Jesus through the Shepherds’ Eyes

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Transcript:

You know, when I started college years ago, it was strange to me at the very beginning that a lot of my professors were very hung up on social class. Not that they were snobs themselves, but on theories about social class and teaching about social class. And took sociology.

I still don’t know why, but I took sociology. And they talked about all these different demographic categories that people fall into, different ways you categorize people, religion, race. But they kept coming around to social class.

And they said that your social class, your income, your education, where you come from, who you come from. They said these things are the most powerful determining factors in the path your life takes. You know, that your social class determines who you’ll marry, where you’ll live, where your kids will go to school.

All of these sorts of things that are determined by social class. And then I had, I took political, I was a political science major for one semester. actually about three days of one semester.

Part of my dream I told you all about, about being governor of Oklahoma. I’m so glad that didn’t come true. But I took political science for about three days and hated it and switched back.

But one of my first days of class, they talked about social class and how it’s a lot of times the determining factor in people’s voting. Not just in the candidates and parties they vote for, but things a lot of times like how often they vote, why they vote the way they do. It seemed like these professors were hung up on social class.

Our entire lives were determined for us before we ever got into college based on the social class we came from. I thought this is not good because I did not come from rich, powerful people. And I left out of there thinking, you’re kidding me.

The real world is just like high school. There’s the in crowd and the out crowd, and you’ve got to be part of this in crowd or you’re nobody. My parents told me that ended with graduation.

I’ve been horribly, horribly misled. But, you know, it’s unfortunate that a lot of times in our world, A person’s worth, a person’s direction in life is determined by social class. And as I tell you that, I’m not saying that’s the way it should be.

I’m telling you that’s the way it is a lot of times. It’s not the way it should be. See, even in churches, even in Christian circles, a lot of times without thinking about it, we focus on a person’s social class.

The writers of the New Testament, Paul and James, and I’m sure some others, talk about how we’re not to prefer one person over another just because of the clothes they wear or the money that they have. But a lot of times, we’ll look at the people out in the world. I think we’re hopefully nowadays we’ve all heard the story about somebody who went into a church somewhere and was sneered at for what they were wearing or how they talked and hopefully we’re sensitive to that.

But looking at the world outside, we’ll see people and we’re selective on who we’ll reach out to. A lot of times based on social class without even realizing it. We’ll see the panhandler down on the corner and we’ll not want to give them the time of day, but we’ll see somebody rich and powerful and we’ll think, my goodness, what if they came to Christ?

Well, folks, what if the panhandler down on the corner came to Christ? That would be no more incredible or no less incredible than if the rich and powerful. But our society worships the rich and powerful.

You don’t believe me, flip the channels on your television sometime. I hate that E-Network channel where they just follow the celebrities around all the time. That channel just grates on my nerves.

They worship the football stars and the Kardashians and all these. I’m embarrassed that I even know who the Kardashians are. I hope you don’t.

Anyway, our society worships the rich and powerful. I’ve heard and I’ve even said it myself. Can you imagine how great it would be if so-and-so came to Christ?

Talking about an actor in Hollywood or talking about a sports star, not that I know who too many of the sports stars are, or the high-ranking politician. Folks, imagine what they could do for God if they came to Christ. See, we’re focused. It would be a great thing if those people came to Christ, but we’re focused so much on their social class and who they are and what they can do as opposed to what God can do in and through them.

A lot of times what happens in Hollywood and in high society is if somebody professes faith in Christ, they get marginalized and there goes the influence that they had. We should be just as excited about seeing the man who has to work 60 hours to make a living. We ought to be just as excited about seeing him come to Christ. We ought to be just as excited about seeing the panhandler down on the street come to Christ. We ought to be just as excited about the college student who has no money, no status, about the teenager that everybody looks at and just thinks is worthless.

Folks, the people that the world looks at and thinks they don’t amount to anything, these are the people we should be just as excited about them trusting Christ as we should the powerful, as we should the in crowd. So unfortunately there are still haves and have-nots and there are still an in and out crowd. But God is not limited by the characteristics or the status or the power or the wealth of the people He works through.

It’s clear from the Bible that God works through powerful kings. He worked through Nebuchadnezzar to make things happen. He worked through David to make things happen.

It’s also apparent that God works through what the world would see as powerless and what the world would see as poor and worthless. Thank God that He doesn’t work, that He doesn’t see people the same way that we work and the same way that we see people. We see an incredible picture of that here in chapter 2 of the book of Luke.

