Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Luke 2:8-20, focusing on the shepherds as ordinary people chosen by God to receive the announcement of Jesus' birth. He emphasizes that God often reveals Himself to the humble and overlooked, encouraging believers to be attentive to His presence in their lives. The sermon highlights the importance of immediate obedience to God's call and the shepherds' transformation into witnesses of the gospel, reminding the congregation that sharing their faith can have a profound impact on others.
Housekeeping and Dismissal
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen for that.
Most of our kids are dismissed, but if you have a kid that wants to go to Children's Church, that's available as well. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Luke chapter 2 today, Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 20.
I decided to break from Acts for just a little bit and do a four-part series in December on the characters of Christmas. We're going to look at four different individuals,
per se, at Christmastime, and hope it'll be a blessing to us as we study these, maybe bring out a new perspective that you've never thought of. And so today we're talking about the shepherds. I've entitled it Shepherds When Heaven Visits the Ordinary. And I hope it'll be an encouragement today for us.
We'll read verses 8 through 20. If you're willing and able to stand with us, we'll read out of God's Word today, Luke 2, verses 8 through 20. Words also will be on the screen. It says, It says,
Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done for us. Be with the reading of your scripture. Help us to honor you today in everything that we do. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
As a kid, I loved the thought of astronomy and the thought of stars and stargazing.
Anybody here enjoy looking at the stars at night? I think they're just one of the most beautiful things to do. And I came across this story a couple months back and thought it was appropriate for today. But in 1910, other than Mim, was anyone alive in 1910?
She's not even in here for me to make fun of.
1910, I don't think anyone was in here alive at that time. But the world paused for a moment because what is called the Halley's Comet was coming across our solar system and was going to pass over the world. And you would have the opportunity to see it at that night sky.
And they had been waiting. Science had predicted when it was going to be. Newspapers were running articles.
Tonight's the night. Make sure you're out there. Make sure you're looking up in the stars so that you can see this wonderful event. But when the night came, something surprising happened.
Most people that were out looking at it missed it. Most of the people that were out there were in places like New York, Chicago, and even London. And what had happened was in the early 1900s, at the turn of the century, electricity was invented.
And so we had wonderful lights that were invented and put all over towns.
And as Halley's Comet came by, the artificial light of the world that we had put in drowned out most of those people from being able to see it. There were people that were upset.
They were calling in the newspapers and they were calling in saying, You lied to me. You told me it was going to be here and it wasn't here. And they said, No, no, no. We have people who saw it.
We have individuals who were out there and they saw what was going on just a little bit away from the city and the countryside. A different story was unfolding.
Ranchers, farmers, and shepherds, under the quietness of the dark skies, watched the comet blaze across the heavens. They saw it with stunning clarity.
They saw the long tail that Halley's Comet had. They saw the shimmer. And they saw the beauty that was hidden from those that were surrounded by the man-made light of the city area.
Now, I'm not here preaching today on the difference of whether you should live in a city or the country. But I think what we can understand from the story is the striking difference.
The greatest sky event of the decade that was seen in this area was seen first and best by people who thought nothing about it.
They were just normal, ordinary people who were doing their duties that were out in the fields. And they looked up and they're like, Oh, that's pretty cool. I wonder what shooting star that is.
They really didn't even know what was going on in the sky. They didn't have a lot of education. They weren't part of the elite.
They weren't even part of the city crowd. They were ordinary men and women in forgotten fields, in the right place,
in living the simplicity of their life, and just simply paying attention to what was going on.
Ordinary Shepherds and Their Role
When I think about this story, when I think about what is going on here, my mind has to continue to go back to this story of Jesus and the shepherds who were just ordinary people who were just doing their job and doing the duty of what God had called them to do.
God didn't reveal the Savior of the world. He didn't go to the palace. He didn't go to Herod's kingdom. He didn't go to the elite. He didn't go to the governors. He didn't go to the religious authority and go to the Sadducees and the Pharisees and say, hey, today in the city of Bethlehem, a Savior, the king, has been born.
He could have. He could have sent Gabriel. He could have sent the angels there. But instead, he chose to go in the fields to the people that were overlooked and were often forgotten in their life.
See, the world misses the Savior because I believe they're looking in the wrong places.
When we want to find Jesus, we often will look to social media or things in this world and we look in the wrong places at the wrong times. And God is saying, look at where I have sent him. And the shepherds were the ones that saw the glory because they were humble,
because they were quiet, because they were ready to notice when heaven split open and came to them and said, this is what's going on. I often ask ourselves and ask myself, am I too busy to notice if God were to come to me?
