The Shepherd’s Perspective

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. Today, we begin our Christmas series, and we're calling it Christmas in First Person. The Christmas story is very familiar, and we know all the characters involved. You know, we've seen the nativity sets. We know kind of where everybody's supposed to go. And when we come to the story, we kind of come with the end in mind. You know, I actually have friends that have nativity sets, and they build it slowly, and they don't add baby Jesus until Christmas Day. That's all well and but that's not really how we read the story. We're not hanging on the edge of our seats wondering what's gonna happen with the Magi. The Christmas story is a story that we've all heard. However, it is one that demands reflection. So much of the Christmas story, whenever we tell it, we tell it in third person, and it's written that way. Mary did this, the wise men did that, the shepherds did this.

However, there's also a lot of first person included in there. We see things from Joseph's point of view. We hear what Mary is thinking. We see the motivations of the wise men. We're even inside King Herod's head as we read through the Christmas story. So today, today, we're not gonna just read the Christmas story in third person. We're gonna try to read it in first person. And what we're gonna do over the next four weeks is look at the Christmas story from a particular point of view. And so today we're gonna experience and read about Christmas in first person from the perspective of the shepherds. Okay, so we're gonna begin in Luke chapter two, verse eight. And it says, in the same region where Mary was, in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And so let me set the story up. Jesus has just been born at the beginning

of Luke chapter two. And by the time we get to verse eight, You know, Jesus is just lying there in a manger, just born. Verse eight, it shifts the scene to these shepherds and says, okay, here's some shepherds and they're watching their flock by night. Now shepherds, you have to know that they were not the upper crust of society. Shepherds were, because of their profession, were looked down upon. In fact, it's really enough to say that their testimony was not valid in court because they were shepherds, okay? Their profession was that of like grunt work. It's what our society leaves to volunteers or prisoners to do, honestly. And these are men of no class, no social standing, no reputation, yet they are the ones that are chosen by God to see Jesus. So let's keep reading. And we're gonna read a lot of the verses here, verses nine through 14. And remember, we're trying to listen to it

from their perspective. We're trying to get Christmas in first person here. So Luke 2:9, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, "'that will be for all the people. "'For unto you is born this day in the city of David, "'a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. "'And this will be a sign for you, that you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Okay, that's a lot. And that's a familiar story. We know about the shepherds seeing the angel, hearing the message and then kind of, there's this huge, huge display.

If you can imagine just the sky filled with angels, I can imagine it almost like the 4th of July whenever, and not the bad fireworks, but the really nice fireworks display. I haven't seen Burlesons yet, but I assume they're pretty awesome. But I've seen a really nice fireworks display. And at one point there's so much going on and you're just sitting back and just looking at it in awe. You're just trying to take it all in. You don't want to miss any of it. And I think the shepherds were kind of in that similar situation. They're just trying to soak it all in. There's so much going on. Simply put, the shepherds have had a powerful, a powerful experience with God.

God's plan and their lives collided. They were simply watching their flocks by night. And boom, fireworks in the sky. There's this angel. And a lot of people think, like, if an angel, you know, if I saw an angel, they'd be like white with the halo and wings and all of that. I'm not really sure that's what we'd see, because every time an angel appears to somebody in the Bible, they freak out. And not just a little bit, but they think they're going to die. And I haven't had too many experiences like that, but I imagine that something would have to be pretty shocking for me to think that I'm going to die. For me to see something that would make me fear for my own life. And so when it says, you know, when the angel says, "'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news "'and great joy.'" The angel's saying, "'Well, just calm down, you're not gonna die. "'Shepherds, I've got some good news for you.'"

Now, the experience from the Shepherd's point of view, the experience was very powerful. It was very real, but I'm also sure it was very difficult to describe. I'm sure they actually struggled to put into words. They don't even have fireworks. Like they can't even use the illustration I used, but how are they gonna talk about this thing? But even though they can't explain it, they knew something happened to them. And within that experience, within that amazing spiritual experience that these shepherds just had. It was news, it was good news, right? So unto you, a child was born and, you know, this will be a sign for you. So you're gonna get a sign that you're gonna find the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger in Bethlehem. Notice there is no direct message there. It's not, the angel doesn't tell the shepherd, hey, go find the baby. It's really implied, okay?

