Why the Shepherds - Part 1

This podcast is made available by visiting Christian media posted in generosity of how supportive your donation today means great podcasts like this remain available to help people look to God daily. Please make sure that nations are these not on today send out all day on a massive army of angels was the most spectacular birth announcement will talk. One such friend. For tawny grouper group shepherds Turning Point. Dr. David Jeremiah explains as he introduces us to the simple man chosen to receive the greatest news segment on it from the series driving at 70.

Today's message was a shepherds friends. Thank you so much for joining us, reading the Bible is the most incredible way to be surprised as you study, behind the text and learn a bit about the culture of when all of this took place even more amazed. I say that simply to say that there would not be a more inappropriate audience for the announcement of the Messiah of the world than the shepherds on the fields of Bethlehem and yet God chose them to be the first to hear the message of the coming of Christ were you talk about that today why shepherds why would God stoop so low in the culture of that day and I think will find some wonderful answers that will encourage us well start with why shepherds tell you that this is the season the stories and I love stories, especially about children. Children who began to work all of us as the Christmas season approaches. I thought that was over when my children would grow up.

But now I discover that grandchildren know how to do that as well. I heard a story of a little boy who was praying he was just asking his parents for a bicycle. He wanted a bicycle so badly in his mother told him that maybe he should pray about it. So one night he was up in his room and he was praying for his bicycle and he was screaming at the top of his lungs to God about his bicycle find his mother upstairs and she said honey, you don't have to screen God is not death. He said I know mommy, but grandma is. He had figured out the little boy had petitioned his father for a new watch and he wanted this in the worst possible way and his children can be so persistent.

He was persistently driving his father crazy every time they were together. He mentioned that he wanted to watch for Christmas and his father said.

Finally, there is in the budget for a watcher knocking to get a watch for Christmas. You need to be thinking about some else he said no but I want to watch and finally his father had his doubts and outlook.

We are not going to talk about this anymore. You're not getting a watch for Christmas and that's it. A few nights later. They had some guests to their home for a party and the father asked the children at breakfast if one of them would be willing to lead in the prayer that night and of course the little boy volunteered his father sat back up and thought maybe this young man if I did get it and he was beginning to grow spiritually having maturity so that night when all the guests were there. The little boy was asked to pray and he said I'm going to pray. But before I try I would like to share a verse of Scripture Mark 1337 what I say to you I say to all watch. The Scripture can be used try to get what you want for Christmas. If you open your Bibles to the second chapter of the book of Luke, would you please look chapter 2 and beginning at verse eight and honestly to read this. What you listen to it and he was led like you to do.

Listen to the story as if you never heard it before. Try to put yourself in that frame of mind which is what the Scripture says now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night, and behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people, for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. This will be the sign to you. You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling claws 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 and goodwill toward men.

So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us and they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger now when they had seen him.

They made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child and all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart, then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them on that night when the Savior was born who received invitations to greet him, the world's emperors and priests, prophets, soldiers or scholars. Yes, it's true, the wisemen came from a distant land that made more precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh is also true that heaven itself broke open and a choir of angels praising God came to this earth, but who were the first human visitors back was an honor that was reserved for the lowliest of the low for the least educated of men for ranch hands who were despised by the local gentry men whose skin glistened with sweat, whose clothes gave off the stench of the fields, those who lack the most basic manners whose language would be unfit for your children's ears, minimum wage earners if you will, who were unlikely to be admitted to any respectable establishment of their time.

They bore names but we don't know what they were. Yet, wherever their names were mentioned in that day and whenever they have been mentioned without their names. In this day they have graced the guest list for the most joyful moment in human history.

In his book, good tidings of great joy.