If God were to come to me like the shepherds, would I be too busy with my schedule, with everything that's going on, to even notice that the Lord split the skies open to come and talk to me and
to share a wonderful message with us? And oftentimes, as I am guilty of this, we're constrained by our clocks. We're constrained by the things of the time frame of what's going on. And because we are so schedule-oriented, we can miss what God has planned for us right in front of our faces.
And so as we look at the shepherds this morning, I've got, as Caleb said, your notes are smaller this morning. You don't have as much on my actual papers.
But if you look at my handout, you're like, well, Pastor James, we've got a lot here. Not going to spend a lot of time on any of these. I just want to give us a broad overview of what's going on in this passage.
The first thing we look at is God comes to the least in verses 8 and 9. God comes to the least of these that were overlooked and were often not important.
The shepherds in the biblical days were the ones that were, it was like the least job that you can imagine.
You've got servants in houses that were looked at as greater authority than the shepherds of the field. The shepherds of the field were the least important people in the day of time. They didn't really have a home life.
They didn't really have a family. They spent all their time with animals, leading the sheep around, taking them to water,
going and chasing after the ones that weren't listening and weren't doing right, and bringing them back to the fold, taking care of all these things.
They were the bottom of the bottom, if you could understand that, in the echelon of what was important in this day and age.
As I was thinking through this as a football guy, as a guy who likes sports, every year when March and May and June roll around, we get gearing up for the NFL draft.
And you've got the NBA draft, and I don't really watch any of that. I watch the NFL draft.
And back about four years ago, there was a quarterback that went the next to the last pick.
He may have actually went the last pick. I'm not exactly sure remembering right now off the top of my head, but his name was Brock Purdy. Brock Purdy, he was seen as a good quarterback, and a quarterback that had potential, but he just continued to fall every single year.
And when he was drafted next to the last or last in that year's draft pick, the coach for the San Francisco 49ers called him and said, I know everyone is telling you that you're Mr. Irrelevant right now, but you matter to us.
You fast forward four years later, he's the starting quarterback for the 49ers, led them to the playoffs and won some playoff game last year.
And he was overlooked by many, but in this situation, he was great in their eyes.
And so oftentimes in our mind, as we think of the shepherds, we can think of that these are overlooked and not important in the necessary idea of Scripture here. But we see two things about the shepherds. The first is their low position.
The low position that they held, as I mentioned, shepherds were overlooked. They were untrusted, and they were socially insignificant.
These were people that really couldn't sit down and have a conversation with you. They really couldn't sit down and hold a dinner conversation. They would be socially awkward.
They wouldn't really understand what you're talking about. They would be just consumed in thinking about the sheep that they're left in their field. And why am I here having a dinner? I just don't know what's going on. They would be in this low position that God has given them.
God's Choice of the Humble
I often think, and as I get into this Christmas season, I'm reading a book right now by Al Mohler, Reimagining Christmas.
And I often think of this idea that God bypassed the palaces and the religious elites to come to the overlooked, insignificant shepherds of the field and said, I'm going to part heaven and announce the birth of the greatest person that's ever going to live in this world. He came to common men.
He came to common women. And he came and he said, I want to deliver this news to you, and I want to bless you with this information.
And he goes even a step further and says, I'm going to give you the first look at this new Messiah, Jesus, that has been born. So we see their low position, but we also see God's glory in the night. Ordinary men doing ordinary work suddenly are engulfed in this divine light of heaven.
It's a reminder that God steps into our everyday life.
God doesn't just spin this world into order and say, hey, James, go out there and try to figure it out. He steps into our life. He steps into what we're going through.
And he says, I want to help you in your life. As he stepped out of eternity and came into our world, he's stepping out of eternity and stepping into our world and saying, what do you need help with? How do you need the direction or guidance in your life?
And he tells us that God is here for his saving message to you and to me. And he gives us this glorious announcement to the shepherd people who were common, ordinary people. He gives us this idea that oftentimes we may feel overlooked.
Oftentimes we may feel forgotten. We may feel abandoned. But to know that God is there for us.
Scotty this morning in Sunday school asked us a passage of scripture. And I was going to share, but I just, other people were sharing. And so I wanted to continue the conversation there. But this morning, my life verse came to my mind. It was Psalm 73, 26.
As a teenager, I didn't really have life verses. I didn't really understand this concept.