The news, the instructions are implied, okay? Go find the baby, it's wrapped in swaddling cloths and it's in a manger somewhere in Bethlehem. Good luck. Go, go get it. But the news was big enough, right? They're looking at this news going, okay, I mean, this is a big deal. And so in 15 and 16, we see their reaction. It says, when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, let's go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. Okay, the shepherds, we don't get a lot of information here. The shepherds somehow are making their way to this manger. We don't know how long it took them. We don't know if it was one day, we don't know if they found them in an hour. What we do, what we can kind of get from context clues though,

is that the shepherds are probably knocking on doors. They're probably asking around. Now it is the middle of the night. Maybe it's getting into early morning. We don't really know. We're not told. It just says that they went with haste to go find Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. It says they hurried, but if they hurried, they probably talked to people on the way. So they're probably knocking on doors. They're probably telling people this really crazy story that they are struggling to put into words. They're looking for a baby. This baby has swaddling cloths and is in a feed trough. Can you tell me, can you tell me where to go? Help me out here. Okay, so they're looking for a baby in a manger and then they finally find the baby in the manger verses 17 and 18 in Luke 2. It says, And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning

this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. So we don't know who the all who heard it are right here. It says when all who heard it they wondered. But we get the impression that it was more than Mary and Joseph. We get the impression that the shepherds, in some capacity, were asking around. We're in contact with a lot of different people. And then when they find it, when they find Jesus in a manger, they find the baby in swaddling cloths, they tell everybody, right? Everyone that they talk to hears about this baby in a manger. And it's the Christ, like we haven't even touched on that. It's the Messiah. It's the one that everybody, Every Jew has been waiting for. And everybody that they talk to seems amazed or bewildered at this news. And we're going to get to that in just a second, but let's read the last verse first.

Let's read verse 20. It says, And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And so again, we get the impression that the shepherds are kind of going away from there and still telling this story. They're still testifying about what has happened, this crazy thing that the Christ is here and that he's right over there. He's in the manger, he's lying down and he's the baby, he's the Christ. So as the shepherds are processing this spiritual, powerful experience that they've had, they are actually indirectly creating more spiritual experiences for the people that are around them. Right? So the people that are the townspeople that are listening to the shepherds are going, that's crazy. And they're all wondering it says. Like it and that word doesn't mean like they're questioning it. It means that they're amazed by it. It means they don't really know what to make of it.

It's incredibly intriguing and it kind of catches them off guard. So these people that they're talking to, these shepherds and the people they're talking to, the townspeople, are experiencing God intervening in history. And the people, the townspeople, are experiencing that through the testimony of these shepherds. And like I said before, I want to get back to it, the response of the people is to wonder. And it's a peculiar response. It says that they wondered at. The reason that's so peculiar is because it doesn't give you any indication as to what their eventual response was. So it doesn't say they believed, but it also doesn't say that they scoffed. They neither joined the shepherds or their quest, or at least we don't read about it, but we also don't read that they dismissed what the shepherds said outright. It means they were kind of confronted with this information and they were amazed by it. Kind of dumb with them.

It says that they just wondered. And I believe that actually describes many people's reactions to spiritual experiences. People today have spiritual experiences. They have them all the time. And particularly at Christmas. So I realize, trust me, I know, Christmas has been commercialized, it's been sentimentalized. are making and losing lots of money on Christmas every year. However, however, there is a spirituality in Christmas time that's just evident. You can feel it. For years I didn't really want to feel it. I kind of hated it because it was so commercialized, but it's really difficult to ignore this thing, this spiritual experience that you feel. And it's not decorations, it's not cold, it's It's not family, it's not snow, it's not, you know, it's not the traditions, it's not the sentiment. It's that people actually behave differently, that people are actively hoping for better things.

There's this optimism about humanity that kind of erupts around Christmas time. And I think that it's worth it to ask how the people that don't know Jesus, How did they experience this Christmas time phenomenon? How do they process those spiritual experiences? I think that they're pretty similar to the townspeople that the shepherds are telling. I think that they have a vague amazement at all. They realize that they see it, but they're often left to their own devices to figure out what happens next or what's at make of it. And maybe they just chalk it up to the magic of Christmas. And it's not just a Christmas that people have spiritual experiences. People often have these experiences where God's plan and their lives collide. And sometimes it's something perfectly ordinary, like a conversation. Sometimes it's just being out in nature and watching a sunrise.

