would run away and die than to be underneath the authority of Sarai any longer.

And so she runs away.

And as she's out in the wilderness, in her wilderness, God the Father comes and meets her right where she is.

They have a moment together.

He basically says, Hagar, I see you and I have a plan for your life.

Hagar was seen by God.

And that moment changed her so much, she renamed how she called God, and she called him El Royi, which means the God who sees me.

The God who saw Hagar was the same God who saw those shepherds.

And he's the same God who sees you.

God sees you.

And I know that we're in a season where it's like everybody's happy jolly, you're supposed to be, but I also know for a fact that there are people here right now who this is not the most wonderful time of the year.

Because you are going through real life.

And even if you're not in that right now, we all know.

I mean, Jesus promised that we're going to face trials.

We're either coming out of a trial, going in a trial, or one's coming up, or we're in it.

And we need to know that God sees us.

Not only does he see you, he's watching you.

He's beside you.

He is with you.

And he will help you.

He will help you.

He will carry you through.

I love Psalm 121.

It says exactly what I'm trying to say here, but way better.

Let me read it to you.

I look up to the mountains.

Does my help come from there?

No.

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let you stumble.

The one who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps.

The Lord Himself watches over you.

The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.

The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon at night.

The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life.

The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.

He watches us.

He's with us.

He's beside us.

He never sleeps.

I'll be honest with you, the very first time I ever read Psalm 121, I was really encouraged.

I was encouraged to know that God watches over me.

It's good to know that God is watching over me and He's beside me.

But there was a line in this that troubled me.

And that was in verse 7 where it says, The Lord keeps you from all harm.

Because sometimes we're in harm.

So that doesn't make sense, God.

And then that's confusing.

And then we start questioning, and then it's like, is this even true?

And I'm really thankful that he drew my mind to Psalm 121 because I think there's something important for us to know and understand.

And so here's a few things.

The Psalms, the Psalms are poetic prayers written by writers conveying their deepest feelings and thoughts about a wide variety of circumstances.

And we can look through all of the Psalms and read all of the Psalms, and there's no question that there's harm that comes around us.

Listen, if we're if we think that God is the God who keeps all problems away from us, it's not the God of the Bible.

But He is with us.

Jesus Himself said, You are going to face trials.

It's a promise.

It's a promise from God.

And so when you look at like a Psalm like three, Psalm three, David, King David, he's being chased by Absalom, his son, and 10,000 military, and they're coming to kill him.

And I love David, David says this prayer, and he says, God, you are a shield about me.

Nobody's gonna take a shield unless they expect a battle.

Y'all, we are in a battle.

We are in a battle, but the point of a shield is to protect our vital organs.

God is our protector.

We have a shield of faith that protects our heart and our soul.

Okay, and these psalms, this writer in this particular psalm is trying to talk about the overarching care of God.

He is here with us, he is watching over us.

And that word keep, the Lord keeps you from all harm.

That word keep in Hebrew, it actually means to watch, to guard, and to preserve.

So that means that while we're in the midst of whatever it is we're going through, whether it's a major trial or just daily life, that we have a God who sees us, he sees you.

He's watching over you.

He is not asleep on the job, he is standing beside you, and through the midst of the trial, he is going to guard you, preserve you, and care for you.

God sees you.

Okay, so we've answered the question from this scripture.

What is it?

What is it that we can learn?

What does the scripture teach us about who God is?

God sees us, period.

So the next question that I ask myself is what does the scripture tell me about who I am?

What does the scripture tell me about who I am and who you are?

Okay, so we we know that these shepherds, we know what the society thought of these shepherds.

They were nobody.

They were nobody.

But for God to come and meet them as an angel of the Lord, to see them, and then to invite them into his story, and then to say, Hey, I want you to come see my one and only son.

I want you to be the first ones to see it, and then I want you to go out and I want you to tell everyone for him to do that to them must mean one thing.

And that is those shepherds must have been mighty important to God.

Those shepherds were significant to God.

Significant.

You are significant to God.

Your significance does not hinge on any decision or any mistake you've ever made, or any decision you ever will make, or any mistake you ever will make.

Your significance is in God.