And as I was sitting there in Jeff Stevens, who was my youth pastor at the time, we were sitting in his living room and we were having a small Bible study with some guys and girls that were there. We had watched football games and we had done other things at his house.
But this specific event, we were just sitting there and we were opening the Bible.
And he said to us, he said, you need to have a life verse. Something that you can go to when times are going to get tough.
Little did I know that a couple of weeks later, I was going to experience my mom and dad getting a divorce. And my mom leaving my dad, the separation, the pain, the heart, and all that was going on. And the Lord led me, as others were sharing, to Psalm 73, 26, which says,
my heart and my flesh are going to fail. But God is my strength and my portion forever.
Little did I know a couple of days and weeks later that I would be living in that verse. That my flesh and my heart, the woman who gave me birth, my father who loved me, they were going to be torn apart. My heart was going to be torn. My life was falling apart.
And yet in that moment, I could rely on God as my strength and my portion forever.
Oftentimes, we're so busy with life that this life-changing news that is simple and surprising and unlikely that God would come to lowly, common people like you and like me and say, I'm here for you.
God's Clear Message to All
I want to live in your life with you. I want to do things with you if you would just rely on me.
What does it say about God that his first announcement of the gospel was to men and women who had no value to anyone else?
He looked down from heaven and he said, who can I share this information with that's going to make the biggest impact on their life? He didn't go to the king. He didn't go to the Pharisees.
He didn't go to the people that were in the town where Mary and Joseph were at, which was their hometown, Joseph's hometown, where he knew these people.
He could have went to his family member and said, hey, your family member Joseph is about to give birth to the Messiah. He went outside the city and he picked a group of shepherds and said, I'm going to tell you because I value you.
No one else does, but I care about you. So God comes to the lowly in the least here, but he also gives a clear message in verses 10 through 12. The clear message is given as a way to tell us that God is not just giving us random ideas and random thoughts.
He is coming to us and saying, I have a plan and I have a purpose in your life and I have a direction for your life.
The number one question as a pastor and a youth pastor for almost 15 years now, the number one question is, Pastor James, what does God want me to do with my life? Okay, what does God, where does God want me to go to college? Who does God want me to marry?
What is the will of God for my life? This is the number one, and I tell every single person that comes to me, I say, listen, it's not some magical far out thing.
It is a very clear message that God has put inside of your heart, that God is going to lead and guide you if you trust in him. And God is telling us in this passage here that he gives a very super clear message. The first is this, the gospel brings peace, not fear.
The gospel, when it is brought into our life, it does not bring fear. It should give the peace that surpasses all understanding. It starts by saying, fear not.
Before the good news can be revealed, fear must be addressed. The fear of what is going on. If you do any studies on angels, you understand that angels are crazy looking creatures. They're not like we see on It's a Wonderful Life.
This is not the angels of the Bible. The angels of the Bible are interesting to say the least. And you can do your own study.
I don't have time to go through that. But they were fearful when they saw these creatures coming out of heaven, just like you would be. You would be fearful as well.
And God comes in and says, listen, if we're going to address this idea of what the gospel is, the fear must be going away because the gospel comes in and the gospel always turns our fear into peace. The gospel comes in and turns our fear into joy.
He says, fear not because I am about to give you the greatest news that's ever been given in the history of mankind. The gospel, the second thing it says here is, it's for all people.
I'm so thankful that the gospel does not just come for Israel. As we read this morning, it is not just for Abraham. There were Gentiles that were brought in this fold and now the gospel has been spread to everyone,
to all people. It's not just for the powerful. It's not just for the elite. But it is for all people.
And it says that in there, all of the people is going to be a recipient of this grace. And I believe that the shepherds show this as a proof of this proof text that the gospel is for everyone.
If you were to go to a person in, even in Israel today, and say, if there's news that's going to be given, and specifically in this time, who are you going to start with?
Every single person would say, we're going to start in the middle of the city, and we're going to spread that information out and out and out. And the last people that are going to hear are the people that are going to be out in the fields and the people that are doing things.
And oftentimes, that's how it is with us, right? I tell people often,
the pastor is typically the last person to find out things. Everyone else in the church finds out things, and then I find out. And this is how the message often works here.
But God sort of took this message, and he flipped on his head and said, I'm going to start out, and I'm going to tell everyone out here that people think is insignificant and doesn't matter, and they're going to bring the message in.
