Imagine you’re God and you want to announce the most amazing, incredible, joyous news ever … an event that will literally change the course of history … the birth of your only Son, Jesus Christ … the birth of the One who will be the Savior of the whole world … the One for whom the Nation of Israel has been waiting and hoping and praying for for hundreds of year. Finally, the moment has come. He has arrived. Who do you announce it to? Who do you invite to come and see this miraculous event?
When a child is born to a member of the British royalty … for instance, when Kate Middleton and Prince William had any one of their three children … they didn’t send a messenger down to the docks to break the news to the longshore men and fishmonger first. They didn’t issue personal invitations to the cab drivers of London to come visit Kate and the newest arrival to Windsor Castle. I’m guessing that if any announcements or invitations were sent out, they were printed on gold leaf and hand-delivered to political leaders and foreign heads of state, don’t you?
The point is that you would expect an event like the birth of Jesus to be announced to the most important people in the nation. Political leaders … kings, governors, magistrates … even Caesar … might be invited to come and pay homage to this future leader of the world. You would think that all the religious leaders …. Priests, rabbis, synagogue officials, the head of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin … would have been invited to worship their long-anticipated Messiah. Military leaders … wealthy merchants … men and women of standing and distinction … the news media. Nope!
Who gets a personal invite? A few poor shepherds … social and religious outcasts. Why? Why would God do this? Why would He send His angels to announce the birth of His Son to these shepherds? Invite them and only them to come and see the Miracle of the Ages, Christ Jesus?
Where the shepherds especially pious? Unusually holy? In spite of the fact that they couldn’t participate in organized religion, were they just outstanding believers in God? It’s doubtful. Although Luke does tell us that they believed what the angels said and did what the angels told them to do, there’s nothing in the text or the Gospels to indicate that they were more religious than anyone else.
Were they perhaps expecting this? Were they looking for God to visit them? Could they have been anticipating this in any way? Hardly. In fact, if I were a shepherd, I would no doubt be convinced that God had no idea who I even was. I wasn’t allowed to sacrifice at the Temple. I was too busy tending sheep 24/7 to attend any religious festivals. Didn’t go to the synagogue very often and when I did I wasn’t made to feel very welcome. My deepest theological discussions were confined to other shepherds. If God even knew I existed, I doubt that He would have thought very much of me or about me.
Which is exactly why I think God announced the birth of His Son, Jesus, to the shepherds first. He wanted to show the world that His love does not discriminate on the basis of class, wealth, or social standing. He does not respect kings or princes more than hourly laborers. He does not value priests or pastors more than He does the people in the pews. God does not show favoritism. He does not give preferential treatment to one group of people over another. His love is available to all on the same basis: faith in Jesus Christ.
“For God so loved the world” … the world and everyone in it … “that He gave His only Son, so that” … who? “So that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus didn’t come to be the savior of the political and social and religious elite. Jesus didn’t come to be the savior of kings and governors, popes and priests. Jesus came to be the Savior of the world and everyone in it, including lowly, despised outcasts like the shepherds. He chose the shepherds as a sign that He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of intelligence, education, religious training, wealth, profession, political power, social standing or any of the other qualities that humans use to judge each other. His love is offered indiscriminately to anyone who will repent and believe … anyone who will trust in Him as their Savior.
I think the shepherds’ response validated God’s reason for choosing them. They left the manger “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them” (Luke 2:20). No one told them to do it. Jesus didn’t stand up and command them to go out and share the good news of His arrival. They were not the religious leaders who would question and challenge and debate Jesus, demanding proof of His claims. They were simple people who were willing to simply believe what God told them and to simply do what God commanded them to do. When they heard the news, they didn’t seek the religious professionals to get a second opinion. They simply accepted what the angels told them. When they were invited to visit Bethlehem to see the newborn Messiah, they didn’t worry about who was going to watch their sheep. They didn’t get bogged down in debates about how they were going to find one small baby in such a large town. They simply obeyed and went … and who they saw was “Immanuel” … “God With Us.” God loved us … all His children … including shepherds … so much that He put on flesh and became one of us.
At the very start of His ministry, Jesus declared: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Jesus not only came for the so-called “least” … He went out of His way to meet them. He deliberately went into “enemy” territory to confront a Samaritan woman about her adultery, walked up to a paralyzed man who had been lying at the sheep pool for 38 years and healed him, sailed across the Sea of Galilee to drive a thousand demons out of a gentile, restored the sight of the blind, healed lepers on the side of the road, made the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, brought the dead back to life, and healed not only the physically sick and suffering but those who were suffering from spiritual disease and brokenness. Nicodemus sought Him out under cover of darkness. Zacchaeus was stuck up a tree. Levi exploited his fellow countrymen and neighbors.
