Extrarodinarily Good News for Ordinary People

Notes
Transcript

Intro:

I want to invite you into a compare and contrast study this morning.
Overnight Friday, it was announced that the FDA has officially approved the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use. That means shipments are going out now, as we speak. As we sit here this morning, trucks are traveling the highways and planes are soaring overhead carrying it. By Wednesday, the vaccine will have been delivered to 636 locations nationwide. That will complete the first phase of the Pfizer vaccine distribution. There’s more to come. There’s more vaccines to come, too.
Of course, it’s been all over the news. This is a non-partisan issue, so whether you’re watching Fox News or MSNBC, you’ve heard about this. You know about this. It’s not being hidden. Everyone is interested in the COVID-19 vaccine, whether Democrat or Republican. Everyone is ready to take this first step back toward normalcy.
And not only has it been publicized well. It’s also utilized a tremendous amount of national resources. Probably not since the second world war have so many people with so much expertise put so much money and so much time and so much effort and sweat into getting this done. Whether you think the vaccine is safe or not, you have to admit that this has happened in record time. And if we’re to believe what we’re told, it’s happened well and safely and up to standard.
Now when you think about the COVID vaccine, which has roughly a 95% success rate, what comes into your mind? What words do you think of? Maybe better, what do you feel? Relief? Hope? Deliverance? Sure, all of these things. The COVID-19 vaccine effort is a rescue mission.
Now let’s contrast that with another rescue mission. Covid-19 is not the only infection spreading around the globe, though, and nor is the most deadly. God, too, has a rescue plan to rescue us from the effects of this contagion. But His plan, His method of rescue, is so different from what we would expect. What we would expect is something more like the COVID vaccine. Something that brings together the best of the best. Something that makes headlines worldwide. Something that will result in accolades and praise being given to those who made it possible. That’s what we would expect in a rescue plan.
But what we find here in Luke is so very different and absolutely stunning. Here we find that God’s answer to the contagion of sin and the diseases of evil and suffering that result is…are you ready for it? A message, announced to shepherds, about a baby laying in a feed trough, in a tiny town in Palestine. It’s all so very ordinary. Last week we looked at Luke 2:1-7 and we saw that the gospel is a message about an extraordinary Savior whose birth was very ordinary. We continue that theme this morning. The title of the sermon is The Gospel: Extraordinarily Good News for Ordinary People.
Will you notice with me first the recipients of this good news?

#1: The recipients of the good news (Lk 2:8)

8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night

Do you ever feel ordinary? I’ve got good news for you if you do: most people are. Of course, we don’t post on FaceBook the kind of Christmas described in that poem. We won’t post pictures to Instagram of the stress and the conflict and the drama. We won’t tweet about the exhaustion and stress and irritability. We’ll photoshop those things out of the family album. We’ll make sure our Christmas looks to the outside world like it was perfect. But all we’re doing is denying what we know to be true - we are ordinary, fallen people.
This is actually good news. Do you know why it’s good news that we are just ordinary, fallen people? It’s good news because that is the kind of person Jesus came to save. We read in verse 8, “In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.” What do we know about shepherds? We know several things, actually. We know they were dirty. We know they were considered unclean according to the law of the Old Testament (Stein, p108). We know they sometimes had a reputation for being thieves. In other words, shepherds generally were disreputable men (Evans p203), and even though not all of them were like that, they were probably painted with a broad brush - “oh, you know those shepherds; once a shepherd, always a shepherds.”
So when His Son had been born, the One who would come to right all wrongs and once and for all remove the contagion of sin both from our hearts and from the world around us, the One who embodied rescue and redemption, this One’s coming was first announced not to kings or judges or the town leaders or even the high priest. It wasn’t broadcasted on the radio in Palestine. No official angelic delegation went to Jerusalem to formally announce the arrival of the Savior. No, when God chose to announce this momentous happening, He did so, first, to men who were dirty, ritually unclean, disreputable and, in general, outcasts. From a PR perspective, God would seem to have bombed, missed His opportunity big time.
What would you have done - how would you have reacted - if you had been a first century Jew who discovered that it wasn’t the “good people” but the “bad people” who first got the news? But Jesus is an extraordinary Savior for ordinary people like us. And the gospel is extraordinarily good news for ordinary people like us.
That’s the recipients of the good news. Notice with me next the messenger of the good news.

