Do Not Fear - Good News of Great Joy

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We talked about how the

Most common commandment in the bible is ‘Do Not Fear’

And this is an extremely important part of understanding both the Christmas story, and the Christian story - that our message is one of a God who came to save. The righteous judge coming to die in our place.

now, if you crack open your bible, you’ll notice that the first four books of the new testament aren’t just names - they’re called ‘Gospels’.

Now, this word,

‘Gospel’ literally means ‘Good News’

it’s not quite a greek word. It’s a rendering of another greek word, euangelion - which means the same thing, ‘good news’.

and no person summed it up better than the angel that spoke to some shepherds.

Luke 2:8–14 NIV

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

So, this is great news! The Lord of all, the saviour, the Messiah has been born on earth.

We talked about how God was the only thing that we really, truly needed - and here He was, in the flesh

And I want you to try and imagine yourself in this scene. You’re a shepherd, lying in the field. Hanging out with your sheep.

All of a sudden, an angel appears

He gives you this amazing news, the fulfilment of prophecy - and you may not be very learned in the bible , but even you know this one

Then, a great company of angels appear, a massive choir, and they’re all signging God’s praises

And when all the angels leave, you’re determined to go check it out yourself.

But there’s a great contradiction here, going on in the Christmas story

You see, this angelic choir - it calls back to the throne of God itself. It’s an image, however brief, of heaven and how great and glorious God is.

Reminds us of God’s wonder, and majesty, and power

But on the OTHER side of this, is the confirming sign from the angel.

You’ll know the messiah, when you find a baby, wrapped in cloth, lying in a manger.

And that’s the great contradiction of Christmas - the wonder, and majesty, and splendor of an eternal and all-powerful God, placed into this humble, frail, insignificant and unassuming little package.

And I’ve said this before, and it bears repeating:

The ‘good news’ isn’t about God coming to get what He deserves - it’s about God coming to give to us what we don’t

And you see that heart in Jesus all throughout the New Testament.

Jesus does some of his deepest teaching on worship talking to a woman at a well, who was probably a pretty immoral woman, an outcast. And it was crazy enough at the time for a jewish man to even speak to another woman period, let alone a samaritan one!

Jesus touches and heals a group of lepers (which, by the way, he’s easily shown he can do without any sort of contact)

He was constantly working with the poor, the outsider, you name it.

And here we have, the first, honest to goodness public proclamation of the real Gospel, THE good news - and it’s to some shepherds.

I mean, jesus could have picked some better candidates here. They were uneducated, probably unliked. They were outcasts.

But here’s the thing, you can see God’s plan, god’s goals, in how they respond.

Luke 2:15–20 NIV

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 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. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

They saw this amazing choir of angels, and their first instinct was, ok, we gotta go see this. This is wonderful news.

Then they went, and they found the baby, and what did they do? They left, giving glory and praise to God, and telling absolutely everybody they could find about it. Every last bit of their focus was on how good God was.

And there’s a truth here. I believe that the shepherds were the best vehicle for this new good news, this new gospel, precisely because they weren’t.

God came to bring something we don’t deserve - and we need to believe all of that message

Fast forward a couple decades, Jesus is moving around and picking his disciples. And who does he pick? Fishermen. Tax collectors. People with temper issues. Very self-centered people.

He picks such a group of leaders that most of the great pastors I know would have probably thrown in the towel after a few years with these guys.

Later on,he sees this guy running around name saul, who is straight up MURDERING people and jesus goes ‘yep, I’m picking that one’, reaches into his life, absolutely flips him upside down, changes his name and sends him out into the world.

god picked a group of people to do absolutely amazing things BECAUSE those people knew the one thing that really, honestly brought them into the presence of God:

We do not deserve to be here - but God freely brings us in anyways

If the disciples were anything like me, I think they’d spend quite a bit of time after seeing some miraculous thing and saying to themselves, man, can you imagine that somebody like me just got to be a part of something like that?

God shows us this message through the manger. He sends his son to a lowly set of nobodies, and destines the saviour of the world to be born in a stable in a manger. He’s saying, ‘I know that things are broken. I know they aren’t good. And here I am. That isn’t going to stop me’.

This is why we don’t have to fear when it comes to God. It’s not a ‘maybe we deserve it, maybe we don’t.’ We don’t. That’s a hard line.

You may say I have a poor view of people. I don’t. I love people, they’re great.

But I have a really, really, REALLY high view of God. If God is so absolutely, majestically, INFINITELY good - there’s no way we could come within a billion miles of that standard on our own.

And, sidebar. I say we don’t have to fear God. But there’s scripture that says that we are to do just that.

Proverbs 1:7 NIV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So how does this connect? Easy.

Fear as the beginning of wisdom is this - understanding that we shouldn’t take God lightly.

We can’t come before this God in arrogance, or self-righteousness. He sees right through that.

But the bible goes onto say this:

1 John 4:16–18 NIV

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

The fear of God teaches us that we deserve punishment, no matter what. The love of God tells us that we don’t have to be punished.

and the christmas story is a story about how God came down, onto a planet that didn’t deserve irt or Him, gave His son to a couple of nobodies, and when His son was born, he called over a bunch of outcasts to celebrate.

God is so, so good, and the ONLY reason we are near to Him today is because He welcomes us in with open arms. Because He loves us.

Because the truth is,

You are not a nobody to God

Not because you’re super talented and obviously he would want you. Not because you’ve earned it. But because you’re his. He made you. He loves you deeply and infinitely.

As a parent, I can objectively recognize - sometimes, my kids can be a handful. Sometimes, they’re hard, and loud, and dirty, and tiring. But I would die for my kids. Because they’re mine. My kids will never be nobodies to me. they’ll never be less than the most important little people in my life. Because they’re mine.

You are God’s. He made you. He loves you. He came to die on a cross, because you should have instead, and He didn’t want to lose you.

But you need to take this seriously. We need to understand that we’re broken people in a broken world, and that we can’t possibly earn our way into God’s presence.

It’s a gift, freely given. Because He loves us.