William Barclay, the great historian and commentator writes about the wonder and how it should have been it displayed. First of all to the shepherds, and here's what he says it's a wonderful thing that the first announcement of God came to some shepherds shepherds were despised by the Orthodox people of the day they were unable to keep the details of the ceremonial law and they could not observe all the meticulous handwashing and rules and regulations. Yet it was to these simple men of the fields that God's message first came the circumstances of Luke's record tell us that this was absolutely what happened for you can be sure of this, men and women that no Jewish historian would ever have written such a story, incorporating the shepherds as the primary characters in the coming of Christ to this earth the whole current of Jewish opinion would have been against such a story so wide. The shepherds Hebrew scholar Alfred ever shined tells us that the flocks near Bethlehem were no ordinary sheep, but here the sheep that were being used as sacrifices in the temple were being raised. The picture of the Lamb is the Bible's most consistent picture of Christ and who would be a more appropriate audience for the good news about the birth of a lamb than the shepherds. As we read the story of Christ's coming in first being presented to the shepherds of Bethlehem, we see a pattern that we need to emulate today as we walk through this together very familiar territory to most of us. Let's ask God to help us apply the example of the shepherds to our own hearts as we again are faced with the message of the coming of Christ. The first thing you notice about these shepherds is that they received the message that they were given, behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. And the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people, for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Just imagine for a moment the wonder of that evening for those humble ranch hands. One moment the skies were dark in their spirits were even darker and the next moment. The Angels were in their presence.

Angels with amazing news. Surely the shepherds shared our questions in their own hearts.

Surely they must of been asking themselves as they recovered from the initial shock of the appearance of the Angels. They must've been thinking. Why here. Why us. Why now and they were afraid, but they heard the message the Angels brought and they received it, my friends, if you had lived in that time, you would have reflected upon the truth that over the history of the people of Israel. They had had many saviors if you will, deliverers who had helped them throw their difficult times, the people of Israel seem to follow a pattern.

That's not unlikely to have been descriptive of our world today. They followed the Lord for a while and then they got in the trouble with the Lord. Then they cried out to the Lord and then the Lord sent them someone to help them, and for a period of time they would be restored to fellowship with the Lord in them.

After a little while.

They would fall again away from the Lord and they would cry out to the Lord and the Lord would send someone to help them. In fact, in the book of Nehemiah and the ninth chapter, we have a little paradigm about that. It says therefore he delivered them into the hand of their enemies who oppress them and in the time of their trouble and they cried to you. You heard from heaven and according to your abundant mercy is you gave them deliverers who save them from the hands of the enemies so the people of Israel were accustomed to having saviors and the reason you need to saviors because you keep messing up as we need to saviors because we've all messed up evidently and they were accustomed to having saviors, and deliver them but I tell you my friends.

They never had a Savior like this one.

They had never had a Savior like the one who was announced first to the shepherds, they had human saviors, but they had never had a Savior from heaven, and that message that they received that night for me.

Angels was a message. First of all, about a helpless Savior. Verse 12 says and this will be the sign here you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling claws lying in a manger.

I daresay that not one person in Israel ever thought that Jesus Christ there Savior would come first as a baby they were looking for someone to come and take away the bonds of slavery that they felt from the Romans. The thought that there Savior would be born in a manger did not cross their minds. Max locator describes the helplessness of the Savior. He says he looks anything but a king's face is pronation and read his cry almost strong and healthy is still that helpless and piercing cry of a baby and he is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being majesty in the midst of the mundane holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter. This baby had once overlooked the entire universe.

These rags keeping him warm with the robes of eternity's golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen and worshiping Angels had been replaced with kind but bewildered shepherds.

When Jesus came and was presented first to the shepherds.

He came as a helpless Savior lying in a manger, but he was also humble Savior. Verse 12 says lying in a manger. The humblest of cribs. Actually, the word manger means trough. His first visitors were shepherds. The humblest of people and you know that defies every one of us is this. We were to write the story we would have written it this way. And yet it is so important that we come to grips with why this is the way Jesus came to this earth. Second Corinthians 8, nine, says of our Lord, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. If Jesus had come as the Jews expected him as culture predicted he would inhibit come as a king. If you come in majesty. Then as the Savior of the world. All of those who felt themselves beneath that status would have felt disqualified and never would have come to receive him, my friends, Jesus came in the lowest possible way became humbly and helplessly so that there would be no one who would ever say I am too sinful for him. I am too insignificant for him.