#2: The messenger of the good news (Lk. 2:9)

And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened

Here are the shepherds, ordinary men on an ordinary night doing very ordinary work. Living out of doors, we’re told. Staying out in the fields. Doing the very ordinary work of simply watching over very ordinary animals. And suddenly, into this cold, monotonous, ordinary scene, heaven makes an invasion.
Now, the shepherds may be ordinary men, but angels are by no means ordinary. In the Bible they show up to announce news from heaven only on the most special occasions. And when they show up, they usually appear to men and women who were busily going about their ordinary work (Trites, Luke-Acts, loc. cit.). Moses was also shepherding when the Lord appeared to him. Gideon was threshing wheat. Ordinary people doing ordinary work.
But angels are anything but ordinary, because they live in the presence of God, who Himself is anything but ordinary. The picture here is very vivid. The night sky is suddenly rent in two by the appearance of the angel of the Lord. And with the angel of the Lord is also the glory of the Lord. If you were to look at a concordance and trace the occurrences of the word “glory”, you would be taken on a journey through some of the most important and significant events in the Bible (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, p330). Think of the pillar of fire and the cloud of Exodus. Think of the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle, so bright and so overwhelming that the priests couldn’t even remain in there to do their jobs. The glory of God is the visible, tangible display of the holiness of God. The glory of God is a reference to the sheer beauty, majesty, worthiness, weightiness of God.
And while the shepherds were ordinary men doing ordinary work, the sudden appearance of the angel, blazing in glory, reminds us that Christmas is about a very extraordinary message, it’s about the announcement that God has intervened in human history for our good. Not a trivial thing.
Ill. There’s an old legend involving a conversation in hell around Christmas time. Satan and his demons are having a holiday party, celebrating not Christmas but the fact that so many people trivialize Christmas and therefore empty it of all its power. One of the demons hissed, “Merry Christmas, your majesty.” Satan responds: “Yes, yes, let’s keep it merry. If mankind every gets serious about it, we’re in trouble.” (Swindoll p82)
Satan probably does want us to trivialize Christmas, because trivializing Christmas trivializes Christ, robs Him of His glory, and distracts us from Him. There are several ways we do this. The main way is just blatantly leaving Christ out of it. When I worked in Washington, DC, it was my first introduction to a secular workplace. It was considered insensitive to even say Merry Christmas. And so we had a “holiday tree” in the lobby. We had “a holiday party” at a nearby hotel banquet room. We had decorations of snowflakes and snowmen and Santa Claus, but no Christ, anywhere. It amazes me that our culture believes they can take Christ out of Christmas and still retain anything that even remotely resembles Christmas.
We trivialize Christmas in other ways too, though. By making it about presents. By making it about family, friends, food, music - none of these things are bad, they’re good; they have rich associations with Christmas and rightly so. But when we reduce Christmas just to family or just to food or just to a Christmas tree and Christmas lights, we are robbing Christ of glory and robbing ourselves of the joy that could be ours if used Christmas as a time to renew our affection and love for Jesus. Mark it down, the only way you and I can trivialize Christmas is if we have forgotten that Christmas is not just about the birth of a little baby to humble parents in a manger, but that it is about our Rescuer, our Deliverer, coming to our aid, bringing him hope and joy with Him.
300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon He Has Come! (Luke 19:10; John 3:17; 4:25–26)

The state of the case since Jesus has come may be illustrated in this way. Certain of our fellow countrymen were the prisoners of the Emperor Theodore, in Abyssinia, and I will suppose myself among them. As a captive, I hear that the British Parliament is stirring in the direction of an expedition for my deliverance, and I feel some kind of comfort, but I am very anxious, for I know that amidst party strifes in the House of Commons many good measures are shipwrecked. Days and months pass wearily on, but at last I hear that Sir Robert Napier has landed with a delivering army. Now my heart leaps for joy. I am shut up within the walls of Magdala, but in my dungeon I hear the sound of the British bugle, and I know that the deliverer is come. Now I am full of confidence and am sure of liberty. If the general is already come my rescue is certain.

