Broken Halos - Christmas Eve Service 2018

Luke 2:8–20 (NIV84) 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 

God is good and He keeps His promises.

15 . . . “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Uh, sure, hope you're doing well. Good to see all the families with us. Glad you're part. Man. Had a great service. The first one, and this is the second one and we got one more later on tonight and what a great time it is to spend with just the community celebrating Christmas. So I want to start with this. Would you kind of take a moment and sort of conjure up in your mind a picture of a shepherd? So when you hear the Word Shepherd, what do you think are, or what is the image that comes to mind? So if you would just kind of close your eyes a minute. I'm not gonna do anything weird. Just sorta close your eyes a minute and think of a shepherd. Okay. One, two, three. Open your eyes. And it's something like this. When you think of the word shepherd did it looks something like that. Is that kind of who you. Who you image? Because that's Kinda what I did and I think it's because I grew up, you know, and we had all these kids in bathrooms and cotton ball beard, you know, that would come in and have their little thing. And so I automatically thought that this was sort of what a shepherd was kind of like Gandalf, but truth be told, shepherds worn at all, like Gandalf. In fact, if you really want a more accurate picture of what the shepherds were, it's actually more like this group of people which are the lost boys, you know, from Peter Pan. So that's really more likely who the shepherds were. See, most of the shepherds, when you read a shepherd and scripture, this wasn't like a high position, esteemed position. If you were the youngest in the family, oftentimes you were actually put out there to watch the shepherds. And we see this, you know, in the 90 of different kings throughout, throughout the Old Testament. And a lot of shepherds were actually orphans and there are people that really didn't have a place they fit in society. So you kind of ended up becoming a shepherd and a shepherd wasn't like, oh, you're a professional shepherd, you know, for shepherd is like for the lower parts of, of the society, really kind of poor people. In fact, they're often destitute and not only that, but oftentimes shepherds would work for a master and the master like would hold the shepherds responsible for the sheep, if any word to get lost. And so in the Bible when you hear about stories about going after the lost sheep, while that was a big deal, because if a sheep got lost, well man, the master, if the master was cruel, would often take it out on the shepherd boys, um, because uh, a sheep was lost. And so we kind of get a picture of this. I'm in the Christmas story and it's something we might overlook, but this is kind of from the, from the scripture. And this is particularly from the gospel of Luke. Listen to this. And there were shepherds living out in the field because that was where they hung up. That was the place, winter and summer and spring and fall. They hung out there and they basically lived there in the shepherds and all they had was each other and of course the sheep and that's what they did with their lives and probably most likely these folks were young boys who couldn't grow a beard if they had to, but they'd been in enough trouble that their faces were sort of seasoned, if you will. They were the lower members of society and and the reason that's an important thing for you to grasp is there part of the Christmas story. So if you think about the lowest members of any society or they're actually part of the Christmas story and they're a big part of the Christmas story while they're in the fields, they get this. An angel appears to this low class of society of people, the kind of people have. Most of society had rejected. You go live in the field, you watch the sheep and there were shepherds in the fields nearby and the angel said to them, they see it as angel angel says, don't be afraid. Now watch this. I'm bringing you shepherd boys. Good news to angel is speaking to the shepherd boys. I'm bringing you shepherd boys. Good news of great joy. That'll be for all. That's the shepherd boys and everybody else. All the people in today, in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. Shepherd boys. He is Christ the Lord. It's almost like God is saying this. I have the most amazing announcement to make that's going to be for everybody, but I'm going to give it to you boys first. I'm giving it to you. Shepherd voice first. You're the ones are going to get the message first. You folks that are living out in the fields with the sheep, you folks that all of society for the most part is rejected. I'm giving this to you first and what's the announcement? It's that word right there. It's the word that they would have recognized as the Messiah for thousands of years, hundreds of years, 2000 years. They been looking for a messiah to come even to shepherd. Boys would've known it. It's so much a part of their culture and the angels sang to the separate boys. The Messiah is here. He is Christ the Lord. He's here now and the shepherd boys would have this would have blown their minds because all kinds of people had come and said, this is the Messiah, this is the Messiah only to be disappointed, but this time the shepherds have it on heavenly authority, the shepherd boys have heard from heaven itself. This baby's the Messiah and you know how they might have translated that at least as they kind of figure out how this fits into their lives. God is good and he keeps his promises. They'd been waiting for it for hundreds of years watching, waiting for Messiah to come to the Jewish people, long fulfilled promises. They're waiting for a promise that was made all the way back in genesis one and genesis two and they said, oh, here it is. It's what mom and dad and grandma and Grandpa and their mom and dad's had been talking about, and now the Messiah is here. God is good and he keeps his promises. They would've thought even those of us in this field grinding out of living with no status and prestige and threats looming. Few fear. Part of our lives and destitute circumstances we wouldn't choose and yet God has spoken to us a good God and let us know he's keeping his promise and then that one angel is joined by this heavenly host of angels, which is a rarity and scripture and so the shepherd boys are the only people who witnessed heavens grand announcement. Heaven got all dressed up for shepherd boys for this big announcement and all this shot where these people, society probably rejected and after the message is given to the shepherd boys, they decide to go and see the thing that was promised to them and they find Mary and Joseph and I picture them being like that group of lost boys from Peter Pan. So it wasn't an organized announcement or greeting to Mary and Joseph. They were all talking at once. Just like, you know, 12 year old boys would do when they're talking about something they're excited about, oh, we were staying in the field and we were having a beer watching the field and the sheep game. And then angel came and the guy said, you weren't watching, you were sleeping. I wasn't sleeping, I was thinking beans, I mean back and forth or having this conversation and they say to Mary, somehow in the midst of it and angels told us that this is Christ the Lord, and after they finished announcing that they left the baby and they continued to share the message that they had heard that night. These shepherd boys, what was the message? God is good and he keeps his promises. What promise? Well, it was about 600 years earlier than this moment and Israel is a country. It was in a hot mess. All kinds of things turning sour and they weren't with God at all. They were rebelling and all this kinds of stuff and god used this prophet named Dizzy Keel to speak to the people and the first prophecy that he spoke to was actually to the religious people who had gone from protecting sheep to devouring sheep. And this is what God said of himself. In Ezekiel 34, I myself, he says, will be the shepherd of my sheep. Jesus is God. I'll take on the shepherd role for my sheep and I'll make them lie down. Place of rest in peace says the Lord God, and then he says, I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed and I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak. This is God speaking profit. Speaking about the people of God. I'm going to make them lie down. I'm going to seek the for those that are lost and bring back to straight and bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. These shepherd boys there are used to dealing with sheep. Their lives. There are basically three ways that sheep got hurt. I didn't read this Bible. I've googled it, but here's kind of how three ways the sheep got hurt. The first way is this, like they would maybe fall into a hole or crevice and he'd break something and get stuck, shepherd to go find them or maybe they wander into some water and their wool would absorb and that could be detrimental to the sheep and so the shepherd would have to pull them up out of the water. Of course a Predator could come and wipe them out, so she'd get hurt here when they go too far and they can't see a way out. She'd get hurt when they go too far and they get in over their heads. Sometimes sheep just get hurt and now we're no longer talking about sheep are we? See we get hurt when we go too far and we can't see your way out. We get hurt when we get go too far and now we're in over our heads and sometimes we just get hurt and so when we hear the prophet say, I'll seek the lost. That's probably some of us feel. I'll. I'll help those who have strayed. I'm going to lead back the straight. That may be how some of us feel. I grew up in this, but I haven't been involved. God, a long time a bind up the injured again, probably some of us have been deeply hurt our strengthen the weak. You know what? You know what puzzles me about this shepherd thing and Christmas, it's this verse. It says, the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God. Here's my question. Why? Why did they do that? Because nothing had changed in their lives. They still returned to being shepherds. They still returned to being the same old thing and did the same old job. How did the baby Jesus, did he give them new parents? Nope, they're still orphans. Some of them. How did baby Jesus makes sure they are never hungry again? Nope. The scripture doesn't say that. Did Baby Jesus make sure that they would never be beat by their master again? Scripture doesn't say that either the baby didn't fix any of those situations as far as we know, but they left glorifying and praising God for all the things they'd seen. Do you know why? Because they had hope for the first time in their lives they had hope in heaven, had brought the message to them. They had hope. They had hope that if they go too far, they can get out. If there are too far in over their heads that they can be rescued. If that their hurts, something can. Someone can heal them. They had hope. Hope that God is good. Hope that God keeps his promises, hope that God hadn't forgotten them, even the shepherd boys, which leads to this question for me. What if you being here, I don't know your story, you don't know mine, but what if you being here, me being here is actually proof that God is still looking for you. What if the reason you're here is it because you're trying to do the family thing? What if you're actually here because God wanted to speak one word into your current situation?