I am too inconsequential for him. He's opened the door for us all. The matter who we may be the poet put it this way. They were all looking for a king to slay their foes and lift them high. The came list a little baby thing that made a woman cry. How different is the coming of the Savior. From what we would've expected. And yet, how wonderful is this truth, Savior, about whom the shepherds were told by the Angels was the very Savior. We read about here in the Scripture helpless and humble as if to set the tone for his entire life, as if to set the tone for his entire message God brought a delegation of shepherds to be the first to worship and to celebrate. Someone said Jesus was only a few minutes old but he would've liked the fact that the shepherds were there. This was the one who would enter the homes later on of the despised tax collectors and known sinners. This was the teacher was so little time allotted to him to minister on this earth no more than just three years and he always had time for pressing crowds touched lepers heal the sick, he took away the blindness from the eyes of those who had not yet seen light there was nothing too insignificant for him to deal with and he tells us that story in the very nature of his birth. He spoke of the greatness of servant hood. They said that for anyone who served the least of these, it would be counted as if they had served Jesus himself looked at him, look at him in the manger watching him in his life that he will see this incredible dichotomy between the power of God and the humanity and humbleness of the Savior. He began his ministry by being hungry yet he is the bread of life he ended his earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet he is the living water. He was wearing yet he is our rest. He paid tribute yet he is arcane he was accused of having a demon, yet he cast demons out of others left. Yet he wipes away our tears was sold for 30 pieces of silver that he redeemed the world.

He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. Yet he himself is the good Shepherd, Jesus died, but by his death he destroyed death for everyone you see it from the meekness of a child to the greatness of a king wrapped up together in the person of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, and it was the shepherds who first got that revelation.

This was the humble Savior.

The shepherds came to worship. He was a helpless Savior and a humble Savior. And thirdly, he was a heavenly Savior.

Versus 1314 says that the message about this one came was presented by those who themselves had come from heaven, Lord Jesus came down from heaven to be one of us in the book of Philippians said that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and he came down to this earth from heaven and he took upon himself the form of a man and he became obedient, even unto death coming from heaven all the way here because you see it was impossible for any of us to go up there. We don't have what it takes to do that he came down because we could go up, but ultimately he came down so that we could go up the heavenly Savior. While the shepherds received the message, and then notice here's a good example for all of us.

They responded to the message.

Verses 15 and 16 so it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, but the shepherds said one to another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us and they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in the manger. The shepherds responded to the message. These unassuming men followed the simple instructions that the Angels gave them they made their way to Bethlehem and they took part in an experience that countless generations of Christians have ended. These were without question. The first converts to Christianity and the gospel recorded in the Bible who were the first people to receive Christ as their Savior surely they were the shepherds. They received the message of Christ and though Christ had not yet gone to the cross, the content of their faith was what they obeyed and what they followed. It was not enough. You see for the shepherds, just to hear the message.

I mean, I don't know about you, but if I'd been with them out on the hillside and and had such an amazing revelation and that I was told to do something I might be so stunned and so taken back by the whole thing. I would sit there and not do anything but the shepherds believed in human women. That's an important thing for us to remember. Believing is not hearing. Believing is responding to what you hear believing in obedience are kind of twin words. So if the shepherds had only heard and they had not responded they would not have believed they would've not exercise their faith come to church every week and you hear the message and maybe you even are blessed by the message. Sometimes we can get a vicarious blessing about hearing how others have been changed by the gospel, but if you have never responded to the message yourself, then you have not believed you might say I understand I comprehend. I know what you have not believed until you have responded at the shepherds stayed on the hill outside of Bethlehem, they would've missed Christ, they would've missed the whole blessing we would be reading about them in the Scripture, but they responded they obeyed when the Angels told him what to do.

They did and in their obedience and response.

They expressed their faith is an interesting that when you repeat stories and there always the narrative of the Bible is wrapped around persons personalities.

So when we read the stories we find ourselves identifying with the different characters and realizing that God has spoken truth into us through the personalities that are part of the story itself. That's why we love Christmas because it's a narrative it's a narrative of God's dealing with Joseph and Mary Elizabeth gets involved. John the Baptist's involvement of the shepherds and the wise men and all of this part of the story of Christmas and it's the real story, not the one that has grown up in the legend over the years. Tomorrow for more information on Dr. Jeremiah's commissaries why the Nativity, please visit our website with. Also I find two freeways to help you stay connected monthly magazine Turning Points in and out daily email devotional enough to value David Jeremiah thought or/ready that Jeremiah thought/write when you ask for a copy of Dragon 365 day devotional for 2021 fiscal strength for today and it's filled with medical treatment for the yearly and are gifted in EMS and keep the spirits right through the holiday season is the hunt for Christmas candlelight Turning Point.tv three souls Christmas music videos and the harmful Christmas channel and Turning Point thought TV and Gary. Hopefully please join us tomorrow as we continue the series brought the Nativity material Turning Point with the Jeremiah for taking time to listen to on tonight from these increased in size and