God loves you, He created you.

And if we are not aware that our significance, many times we think it comes from the world out there.

If we are not aware that that's happening, we are not gonna make it, you guys.

We have got to understand that our significance doesn't come from what anybody says about us.

Our significance comes from what God says about us.

That we are significant.

Do you know that you are so significant by God that he knows your heart?

You are so significant to God that he knows every word you're going to speak before you say it.

You are so significant to God that he made you wonderfully complex.

You are so significant to God that his thoughts of you are precious.

That's what God's word says.

Precious.

You are so precious.

You are so significant to God that he thinks about you all the time.

So much so that we could collect all of the sand and all of the earth, and it still wouldn't even come into comparison for how much he thinks of you and what he thinks of you.

Men, our world tells you you gotta have it all together, and you better not show any weakness.

You need to be strong, you need to keep your kids in line.

You better be the leader of your family, the provider of your family.

You you have to look a certain way, you have a certain title.

No, your significance has nothing to do with that.

You are children of God, you are sons of God.

He is your provider, he is your leader.

You are significant, period.

End of story.

Sorry.

Women, we worry.

We worry and we try to control.

No, God does not want that for us.

God holds the entire world in the palm of his hand.

He has got you just fine.

Women, your significance does not come whether you work or stay at home and raise your babies.

Your significance does not come from what anyone thinks or says about you.

Your significance does not come from your productivity or the smoothness of your life or the smoothness of your thighs.

Your significance comes because God loves you.

You are his daughter, you are his child.

Period.

End of story.

And to my young people in here.

Oh, hear me, please.

I can't even imagine growing up in this technology age.

But you gotta hear this.

You are significant to God.

Your significance does not come from a post on social media, what anyone has to say about it, any text they send to you, anything they say about you, the way they look at you, any filter on your camera.

If you are finding your significance and what other people think of you, it's gonna be a long life.

God has already claimed you significant.

Done.

End of story.

We don't need to look any further.

We are significant.

You are significant.

Do you hear?

Do you receive that this morning?

We need to receive that.

Okay, so the first question What does the scripture tell us about God?

It tells us that He sees us.

What does the Scripture tell us about who we are?

It tells us that we are significant.

And the third question I ask myself is after reading the scripture, what response That God wants me to make?

What actions does He want me to take?

Because this is not just sit and get.

God invited us into His story, not to just sit here and have the story.

He invited us into His story so that we would go out and invite others into the story.

Let's look at these shepherds and how they responded to this incredible invitation that God had given them.

We're gonna pick it back up in verse 15.

When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem, let's see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.

They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph.

And there was the baby lying in the manger.

After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child, and all who heard the shepherd's story were astonished.

But Mary kept all these things in her heart and brought them, thought about them often.

The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen.

It was just as the angel had told them.

Oh, I love these shepherds and I can learn so much from them.

Scripture says that they were eager, that they hurried.

They were eager and they hurried.

I am so eager to tell people about something great my kids did.

I'm so eager to tell them something great going on in my life, or a vacation I'm going on, or oh my gosh, you gotta try this recipe.

And oh, Bath and Body Works has like this incredible sale going on right now, and you need to go.

I'm so quick to do that.

But for whatever reason, I kind of I kind of halt or or hesitate, I should say, on inviting people into what God has done in my life.

I hesitate.

Why is that?

I'm gonna come back to that in just a second.

When you look at these at these shepherds, I love, love, love the response.

It says that everyone was astonished.

You guys, these shepherds were the same people that had no clout in his in in society.

Nobody cared.

They were not trustworthy, they couldn't even come into court and give an eyewitness because they were not believed.

And now everyone's astonished and believes them.

Do you know what that says?

That says that when God is at move, on the move, when God is at work, when God does something, there is absolutely no un no denying that it is Him.

God wants us to go out like these shepherds and invite people.

And I was thinking about why is this such a struggle for me?

And I guess it's probably because before I became a Christian, I was invited by well-meaning people, I'm sure.

And maybe it came across as pressure.

And so then I hesitate, you know, because I'm afraid what like how they might respond.

And so Tab and I sat down and we're like, okay, well, let's come up with a text message we're gonna send to people and we're gonna invite them to church.