And so the gospel is for every single person, not just who we deem to think that it is for. And the third thing is this, the sign was simple. I'm thankful that as we look at the message of the clear gospel, it was not a complicated message. It was not a deciphering message.
Me and my wife were doing some, she ordered this like 25 or four days of Advent game couple things, and one of them was like having, we did one for the couples, we're doing one with the kids as
well. And one of them last night we did was a picture, and you had to find a face inside of a picture, or find a shoe inside of a picture. I sit there, and I looked and looked and looked.
I couldn't find it. It was the hardest thing for me to try to find this, and Allison, she pulled it out just like that. The kids, they're pulling them out, and I'm like, how are you seeing this? I don't see this.
That's not the gospel. The gospel is not some complicated algorithm that you have to have a PhD in psychology and this and this to figure it out. No, no. He said it's simple.
It's not a throne, but there's a manger. God's salvation is wrapped in humility, and it's a baby that's going to be born by Joseph and Mary, and they're going to be given to you in a stable.
He lays out exactly what it is, and they say, all right, this is our message. We've got to figure it out.
Oftentimes, I want to ask us is, do you still try to figure out how God's going to work in impressive ways of your life?
I ask myself often as we go through our life, we hear the crazy, awesome miracles that God does, and I believe that God's a God of miracles. But oftentimes, God says, I'm just going to come, and I'm going to work in a small, simple way of your life.
You're dealing with anxiety or depression or doubt or security issues, and I'm going to come in, and I'm going to deliver you and help you in those little, small areas.
When the devil whispers in our ear and tells us that no one cares about us and we don't matter to anyone,
God comes along and says, no, you matter to me. And oftentimes, we look for God in all the wrong places. And God says, my message is simple.
My message is clear. I have sent my son, my only begotten son in this world, so that you can have eternal life. Not only do we see that God comes to the least and God gives a clear message, but God demands immediate obedience. God demands immediate obedience.
Delayed obedience, I said this last week, delayed obedience is disobedience.
There have been many times in my life that I can look back and I can say that God asked me to do something. I obeyed it, but I didn't obey it correctly or the first time or the right time, and I missed out on a blessing that God had for me.
And oftentimes, God is telling us to do something, and we want to do it, and we think we should do it, and we hesitate on doing it, and then we go back to try to find that thing that
God had for us, and the blessing or opportunity has already been taken by someone else. And God is challenging us.
I'm not a huge fan of Andy Stanley, but Andy Stanley makes a statement. He says, do for one what you wish you could do for all.
Sort of a motto that I live by in my life, because I wish I could do 100 things for 100 different people, but oftentimes,
because of time and ability, I can only do one thing for one person at a time, so I'm going to do that one thing for that one person, and I'm going to wish and hope that I can do it for everybody.
But God is telling us that we must not delay in our obedience. The first thing we look at is they believed without argument. They believed the word without an argument. There was not a debate.
There was no delay. They didn't, right, this is Southern Baptist Church, Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, Ronda, North Carolina. God gives us a message, and I'm not downing or saying this in a hard way, but this is how we process things, right? We form a committee. That committee gets together.
All right, God's given us this message. How are we going to interpret this message? How are we going to work through this message? Well, I think it means this, and you think it means that. And Caleb over here, he's helping me out with this side of it. And Allison comes in, and she thinks this way.
And Bernie's like, well, Dad, I think we should do it this way. And we have this whole big debate and argument, and all of a sudden it's delayed the process. The shepherds, they didn't do that. The shepherds got the message, and they said, hey,
Shepherds' Immediate Response
God told us what to do. Let's go do it. And so I'm like, all right, cool. Let's go do this thing. And so they walk out. They go out, and they literally say, let us go now to Bethlehem.
They said, we're not going to argue. We're not going to debate. We're not going to figure out which Greek word Jesus was saying in this moment, God was saying for us to do here. He just said, hey, let's go down. Let's go figure out what this is.
Number two we see is their faith turned to action. They had faith, and their faith was big.
Their faith was huge, and now their faith is now turned into action. James says it like this. Your faith without works is dead.
We must live in an action state of moment where we are living and breathing the action of the gospel, where we're physically going out.
We're physically going and telling people we are going to leave the things that are important at times. You see, when they left to go to Bethlehem, they left their livelihood. They left everything that was a definition of who they were. This was everything. Their shepherds, the sheep were everything.
And for them to leave their sheep, they're leaving their security. They're leaving their money.
