Following the Shepherds to Bethlehem

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Just for a moment as we prepare ourselves to take of the Lord’s table, I want us to reflect on what we have just read together. If you still have your copy of the Scriptures open, I want us to think for a moment about the birth of Christ as it’s recorded here. The first thing that you should note is that His birth is a matter of human history. Luke investigated the details carefully and he begins this account by connecting the birth of Jesus to specific historical events in the Roman Empire. Jesus is not a legend, He is not a myth, He is a reality of history—a person that you have to deal with; that I have to deal with. You can still visit the place where He was born. It was noted very early after His birth in the writings of many. I have been there. You can go there today and see the place where Jesus was born. 

The question is as we celebrate Christmas today, tomorrow with our family and friends, how should we respond to the reality of the birth of Jesus Christ? We weren’t there to witness the birth personally, but we have received the same unprecedented revelation about His birth here in the record we have just read together. 

How should we respond? Well, the focus in the last half of this account that we have just read, is on the shepherds’ response. And their response is a divinely intended pattern for our own response. Here’s how you and I should respond today and tomorrow as we gather to the Savior’s birth. 

First of all, we should believe in Jesus and the gospel. We should believe in Jesus and the gospel. Look at verse 15, “When the angels had gone away from them into heaven the shepherds began saying to one another, ‘Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’” Their response to the angel’s message should be our response. First, they believed the message about Jesus was from God: “this thing which the Lord has made known to us.” They believed the message about Jesus was true. Notice, “let us [hurry] to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened.” 

And they believed the message about Jesus enough to obey. The angel gave directions as to how to find the child implying a clear command to go. And they were eager to do what God had said. You see, obedience is always a sign of true saving faith. Verse 16, “So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as He lay in the manger.”

But don’t miss the point of these verses. The main point is that these shepherds believed the Good News of the gospel. They believed that Jesus came to save them—that He was their Messiah; that He was their Savior; that He was their God; that He was their Lord. They believed the basic truths of the gospel that are implied in what the angel said to them that day. 

They believed that there was one true God who made all things and that you and I exist for Him. The one true living God created and sustains all things. He is the reason your heart is beating at this very moment. He is the reason that you have life. And He owns you. You belong to Him. The Psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains: the world and all who dwell in it.” You belong to God who created you; who gave you life; who gives you every good thing. And that God who has a right over your life has commanded you and me to obey His law perfectly. 

Sadly, all of us have sinned against God and the shepherds understood that. All of us have sinned against God and fall short of His glory. All of us, like Adam, have chosen to break God’s law and God calls that rebellion sin. He tells us that the just penalty for our sins is physical death and eternal punishment. That, friends, is the dark side of Christmas: refuse the Savior and that’s the reality. There is no way we can rescue or save ourselves. That’s why Christmas is necessary. The shepherds understood that Jesus the Messiah came into the world to save sinners: that God so loved the world that He sent His Son to become one of us in order to save us by living the life that we were supposed to have lived, the life of obedience to God; and then by dying the death that we were supposed to die, the death that we deserved under God’s judgment; and then God raised Him from the dead on the third day to prove that He had accepted Jesus’ life as a payment for sin. Now by grace, God offers the gift of forgiveness and the gift of a right standing with Him solely through the work of Jesus Christ. You can never earn what Jesus provided. It’s a gift. 

But you have to respond God’s way, and implied in the message to the shepherds is this very response: you must repent and believe the gospel. That was what Paul said. You must exercise repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the gospel that the shepherds believed and embraced. That is what motivated them that night. It’s the invitation, in fact, I would say the command that God your Creator has of you today: repent and believe the gospel of My Son.

There’s a second way we must respond and that is once we have believed as Christians, now that we are followers of Christ, we must share Jesus and His gospel. Look at verse 17: “When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child.” They “made known:” they declared; they revealed; they explained. Undoubtedly, the shepherds told Mary and Joseph when they had arrived at the manger that night. And in the days and years ahead, they told everyone who would listen, verse 18 says, “And all who heard it wondered.” They were amazed, astonished, “at the things which had been told them by the shepherds.” The shepherds repeated the Good News they had heard and believed to everybody who would listen. That’s our responsibility. If you have believed this gospel, this Good News, then we need to tell others. 

