A Wild Story
Series: Beginnings of a Legacy
December 27, 2009
I want to start out this morning by having you watch this video clip, and then I want you to tell me what you see…
Show video clip of violin player…
Ok… tell me what you saw… (response from congregation)
Well, let me fill you in on the rest of the story… The violinist in the corner is Joshua Bell. On January 12 of 2007 he showed up in a long sleeve T-shirt and jeans at the DC metro train station. He took out his violin from it’s case. placed the open case at his feet for donations, and for the next 45 minutes began to play Mozart and Schubert. Over 1,000 people streamed by, most of them hardly taking notice. Now… If they’d been paying attention, they might have recognized that Joshua was actually a world-renowned violinist, and the violin he was playing was a rare Stradivarius worth over $3 million!
Just 3 days earlier, he’d sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with seats going for $100 and up. In case you’re wondering …in the subway that day, Bell collected about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation.
I don’t know what your Christmas season has been like, but for most people it can be a very hectic, exhausting... even frustrating time of year.
As you’re standing there in another line waiting for the 10 people in front of you to pull out their credit cards… have you ever asked yourself…”Why am I doing this? I mean, if this is supposed to be a time of “peace on earth, good will towards men”… why do I feel like beating up that guy in front of me?”
All this week people were frantically trying to get flights, or drive long distances in order to make it home for Christmas…because nobody wants to miss Christmas. But did you know that even if you make it home or arrive safely at your destination… it’s entirely possible to miss Christmas? That video is a modern day parable of the Christmas story. Even the violinists 1st name is “Joshua” which is translated “Jesus” in the Greek. We’re just like the people in the the DC Metro…we’re moving through life so quickly, so fast… that many times we miss the most important things in life. God is here, God is working… but we don’t always see Him. Why not? Because we’re not really looking!!!
In fact, if you think about it, there were some people at the very 1st Christmas who totally missed it! Even though it was right under their noses! In some cases, right out their back door! Take the innkeeper for instance…He missed Christmas because he was too busy! Herod the king missed it because he was too afraid. Afraid somebody might take over his throne. And what about the religious leaders? They missed that 1st Christmas because they were indifferent! For 1000’s of years they’d had the scriptures telling all about the coming Messiah, but when He shows up, they don’t even have enough curiosity to check it out.
They had their traditions, their religion and their positions and they didn’t really want to be bothered. They were totally apathetic to the birth of Christ. What’s amazing is that those are the same reasons people miss Christmas today! Christmas is the busiest time of the year… and so like the innkeeper, people are too occupied with family and shopping to think about God. They put a ‘No Vacancy’ sign over their heart, because they have other priorities. Worship takes 2nd place to everything else.
• OR…like Herod they’re afraid! They’re afraid that if they acknowledge Jesus Christ as “Lord”, they might lose their throne. THEY want to be in control and don’t want to give that to someone else!
• OR… they’re indifferent! They’ve heard it all before…“I know, Jesus Christ, Son of God… born in a manger… the virgin thing… yada, yada! Big whoopee! Done it, seen the movie!”
As a result … a lot of people end up totally missing Christ at Christmas! But there were some guys on that 1st Christmas who didn’t miss it! The Shepherds. And this morning I want to explore a little more in detail, why the Shepherds of all people didn’t miss Christmas. I mean, what was it about these guys that inspired God to reveal the wondrous birth of His Son to them… over all the others? As I looked into this question, I discovered what I believe is the 5-fold Process that God uses to reveal Christ to us… if we’re open to it…
The 1st step in this process is to …
1. PERCEIVE Christ
Read Luke 2:8-14 (NLT)
Imagine if you were a modern public relations agent in charge of getting the news of Christ’s birth out to the world. The absolute last group you’d pick for the job, would be the small band of shepherds watching their sheep in the fields around Bethlehem that night. Instead you would have targeted the influencers, the real movers and shakers of society. Someone like the high priest for instance. He was the religious leader of the nation. Or you might have gone to the chief priest and scribes, after-all, they were the leading teachers in Israel. Or how about the Sanhedrin? the 70 elders that acted kind of like our congress. At the least, you would have sent an official press release to Caesar Augustus to make sure he knew the true Savior had recently come into the world.
