Why the Shepherds - Part 1

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Thanks to the generosity of our supporters. Your donation today means great podcasts like this remain available to help people look to God daily. Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah explains as he introduces us to the simple men chosen to receive the greatest news that mankind has ever heard. From the series, Why the Nativity, here's David to share today's message, Why the Shepherds.

Well friends, thank you so much for joining us. Reading the Bible is the most incredible way to be surprised. And as you study behind the text, you learn a bit about the culture of when all of this took place.

You're 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.

We're going to talk about that today. Why the shepherds? Why would God stoop so low in the culture of that day? And I think we'll find some wonderful answers that will encourage us.

Well, let's get started with Why the Shepherds. Before we get to our lesson, I need to tell you that this is the season of 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 discovered 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 and 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. And finally his mother went upstairs and she said, honey, you don't have to scream. God is not deaf. He said, I know mommy, but grandma is.

He had that figured out, didn't he? Another little boy had petitioned his father for a new watch and he wanted this in the worst possible way. And as children can be so persistent, he was persistently driving his father crazy. Every time they were together he mentioned that he wanted a watch for Christmas and his father said, finally, there isn't a budget for a watch. You're not going to get a watch for Christmas.

You need to be thinking about something else. He said, no, but daddy, I want a watch. And finally his father had to sit him down and say, now look, we are not going to talk about this anymore.

You are 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 and his father sat back up and thought maybe this young man would finally get it and he was beginning to grow spiritually and 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 pray I would like to share a verse of Scripture. Mark 13, 37. And what I say to you I say to all, watch.

Even the Scripture can be used to try to get what you want for Christmas if you work at it hard enough. Open your Bibles to the second chapter of the book of Luke, would you please? Luke chapter 2 and beginning at verse 8 and I'm just going to read this but you listen to it and here's what I'd like you to do. Listen to this story as if you had never heard it before.

Try to put yourself in that frame of mind, would you? Here's what the Scripture says. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields 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. 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 which Christ the Lord and 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 goodwill toward men. And 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 the invitation to greet him? The world's emperors, the priests, prophets, soldiers, or scholars? Yes it's true the wise men came from a distant land and they bore precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

It 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? That 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 lacked 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 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 hand washings 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 why the shepherds? Hebrew scholar Alfred Edersheim 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 a 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 and first being presented to the shepherds of Bethlehem, we see a pattern that we need to emulate today. And 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 and 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 have been asking themselves as they recovered from the initial shock of the appearance of the angels. They must have 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 through 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 into 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. And then 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 you delivered them into the hand of their enemies who oppressed them. And in the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven. And according to your abundant mercies, you gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of the enemies. So the people of Israel were accustomed to having saviors. And the reason you need a savior is because you keep messing up.

And the reason you need a savior is because we've all messed up, haven't we? And they were accustomed to having saviors come and deliver them. But I tell you, my friends, they had 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 had human saviors, but they had never had a savior from heaven. And that message that they received that night from the angels was a message, first of all, about a helpless savior. Verse 12 says, And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling claws lying in a manger. I dare say that not one person in Israel ever thought that Jesus Christ, their 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 their savior would be born in a manger did not cross their minds. Max Lakato describes the helplessness of the savior. He says, He looks anything but a king.

His face is prunish and red. His cry, although strong and healthy, is still the 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 were the robes of eternity. His 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 a humble savior. Verse 12 says, lying in a manger, the humblest of cribs.

Actually, the word manger means feed trough. His first visitors were shepherds, the humblest of people. And you know, that defies every one of us. If we were to write the story, we wouldn't 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. 2 Corinthians 8, 9 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, if he had come as a king, if he had 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. But my friends, Jesus came in the lowest possible way. He came humbly and helplessly so that there would be no one to 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 no 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.

Thou camest a little baby thing that made a woman cry. How different is the coming of the savior from what we would have expected, and yet how wonderful is this truth that the 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 have 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 with so little time allotted to him to minister on this earth, no more than just three years, yet he always had time for pressing crowds. He touched lepers, he healed 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 servanthood. He said that for anyone who served the least of these, it would be counted as if they had served Jesus himself.

Look at him. Look at him in the manger. Watch him in his life, and you 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 weary, yet he is our rest. He paid tribute, yet he is our king. He was accused of having a demon, yet he cast demons out of others.

He wept, yet he wipes away our tears. He was sold for 30 pieces of silver, yet 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.

Do 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. Verses 13 and 14 says that the message about this one who came was presented by those who themselves had come from heaven. The Lord Jesus came down from heaven to be one of us, and 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 couldn't go up, but ultimately he came down so that we could go up. The heavenly Savior. Well, 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 that the shepherds said one to another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing which 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. 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 envied. 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 had been with them out on the hillside and had such an amazing revelation and then 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.

And you know, men and women, that's an important thing for us to remember. Believing is not hearing. Believing is responding to what you hear.

Believing and 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 have not exercised their faith. Many of you 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 may say, I understand, I comprehend, I know, but you have not believed until you have responded. Had the shepherds stayed on the hill outside of Bethlehem, they would have missed Christ. They would have missed the whole blessing.

We wouldn't be reading about them in the Scripture. But they responded, they obeyed. When the angels told them what to do, they did it. And in their obedience and response, they expressed their faith.

Amen. Isn't it interesting that when you read these stories and they're always, the narrative of the Bible is wrapped around persons, personalities. So when we read these stories, we find ourselves identifying with the different characters and realizing that God has spoken truth into us through the personalities that are a 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 is involved, the shepherds and the wise men, and all of this a 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. We'll see you tomorrow. Now when you do, ask for your copy of David's 365-day devotional for 2021. It's called Strength for Today, and it's filled with biblical truth for the year ahead, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. And to keep your spirits bright through the holiday season, visit the Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv, your free source for Christmas music, videos, messages, and more. The Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv.

I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Please join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Why the Nativity? It's here on Turning Point with Dr David Jeremiah. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au.