Speaker 2: 12:50

Hope, hope,

Speaker 1: 12:58

because that's what we have. Raw gonna pack up here in a little bit and get back to our cars and drive down the hill and we're going to go to our homes. Same circumstances, same trials, same struggles, but we have hope. What hope? Well, God is good and he keeps his promises.

Speaker 2: 13:22

God is good and he keeps his promises. Jesus said, I'm the good shepherd and I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Jesus, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for these beautiful people. Thank you for what kind of God comes to shepherds? What kind of God puts on this grand display of heavenly host for Schaeffer and Lord, when I hear you did that kind of makes me feel like you might even know me here in central South Carolina. You might know my scenario, my situation, not just mine. Maybe you know all of us listening to the sound of my voice. You know exactly what we're afraid of. You know exactly where we're in too deep, you know exactly the hurt we're carrying around. Listen, I don't know where you are with God, but I'll bet you could use a good dose of hope and maybe why you're here tonight is because God wants to restore hope for you and so I want to invite you if you'd like to receive that hope, and for me, I think it's a very private and personal decision where you have a conversation with God right where you're seated. When you say, God, you and I haven't talked for awhile, maybe, or maybe I've been the one who strayed. Maybe I've actually been lost, but in this moment, sure could use some hope, and if that's you, all you gotta do is talk to God just like you'd be talking to me. Use Your own words. Ask God for hope, asked God to shine a light of hope into your life. Ask him to forgive you, hurt you've caused sin and shame you're carrying around, and then youtube actually can leave this place. Drive down that hill glorifying God because you to have hope and that's available to you. All you gotta do is ask. Thank you, father for being hope. Hope for us in your name. Amen.