But God didn’t pick ANY of those people. Instead he gave the job to one of the unlikeliest classes of people imaginable. Shepherds of that day were so poorly educated, and so poorly paid that they were seen as insignificant. They were the unskilled labor class of their day. To the point that many times people gave their jobs to children. Besides that… they stunk! They smelled like dried sheep dung! Shepherds weren’t even allowed in the temple. People considered them unreliable liars, uneducated and rude! YET… God choose them… and even called His own Son… the GREAT SHEPHERD!
What was it about these ‘dung-kickers’ that interested God, so much, that he would pass over kings and religious rulers? Have you ever noticed that God doesn’t do things the way we think He should do them? The fact of the matter is… God has a bias. God is biased? Yes! He’s prejudiced against the self-sufficient, self-made know-it-alls of this world! In fact, Isa. prophesied that when the Messiah showed up, his mission would be to… “preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isa.61:1; Matt. 11:5; Luke 4:18). Now if anybody fit that description… it was the Shepherds!
Over and over throughout history God has expressed his contempt for religious hypocrites who think they can get right with God through their own efforts. So when he announced His Son’s birth to a lowly group of shepherds… he was basically saying that “His salvation is only offered to the undeserving sinner”. The Apostle Paul understood this truth when he wrote to Timothy in I Tim.1:15… “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). In otherwords, in God’s book…The lower the sinner, the greater His glory when He saves them! What that means is that nobody in this room can say to God… “Well, I’ve done too many bad things to be saved!” If you really believe that, then I’ve got good news for you… that’s a lie! In fact, if you’ll come to him, just as you are, sin and all…you’ll get to heaven before the person who thinks he’s got His act together and doesn’t need God! What the shepherds saw in the skies over Bethlehem that night was one of the most amazing things humans have ever witnessed. An angel makes an incredible announcement and then without warning thousands, (maybe millions) of other angels joins him… and then… all heaven breaks loose! Now, I don’t know what 1 angel, let alone thousands sound like, but if it’s anything like what it sounds like when the 49er’s or Raiders make a touchdown at their home stadium… it’s impressive! The angels burst into these shepherds mundane, boring lives… and tell them that the long awaited Messiah, (God in human flesh) had just been born in nearby Bethlehem. It was beyond anything they could imagine… and they responded hopefully the way we’ll respond this morning… 1st… they wanted to find out more… and then they had to check it out!
So after we Perceive Christ… we need to…
2. PURSUE Christ
“When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Come on, let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger.” –Luke 2:15,16
Now the bible doesn’t tell us how long the angelic praise and worship service lasted, but it ended as abruptly as it began and I’m sure they were left standing there absolutely stunned! It probably took them a few minutes to get their senses together… but as soon as they did… it was unanimous… “Dude! We gotta check this out!” (that’s the P.C. unabridged translation!) The NASB puts it this way… “‘Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us’” (v. 15, nasb).
The word translated “thing” in this passage actually means a little more in Greek than it does in English. It literally means “reality.” In otherwords, the shepherds understood full well that they had just received a word from God Himself. This wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a hallucination… this was the “real deal”… and they could confirm it because the angel gave them a dead ringer of a sign to look for…a baby laying in a cow trough! Not something you see everyday (even in their primitive culture).
Listen… if you’re searching for the Christ this morning. Don’t worry because the same God that got your attention in the first place is going to confirm the reality of His Son in your life. The bible says that “if you’ll seek Him, with ALL of your heart… you’ll find Him!” I can’t count the number of atheists I’ve heard about, who’ve taken God at His Word and have been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt about who Jesus is. God has a way of proving His reality to you… if you’ll seek Him. It’ll be different for each of you, but I know that if you’ll move forward, God will direct you.
It’s like a boat sitting in a dock… you won’t find any fish just sitting there… you’ve got to start up the engine and move out into the water. Only then will God will act like a rudder and move you in the direction He wants you to go. We don’t know how long the shepherds searched for the baby, but I can imagine they started knocking on doors asking people if they’d heard about a baby being born. Of course the best clue was the uniqueness of his bed, so they might have gone directly to the nearest horse stable looking for HIM!
