The Shepherds

We began during the season of Advent with a sermon series entitled “The Supporting Cast.” We have been focusing on the people and people groups that can help us receive a greater understanding of Jesus and the formation of him as the Savior of the world. If you have not been able to join us for this series, you can find all of these sermons on our You Tube channel.

Tonight, our focus will be on “The Shepherds.” Our scripture comes from Luke 2:1-14. The words will be on the screen.

2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Please pray with me…

We are together tonight to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World; our scripture offers us a message of importance for all people. It does not matter who you are. God cares about you and desires for you to know about Jesus.

In order for the shepherds to have received the message that they received that night everything had to take place in a certain way. We first can look at the town he is born in. The Old Testament prophecies that the Jewish people were relying on stated that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

One of the big struggles that the Jewish leaders had with considering Jesus to be the Messiah was that he was known as Jesus from Nazareth. This would have automatically removed him from consideration in the eyes of the Pharisees of being able to be the Messiah they were waiting for.

We could ask, why didn’t Jesus show them his birth certificate. That would be placing our modern-day expectations upon a different time frame. A time frame when there would not be a paper trail showing where Jesus had been born. You either had to take his word or the word of his parents in order to believe that Jesus met this criterion.

We have God using a governmental obligation to lead Joseph and Mary to the place the Messiah needed to be born. A census is being held in which people were to go to their hometown. Due to Jospeh being from the “lineage of David” we have him and his pregnant fiancé heading to Bethlehem.

You heard correctly; the parents were not yet married but were with child. We find all throughout the story of the birth of Jesus things that weren’t supposed to be. This would especially be the case for the person who is the Messiah.

We have God using a non-Jewish entity, a foreign government, to cause the Messiah to be born where the Jewish text told the Jewish people he would be born. This should remind us that God can have both those that believe in him and those that don’t help accomplish his purpose. Our God is all knowing therefore he was already aware of the timing.

God had Mary with child and about to give birth at just the moment that would lead her and Joseph to enter the town where the Messiah was supposed to be born. We have a God that is at work to create a scenario that will allow Jesus to be born in Bethlehem.

We have shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by in the region where the birth is going to take place all because God had prepared a way for this to take place. The job of a shepherd was to watch and take care of animals that were unable to take care of themselves.

This means that they had a job that was never ending. It would have been hard for them to regularly take part in the Jewish traditions that would allow for a person to be seen as clean or right with God by the religious authorities.

We also know that God has used shepherds as people of faith that did great things for him. We have Moses going from being a shepherd for his father-in-law to leading the Israelites out of captivity.

We have King David himself being a shepherd who ends up defeating the great enemy of the Jewish people and eventually becoming the most admired king of the Jewish people. God has used humble shepherds in important roles.

Can you imagine being a shepherd watching your sheep when the unexpected happens. An angel appears and speaks to you. Understandably the Shepherds were afraid. The angel offers to them the same words he says to Mary when he tells her she is pregnant, be not afraid.

The angel continues by pointing out why he has come to them. He has come to proclaim what we would call the good news. The news that “the Savior, “The Christ,” the one the Jewish people had been waiting for has been born.

We receive why God may have had the angel announce this message first to the shepherds. He wanted them to know that this Messiah did not come for only those that the religious authorities considered to be “right with God.” The Savior has come for all people.

In order to cement this understanding further into their minds they discover that their Lord was born in what we would consider to be a stable because there was no room in the inn. The Shepherds watch animals, and the child is placed into a place where animals eat. This would have further solidified their connection with the one who was to become the Savior of the world.

The shepherds may not have been able to completely understand what the angel meant by the word Savior. After all this was the Jewish God and the Jewish Messiah. Therefore, they would have believed these words to mean that Jesus was born for “all” of the Jewish people.

But what we know is that Jesus was born for all people and that he will eventually die on the cross for all people. Slave and free. Male and female. Jew and Gentile. There is no group of people that cannot be saved because of the actions of Jesus.

All people are loved by God. There is no one that walks the earth that God does not desire to have believe in him. We must always remember that there are no outsiders in the eyes of God. We are to accept and show love to all people because God first loved us.

We are here today to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. The shepherds got to watch the first celebration on earth. They were witness to a multitude of angels proclaiming, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.”

We should be proclaiming this same message today and every day. We are blessed to have a Savior who lived as an example for us to follow and then died on a cross so that we can be forgiven.

Let us choose to not only praise God but let us also be willing to tell those around us that don’t know about the hope, love, joy, and peace that we can received from him. Let us praise him by letting those around us know about him. Thanks be to God.

Please pray with me…