How to Listen to the True Story
Luke 2:8-20
When we take a step of faith and believe that this story that God came to the world born as a baby is true, we open ourselves to almost infinite possibilities. If God truly is involved in this world, then he can do what no strategic plan can accomplish, can heal what no medical procedure can remedy, and can change what no therapy can transform. He can even bring hope in the face of death.
But, we Jesus-followers know that the God who entered this world also created the material of this world and the natural processes by which it operates. We know he created it all in his wisdom and usually does his work through the natural means he created. But, Christmas tells us that sometimes the Creator breaks into his world: a really, really old woman like Elizabeth gives birth. A virgin has a child. A baby in one womb recognizes its own creator and lord in another.
This brings up a big question for many of us, i.e.: How do we live with a God like this on a daily basis? How do we know when we simply must wait and trust God to work through what seem like natural means? And when do we ask for and count on the supernatural? This is a big topic so I want to focus on how this kind of God actually speaks to us – and how we should respond. To guide us, we come to the best-known passage of the Christmas season, Luke 2:8-20. I want us to learn how to listen to God both in those times when angels are speaking and in times when we wonder where God is.
Question 1: How does God speak to us? Or, we often think we want an angel but God usually sends a shepherd.
Have you ever noticed that up until Luke 2:17, people in Luke’s story heard about God’s coming into the world through some stupendous means: Zechariah the priest has terrifying visit from the angel Gabriel. Mary has a visit from the same angel telling her the message that at first confounded her and then thrilled her. Joseph, according to Matthew 1, had an angelic visit setting him know that God was getting ready to break into this world. And, apparently at about this same time, a group of eastern star-gazers discerned that a great supernatural event was to take place and followed a star that led them to this child Jesus some time after his birth. And the shepherds: the shepherds got first one angel and then a whole host of them! Wow! But, starting with Luke 2:17, people mostly had to hear about God coming to the world through people like shepherds. Some may think this hardly seems fair: Some got angels and stars but most got shepherds.
And, I think I speak for many of us in confusing or challenging times in our lives when I say that we think it would be better if we could have a star guiding us, or an angel delivering a clear instruction to us, or a scroll dropped in front of us telling us what to do. So, here you are in church listening to a sermon. You probably want an angel. You’re getting a shepherd.
You may imagine that there are a thousand things I want to say to us all today about things like the role of Scripture to guide us – of the church to counsel us and pray for us – of daily prayer to get our hearts ready for whatever God does in our lives – of the place of learning to wait upon God plays in Scripture in terms of us growing in our faith. But, let me make just a few points here about walking by faith with God in this world:
#1: God has spoken and still does speak to people in this world. Sometimes God works through the most natural of ways. He sends a sermon that seems like it was “just for you”. He sends a person to help just at the right moment… And, at other times, he breaks in through ways that seem more “super-natural”. I want you to know that I, as your pastor, believe that God still does miraculous things in this world. And, if you say, “Well, of course you have to believe that. You’re a pastor!” (That’s part of the reason we also had a testimony from a scientist today saying he believes it too.)
#2: Sometimes when God sends angels (or miracles of any kind), we explain them away.
We can explain God’s supernatural intervention away in so many ways. Zechariah and Mary or Joseph could have thought they were just imagining things or dreaming. Or they could have thought, “It seems real but there must be a naturalistic explanation for all this. It’s like the old Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie mysteries. Things that seemed to have been mysterious and supernatural were always shown to be deceptions by the enlightened sleuth or the careful scientist.
Dr. Cunningham said it well. “Scientists are trained to study the physical universe, and it is common for us to actually think that the natural world is all there is; it’s all that is actually real… There are still some things we don’t understand, but most scientists will add the word “yet”. There is the basic assumption that we will eventually figure it out. The world operates by a set of rules, physical laws, and these laws are never broken. This is a world view that is trained into scientists, and I have had a lot of training.”
In our day, the main way we explain things away is to say it’s all psychological. The day after my Mom’s funeral, my Dad was sitting alone in his room and suddenly, he had a vision of my Mom standing in front of him. “Greg, it was a real as anything I’ve ever seen – except she was young and strong. She was the Mom we remember.” His first thought – and mine – was to think, “Psychologists tell us our brains can fill things in that aren’t real.” But… well, I’ll get back to what we talked about later… The point right now is that supernatural things could happen and we still might not receive them. We can find all sorts of ways to explain them in naturalistic terms.