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon He Has Come! (Luke 19:10; John 3:17; 4:25–26)

Note well, then, you prisoners of hope, that Jesus has come. Do you not hear it? The gospel bugle is sounding. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! The captain of our salvation has come; he is at our dungeon gates! He has come to our rescue! He has come! He has come!

The angels, lighting up the night sky with heavenly brilliance, remind us that Christmas is fundamentally about heaven invading earth for our eternal good. In other words, an extraordinary Savior has come for ordinary people.

#3: The announcement of the good news (Lk. 2:10-11)

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is bChrist the Lord.

Now the angels begin their announcement by saying “Do not be afraid.” This is because of the shepherd’s reaction to the appearance of the angels. They were fearful. In fact, fearful is not quite strong enough. The word can mean anything from apprehensive and anxious to be terrified, horrified. The shepherds are more on that side of the continuum - horrified. When we open the Bible and we find God speaking to a human being in any way whether by sending an angel or revealing Himself, we never, ever, not once, find the human being reacting with fascination or delight. It’s never, “Oh, Lord, you’re here. You’ve come. I’m so glad to have you. You want some coffee? I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long face to face. Do you want cream and sugar in that? I have so many questions.” Such a reaction is unthinkable in the Bible because any fascination is swallowed up by fear. Fear at what? Fear of the glory, the sheer blinding brilliance, of God. The glory of God is beauty mixed with danger.
Ill. Now in terms of beauty, think of a sunset over the ocean. We don’t get to see those on the east coast for obvious reason. But two years ago one of my best friends had a massive stroke. One of my other good friends and I flew out to San Diego together to visit him. The last night we were there, our friend was being moved from a neuro-ICU step down room to a nearby rehab facility. That gave us a couple of hours before we would try to go back to see him again.
We drove south to Coronado Beach to see the Pacific Ocean. It was right at sunset. It was chilly, about 58 degrees - mild for here for January but chilly for people who live there. The Californians are in their heavy coats but Cory and I are wearing t-shirts. To the south, away from the brilliance of the sun, you could see the lights of Tijuana, Mexico. But to the west, facing out to sea, it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. The orange-red blazing sun reflecting back across the water, against a backdrop of purple and orange clouds. That is glory. Multiplied by God, and you have something of what the shepherds saw that night.
Ill. But that scene of the beach on the Pacific Ocean at sunset isn’t quite enough to describe the glory of God, because the glory of God is not merely beautiful; it is weighty; there’s beauty mixed with danger; splendour mingled with holiness. So think of an electrical storm. When I was a kid, we had a power transformer just below our house that would go out pretty much every time there was a storm, and that meant of course that our power went out. One night, in the middle of the night, my dad got me up and took me out in the living room during one of those storms and we opened up the curtains of the big windows in there and sat on the couch, watching this electrical storm, which was made more vivid by the fact inside the house we had no lights - pitch dark. But the lightning was so bright, so brilliant, it would light up the world. For a few nanoseconds, you could see the green trees in our front yard; you could see the house across the street, the cars in their driveway. You could see corn growing in the field across the street and the line of tall trees just behind the cornfield. For a few fractions of a second, all of that was brilliantly visible. Then just as quickly as it lit up, all was dark again. This happened over and over and over. Coupled with the crashing of thunder, it was beauty mixed with danger.
That’s the glory of the Lord. Beauty, splendour, majesty, brilliance, but also fear, terror, apprehensiveness. Hence the angels’ reassurance: “Do not be afraid.” We find that command 47 times in the Bible. We find the command “do not fear” 58 times in the Bible. We find the command “fear” not four times in the Bible. God cares about our anxiety. If it causes us distress, He cares us about - no matter how trivial it may seem to us or to others. We are ordinary people - we are not superheroes; much less are we God. We are finite, we are limited, we are subject to sickness and weakness, we are vulnerable to death. Anxiety is not be what God wants for us, but we do not find Him rebuking us for our anxiety. We find Him caring for us, reassuring us. “Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you” (1Pet. 5:6).
Now notice what it is that dispels fear. The angles say, “Do not fear.” Why not? Why should the shepherds not be afraid? “Do not fear, for” - and here it is - “I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10 NASB). Whatever this message is, it is a message that is capable of perfectly calming our fears. Remember the shepherds’ reaction? They had “great fear”m, according to verse 9. Well, this great fear would take something equally great to conquer it. And so the angels say, “I bring you good news of great” - same word in the Greek - “great joy”. This message must be a great message if it brings great joy that eliminates great fear. So what it is? The angels say, “For I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10b-11 NASB).