Jesus healed the rich and powerful. He healed the centurion’s servant … brought Jairus’ daughter back to life.
He healed those who sought Him. The woman who just wanted to touch the hem of His robe … the woman who was willing to settle for the scrapes that were left over. The father whose son was tormented by demons. Jesus “cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind,” Luke reports in his gospel (Luke 7:21).
Look at who His disciples and followers were. Fishermen … tax collectors. Some, like Judas, may have had some kind of formal training. Some, like Philip and Luke, were Greek. Some, like Paul, were trained religious scholars. Some were women.
Like the women who follow Jesus today, these women came from diverse backgrounds. Some were single. Others were wives and mothers. They came from homes at the center of political power and from the back streets of tiny villages. They were bound together by one person and one event … an encounter with Jesus. He healed some of them … delivered some of them from demons. His tenderness and respect for women was radical in a culture where a rabbi or religious teacher would never speak to a woman in public.
Once these women had encountered Jesus, they followed Him together. They bonded as they ministered to their King, their Lord and Savior. They fed the disciples, gave of their resources, and traveled with Jesus and His team from Galilee to Jerusalem.
We find them at the foot of the cross … grieving with Jesus’ mother. They are in the garden, taking care of the Savior’s body as they prepare Him for burial. Mary Magdalene, a woman who was once possessed by seven demons, becomes the first to see the risen Lord and the first person commissioned by the angels to tell the world about the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection.
When the shepherds saw the infant Jesus, how did they respond? They rejoiced. They returned to their sheep “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20). Shouldn’t that have been the disciples’ reaction when Jesus gathered them together before He ascended into Heaven? “After He had suffered,” Luke writes in Acts 1, Jesus “presented Himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8). Along with the 11 disciples, Luke says there were women there also … all called to continue on the work that Jesus started. “Peace to you … as the Father has sent me, I also send you” (John 20:21). When Jesus gave them the Great Commission, He told them to go and make disciples of whom? … “all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
You see, in God’s eyes, there are no “least of these.” Jesus, who came to show us the heart of God, doesn’t make that distinction … only we do. From king to beggar, all of us are fearfully and wonderfully made children of God. What kind of parent loves some of their children and not others … rewards some lavishly and withholds from others? Human parents do that, but I believe that we are all equally beautiful to God … and equally valued by Him.
Jesus told His disciples two wonderful stories as a way of making this point. One was about a shepherd who lost one of his sheep and the other was about a woman who lost a coin. The shepherd didn’t say, “O well … I still have 99 sheep.” And the woman didn’t say, “I can get by on the rest of the money that I have left.”
Imagine the shepherd at the end of the day. As his sheep file by, he counts them: “95 … 96 … 97 … 98 … 99 … Hey! Wait a minute! One of them is missing! Where’s Fluffy? Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her all afternoon.” He leaves the 99 and begins searching diligently for the one that is lost. He back-tracks over every place the flock had been that day … down every steep trail, in every pasture, by every stream, up every hillside.
Finally, by the light of the moon, he sees something white in the distance. He calls out “Fluffy” and the frightened lamb runs to him. He doesn’t start yelling at Fluffy, wagging his finger in her face, demanding t know how she could be so stupid. No! He lays her on his shoulders and carries her home where she’ll be safe with the other sheep.
It is important to understand that, in the eyes of the shepherd, the lost sheep wasn’t any more valuable or less valuable than the other 99 sheep that weren’t lost but the other 99 sheep might not see it that way, amen? To them, it might not seem fair that the shepherd left them to find one lost sheep who was dumb enough to wander off and get lost in the first place. They were the good sheep … the ones that stayed together … followed the shepherd ... and listened to him.
Jesus’ point is this: you … the ones who are in the church … the ones who are not lost … you should be out looking for the ones who are lost, amen? “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Luke 28:19-20).
As you came in this morning, did you all see the “no shirt … no shoes … no worship” sign by the front door? You didn’t? Of course you didn’t because there is no sign … and there never will be such a sign on any church I pastor. All are welcome here. It doesn’t matter if they look different from us, if they’re a different color from us, if they come from a different culture from us, if they don’t dress like us. It doesn’t matter if they wear a tie or not or come in barefoot. None of that matters to God and none of that should matter to us, amen?
