Do you remember the stress you felt in elementary school when they had to pick teams for any sport? There were two things you wanted:
1. You wanted to be picked on the good team 2. You didn’t want to get picked last!
I have a vague faint memory of when I was in elementary school and they were picking teams for kick ball. I remember watching other kids getting picked and starting to get that sick realization that there were less and less people standing next to me.
You stand there watching who’s getting picked and you think “Man! They just picked Tim! He’s lame at kick ball. They must think I really suck!” I remember being the last one chosen and thinking, “Man! I didn’t get picked – they got STUCK with me!?!”
Not getting picked isn’t cool. But let’s be real for a second…
When you want to win at anything what type of person do you pick? (Give your real answers) Skilled or unskilled? Strong or weak? Fast or slow?
When you want to influence someone or a group who do you pick? (Real answers!)
Popular or not? Extroverted or Introverted? Powerful or not?
Who you choose for your team reveals:
1. What you’re trying to accomplish
2. Who you’re trying to reach
3. Who you think is important.
Who you choose says a lot more about YOU and your goals than it does about the person you’re choosing!
We just started this Advent series last week and began looking at the Biblical Christmas story - the first coming of Jesus. I’m calling this series “Hope For Ordinary People”. There’s something strangely hopeful in the people God choose to use for one of his greatest miracles ever – God entering his creation.
The Christmas story is God’s answer to everyone throughout history who has ever said, “If God’s real then why doesn’t he show himself!” He finally did!
But the problem is that the way God came to us and the people he chose to use are so opposite of the way we’d do it that most of the world missed it!
The Apostle John says it like this in John 1:10…
10 But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came.
I spoke in a chapel service at my son Jack’s school this week in front of preschool thru 8th graders. It’s a hard group to speak to, cause you have such little kids mixed in with 8th graders, but it’s fun.
When I was there I asked them... “If you were trying to spread the real Christmas story to the most people- people of all different ages, races, rich & poor – how would you do it?”
Guess what their answers were? They said answers like: put an ad in a newspaper, make a tv commercial, publish a book, etc. I didn’t asked them what people they would chose to spread the story, but I bet they would’ve chose rich, famous and influential people.
The amazing thing is God DIDN’T use the methods or the people we would’ve. That’s what gives us hope as ordinary people! I told them something I want you to think about today…
You can tell a lot about God not just by who he chose to use, but also by who he didn’t choose!
Last week my father-in-law talked about Mary and Joseph. They were this young, poor couple that God decided to use to bring Jesus into the world through. They weren’t rich. They weren’t powerful. They weren’t even well-known.
They were just regular, everyday people and God chose them for his team!
Today, I want to look at who God chose to be first people to hear the good news that Jesus had been born. These are the people he chose to first spread the news to other people.
If you think about it, this choice of who to tell first was a really important choice for God to make!
Every marketer nowadays is talking about word-of-mouth marketing and viral marketing. They all want to pick the right people to tell the right message, so it will spread to the right people they want to reach.
I’ve told you about Seth Godin before. He’s best-selling author/marketer. He wrote a book back in 2000 called, “Unleashing The Ideavirus”. This book is all about how to choose the right people to get your message to the right people.
In Unleashing The Ideavirus Seth says this…
“… the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.”
Later he talks about his ideavirus concept and he says…
“What’s critical in the analysis is understanding that some folks are dead ends, while others will enable and amplify your ideavirus.” He later talks about people he calls “Sneezers”. He says, “Sneezers are the ones who when they tell ten or twenty or 100 people—people believe them.”
What I want you to understand is that the people God chooses to “show” and “tell” about Jesus’ birth seem like an awkward choice. They almost seem to be a mistake! They’re the opposite of who anybody in that day expected God to choose. Let’s look at the story in Luke 2:8-20…
8That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them.
Think about this…
God is so excited to tell the good news – that the savior has been born. This is what
God wanted to create some word-of-mouth and instead of starting with influential people at the top, or religious leaders, he picks shepherds out in the field!?! But remember… WHO you choose reveals a lot about YOU and your goals! What does this choice reveal about God?
Choosing them would mean that the word would spread among the bottom portion of their society first. God chose the shepherds because he wanted the message of hope to start with the everyday people! When I get some good news I want to tell everyone, but I always tell people who are important to me first!
Side thought:
God most have a strange soft spot in his heart for shepherds. David was one. Jesus later used shepherds as a way to describe his relationship to us (us=sheep/him= great shepherd).
Let me make sure you understand something before I keep going…
God ISN’T against the powerful, the rich, the famous. He doesn’t love powerless, poor, unknown people MORE! He loves ALL people the SAME.
God wants everyone to know about him, but his choice exposes something cool about God: God was elevating the normal, the common.
It was the same back then as it is today. People back them were made to think that “normal” and “common” were bad things. Nobody wanted to be called these things! If you were just a normal, everyday person, back then, then you were considered less than in that society. People thought you weren’t as blessed by God.
That’s how they thought! And then God does something crazy!
He picks shepherds! They’re homeless guys who live in tents and have to stay up all night guarding their sheep so wolves or people don’t take them. And God tells THEM this good news first!