They're leaving everything that they have. And they're saying, we're going to follow Jesus, and we're going to go this way. But I don't know if I want to leave all that. I mean, this is what I know. This is what is comfortable for me. I know what sheep need.
I know they need water. I know they need grass. I know they've got to stay away from the wolves and stay away from the bears. This is comfortable for me. To leave that and go over here, it's not that comfortable.
How often is that for us when God says, I need you to have faith to go into action, to go do what I've asked you to do? Abraham, as we read this morning, Abraham was asked to leave his hometown. To leave everything he knew. To leave everything that was comfortable about him.
And to go to a land that he was going to promise to him. And he was going to deliver him and have children.
That was going to have children. And the amount of kids that he was going to have was going to be greater than the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. But Abraham had to have the faith to say, I trust you, Lord.
I'm going to walk away from all that. I'm going to follow after you.
This is a bold faith. This is an audacious faith that is a faith that oftentimes is lacking in our 21st century.
It's oftentimes lacking in our church of today. But what happens when they leave, they follow, they don't argue. Number three here, they find everything just as God said.
God is a God of deliverance. God is a God of promise. And God is a God that never breaks his word. I'm so thankful that God's word never fails.
When I'm going through difficulties in my life, when I'm going through struggles, I can anchor myself in God's word because his word never fails. And our faith is often rewarded with the truth of scripture. Our faith is often this overflowing of things that we thought was going to happen.
And God comes in and goes, hey, you only thought. Let me really show you the blessings that I've got for you. Let me truly open the windows of heaven for you and show you the blessings that I have for you.
Oftentimes when we don't respond immediately, when we don't respond the right way, God says, I've got this blessing for you and I wish I could give it to you, but you didn't respond. You weren't in the right place at the right time doing what I asked you to do. And the blessing went to someone else.
How often is it that we are moving too quickly for God to speak?
Afraid to move out of our comfort zone or routine for God to step into our life and say, look at what I have for you.
The last thing we see that these shepherds do is God sends them out as witnesses. God takes them and he says, hey, now you've given the keys to heaven.
As he tells his disciples, you've been given the greatest message that's ever been told. You've seen the savior that's coming to the world.
Call to Share the Gospel
Now I'm challenging you to go out and tell everyone.
This is for each and every one of us that we are to go out and to be witnesses into everything that we do and everywhere we go, no matter our status of life, no matter our age or stage of life is to go out and to tell others about Jesus.
They shared what they saw. Number one, the shepherds became evangelists. They, those that met Christ, they can't help but speak of Christ everywhere they go.
If you read through the gospels and you read through the life of Jesus, Jesus does miracles after miracles. He heals people.
He heals the blind man. He heals the one that is lame. And after every single one of those miracles up until the end of the gospels, he tells them, go and tell no one.
I think it's one of the most amazing statements that Jesus tells these ones that have been healed to go and don't tell anyone that this has happened.
And if you continue reading the scripture, immediately they leave from Jesus and they tell everyone they can find.
Jesus is like, no, no, don't go tell anybody. Now is not the time. There will be a time, but right now, no. They walk away, they're like, hey, I just met this guy. He changed my life. I once was blind, but now I see.
I once was lame, but now I walk. Well, once it's dumb and I couldn't talk and now I can talk and I've got to tell you about this man named Jesus who came into my life. And they go out and they tell everyone because their life has been radically changed by Jesus.
And how often is it that where lives have been radically changed by Jesus and we can't help but not speak of Jesus.
We hold our tongue when someone's struggling at work and we have the answer of life with Jesus and scripture.
And we fail to even tell them about that. The shepherds, they shared what they saw. They met Christ and they couldn't help but speak of him everywhere they went. Their message amazed others.
This extraordinary story was delivered by ordinary men and it revealed God's heart to this generation at this time.
Everyone looked and says, are these not the shepherds that are supposed to be out in their fields? And they have this message, they have this wonderful, life-changing, transformational message.
How did they get it? And people were just mind blown that they had this message and they were speaking this way, but their message began to amaze others. I promise you, when you share your story, when you share what Christ has done for you, others will be amazed.
And others are going to say, hey, I want to have more of what you have. I want to have more of the joy that you have and the relationship that you have and the community that you have and why do you have that?
What is this? And they're going to start asking questions and they're going to start having conversations with you because you were willing to share what God has done in your life. The last thing we see that they did is they returned different men. They returned back to the same field.
I think this is a beautiful picture. They went back to what they knew.
They went back to their comfort of where they were at, but they now had a new mission. They now had a new message that they were going to tell everyone. They had a new song in their heart.