#3: God often speaks to us most clearly through the most unexpected people or unwanted circumstances. The shepherds are an example of the unexpected chosen messengers from God. Shepherds were the dregs of the 1st C world. They couldn’t give testimony in court because no one trusted them. They were the pirates – the “Jack Sparrows” – of the ancient world. (Maybe some would say that’s how we view Congress today – with the survey that came out last week saying they had a 13% approval rating and that few trust our elected leaders). But God chose to have shepherds be the first human communicators of the coming of Jesus. That means that there is hope that God can use us. But it also means that we need to have our ears open for God to speak in all sorts of ways.
Let me add a personal note here. With my mother’s recent quick demise and death, I was reminded strongly that the times that God has made himself known to me most clearly were often in the midst of circumstances that I would never have asked for. In those times, He has clarified things for me like – the superficiality of many of the things that upset us, the value of each day of life, the beauty of the church family standing together. My own prayer life has always deepened through this unwanted messenger of pain. Do you know the Lewis quote from The Problem of Pain?
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
I just want to tell you that I learned that yet again over the past weeks.
#4: There is more I want to say but let me leave it at this: When God speaks to us, He will always do it either through Scripture or in ways consistent with Scripture. He will not contradict himself. The Bible is our final authority for what is true. Check any possible message in the light of His Word. But, I believe God speaks to us in many, many ways in keeping with that Word so I urge you to be attentive to the voice of God whether it comes through angels or through ordinary shepherds.
Question 2: What is the first message we should expect to hear from God? Or, God may not always say what we want him to say but He will say what we need him to say.
This brings us to the most famous part of this famous passage in Luke 2, i.e., vv. 10-14.
I was in a card shop last week and, after looking through dozens of Christmas cards, eventually noticed that not a single card had any reference to Jesus or to the Bible’s message. No reference except one. On a number of the cards I saw these words: “Peace on earth and goodwill.” Everyone seems to like that message. But… look at the translation in the NIV: “Peace to those on whom his favor rests.” You may think, “I don’t like that translation as much.” But let me tell you: the statement in our NIV is what the angels declared. Here is my translation of the angels’ message regarding Jesus’ birth:
In heaven, glory to God (who is making his greatness known to us in this birth);
On earth, peace to all to whom God’s grace (or goodwill or favor) has come.
In v. 10, it becomes clear that the opportunity to experience God’s grace through this child is going to be made available to all. The good news is “for all people,” the angel says. But it actually brings God’s shalom to some. It is only received by some.
Our world has taken this message from the angels and twisted it into being about the holiday season being a time when families stop fighting – or that people are no longer anxious inside at Christmas – or nations will not fight. But, then we look at our world at Christmas and see that families are still fighting (sometimes more over the holidays), and people are not calm inside (depression and suicide often at their height in the holiday season) and nations are still at war. But the angels were not saying what the world has told us they were saying. Oh, the Bible does tell us that God sent this child to bring about inner peace – “a peace that goes beyond human understanding.” And the Bible does talk about God establishing an unexpected family where people from every tribe, language and nation will be at peace with God and one another. And the Bible talks about this child’s rule ultimately ending in a world with no war, tears, pain or death.
But, all of that can only happen when another kind of peace is established. The peace that must first come to us is peace with God. “Goodwill toward men,” the Bible says. That means that there was ill will toward God before Jesus came. What the angels were saying is that ever since Genesis 3, we are at war with God. People made in God’s image are at peace only when God is in our lives and he is in control. But, in Genesis 3, people started a war with God for control. As Isaiah 58 puts it, we have turned to our own way. Deep down, there is a war for control between us and God. Many of us even go to church thinking that maybe we can do something that can control God – that can get him to do what we want. But God says, “I am God. We are at war for control but I am ready to forgive you and to show you grace. I will come to earth in Jesus and live the life you should have lived but haven’t. I’ll even die the death you should die because of your sin but now don’t have to. I’m ready to put your past behind and enable you to live as you were meant to live. Peace to all who receive my gift.”
Look at Romans 5:8-10: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
This is the first message we need to hear if we will have peace but most of us don’t want to hear it. Our problem is that we are battling with God for control of our lives. God says, “I love you and am ready to put aside the sins of the past. But you cannot earn it. It is my grace – my favor. And you must surrender the battle to me if you will have peace!” And this is for all. That’s the message of the angels. What God has planned to do out of his love ever since people turned away is now breaking in. Forgiveness and life and joy and peace is available to all but it comes only when we surrender to him.