The coin that the woman lost was of no greater value than the other nine silver coins she still had. The thing that made it the center of her attention was the fact that it was lost. The point that Jesus was trying to make with both of these parables is that people are much more important than any sheep or coin and all people are important to God. The Pharisees and Scribes believed that God hated sinners … cared nothing or very little for them. If they were lost, if they wandered away from God, they would have to find their own way back. But can a lost coin or a lost sheep find its way back? Like the shepherd, God wants us to go out and diligently search for the one who is lost. He wants us to search every nook and cranny … to light a lamp ... to sweep the house … to go to every nation … to go to the ends of the earth if need be … to find that one lost person, amen?
And when they are found, we are to carry them on our shoulders … to bring them gently and lovingly into the fold. We are to call our neighbors and friends together and throw a party because our sister or our brother who was lost, who was dead in their sin, has now come to life … who once was lost but now is found.
The earth’s is the Lord … and that includes everything on it, everyone who lives on it. It all belongs to the Lord … the one who Created it! It doesn’t matter how old we are … how smart we are … what color we are … how bad we are … how tough we think we are … how cool we think we are … how sick we are … how messed up we are … or anything else. We are God’s property. We belong to God … just like every cat, cow, aardvark, whale, hawk … just like very hill, mountain, river, every building … every piece of gold or silver, every diamond … belongs to God. You belong to God … and you belong to God … and you … and you … and you. We ALL belong to God. Everyone … EVERYONE … belongs to God whether they know it or accept it or not. But of all the things that God owns on this earth, only one thing is described by God as “lost.” Care to guess what it is?
In God’s eyes and in God’s heart, there are no “least of these.” In His eyes and in His heart, everyone is valuable. But can we say the same? In our eyes, who are the “least”? Is it the family whose kids are always in trouble at school or with the law? Is it divorced people? Alcoholics … drug addicts? Homeless people? Tax collectors? Garbage collectors? Abusive people? The person whose home needs painting or is run down? The person with tattoos? Body piercings? Someone who talks different? Wears worn out or dirty clothes? The moocher who never has any money? The person on Welfare? Has a menial job? Or no job? Poor grammar or a funny accent? Little or not formal education? The list could go and on, I’m sure. But in God’s eyes, there are only two kinds of people: Those who are children of God, disciples of Christ … and those who are not, those who are lost.
Who is going to go out looking for God’s property? Only those who put the same premium on a person’s soul as God does. You see, most people have no idea how valuable their soul is … or that their soul even exists, let alone is lost. They have no clue that their soul is going to live forever. And, unfortunately, that forever is going to be spent in pain and suffering because they are lost. They are gonna wake up in Hell because we never told them how to escape. Let me say that again: One day they’re gonna wake up in Hell because WE never told them how to escape!
Your best friend is fun to be with and they make you laugh … the truth is, they’re lost. The lady at the store is really mean … the truth is, she’s lost. Grandpa has some good stories … truth is, he’s lost. The neighbor keeps her flower garden spotless … truth is, she’s lost. Our co-workers is a good employee … but the truth is, she’s lost. We’ve all been to a family member’s or a friend’s funeral and said nice things about them … but the truth is, they were lost … forever.
When we say we “love and care” for someone, it has to include loving and caring about their souls too. We can’t just “love and care” for their physical well-being … we must also love and care for their spiritual well-being as well, right? Makes sense. If we do not value people’s souls, we will not go out looking for them. And if we do not go looking, then we cannot fulfill our purpose … which is to bring people into a right relationship with God. And if we do not fulfill our purpose, then what good are we to God? Humm?
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” says the Apostle Paul. “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim Him? And how are they to proclaim Him unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:13-15). Make no mistake about it, my brothers and sisters … we have been sent by Christ Himself. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19) … remember?
God places you in your family because He intends to use you to impact people in your family. He placed you in the job you’re in because that’s part of His strategy to find lost souls at that company. He placed you in your school because there are souls there you can reach for Him … if you want to do it.
Another way of looking at it is to picture yourself as a “ticket master.” A ticket master is someone who sells tickets to sporting events, concerts, museums, train rides, etc. All believers have been called to be Jesus’ “ticket masters” … whether we accept the commission or not. Remember, just as God sent Jesus His Son to save lost souls, so Jesus is sending us out to finish the job that He started. We are the only ones with the tickets. If we don’t pass out the tickets, the people who are lost will stay lost … maybe forever! And there is no need to be stingy with the tickets. They’re free and we have an unlimited supply. Imagine how wonderful it’s gonna feel to have one of those lost souls come up to you in Heaven and thank you. “If you hadn’t given me that ticket, I might not be here today.” Go therefore and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19) … go glorifying and praising God for all that you’ve seen and heard (Luke 2:20).
Let us pray …