Sometimes it's even watching a movie that depicts grace, not necessarily a Christian movie, Christian movie, but just a movie that depicts grace. And people are moved. They have an experience, they have a genuine spiritual experience in that moment where God is tugging on their heart, they don't really know what to make of it, and they feel something very strong inside, but they can't connect the dots. And when people have an experience like that, you can bet that they're gonna seek out truth for that experience. People always seek out truth for what they experience.

They want to explain what they experience. And it's rare that somebody comes to a conclusion without some kind of real life situation to back it up, without some kind of observation in the wild, like, yes, this is true, I've seen it, haven't I've experienced it. In fact, because people want to explain their experience so badly, we have many alternate explanations that have been developed throughout humanity. And today, some of the common ones are to ascribe those experiences to the universe, capital U, some kind of cosmic force, maybe like the force in Star Wars or something that is controlling everything. Sometimes that's called karma. So hey, it's karma, that's what's going on. Sometimes it's just good vibes, you know, people just wanting to sound spiritual. Sometimes people ascribe it to brain chemistry. And sometimes, you know, simply, especially at Christmas time, it's the magic of Christmas.

If you need a longer list of examples, all you have to do is pop in a Hallmark movie. Okay, just watch a Hallmark Christmas movie. They will explain all the magic of Christmas in every way possible, except for ascribing it to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's true. And many, not just Hallmark, many movies that depict Christmas will talk about it that way. And when people feel something strongly, for example, when they experience Christmas, or when they see the sunrise, and for some reason, they've seen a thousand summarizes, but for that sunrise, man, they feel the Lord just tugging at their heart. And when they feel it that strongly, they want to know where it comes from. They search it out.

And so this Christmas, and many other times, moments of awe are going to be everywhere. God will give people spiritual experiences, right? What they would describe as a spiritual experience, God is going to be at work in their lives, speaking to them, talking to their hearts through conversations, through nature, through movies that depict grace, lots of other things. They're going to see, for example, they're going to see people acting sacrificially. They're going to see people be generous, serve other people. They're going to see kindness that cannot be explained any other way. They're going to see a joy that is real and fresh and life-giving, and they're going to wonder openly sometimes what is going on.

Oftentimes, you know, we talk about making disciples here at South Ferguson, and oftentimes we confuse making disciples with creating spiritual experiences for other people. Now, let me be clear. People do need spiritual experiences, but whenever we think about making disciples. How am I gonna make disciples? We begin to kind of turn that pressure back on us to create a spiritual experience for another person. We think that if we use eloquent words or if we have foolproof precepts or argumentation, you know, all this evidence that we can somehow overwhelm people and say, look, look, Jesus is the truth. There's just no way around it. And they're like, oh yeah, you've created this great spiritual experience for me. It's gonna to somehow overwhelm them. However, when you look over scripture, when you see how Jesus made disciples, when you see how the disciples made disciples

in the book of Acts, it had much more to do with God encountering people, giving them a spiritual experience, if you will, and then those people having to work it out. Like the shepherds, right? You have people in scripture, they experience something powerful from the Lord, but there is not a lot of instruction given, just like the shepherds, right? It's just really great news. And maybe the people that are receiving that even struggle to explain it all. They struggle to use the right words. And then they have to work it out. They have to see kind of what it means. And so today, whenever we're talking about people, just regular ordinary people, and God's plan collides with their life, and they have this spiritual experience, and they don't have a lot of instruction, and they're struggling to talk about it, how do they work it out? They work it out in relationships.

You see, God's plan is to make disciples in relationships. God's plans to make disciples in relationships. Like I said, look at the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. What does Jesus do? Does Jesus just come and declare truth? No, he does declare truth, but he does it in the context of relationships. He invests more time in 12 people and about 100 others that are kind of on the periphery. He invests way more time with them than with crowds. Right? And what does he do with them? He says something that amazes them. He performs a miracle in front of them. He teaches them, and the depth of the wisdom is just profound and it washes over them. And they wonder at it. In fact, when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when the disciples are asking Jesus questions, it's easy to pick on them. Because those questions sound dumb. Like, how is Jesus walking on water? And you're reading it as the reader. You're going, because He's the Son of God. That's why.