It says in Luke chapter 2 verse 8, And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

I always find it kind of humorous that when an angel shows up, the first thing they say is fear not. Because if an angel shows up, you’re going to be afraid probably. I know I would.

I wouldn’t be expecting it. They were sore afraid. And the angel said, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. So what has happened here is that these angels, I’m sorry, not these angels, these shepherds are out watching their flocks in the fields at night. And this is one of the reasons that people tend to doubt the idea that Jesus was born in December.

I’m one of those who doubts the idea that Jesus is born in December. They were out watching their flocks in the fields, and I’ve always thought, well, I’ve heard and been taught it was too cold out in the fields in December. They wouldn’t have been out there.

Well, that’s not exactly true. They would probably have tents and things like that that they would stay in, just like they would any time they’re out traveling. But the reason why it’s probably not December is that from the sources I’ve read, usually they moved their flocks into a pinned location, into a different location around October.

around September or October. So probably we’re looking at the birth of Jesus being sometime in the summertime would be my best guess. I could be wrong on that.

That’s not doctrine. That’s just my interpretation. But whatever time of year it was, they were out there in the fields watching over their flocks by night.

And out in the darkness, suddenly an angel of the Lord appears and tells them, don’t be afraid. Because it says before the angel even said that, they were sore afraid. They were incredibly scared.

And this angel says, fear not, for I bring you good news, good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. He said, I’ve got good news for you, and this news is going to bring great joy to all people because this day in the city of David, meaning Bethlehem, not too far off, today in Bethlehem a Savior who has been born, and it’s Christ the Lord. And we think, oh, that means Jesus.

But as we’ve learned over the last several weeks as we did our study into the prophecies of the Messiah coming, Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. And what they’re saying, what these angels are saying, They’re not just identifying Jesus was born. They’re saying a Savior has been born who is the Messiah, the Lord, the promised one that the Old Testament prophets wrote about for a thousand years.

He’s the one who’s been born today in Bethlehem. And this will be a sign to you. I’m sure there were, I don’t know how big Bethlehem was at that time, big enough to have an inn, but there were probably multiple babies born that day, probably at least another one.

Here’s a sign to you of which one I’m talking about just so you can be sure. This shall be a sign to you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.

No big deal there. They used to wrap them up real tight. Lying in a manger.

The odds are they were not going to find many babies in Bethlehem, newborn, wrapped up, and laying in a manger. Because if you remember, as I told you last week, a manger is a feeding trough. A manger is where the animals ate, where their food was.

A manger was not this clean, beautiful scene with this sweet, clean hay and all of these things that we look at on the pretty Christmas cards. And there’s nothing wrong with those Christmas cards, but they don’t really tell the whole story. This was not a clean, beautiful, kingly way to be born.

Jesus was born in very common circumstances. And he said, this will be the sign for you that you’ll find this Messiah, this anointed, chosen one of God that he sent. You’ll find this Christ the Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger in this animal’s feeding trough.

There’s the sign right there because you weren’t going to find many babies, even poor babies, laying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God. The angels, folks, the angels, I believe, understood what this meant for mankind, what this meant for the accomplishment of God’s plan.

And it sounds, from the reading of this passage, it sounds like that this angel had no sooner gotten the good news out of his mouth than the other angels of heaven could not contain themselves with the joy over what was happening, that all of a sudden they showed up, they came bursting onto the scene, praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. It’s an incredible scene here that the shepherds got to witness. You know what?

They did something about it. A lot of times we hear the good news. We hear the gospel.

We hear that Christ died for us. We hear other things that other good things that God is doing and we just kind of keep it under our hat. Oh, well, that’s nice.

I’m so glad God is good. We don’t tell anybody about it. We don’t do anything about it.

These people, they did something about it. In verse 15, and it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. They said, let’s go to Bethlehem and see.

Let’s go to Bethlehem and see. And it wasn’t a doubtful, let’s go check this out. You know, we’re going to verify this.

Because they say, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, see the thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known unto us. They didn’t doubt that it happened and they didn’t doubt that God was sending them word of it. They weren’t going to check to verify or to satisfy their curiosity.

They wanted to go and see what God was doing. And they came with haste. They hurried and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

And when they had seen it, when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. They went out and told people what they had seen and what they had heard. And it said they went abroad.