And so it's like, hi, you know, I'm going to church with my family on Christmas Eve and the two o'clock service, and we just wanted to invite you.

How rude.

Like, what who's gonna think how rude?

No, it's actually really, really loving for us to want to invite people into something if we are Christians.

Like, Jesus is the one who's changed us.

How can we hold that back?

We gotta tell everybody.

I love how scripture says that these shepherds they went back to their daily life.

They were glorifying and praising God.

I want to be that, y'all.

I want to be that.

I don't want to just be that in a scene like this.

It's easy to do that here.

I want to be that out there.

I want to be different.

I love that as a church, we're trying to build this culture of invitation.

That we want to be known as a church that invites people in.

Christmas time is such a wonderful opportunity for that because, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm really reflective at this point in the year.

You know, you look back at the year that you've just had and kind of what went well and what didn't, and and looking ahead and seeing like what are my goals, or what does God want to do, or what's coming up ahead, and and you have hope and all of that in the in the in the coming up in the in the year ahead.

You know, it's a very reflective time, and people are receptive.

They need to be invited.

The only one who has the answer is the one.

I love one of my favorite parts of my job is I get to sit with people who get baptized.

Worship team, you guys can come on out.

I love that part.

And one of the reasons I love it is because they're on fire.

They're on fire.

They're like, oh, I just gotta tell everybody.

Like, Jesus has changed my life, and I don't have it figured out, and I'm I'm still working on it, but I just want everybody to know, and they go out with this eagerness and they're like hurried and and they're praising and worshiping, and it changes, it grows as much grows my faith.

And that is a kind of Christian that we should be, not because it's bad not to be, but it's like it gravitates people and because it's Jesus.

We have a God who sees us and watches over us and cares for us and preserves us.

He guards us and he loves us and he is with us.

He's such a good, good God.

We have a God who calls us significant.

You are significant.

And we have a God who came down from heaven who invited us into the story, his story.

And our response, I don't see how it could be anything other than inviting others to experience the same, the same life-changing transformation.

And so that's my challenge to all of us this morning is that before the end of the day, that we would all reach out, call, text, email, whatever, four people, four people to come, to come on Christmas Eve, to experience Jesus, to experience God here with us.

If you haven't invited Jesus into your heart, I should say, you'll never be the same.

He's just incredible.

He's a make amazing.

And you don't have to do anything but just say, Lord, I invite you in.

And then go sign up to get baptized.

We have a couple people right now who've done that.

They've invited Jesus in.

They want everybody to know.

And as a family, we have an awesome opportunity right now to come alongside them and cheer for them and celebrate with them, pray for them.

And so let's pray for them as they get into the tank.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Um, thank you so much for being here with us this morning.

Thank you, God, for making your word come alive.

It can be so familiar sometimes.

And um I'm just so thankful, Lord, that your your word is living and active and it's useful.

I'm so thankful we could read it 50 times, the same phrase, the same verse, the same passage, and get something new out of it every time.

And that's that's because your word is breathed by you and and you are you are alive and you are here.

And and Lord, I just pray, God, that as we go throughout our day that um that we would just rest assured that you see us.

You see us right where we are, that we're significant.

Oh Lord, please, please let us have our identity in you.

Please, Jesus, you're the only thing that's stable.

God, just help us to be like these shepherds and to to just hurry out to tell everyone we can about how you've changed us, changed us, and to invite them in so that they can be a part of what you're doing and what you want to do in them.

And I thank you for for the people who are getting baptized this morning that they have they have taken that step, that they're going all in with you, and that they've invited you in their heart, and that they're excited, and they want everybody to know, Lord, I want to be like them.

Help us to be like these people getting baptized.

I just want to go tell it on the mountain.

Lord, you're so good.

We're drawing near to you this Christmas season and asking, asking for the ability to feel your presence.

So we receive that right now.

Make that decision now that we're gonna be looking for you, looking for ways that you're loving us, looking for ways you want us to love others, and looking for ways that you want us to invite others.

We just thank you for the privilege, the privilege that it is to walk in this life with you by our side.

We love you, Jesus.

Amen.