And so the disciples are actively wondering, and then they're having to work it out. They're having to figure out what does this mean? And Jesus is not taking them by the hand and like tracing, you know, He's not really giving them a lot. He's really doing things that amaze them and then they're working it out. They're working out with Him, of course, but they're still working it out. You look in the book of Acts, it's the same story. In the book of Acts, how the church begins is all of these people that are preaching the gospel in their own language and everybody hears it in their own language and it's freaking people out and they're like, oh my gosh, this is totally amazing. What do we do? And the disciples explain what happens and then they're like, okay, I want to follow Jesus too. But then what happens after that? Do they just go about their lives? No, they form communities. They work it out

in relationship. They continue to worship together, but they work it out. So then they have a spiritual encounter, a spiritual experience, they wonder at it and then they have to work it out. This is something that you see all over scripture and it is something that we experience all the time. But people who are far from the Lord, if they don't have a relationship with somebody that knows the Lord, they are experiencing these spiritual, these powerful experiences. They don't know where to ascribe it to. They're looking to explain it somehow and the relationship with you. What if they had a relationship with you? What if they would able to ask you, okay hey I just experienced this really crazy thing. I don't really know what to make of it. I really feel like something's been happening in my life the last couple of weeks. I don't really know where to go

from here. What if they had you? What if they had a relationship with you to begin to ask those questions, to begin to work that out. Whenever you start talking about making disciples that way, it changes the game. If we can begin as a church to think about making disciples, as helping people work through their own spiritual experiences about what the Lord is doing in their life, that's quite a different pressure than creating spiritual experiences on our own. Jesus Jesus is not asking you to be Jesus. Jesus is asking you to let him be Jesus, and you can work with people as Jesus is speaking to them. That's our role in this. That's how we make disciples. And so what I want to do is I want to give you three encouragements for relationships in your life. If you're kind of here and you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I don't, I'm a Christian, I follow the Lord, but I don't really know of people experiencing powerful

things from God. Let me give you three encouragements toward that end. Number one, relationships should dominate your prayer life. Relationships should dominate your prayer life. Okay, listen, as a church, we pray for physical infirmities, and those are a problem. I get that. how much more of a problem is spiritual death, right? Man, people are lost and dying and going to hell, and we aren't even praying for them. We should be praying that the Spirit of God would collide with people, that He would intervene in their life and begin to speak to them. And when that happens, we're in relationship with them, we can help them work that out. And so let's pray for people to experience the Lord in just a powerful way and for us to be able to work that out with them. Second encouragement, relationships should push us to include other people, to include others in our lives.

Now listen, this is not an introvert extrovert thing. God has made some of us to enjoy crowds less, that's cool, but an isolated life is severely discouraged in the Bible. Let me say it again. An isolated life is severely discouraged in the Bible. In scripture, we see people living in community with one another, people opening up their homes to one another because relationships are so important. You need to plan on hospitality as a weekly occurrence. And sure some, some weeks you might not be hot. You know, you might not welcome somebody in your home, but it's, I'm not just talking about your home. I'm just talking about your life. So sometimes this is having people over for lunch or dinner. Sometimes it means a meal out. You share meals, meals with people, lunch or dinner out. You have coffee meetings. You do things with people. You have book clubs. You play basketball with people. There's a thousand ways to include people in your life. And our

routine as people that follow Jesus should work according to a rhythm of inclusion. We include people in our lives. And specifically, now this is Christianity we're talking about. We're not just talking about like some feel-good, let's be in community. With Christianity, our encouragement is not just to include random people, but to include people that are far from the Lord. We include these people on purpose. Why? Because we were included. Because Jesus includes us. And so because we were included, Jesus wants us to include other people. Number three, Third encouragement, relationships should motivate us to talk about our own spiritual experiences. Talk about our testimony. You have things that happen in your life right now that God is doing. That God is intervening in your life right now. Either something is frustrating you and you're taking it to