Maybe this isn’t good news of great joy that the shepherds might’ve expected. They might have expected to hear news that the Roman Empire has been defeated. No more captivity! Or maybe news that they’ve invented a vaccine for, I don’t, leprosy or the plague. In fact, compared to those things, it seems a bit weak. Seems a bit anti-climactic.
But here’s the thing - the news of this baby’s birth is anything but anticlimactic. Who is this baby? Well, first we’re told that this baby will be born in the city of David. For a first century Jew, immediately their “spidey-sense” is going off. “City of David” conjures up memories of ancient promises from Scripture - promises about a coming King from David’s line who will sit forever on David’s throne and right all wrongs, including Roman captivity, including disease, and everything else that makes this world what it is not meant to be. He won’t do this immediately. It will be in His timing. But it at least means those things are on the horizon.
And it means, most importantly, that God has not forgotten His people. When these events took place in Luke, they took place at the end of a long period of not hearing from God at all. There had no prophets; no scripture; no revelations from God. That period of time, that period of quiet, lasted 400 years. You think God’s been silent for a long time in your life. Now, four centuries of silence dramatically ended by this beautiful and blinding and brilliant invasion of heaven into earth’s atmosphere. Bible scholars call them the “silent years”. He has not forgotten His promises. He remains faithful.
This baby will be a Savior - One who will deliver, One who will rescue, One who will rescue. On the screen there’s an image of the seal of Augustus, the Roman Emperor, that identifies him as Savior of the world (CNTOT, loc. cit. on Luke 2:11; cf. also Deissman, Light from the Ancient Near East, p344); and Evans p204). He is also Christ, the angels say - “anointed One” - and “Lord”. You know the OT name Jehovah - Yahweh - God’s personal covenant name? That word is translated simply “Lord” in the NT and is used right here. And the angels don’t say, “Today is born for you one who will one day be a Savior, who will one day be Christ and Lord”. No, they say “Today there has been born for you in the city of David a Savior, who is - not who will be - who is even now Christ the Lord.”
And this Savior, this Christ the Lord, brings joy that is not just for the Jews. Not just for white Americans, not just for westerners. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of great joy which the angels say will be for all the people.
Ill. Some of you know that yesterday the youth and children took a trip to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. I love to see the pictures of the great crusades here in the US. I love to hear the excerpts of George Beverly Shea singing Just As I Am. I love to hear Billy Graham urgently, passionately, accurately preach the gospel of Christ for all people. But what never ceases to amaze me is seeing the pictures and the footage of Graham preaching in places like the Soviet Union. Romania. North Korea. One photo always stands out to me. It’s 1985. Graham is preaching to a full stadium, but the picture is actually of thousands of Romanian citizens, hungry for the good news that God loves them, crowding in the streets by the thousands, standing on rooftops and on balconies and hanging out windows of high rise apartment buildings.
It wasn’t just in Romania. He preached in places like Warsaw, Poland in 1978. Kenya in 1960. He preached in Budapest, Hungary to crowds of more than 110,000. He preached in Moscow in 1992 to 55,000 people. These countries, many o them with deep Communist roots, and at the height of the Cold War, invited him to preach. I never cease to be moved to tears as I see the video of the Russian army choir singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic! Their deep voices belting out, “His truth goes marching on!”
I never cease to be moved to tears as I see footage of Romanian citizens, Chinese citizens, Korean citizens, Africans listening intently to his preaching, clearly being moved upon by the Holy Spirit, their faces following his every move and their facial expressions revealing their intense interest, their deep spiritual hunger, as Billy Graham spoke to them of a God who loved them and who cared about their problems and who, at the cross, had made their everlasting joy possible, a God their own governments had hidden from them. Billy Graham penetrated the Iron Curtain with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and perhaps like no other man before him illustrated with his life the truth that the gospels, as the angels announce to the shepherds, is good news that dispels fear and brings great joy to all peoples.
Well, now Augustus has a rival like he’s never had before, and the crazy thing about this rival is that even now, as a baby, lying in a feeding trough, born to Jewish peasants, in the backwater town of Bethlehem is even then as an infant King of kings and Lord of lords. And His coming is good news for all people. That’s the announcement of the good news.