I’ve found that the only ones who appreciate a gift are those who think they need or desire the gift. It’s A Christmas Story when Ralphie wanted a gun but his aunt gave him a pink bunny suit. He wanted nothing to do with it. It’s my own story of wanting a new basketball but knowing my folks thought my old basketball was just fine. So, I used the money they gave me for gifts to buy my brother a basketball though he hated basketball. He just threw it back to me. God says, “Do I have a gift for you! Peace to you. But my peace comes through ending your war with me and surrendering.” We say, “I don’t want that. I want you, God, to give me what I want. I want to have peace while I live my life on my own. I’m not going to give up that boyfriend… I want your peace but I want it on my terms – which is that I want to be the god over my own life.” That’s us.
It’s only when we own up to the fact that we are at war for control with God – and that my way doesn’t work that we rush with joy to receive God’s gift. Look at how John 1:11-12 put it: Jesus came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
That is the first message that you should always expect to hear from God. It’s the first commandment. God loves you. God is ready to forgive your past. God is ready to give you a new beginning. But God must be God. Peace with others and with yourself begins with peace with God. Hearing anything from God always starts with us responding to this first message from him.
Lesson 3: How do we learn to respond to a God who speaks?
I find Mary’s response to this rapid-fire message-bringing from God to be so profound. In v. 17, when the shepherds went out carrying the message of all that had been happening and of God’s invasion into the world, “all who heard it were amazed.” Amazement is an appropriate response – but it’s not adequate. We can be amazed one day and bored the next. The Gospels are filled with people who are amazed at Jesus – but they’re not necessarily following Jesus because they are amazed. Look at Mary’s response in v. 19: Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Do you see those two words describing what Mary did. Others were astounded by all these thrilling things – and apparently many of them forgot and went on living as before. But – but – Mary did something different. First, she treasured up these times when God met with her. The word is referring to her finding a way to make note of these times so that she would never forget them. I encourage you to find a way to do that. Many of you keep a journal so you won’t forget what God has said to you. Mary found a way to “store up” these moments of God speaking to her.
And second, she “pondered them in her heart” which means that she took time to reflect upon them and to apply these special times to her everyday living. She considered how these special moments of God speaking to her should transform all of her life.
The point is that these special times of hearing from God should shape all other moments of our lives – those “most-of-the-time” moments when everything seems to be ordinary. Life is not always going to be filled with the amazement that most of the people had in Luke 1-2. It’s like the first time we go out with the one we love. Those first days were so thrilling – everything seemed so perfect. We thought our feelings would never change. But, we soon discover that we must settle in to a daily relationship and must learn to love and be faithful over the long haul. Then comes the wedding day. We feel the wonder and awe on that day of celebration – but the feeling cannot be sustained. Still, the relationship can grow stronger as we remember the vows we took. We live the life that is shaped by the promises made that day. Mary lived in the light of what happened in this period by treasuring up the experiences and then reflecting on them and applying them to situations.
I’ve asked myself what it was that Mary stored up and reflected on from these days:
*That God really is – He is real and involved in this world
*That God knows her – is with her – and is for her. God is ready to have her life count in this world.
*That God is ready to show favor to people who trust him – even to the humble and flawed
*That God will bring peace – shalom – to those who have faith in him and walk with him
*That God can turn the most embarrassing/difficult moments imaginable into the most beautiful things imaginable
That God must be the one in control – God must be God – if life will be abundant
Every week we come into this place to open our Father’s Word and allow him to speak to us. When we leave, in a variety of places and experiences – often unexpected – God breaks into our lives and lets us know he loves us. We must store those up. W must live in the light of a God who knows us – knows our pain – sometimes breaks into our lives in special ways – and then asks us to trust him and wait upon him.
I talked with my Dad about this after he had been given a vision of my Mom the day after her funeral. He said, “God said he would make his children whole --that your Mom is free from the bondage of her Alzheimer’s disease and her bodily pain. God has shown us that in His Word. I’m going to look at this vision as being God’s loving confirmation that what He has promised is true.”
God still speaks. God is with us. God is for us. Let us learn to hear him whether through angels or shepherds – and then to live in the light of his Word.
Greg Waybright • Copyright 2010, Lake Avenue Church