They didn’t just go to one person. They didn’t just go to a few people that they knew. They went throughout the countryside telling people what they had seen and heard.

They made it known abroad. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart, and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them.

There you have it, the story of the shepherds. That they’re out there minding their own business. The angels show up and tell them about Jesus.

They go and check, and they go tell people, what’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is that it was a big deal for, I mean, we understand what the big deal is. Jesus was born.

What’s the big deal about the shepherds? was that if we were trying to plan this out instead of God, and we were trying to instruct God on how He should have made all this come to pass, first of all, we probably wouldn’t have had Him be born in a manger, and we wouldn’t have gone to shepherds in the first place to tell them. The shepherds were not important people.

And we need to note, the first thing we need to note is that Jesus’ birth was first announced to the unimportant people of society. Jesus’ birth, the good news of Jesus’ birth was first announced to the unimportant people of society. Now, I’ve taught for a long time, based on my understanding of it, that the shepherds were the lowest of the low in Judean society, that they were despised, that they were hated, that they were outside of acceptable society, almost like they were lepers.

I believe I was probably wrong in that. I believe I was probably wrong in teaching that. As I’ve studied it more, I don’t see that they were hated and despised like they were lepers.

I just see that they were unimportant people. as far as I can tell, I don’t think the people of Judea at that time cared enough about the shepherds to hate them, cared enough about them to despise them. They were unimportant.

They had no social standing. The shepherds usually would own a little bit of land so that they could graze their flocks, but it usually wasn’t good enough land to grow anything on. They usually didn’t have enough money to support themselves, and so they would hire themselves out for wages of watching and taking care of other people’s flocks and these sort of things.

And so they were basically just peasants. They weren’t hated, but they just weren’t important. They were poor.

They did live on the fringes of society, but they weren’t important. And it’s very telling to me that God chose to make the first announcement, not of the fact that Jesus was coming, because that took place with Mary, but the first announcement of the fact that Jesus had come, that Jesus had been born, and not just that a baby had been born named Jesus, but that he was the Messiah. When God chose to announce to the world that the prophecies of the Old Testament had finally been fulfilled, He chose these unimportant shepherds.

In addition, I’ve read places where their testimony, if I understand it correctly, it took multiple shepherds for their testimony to stand up in court, if I understand that correctly. Whether they were trustworthy or whether they were just unimportant, these are not the people we would expect God to call on first. If an announcement today was being made that there was to be a royal birth, if Prince William, he’s the one that just got married, right? Somebody help me out.

Okay. Christian watched the news coverage. I told him we fought a whole war so we didn’t have to care about that family.

Sorry, that’s hateful. Not that we don’t care about them. Just don’t care about every little aspect of their days.

But if William and Kate were to find that they were having a baby and they were to want to make that announcement, They would not go down to the slums in London and knock on somebody’s door and tell them, no, they would call the BBC and tell them a future king is to be born. The news would go through the royal family and the nobility and the parliament and the big media outlets. That’s how mankind works.

But God works so much differently that He chose these unimportant people to be the first to carry His message. I don’t know if we realize how incredible that is. Do you ever feel like you’re unimportant in society?

You don’t have to raise your hand. I do, and I’m sure most of us at some point or another feel like, oh, they are not going to listen to me. Nobody cares what I think.

Most of the time I’ll tell people anyway, even if I don’t think they’ll care what I think. But we’ve all been there at some point where we feel like we’re the unimportant of society. Oh, God can’t use me.

Nobody’s going to listen to me. Who cares what I have to tell them? Folks, the very first people that God used to convey His message of hope were the unimportant of society.

We should not limit our God by tying His hands with our circumstances, as though we could limit God. God is not limited by our circumstances. God is not limited by our status, our wealth, our power, our prestige.

God can use me. God can use each of you. God could use these shepherds.

He could use anybody. They were the first to have the announcement. Jesus’ birth was first announced to the unimportant of society.

You’ve got to imagine not just how incredible that is, but how incredible that must have been to them. How incredible that must have been for them. For hundreds of years, the religious leaders in Judea had tried to keep God all for themselves.

Now the Pharisees and Sadducees, I don’t know about the Sadducees, but the Pharisees I think probably started with good intentions. I’ve told you this before. They said we want to be so sure we don’t break God’s law that we’re going to put a hedge around God’s law with these rules and we’re not going to break those rules.