As they were going to the shepherd's convention and they were going to talk about which staffs they were going to use that are newer and better, they began to have a new joy and a new idea that was going on in their life.
And the other shepherds that didn't experience Jesus, they said, hey, why are you so excited to be at a shepherd's convention? This is crazy. And all of a sudden they were excited and they were asking questions because they had this new song. They had this new joy in their life.
I read this statement somewhere. I want to share it with you. It said this, encountering Christ doesn't always change your location.
Oftentimes we say, God, if you put me in a different place or you put me somewhere else, I'm going to be able to go and tell others about Christ. But oftentimes encountering Christ keeps you right where you're at, but it always changes your life. When you encounter Christ, it always changes your life.
It changes the attitude that you have. It changes your outlook on life. It changes everything that you say and do because your life has been changed by the one that stepped down from heaven.
As Terry comes, I'm going to ask us a question. Are we more like silent shepherds or more like the speaking shepherds? So what I mean by that is what keeps you from sharing Christ?
What is it that's in your heart that is, Pastor James, I'm just going to get so nervous. I'm not going to be able to say these things or do these things. I'm not going to be able to share Christ in this moment. I'm scared of what's going to come out.
I'm scared I may stutter. I'm scared I may do things that are wrong. My kids make fun of me every Sunday because they keep track of all the words that I stutter and all the words that I make wrong. I'm just so consumed with these ideas that I'm going to fail.
Is that what's keeping you from Christ? Is what's keeping you from Christ is if I say this, they're going to judge me.
If I tell someone about this life-changing man named Jesus, they're going to look at me and say, well, you haven't lived that life. You haven't done the things that you should have done. And all of a sudden, they're going to judge me. What is it? I don't know.
I'm just throwing out a couple of ideas there. What is it that is keeping us from going out and returning a different people tomorrow at our work?
Or the next week when we go to work or we go see family in a couple of weeks and we're around people that maybe we see one time a year and they say, what is this excitement that's in your life?
What is this change that's happened in your life since last year when I saw you? Well, I decided to start a new relationship with Jesus. I started to redefine my relationship with Jesus and live in him and live in scripture because that's the only thing that matters in life.
Conclusion: Humility and Proclamation
As we conclude this idea today, God comes to the humble.
He never comes to the proud. He never comes to those who have figured everything out. He comes to those who are willing to humble themselves,
bow before him. As he says in 1 Chronicles, he says, unless we humble ourselves and come before him in prayer and supplication, he will not turn a generation over to him. God gives us a clear message, church. We've been told of the birth of Jesus,
the life that he lived that was perfect, the death that he died for our place and the resurrection to new life for each and every one of us. The joy of salvation.
And we get to live in that. We get to tell other people of this salvation, resurrection of our sins and what we have done to disappoint the Lord. God calls us to immediately obey.
I'm one of those that don't immediately obey. My wife will tell you that often. She'll tell me to do something and I don't immediately do it. And two days later, it's like, did I ask you to do that two days ago? Yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to it.
Oftentimes we treat God that same way. God, I'm really busy right now. You've asked me to do something, but did you not see my schedule, Lord? Did you not see what I have? What is important?
And oftentimes our priorities overstep what God is calling us to do and what's God calling us to say.
And ultimately, church, I'm here to tell us that God sends ordinary people by ordinary means to tell an extraordinary news to this lost and dying world that Jesus saves, as our choir just sang about, and that he is the only way of redemption.
God entrusted the very first gospel proclamation to shepherds. What excuse are we giving to not share Christ?
What excuse are we saying, Lord, I really wish I could do it. As Moses, right, Moses went to God and said, God, I'm glad you called me to lead your children out of Exodus, out of Egypt. But I just can't talk right, Lord.
I just can't do, I've got all these, I stutter, I've got these problems. And God said, hey, that's great. Let me help you out with Aaron. Aaron is never recorded to ever talk in front of Pharaoh.
Moses was the one that tried creating excuses. And God said, I've got something that's going to overcome your excuses. And when we come to God with our excuses, he's going to help us overcome those for the glory of him. Lord, we love you. Lord, help us to be more like a shepherd.
Lord, help us to be more like these ones that we look at who just paused and said, Lord, I'm so thankful that you've called me to this area. I'm so thankful that you've called me to give this message. Help empower me to go out and say it with authority and with power.
Lord, we love you. We think of what you've done in your name we pray. Amen.
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