Nonetheless, before long they “found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger” (v. 16). At that moment those humble men of faith knew for certain that the angels’ announcement was a word from God. Their search had ended just as He promised it would. Which leads to the next step in the believer’s life.
• When you come face to face with the fact of who Jesus really is…
• When you realize that a Savior has come to forgive you of all your life’s sins…
• When you understand that the meaning and purpose you’ve been seeking is found in Christ…your search is over. And it’s the most exciting moment of your life!
At that moment, you want to do what these Shepherds did…
3. PROCLAIM Christ
17 Then the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished” –Lk.2:17,18 You know…I would have loved to be there for the conversation the Shepherds had with Mary and Joseph. I’m sure they would’ve told their story, and then Mary and Joseph would have told their amazing stories… and then, they would have ALL been amazed at how God was working in their lives. It was too much to hold in… they had to tell people about what they’d just experienced!
And here’s the principle… anyone who truly understands the message of the gospel, and realizes what God is up to… CAN’T keep it quiet! They want to tell others! Don’t let anybody tell you, you have to take a class or be a Christian for 10 years before you’re qualified to share with somebody about Jesus! Listen…You’re qualified the minute you become a believer! In fact, if you DON’T feel the need to tell somebody… there’s something wrong with your belief! Either you don’t really believe it… or you don’t understand it fully… OR… you’re not living it, so you don’t want to be judged as a hypocrite, when you let somebody else know about Him!
This small group of shepherds became the 1st N.T. evangelists. They couldn’t stop themselves from telling everyone they came in contact with about what they heard and saw. Know what? That’s really what being an evangelist is all about… telling others what you’ve heard and seen about Jesus!
Luke tells us that after they’d seen the Christ, the long awaited Messiah, they lit. burst with joy! They were like kids around a fully stocked Christmas tree! They weren’t in the least self-conscious. Now I can imagine the townspeople thought they’d been smoking some of that ‘wacky-weed’…as they grabbed anybody and everybody they could, telling them about the Good News! Let me just ask you… if you call yourself a Christian …are you excited about the message of Christmas? About the message of salvation?
I think that God’s probably pretty bored with a lot of churches! He looks at how they worship Him on Sunday mornings, and He yawns… “Is that the best you can do, after all I’ve done for you?” He visits the “1st Church of the Frigidaire”, where you can just feel the ‘chill’ when you walk in the door! It’s the “Frozen Chosen”! The preachers cold, his sermons are cold… the people are cold… the ushers wear ice skates to take up the morning offering! Ever been in a church like that? You know, at Summit we want to create an attitude and atmosphere of celebration and excitement as we serve the Lord together. It should be reflected in the way we sing, the way we teach, the way we serve… in everything we do for the Lord!
I’m sorry, this is kind of a sensitive point with me…but I just think that church ought to be a great place to be…(don’t you?) I mean, a place to laugh, a place to cry, a place to serve each other, a place to serve our community. I know so many people who go to church out of duty… they just kind of ‘endure’ Sunday mornings! No wonder the world thinks Christianity is boring… there are a lot of ‘boring’, half hearted Christians! I don’t know about you, but I come to church, because I WANT to! Not out of some kind of guilt complex, or obligation. I come because I’ve seen Jesus and I want to see Him again! When my kids & their mates were coming home for Christmas this year…I got excited. Almost giddy! Why? Because I love them, and I couldn’t wait to be together with them again.
See, if you really love Jesus, you can’t wait to be with Him and your fellow believers again! I can’t understand why some people can go for weeks (months?) without feeling any kind of longing for God and His people! That’s totally foreign to me! If you don’t get excited about going to church…don’t blame the preacher! Don’t blame the worship team! They can’t force you to get excited about Jesus! Blame yourself! It’s YOUR love that’s grown cold… not theirs! And especially not God’s! It’s time to get excited (like the shepherds did) about the fact that Emmanuel (God with us) is here… right now!