So if we don’t break these rules out here, we can’t break God’s law in here. And I gave you the example before that if God’s law, it doesn’t, but if God’s law said don’t walk down these stairs, then the Pharisees would have said, okay, then we’re not going to come down past here because we don’t want to get close to breaking that law down there, so we’re going to set up this rule. Well, then their rule became God’s law in their eyes, and nobody could come past here or they were breaking God’s law.

And then eventually, well, we don’t want to break that, so we won’t come past here. And it just got worse and worse. So the Pharisees, I think, started out with good intentions, but after a while, they had set up all these rules and regulations that if you look at the laws of the Old Testament, the ceremonial laws and everything that they had to go through, it was a complicated process to come into the temple.

It was a complicated process to get right before God. And the Pharisees had taken it and made it even more complicated. And they were trying to deny, by the time Jesus came, they were trying to deny the common people access to God.

They would have to go through them. Sounds a lot like some of the religious systems of our day. You can’t get to God unless you go through us.

Folks, you can get to God without going through me. You can get to God without going through this church. You just got to go through Jesus Christ. But they had tried to limit the people’s access to God, the religious leaders had.

And the shepherds certainly wouldn’t have been worthy. The shepherds certainly would not have met their condition. their criteria.

And yet God completely, I love this, God completely bypassed the corrupt and hypocritical religious leaders and went straight to the common people and said, I’ll work through you. If they’re not watching for me, if they’re not going to listen to me, I’ll use you instead. And Jesus’ birth was first announced to the unimportant of society.

The second thing we need to know is that Jesus was born to make God’s salvation available to all people. Jesus was born to make God’s salvation available to all people. We see this in verses 10 through 14 in several places.

And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. I’ve heard preachers several times make the joke, talking about the Greek word studies. Have you ever looked up the word all in Greek?

You know what it means? It means all. And they tell it as a joke, and it’s funny the first 10 times you hear it.

But you know what? To me, it’s not a joke, because that’s really what it means. It means all.

You look at the places in the Bible where it says all men, it means all men. And not just all males, but it means all mankind. I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day, not unto the religious leaders, not unto the king of Judea, not unto Herod, not unto Pontius Pilate or any of the other people who would have been on the scene later, unto you, the shepherds, the common people, unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ, the Messiah, the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Again, not goodwill toward some men, not goodwill toward the Pharisees, not goodwill toward the priests, goodwill toward men. On earth peace, goodwill toward men.

Jesus was born to make God’s salvation available to all people. He says to all people and he says to you is born a savior, a Messiah, a Lord. He’s born to you, not just born to you, but he’s born to you to be these things.

He says here that he was born to be a Savior. It’s prophesied in the Old Testament that the Messiah was not just a political or military leader who was there to help them kick out the Romans, but the Messiah was coming to be a Savior and to bring salvation and deliverance to God’s people. And Jesus was born to bring salvation, to make God’s salvation available to all people.

The shepherds, for the first time, would have access to God without having to go through the rites and the rituals and the religious leaders’ nonsense. They could go directly through Jesus Christ and have access to God for the first time. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, because of Jesus Christ, not just the shepherds but all mankind, that includes us, would have the opportunity to come directly to God, to have direct access to God the Father through Jesus Christ. Without having to go through laws, without having to go through rules and regulations, rituals, priests, any of these things, we have access to God through Jesus Christ. and access to God’s salvation.

And neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, the book of Acts says. Jesus Christ came to be the one and only to bring salvation to all mankind. Now that doesn’t mean we’re all automatically saved because the Bible’s clear that we are born in sin and that we are born bound for hell.

But Jesus came and made the provision, made the sacrifice, paid the payment for our sins so that peace with God would be possible and we could have salvation. The third thing we need to know this morning Jesus’ birth brought great joy to the shepherds. It brought great joy to the shepherds.

They got up from where they were. I’ve never thought about it until just this moment, but I can’t imagine that if they were in such a hurry, as the Bible says, they made haste. I can’t imagine they picked up their sheep and took them with them.

Sheep are dumb and hard to drive somewhere. This is just my speculation, but I’m guessing they got up and they were so excited they left their sheep and ran off to Bethlehem to see what was going on. Then they ran from Bethlehem to go tell people what they had seen and heard.