the Lord, or you're experiencing a blessing, or just something that... Look, it's not always spectacular things. It's not always an angel in the sky talking to you, or limbs regrowing, or fired from heaven. It's not always those things. In fact, it's often not. I'm sure the shepherds that we just read about, they're, you know, if they were waiting around the next night for another angel to come and deliver them another message, I think they would have been sorely disappointed. The idea wasn't for the angel to continue to do that. The idea was for the shepherds to take that and say, the Lord is doing something in our day that is good. Let's worship Him. And so I don't mean spectacular things. I do mean joy in the face of trials. I do mean hope in the midst of stress. I do mean peace that passes understanding. I do mean the things that we are praying for that are answered. My family and I, we've been praying

for a smooth transition into this church. We knew that any time you embark upon a church revitalization, It can go poorly. It can be bad. Right? And it's not always the church's fault or anything like that. I'm not looking to blame. I'm just saying sometimes things go sideways. Bad. But Jesus, let me just testify about His goodness. He's been faithful to us. And not just to us, but everybody that came with us. And not just us and everybody that came with us, but to the church, the legacy members that were already here. We're about to make it through our first year together, it has been a great year. Yes, we have suffered a pandemic, but it's still been a great year. It's been a year of growth, of change, and it's been a year where we've seen God provide things that we've been asking for. We often forget the little miracles in our lives, but they are commonplace. Jesus is doing something in

your life right now. But it's often easy to overlook. In fact, we forget one of the first miracles that we experienced, which is our own salvation. You have a testimony about, not just about what the Lord did, but what the Lord is doing in the here and now. About His goodness toward you, about His mercy upon you, about the way that he got your attention and diverted your life. I hear these stories all the time. I hear about answered prayer, sharing. I hear about Terry's leg being healed. Praise the Lord. And I hear of your medical recovery. Praise the Lord. Oasters, I hear about friends that are having spiritual experiences and you're kind of walking with them through that. Praise the Lord. These are things that we are praying for. These are things that, these are healings, these are, these are things that only God can do and we are praying for these things. Like the

shepherds with the town townspeople, you have a recent spiritual experience. I'm not just talking 10-20 years ago, something significant Jesus has done for you lately. I want you to begin to ask the Lord now. I want you to say, Lord, just remind me of what you have done for me lately. Open my eyes so that I can see your goodness, so that I can remember, I can be thankful, I can be, you know, I can express gratitude for all that you've done from. And then when we do that, let's make sure in our lives that we are opening the door for relationships. Are we praying for people to come to know the Lord? Are we including people in the regular rhythms of our lives? And I mean like on a weekly occurrence. Inside the church, outside the church, include people. And then lastly, are you talking about it? Are you declaring, are you testifying about what the Lord has done in your life to the people around you.

Christians, non-Christians alike, are you doing those things? I want to challenge you today. Don't waste Christmas. Don't waste the relationships that are immediately around you. Don't do that. Begin to ask the Lord to open your eyes and to take advantage of what's already in your people or having spiritual experiences all around you. why not begin to be intentional about helping them process what that's about?

If you are in the middle of a spiritual experience, if you kind of know, oh, okay, something's happening, right? I'm not really sure what's happening. The Lord is kind of calming. What we say in our church is that you are in the explore phase, right? Where Jesus is reaching out to you and you're kind of kicking the tires. You're kind of wondering what this whole thing is about. What you need to do is begin to speak with somebody about the Lord. You need to begin to ask more pointed questions and you need to begin to work out what you're experiencing in real life. Maybe some of you are in the commit phase where you really are, you know what Jesus is about. You're thinking about committing to Him. You're not really sure. I would encourage you. We have a baptism small group where it's like a small group study. about three or four weeks and we go through just some of the basic points of

what it is to be baptized for you to be able to make that commitment and not just make it on a whim but really think about it and really understand that you're saying I want to follow Jesus with my whole life and here's what it means and I'm saying yes to it right we do that for everybody before they are baptized so that they can know kind of what their baptism is about and so I want to encourage you especially if you're in that explore phase or that commit phase, be thinking about what maybe that next step is and reach out to somebody. You can reach out to us. You can get on southbro begin to help you take whatever that next step is. Right now, let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for your many mercies toward us. We thank you for the testimony that you've given. We thank you for reaching out to us and giving us what we could describe as spiritual experiences, but what you say

is just your will being worked out in our lives. I pray that we would cooperate with that, that we grab hold and not let go. And that we pray. Amen.