But it’s more than just a emotional buzz… it’s deeper than that. Like the Shepherds… we need to…
4. PONDER Christ
After the shepherds were gone, the bible tells us that the shepherds visit had a powerful impact on Mary. READ vs. 18,19 “And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” –Luke 2:18,19 (NIV) This verse is telling us that Mary mulled these things over in her mind and spirit. She thought about everything that happened, and how it perfectly fit into the predictions of scripture. She meditated on how it would affect her and her newborn son. On the fact that she was holding God in her arms! I’ve read that verse many times before but never realized that it was the shepherd’s visit that brought on these thoughts.
I also never noticed the word “but” there. The bible is contrasting the peoples reaction to the shepherds message with Mary’s reaction. “all who heard were amazed…BUT Mary”. It hints at the fact that many of the towns people heard about Jesus’ birth and were ‘WOWED”, but that’s about as far as it went. They never really thought about what they were hearing! Because her son was perfect, Mary must have loved Jesus as no mother has ever loved a child. And yet she would be there to see Him suffer an unjust death. Eventually she would be present when they nailed Him to the cross. As much as you might think, being the mother of the Son of God wasn’t going to be all “springtime and roses”. (Luke 2:34–35).
So there was a lot for Mary to contemplate. See, once you reach this 4th stage as a believer, you begin to realize that there’s a lot more to Jesus than you thought. You start to think more deeply about the significance of being a child of God. You study and “ponder” God’s Word. You become a lover of God’s truths. Which eventually leads to even a more profound sense of joy, praise, and gratitude to God. You begin express your love for Jesus in your worship and lifestyle. Like Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, you come to the point where you’re willing to pay any cost to follow and know Him! He becomes your primary reason for living. Mary illustrates what it means to have a hungry heart that wants to know Jesus better and understand the depth of His great salvation more and more and more!
Is that you? If you’ve been a Christian more than 3 months… why not? Why aren’t you moving deeper in your experience with Christ? You should be! Paul tells us that we shouldn’t be satisfied with remaining ‘spiritual babies’… but yet I find that so many people are! I don’t get it! I want to encourage you to take some time and ‘ponder’ Christ and your relationship to him as we near the New Year. Decide that you want to know Him deeper in this coming year.
But the shepherds experience illustrates 1 more stage in the process of discovering Christ… You begin to…
5. Praise Christ… as a lifestyle!
Vs.20 tells us that, “The shepherds went back to their fields and flocks, glorifying and praising God for what the angels had told them, and because they had seen the child, just as the angel had said.” Why did they praise God? Because He proved to them that He was real and that His promises were true! Prior to their incredible encounter with God’s revelation, the shepherds attitude towards God was probably full of questions, maybe a little bitter about how life was turning out for them… they were probably tired about their daily existence and their feeble attempts to trust God. But AFTER their encounter with the angels and the newborn Jesus, the bible tells us that everything in their lives radically changed ! They returned to the fields praising and glorifying God.
The shepherds became fully devoted followers of Christ. Instead of the dull, monotonous lives they had lived before, …now their lives were filled with genuine praise, thankfulness, and worship to God, no matter what. They’re circumstances hadn’t really changed that much… they were still shepherds doing a boring job…but their REASON for living was different. Jesus changes everything!
Is that your experience? If not, why not? That’s what it should be… that’s what it was meant to be! If it isn’t.. you should be asking yourself…”What’s holding me back?” Sin? Unforgiveness? Fear? Selfish? If you’re truly saved this morning, you’ll identify with the shepherds’ 5-fold response to finding Jesus…
1st of receiving God’s revelation, believing the gospel, finding Christ… THEN of witnessing joyfully for Him. But after those early days of euphoria, as you grow in your Christian life, you’ll also begin to think more deeply about who Jesus is. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you ought to have an insatiable desire to know more about the Lord, to plumb the depths of Scripture, to ponder the significance of its truths and how they bear witness to the person and work of Christ.
If you’re not a Christian this morning… I invite you to begin the search for truth and meaning. Stop trying to find it in what you have or what you’re trying to accomplish. As you’re busy shuffling around trying to find meaning and purpose… stop for a minute, look around you… humble yourself… and you’ll find that He’s been playing His music, all along, right where you are… you’re just too busy or too preoccupied to hear it!
