RECAP

God is great・so I can live in hope・w/o being in control.
God is glorious・so I can live at peace・w/o fear.
God is good・so I can live with joy・w/o looking elsewhere.

TEXT

In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying,

Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to people he favors.

When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.
Luke 2:8–20

GOD IS GRACIOUS

Everything we would naturally think about the coming of the King is upended in the Christmas story. Nothing about it is normal.

Shepherds.

They’re the leftovers of society, looked down upon everywhere they go. The Pharisees, these ultra-conservative, ultra-religious faction, didn’t think God went far enough, so they had created all these extra laws to follow in order to not even get close to sinning.

One of those laws was to never buy anything from a shepherd because he probably stole it. It was a hard life of subsistence with no reasonable way out and no realistic hope for a better life. Here we are, 2023 years later, still singing about them as “lowly shepherds.”

Glory to God in the lowest!

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” The answer to the question is an emphatic yes. And not only good but the greatest. And because our God loves to produce his best in the places we least expect, perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised when he makes the forgotten places in our stories into his chosen channels of our greatest good.

Magi.

Pharisees.

I CAN EXPERIENCE LOVE

WITHOUT HAVING TO PROVE MYSELF

A. Not to Others

We deal with this temptation every day of our lives, but the Christmas season brings its own unique challenges; I want to impress people with the taste/sophistication of my lights & decorations, with the thoughtfulness of my presents… if I’m honest, even with this sermon.

The worst part about it is as soon as you ever think you’ve made it, you’ve kept all the rules, they change the rules!

Like Charlie Brown kicking the football with Lucy as his holder.

B. Not to Myself

That voice in the back of your head when you mess up:

“You idiot.”
“I can’t believe you did that. Again.”
You’re never going to get past this.

So often, I am the one I’m most concerned about disappointing. The ego (fancy word for pride) takes a hit when I screw up, and it sends me into a tailspin.

That means (in our minds, at least) we’re the most offended party. We’re like that great American treasure… Rocky Balboa, in the ORIGINAL, when he’s getting ready for the big fight with Creed.

And if I can go that distance, see, if that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, you see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.
Rocky Balboa

B. Not to God

If you think if I let God down, I will probably have a bad day, or my prayers would go unanswered, what you’re believing in that moment is that God is not altogether gracious. You’re assumed God would act in the way you act when people let you down, giving them the cold shoulder.

Maybe even worse, we somehow believe that we can atone for it by having a miserable day or sweating it out in prayer, as if the death of Jesus didn’t quite do the job.

And so we end up standing at a distance from God for the day, week, month… And all the time, just like the Father in the Prodigal Sons, God is looking for us, ready to embrace us, ready to welcome us home.

Do you see how belief in the gracious love of God (revealed to us for the first time at Christmas), changes how you live from the inside out? This is no white-knuckled behavior modification, picking the rotten fruit off the tree. This is striking at the root, the core belief/unbelief that is producing the bad fruit.

Jesus tells the parable of the prodigals because the Pharisees are muttering about the way he welcomes sinners and eats with them (vv. 1–2). It turns out that God isn’t interested in respectability or self-righteousness. He’s interested in returning sinners grasping the depths of his love.

We don’t change so we can prove ourselves to God. We’re accepted by God so we can change. God gives us a new identity, and this new identity is the motive and basis for our change.
Tim Chester, “You Can Change”

APPLICATION & INVITATION

Some of you may have been trying to prove your worth now for many, many years; maybe even your whole life. The Father wants to give you his greatest gift this Christmas… the experience of unwavering love, security, and acceptance of a God who knew all about you…

all the habits that you wish you could quit,
all the scenes you wish you could forget,
all the failures you work so hard to cover up,
all the slaving in order to measure up

What God has for you is to answer those questions in the deep part of your gut that you don’t ever want to think about. And to answer it with his compassion and grace, to answer it all with…

“Yeah, I know, and I love you.”
“Yeah, I know, and I came for you.”
“I knew it all, and I’m still here for you.”
“What they said about you doesn’t matter. What I say about you matters. And what say is that You are mine.”

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every tree on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Frederick Lehman, The Love of God