Heavenly Messages of Christmas #4:
“The Wonderful Gift of PROPAGATION”
INTRODUCTION:
When something new or exciting happens, what do you do? When something unbelievable has just occurred, how do you react? What if your favorite team wins the Super Bowl? What if the love of your life just agreed to marry you? You just had a child?
What do you do when you learn something really important and aren’t sure if everybody else knows? 9/11? Friend just won a gold medal (’90 Summer, Barcelona, Nelson Diebol)? Everybody in the company is getting a HUGE Christmas bonus this year? What if you get the PERFECT gift for Christmas – just what you’ve always wanted but never thought you’d ever actually get?
You’d shout for joy and quickly tell everybody you could (perhaps even total strangers), wouldn’t you? When we see/hear/receive something wonderful it is only natural to desire to propagate (broadly proclaim) the news to all around! At least, unless it was something we were determined to hoard and keep only for ourself and our own benefit . . .
For the past 3 weeks, we have been learning from the Angelic announcements surrounding the first Christmas. We have benefited and learned from the message of Prophecy to Joseph, Purity to Zacharias and Promise to Mary. This morning, on the eve of Christmas, we will take a closer look at what it means when the prophecy, purity and promise have been fulfilled. We will see that God’s designed and desired response for us is one of propagation (widely telling and sharing of all that has occurred). We will see this first in the response of the Angelic host, and then of even the simplest of men.
Luke 2:8-20
Prayer
Try to imagine the scene, if you will. In a dark, dank, smelly cave a baby has just been born. And not just any baby, but Immanuel, God With Us, God Incarnate, born in the flesh to be the Savior of the World and reconcile all creation to Himself!!! Yet, of the thousands of people in the surrounding area and millions of people throughout the earth, only two were even mildly aware of what had just happened. Everybody else was completely oblivious. Ah, but there was a grand audience nevertheless. The angelic hosts of heaven were rejoicing like never before. Surely, they felt too excited to keep the news to themselves. They must have been dying to tell someone, especially those blind and clueless humans! Shortly, God the Father sent a group to proclaim the news on earth – but only to a particular, small group of people; themselves isolated from others.
Now, if it was up to you to determine what few people should receive this incredible news straight from God’s special messengers, and you didn’t already know the outcome, I can’t imagine many if any of us would have guessed it would be shepherds. Especially not if we understood what it meant to be a shepherd in 1st C. Israel. They were hired hands who had no place or respect in society. Unskilled, uneducated, unconnected and poor laborers. They were loners and vagabonds who, by nature of their role in life, generally had little contact with others outside their own kind. Their jobs were also their lives – 24/7. Inevitably, they were as dirty and smelly as the sheep they cared for. They were even rejected and looked down upon by the religious society. And, because their work prevented them from following all of the ritual washings, they were barred from entering the Temple. While I’m sure there were exceptions, shepherds also had the reputation as being foul-mouthed, mischievous thugs and cretins.
Yet, God chose them!!! Why? We don’t know for sure. Perhaps because their humble position and simple lives uniquely equipped them to accept rather than question God’s message that was unexpected and unfathomable. Or, to demonstrate at the beginning that His coming is Grace for all peoples, even in our sin. Perhaps, because they would be most likely to share with others without making it about themselves – drawing attention to themselves as messengers over and above the message itself. Or, perhaps, as some speculate, they were the shepherds who watched over the sacrificial sheep that the temple authorities kept on the hillside just outside the city for the daily sacrifices.
In any case, we see again how God chooses the unlikely, the unexpected, the simple, the ordinary and the undeserving to be His servants and receive His special blessings on this earth!
Please join with me now in more closely examining the significance of this event, not only for its time, but for each of us – no matter how simple or ordinary – today. We will look at each of the three scenes - on the hillside with the angels, in the stable with the Christ Child, and in the community with others– and what we can learn from each.
SCENE 1: IN THE HILLSIDE WITH ANGELS
HEARING: WHAT DO WE NEED TO HEAR? Luke 2:8-14
A) We are to hear the AUTHORITY for the message. vv. 8-9
- Propagation is God’s program! Propagation is the way God works. The angels presented
themselves to the shepherd, the shepherds did NOT invoke the angels.
B) We are to hear the ANNOUNCEMENT of the message. vv. 10-11
- v.10 This message was the “gospel” (euaggelizomai). “Good news.” This terminology has its roots in the prophet Isaiah’s announcement of end-times salvation. It was first an allusion to the watchers on the walls and the heralds loudly proclaiming the complete victory of the King over all the world and His victorious return to take the throne of the earth and whose rule ensures peace and salvation for all! The message that begins at the watch, then passes and echoes from mouth to mouth throughout the city and even the Kingdom. In particular, Isaiah
57:2 (repeated in Nahum 1:15 and quoted by Paul in Romans 10:15):
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the herald,
who proclaims peace,
who brings news of good things,
who proclaims salvation,
who says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
- Jesus, in beginning His public ministry applies this to Himself when He reads from Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me,
because the Lord has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and freedom to the prisoners;
- Further, this gift of God will bring “great joy.” Truly it is special.
- And, it is for ALL the people. Not some. Not certain ones. ALL. “All means all and that’s
all all means.”