#4: The sign of the good news (Lk 2:12)

12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Ill. I don’t know if any of you as kids ever tried to find the Christmas presents that your parents had bought for you. But if your parents and grandparents now and you suspect your kids or grandkids might be doing that, author and pastor Chuck Swindoll has a solution that will ensure they never do it again. He says they used to buy their presents early, and their neighbors would do the same. Then Swindoll and his neighbors would swap. Swindoll had his neighbors’ kids presents, and Swindoll’s neighbors had his kids presents. He writes, “And then Christmas Eve, when all the kids were asleep, we would swap and wrap all the gifts. You should have seen my kids when they looked out in the street and saw bicycles being ridden they thought they were gonna get for their Christmas!” (Swindoll, Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotations, pp. 81-82).
Not a bad idea. Although I would add that when God sent His gift, He not only announced to the shepherds what the gift was; He also told them where to find it. The angels said, “This will be a sign for you” - sign being proof that what the angels said was true, kind of like an “I told you so” (Evans, p206). What exactly is the sign? Again, note the ordinariness of it. The sign is not a press release or a Tweet; it’s not a Facebook post. It’s not headline news in the Jerusalem times. It’s simply a baby. It’s a baby, the angels say, wrapped in swaddling cloths. You wrap up a newborn in tight cloths to keep their limbs from moving to help them sleep. That’s so ordinary we still do it today. And lying, the angels say, in a feeding trough.
It seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? Maybe it seems a little unworthy of God? A little bit beneath Him? It is. And that’s precisely the point of the Christmas message. Christianity is the only religion in which human beings are not expected to work their way to God. We can’t work our way to God. We’re trapped in our ordinariness, and so God comes in the flesh, into our ordinariness, and becomes ordinary with us, and for us, that he might make us like Himself.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Early Church He Became What We Are that He Might Make Us What He Is

The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ … through His transcendent love, became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.

No, we won’t become God. But we will become as much like God as a created being can be. Notice with me, last, the purpose of the good news.

#5: The purpose of the good news (Lk 2:13-14)

And suddenly there appeared 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 men bwith whom He is pleased.”