The shepherds were excited. Folks, it is cause for great joy that Jesus Christ came into the world, was not just born, but came to die and to rise again and be our Savior. It’s a cause for great joy.

That’s why I don’t understand people who come into, and I don’t necessarily mean here, but churches in general, people who come into churches and they’re just so sad and somber. Well, I’m here again. How are you this week?

We all have that attitude sometimes. I don’t understand that, and I’m that way sometimes too. I don’t understand it when I do it either.

Folks, Christianity is cause for great joy. The fact that we were under the bondage of sin, that we had these laws and these rituals and rules, and all this stuff we had to go through to get to God. And even then, we still had no guarantee of God’s forgiveness because we were going to get forgiven, and then we were going to mess it up again and have to go through the process all over.

And suddenly, because Jesus Christ was born as a baby and died on the cross and rose again, we don’t have to go through all that anymore. It’s cause for great joy that Jesus Christ came and walked among us and paid the penalty once and for all and is now able, as the Bible says, to save to the uttermost. It’s a cause for great joy. Another story from when I was in college, a friend of mine that I went to Southgate with, we both had taken French in high school and studied some more in college, and we decided it’d be fun to work with foreign exchange students.

And it was fun to work with foreign exchange students. But we wanted to work with ones from French-speaking countries so we could kind of practice on them. Only thing is, they were in America, so they were wanting to practice on us too.

They’re English. And we wouldn’t pressure them. know, oh, you have to convert or hate you or anything like that.

We just try to be friends with them and talk to them about the Lord at some point, get them to come to church. And I remember one girl, we did get her to come to church and she came with us. I think it was the Sunday before Easter and she came in and people were singing and people were clapping with the singing and people were greeting each other and glad to be there and friends.

And it was just where I came from was a lot like here, just a warm atmosphere. People love one another and they’re glad to be there. And we walked out of there that day and she said something to the effect of, was that really church?

That was really church. Why do you ask? She said, but everybody acted like they were happy to be there.

I said, well, yeah, we go because we want to be there. She said, I’ve never seen something like that before. So she was not a believer.

And in France, most people are not believers. Even a lot of the Catholics are not believers in France, not even believers in Catholicism. And when you, apparently to hear her talk, when you go into a church over there, it’s very dead and very somber and statues and, you know, just guilt and sadness.

And she had never been in a church before where people were glad to be there. And I’m not telling you this to attack the Catholic church. I’m just telling you what she told me.

It was a new experience for her. And unfortunately, even people that are raised in Baptist areas of the United States, it’s a new idea to go to church and be happy about it, to be a Christian and be happy about it. Folks, we ought to be some of the happiest people on the face of the earth.

I’m not telling you that when you come to Christ, everything’s going to be peaches. Or peachy, I guess is the word. Peaches.

That was. . .

I hate it when bad things happen to good metaphors. Not everything is going to be peachy. Not everything is going to be wonderful and lovely.

If anybody tells you that, it’s a lie. But folks, no matter what we go through, we’ve got a Savior who died for us, and we can call on God the Father. We can rest in God the Father without having to go through all the rituals and all the nonsense.

We have access to God because of Jesus Christ, and that’s cause for great joy. We should be joyful people. The shepherds teach us that.

You want to see joy. Somebody getting so excited they run off from all the possessions they have in the world and going to see Jesus and then running some more to tell people about it. And finally, Jesus’ birth did not just bring great joy to the shepherds, but Jesus’ birth brought glory to God.

Jesus’ birth brought glory to God. If Jesus had just been born in a palace like any other king would have been, if Jesus had just, if his announcement of his birth had been made to the nobility, to the rich, to the religious leaders. It would have just been any other story.

It would have been just any other baby. But God can work in any circumstance. God can work through anyone.

Just as God used the shepherds, these unimportant people, these people who, according to my professors, would never be noticed in society. Here we are 2,000 years later still talking about them. God used these people to be the very first ones to talk about the birth of the Savior.

And just as that, God used an unmarried couple, a pregnant girl and a carpenter to bring his son into the world. Folks, God can work through any situation. God can work in any person.

And God is not glorified. I don’t believe. .

. God is glorified. But it’s not really an amazing addition to God’s glory when God does something amazing through amazing people.

When God uses kings to influence people, when God uses the rich to influence people, that’s to be expected. But folks, it glorifies God when he uses people we don’t expect. When God

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