By doing that God is saying that the normal and common matter to him! He cares about them! He loves them as much as the remarkable people who get picked all time for everything!
God steps onto the playground of life and picks the misfits, the leftover people FIRST! By doing this he isn’t rejecting the rich, powerful, and famous!
When he chooses the “normal” it gives hope to all people, because we all know if THEY are important than we all have hope!
So God picks them, but what’s their response to the angel? Look at V. 9-10 They’re scared!! They were terribly frightened, 10but the angel reassured them. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "I bring you good news of great joy for everyone!
Can you imagine being out in the fields at night and suddenly having a shining creature appear in front of you? You’d be freaked out! They think they’re about to be judged or killed!
The angel knows they think he’s there for a bad reason and that they’re scared, so he says right away in verse 10, “Don’t be afraid! I’m here with good news of great joy (that’s some pretty good news)!”
11The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in
This is amazing news for them to hear! It starts out good news and keeps going until its incredible, unheard of news!
The angels tells them 3 amazing things…
1. The baby is the Saviour! (Adam Clarke) The word properly denotes such a Saviour as perfectly frees us from all evil and danger, and is the author of perpetual salvation." Some people need a good leader. Some people a good teacher, but we ALL need a savior – someone to save us from the evil in the world and from our own sins!
2.The angel says the baby is the Christ! He’s the anointed one! The chosen one
3. The angel says one more thing about this baby – the most amazing thing – that he’s the Lord! The shepherds knew what that word meant! It means “the supreme, eternal Being, the ruler of the heavens and the earth.” It meant he was GOD!
Can you imagine what those words sound like to these shepherds?
Israel was under Roman rule and everyone was wanting, waiting for someone to set them free. They were waiting for the Messiah!
The angel tells them that he was just born! And he says the baby is GOD!
The angel tells them a clue - a way to figure out where and who he is. He tells them… You’ll find a baby lying in a manger (first clue), wrapped snugly in strips of cloth (second clue)!
As those words are echoing in their heads, and they’re trying to grasp their meaning, all of a sudden a whole bunch of other angels appear!
13Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God: 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors. F6 "
The angels are so excited about the news the shepherds just heard that they bust into praising God over the whole thing. And in their praising reveals more amazing news!
They’re saying, “God is amazing! He’s unbelievable! He’s showing up today and guess what? He’s bringing peace and favor!”
Through Jesus, the messiah, God’s making a way to have peace with him. He’s giving people the ability to be at peace with each other. He’s bringing favor. He’s showing his grace through Jesus. People were expecting war and judgment and God brought peace and favor (grace)!
Let’s keep reading…
15When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Come on, let's go to
POOF! The angels are gone and the shepherds are standing their still in shock. And what’s the first thing they say and decide to do?
This is how I picture it...
They look at each other and say to each other (and I can imagine them saying this with smiles on their faces) they say, “Come on! Let’s go to
(I hear them emphasize US like “US! I can’t believe it but he told Us! They’re probably think “Nothing’s exciting has ever happened to us, but he comes and tell US!” He picked us!”)
16They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17Then the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18All who heard the shepherds' story were astonished, 19but Mary quietly treasured these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20The shepherds went back to their fields and flocks, glorifying and praising God for what the angels had told them, and because they had seen the child, just as the angel had said.
They went and found Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus just like the way the angel said! These guys were the first, besides Mary and Joseph, to see Jesus! God in the flesh!
So what’d they do? Exactly what God wanted them to do…
They went and told everyone! These guys were what the commentator Adam Clarke calls the “first preachers of the gospel”! Everybody who heard the story was amazed (God told a group of shepherds that the messiah was here and that he was born last night – in a stable!?!)
In “Buzz Marketing” Mark Hughes talks about things create buzz. He says...
Think about this story…
Shepherds tell them an angel appeared told them the Messiah was born, then a choir of angels showed up praising God and they went into town and found a baby wrapped in cloth in a manger just like the angel said!
It must’ve made people do all these things when people heard it!! Now that story’s gonna buzz!
v. 20 They went back to their fields and flocks glorifying and praising God for what the angels had told them. They saw baby Jesus with their own eyes – just like the angel said! If they had any doubts about seeing the angel and all that that happened out in the field they now had all the proof they needed! They might have went back to their flocks, but I can guarantee that they were never the same again!
They never thought of themselves the same again. They never thought about their world or situation the same. God had shown them favor and brought them peace by showing him the messiah had come!
Can you imagine how it changed their self-image to be picked by God to be the first to hear the good news and the first to see – the messiah? I guarantee you they were never the same again!
God choose everyday people instead of the powerful people because He does something amazing through their lives – everyone knows it has to be God and not them!
Close
God is still looking for everyday people like us to use to spread the story of hope that he’s come into the world. He’s still looking for everyday people to pick for his team.
When we feel like no one else cares God does. He wants to choose you and use you to do amazing things through.
Why? When he does HE gets the glory! He loves to show his power, love and grace through everyday people because He shines through them brighter!
He wants to use you! He wants to use you as a messenger/as an object lesson to the people around you of who he his and what matters to him!
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