Suddenly the angel is joined by not just one or two other angels but a multitude of angels. Filling the sky, stretching as far as they could see in every direction (Hughes, That You May Know, loc. cit. on Luke 2:13). It would be untold beauty - and deafening but joyful sound as the entire multitude breaks out into praise.
Why are they singing? They sing because of what all of this means. What does it mean that the long-awaited Son of David, the Savior, who is at once Christ and the Lord - what does it mean that He has come? Well, they tell us in the second line of their song: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14 NASB).
What does peace on earth mean? It means first peace between us and God. On our end, that means no more hostility toward God, no more running from Him. On His side, that means no guilt, no condemnation. It’s perfect peace and tranquility, the kind that comes from knowing that things are right between you and God. You can know that, by the way. You don’t have to hope or wish for it. You don’t have to wonder about it. If you have trusted in Christ for your salvation, the Bible says you have peace with God. Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (NASB). Peace on earth means first peace between us and God.
But that leads us to peace with other people. Peace with God leads to peace with others. Governments can work for peace with countries we don’t have good relations with. That’s good and important work. But until men and women are at peace with God, they will never be at peace with one another. There’s an inner anxiety and restlessness and even anger that comes from our subconscious awareness, deep down, that we are not right with God. And that bubbles over into how we see others and talk to others and treat others. But when God changes a person’s heart, that angst is replaced by the peace of knowing you’re right with God. Peace on earth means peace between us and others.
And lastly, peace on earth means life as it was intended to be. Peace in the Bible means wholeness, wellness. It means living a full life - not a full life because you can buy whatever you want or a full life because you have a fulfilling career - but a full life that comes from perfect fellowship with God and perfect fellowship with others.
This is what the birth of the Savior is accomplishing and will accomplish. This is why the angels praise God. Have you ever envied the angels? Has your ordinariness made you wish you could transcend your humanness and become like them? Here’s something to consider. Angels are absolutely ecstatic about what God is doing in our lives, on our planet, in our world. The book of 1 Peter even goes so far as to tell us that angels peer into God’s saving work with fascination. They’re having a great time watching it unfold.
So be careful envying the angels. I like this quote from a well-known pastor named Kent Hughes:

How we all would like to have been there—to be a fly on the ear of one of the shepherds’ sheep. But actually, though the choir in Heaven played a major role, we on earth have the best part because we are the ones who receive God’s grace. God became a man, not an angel. God redeemed us, not angels. Ours is the best part, and we will praise God for it for all eternity.

Call for response

How often do you praise and worship God for the Savior? How often do you praise and worship God because Christ is in you? Is He in you?

It is not enough to hear about Jesus. It is not enough to peek in the manger and say, “Oh, how nice. What a lovely scene. It gives me such good feelings.” The truth is, even if Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times but not within you, you would be eternally lost. The Christ who was born into the world must be born in your heart. Religious sentiment, even at Christmastime, without the living Christ is a yellow brick road to darkness.

In other words, there is a difference, isn’t there, between celebrating Christmas and loving Christ; there’s a difference between those two things. You don’t do one without the other. Probably 2/3 of Americans do one without the other. But the little baby in that manger, the little one whose birth stirs all of our hearts, is today our resurrected, fully glorified, ascended and reigning Lord. And He desires from us - He deserves from us - more than just a passing nod and a few warm fuzzies at Christmas. He wants all of us, and will be satisfied with no less than all of us.
Think about that. Jesus wants me for Himself. Jesus wants you for yourself. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday; Jesus still loves you and wants your heart today. It doesn’t matter what will happen today. Jesus still loves you and will still want your heart tomorrow. Jesus wants you and I for Himself. Us - in all our ordinariness, in all our sin, in all our rebellion. He not only loves you; He likes you.
TALK SLOWER AND LOUDER
Have you given Him your life? If not, why don’t you do so today? What’s holding you back? He will ask all of you, but He will more than reimburse you for what you give to Him. The door of grace that is open today will not be open forever. One day it will close and it will be too late. Until then, Jesus says “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drunk. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has set, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38 NASB). Wouldn’t that be nice? To be so full of joy and peace - so full of Jesus - that you overflow into other people’s lives? It can be yours today if you trust in Jesus, rely on Him for your salvation, ask Him to help you turn from your sin.
Others of you might need to recommit your life to Christ. What better time is there to do that than at Christmas? You may think He doesn’t want you back, that you’ve disappointed Him. But His arms are wide open for you this morning, too. Why don’t you come home? Today is the day to come home.
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