There is a third appropriate response to the birth of Christ, and that is, we need to meditate on Jesus and the gospel. And Mary illustrates this response, verse 19, “Mary treasured all these things,” that is, she treasured them in her memory, “pondering them in her heart.” Pondering—what they meant. She meditated on the truth of who her Son really was and what He would accomplish. Mary wanted desperately to understand. And if like Mary, we have believed the truth of the gospel, then we should continue to faithfully meditate on both the reality of the incarnation and the purpose of it. I challenge you, Christian, today, tomorrow enjoy your traditions. Enjoy the things that make for a rich time with your family but don’t forget Jesus Christ. His incarnation. Meditate on these things.

A fourth way we must respond to Jesus’ birth is that we must praise God for Jesus and the gospel. Look at verse 20: “The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.” When you truly know and love Jesus, your life will be marked by praise and worship. In the words of Hebrews, you will “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise.” That is, the fruit of lips giving “thanks to His name.” You see, on that cold winter night, these shepherds—by the way, these shepherds likely kept the sheep headed to sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem—but these shepherds, through sovereign grace, heard the gospel, believed the gospel and were allowed to witness, think about this, the birth of the perfect Lamb of God. 

Their response to the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord, is a model for our own response today and tomorrow as we celebrate His birth—and throughout the year. The response that Jesus expects of you from the birth of His Son, is the same response of the shepherds. He expects you to believe in Jesus and the gospel. He expects you, once you have come to believe in Him, to share the news about Jesus and the gospel and to mediate on—to think about—the reality of Jesus and the gospel, and to praise God for Jesus and the gospel. 

Now look at that list. That list explains why there’s no better way for us to remember our Lord’s birth than Communion, because when we take of the Lord’s Table, it is a personal confession of Jesus and the gospel. It’s called the “Lord’s Supper.” That is, it is only for those who confess Jesus as Savior and Lord like the shepherds did. It’s a proclamation of Jesus and the gospel. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, when you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim, you preach the Lord’s birth. This morning, this is a visual sermon about Jesus Christ. It’s a commemoration, it’s a meditation on Jesus and the gospel. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We reflect on, we meditate on, we think about who He is and what He accomplished. And it is an exaltation of Jesus and His gospel. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Of Me. You see, the Lord’s Table, not only reminds us that He came into the world, but why He came.

Take a moment now and prepare your heart, confess your sin, thank God for His Son as the men come to serve us. 

Our Father, we thank You that by this Your love was manifested among us: that You sent Your only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Lord, we thank You for what we celebrate in this Christmas season. We thank You for the historical reality of it, that it is not a legend, a myth, but it’s an event of history. Father, we thank You as well for the great theological realities that lie behind it. 

Lord, thank You that for many of us who have gathered here this morning, You have brought us like the shepherds to believe the message of the gospel as they did—to embrace it. You have brought us to the place of the end of ourselves where we acknowledged our hopelessness, our sinfulness, our certain future under Your judgment. Father, You brought us then to see the beauty of Jesus Christ and of life lived following Him and You gave us repentance and faith which we responded to Him. And Lord for us, this season is a wonderful reality because we celebrate Him. 

Father, I pray for those who are with us this morning who have perhaps have heard this basic gospel message dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Maybe they believe the historical reality, Father. Maybe they believe even the theological meaning of it, but they have personally never repented of their sins and put their own faith in Your Son. Lord, I would pray this morning You would do what only You can do. Lord, they are dead, hopeless, cannot respond unless You give them the power and capacity to do so. And I pray this morning, You would draw them to Yourself through the basic gospel they have heard. Lord, may they come to truly adore Jesus on this weekend when we celebrate His birth.

But Father for the rest of us, as we come to remember Him in the Lord’s Table, I pray that You would help us to come with clean hands and pure hearts. Lord, don’t let us who profess Christ hold on to some sin in our lives as we celebrate the One who came to save us from our sins. Father, help us to gladly, willingly, confess our sin to You individually, personally, privately now and to seek not only forgiveness but a new resolve to walk in obedience to Christ our Savior and Lord.

Father, as we take of the Lord’s Table, as it were, bring us with the shepherds to the manger. May we come to truly adore Him. It’s in His Name that we pray. Amen.