- v. 11 What is this “good news of great joy”? That the Savior, the Promised One, the Messiah
was born. He has invaded the earth to bring hope, healing and deliverance. To be Lord and
Savior of all!
C) We are to hear the APPLICATION of the message. v. 12
- v. 12 “Sign.” This word is used over 70 x in NT and most often refers to miracles, or the “sign gifts.” These “gifts” surrounded the coming of the Savior and the birthing of His Church. They have since been replaced with a “more sure word of prophecy” - The Holy Scriptures!
- Note further, that the shepherds were first instructed to “find” the baby for themselves. Then, they would spread the message. In the same way, we too must first “find” and know Jesus, the Savior for ourselves before we can tell others about Him!
D) We are to hear the ACCOMPLISHMENTS of this message for us or anyone
who will receive it. vv. 13-14.
- vv. 13-14. Now, suddenly, the whole heavenly chorus appears and bursts forth in praising what wonderful and unique thing God has done! The “good news” that would bring “glory to God” and “peace to men.” Note, this is not an abject promise to the kind of ’world peace’ the Miss American contestants talk about. It is a specific peace. The peace that comes to people when God is glorified. A peace that is absolutely dependent on recognizing and receiving the Savior who brings it!
SCENE 2: IN THE STABLE WITH THE CHRIST CHILD
SEEING: WHAT DO WE NEED TO SEE? Luke 2:15-17
A) We need to see the OPPORTUNITY to see God for ourselves. v.15
- The shepherds had some decisions to make concerning this message. Will they believe it or
not? Will they ignore it? Keep it to themselves? Check it out?
- We all face the same decisions again and again in our lives; God opens Himself to us and we
must decide if we believe Him, or His message or will we just sit in darkness and doubt?
B) We need to see OTHERS with the same needs as we have. v. 15
- We are all in the same contests of life; contests as to whether we will be content on the hillside shivering by the unsatisfying fires of this world or will we go find Jesus and allow Him and His will guide us through life and eternity?
- The shepherds spoke to one another concerning their desire to see the reality of the message. Sometimes we need to just speak out and we will find others who are in the same valley of decision that we are; if we will speak up we might not only find our direction, but aid others in their walk with God.
- They also encouraged one another. What a lesson to us; we too ought to be encouraging one another to check out what God has promised us.
C) We need to see OUR SAVIOR. v. 16
- It is not the angels; the glory; the stable; the future; the potential – just Jesus!
- In seeing Him we will have all that we need to cope, to serve, to find victory, if we really see
Him.
- Our problem is that too often we see the program, the people, the problems, and miss the
Savior! Perhaps there are some of us here today who need to see Him all over again?!
- When we really look for God’s promises we will find them to be true.
SCENE 3: IN THE COMMUNITY WITH OTHERS
GOING: HOW DO WE NEED TO GO? Luke 2:17-20
A) We need to go TELLING
1. Note the CATALYST for their telling: “When they had seen.”
- Again, we put so much emphasis upon what we ought to do that sometimes we fail to fulfill
what we ought to be. For it is only when we have “seen” the Lord Jesus, that we can talk
about what we have seen.
- We need to keep a fresh vision of the Lord Jesus if we would tell others!
2. Note the CONTENT of their telling. v. 17
- Not angels, or even their incredible experience, but “this child.” What is it that we need to propagate? To widely proclaim at every opportunity? About Perth Bible? How people should live? What good theologians we are? NO! NO! NO! We need to tell others about JESUS, who He is and what He has done for us – What we have seen and heard!
3. Note the COMPLETENESS of their telling. v. 17
- When they saw, then they “made known” (to give a thorough knowledge). They broadcast to others what they had experienced. We need to be as thorough as we have opportunity to be. It is better to effectively win one than to ineffectively tell many!
4. Note the CONCERNS from their telling. v. 18
- Those who heard, were “amazed” at the message. It is never our job to bring about decision, only to give information and then allow the Spirit of God to work in the hearts of those whom we tell.
B) We need to go GLORIFYING v. 20
- The shepherds glorified God because of what they had heard and seen. When we keep our focus upon the Lord in the ministry to which we have been called we can keep on glorifying God with our lives. When we get our focus upon anything else, the glorifying loses its focus or its focus changes from glorying in what God has done to glorying in what man is doing. We have lost the glory!
C) We need to go PRAISING v. 20
- The Greek word used here suggests the telling of a story. Often the ancients passed on their history through the telling of stories. We pass on our message by telling the Story of Jesus!
CONCLUSION:
Friends, our response this Christmas, needs to be more like that of the Shepherds. We need to hear, to see, and to go and telling, glorifying and praising the greatness of our Savior and the Gift He offers to all who would believe!
We learned earlier how the proclamation of “good news of great joy” is prophetically tied to the imagery of a people caught up with the excitement of a final battle won, the good and rightful King taking His throne, and the real promise and presence of peace and salvation. If it helps, think of the movie The Return of The King that allegorically reflects this. This Christmas, will we recognize the coming of our King? His victory on our behalf? The peace and salvation we may receive because of it?
Will we go to the hilltops and the mountains shouting to the people that “God has delivered” and “God reigns”? Will WE continue the work of heralding the great tidings of the coming of the Savior?
