The shepherds experience

Notes from a sermon heard on Sunday 25 December 2016

Luke 2 verses 8 - 20

Whenever we come to the shepherds here in Luke`s gospel chapter 2 we are looking at the most familiar account of scripture.  Here we find the shepherds out on the hillside.  We can visualise them as they care for their sheep.  The day began like any other day and perhaps today has been the same for us.  It began like any other day but this day was going to be a day when something special would happen in the lives of these men.  God would show them something they had never seen or witnessed before.  These men had been tending the sheep all day long.  They had taken them to the lush valley where they were able to feed.  Maybe they had taken them to the still brook to satisfy their thirst.  Now the day has worn on and it is night time.  They must bring their sheep into a place of safety.  That is where they settled down for the night then God breaks in..  The night of eternity is fast approaching.  The only thing sufficient for us is God breaking into our souls and showing us Jesus as he came to seek and to save your soul.  We not only want to see him in the manger but on the cross.  It was there he finished your salvation.  See him in the tomb .  View that day when the women looked into the tomb and could find nothing.  Now we see him seated at the right hand of the Father.  He promised one day to come again.  "I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also." (John 14 verses 2 and 3)  The one nurtured on that first Christmas day is coming back again one day for those who are saved, who know Christ as Saviour and Lord.  "Where I am you might be also."  God broke into our lives.  Look at the experience of the shepherds.

The shepherds were enlightened.  As they sat around the angels came and they were startled - verses 9 and 10.  The angels now had their attention.  They were speaking directly to the shepherds.  It is God who speaks to us through his Holy Spirit and shows us our great need.  Sometimes as we read God`s word we are startled.  We need to hear those words "fear not it is I".  The shepherds were enlightened to the event that had just taken place in Bethlehem - verses 10 and 11 "I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord."  They were aware of God`s part right back to Genesis, the days of creation.  Now the Saviour had come and it came now to the shepherds.  Up until now the world was ignorant to the virgin birth and God veiled in human flesh.  They didn`t know what was happening in Bethlehem until God came to enlighten their minds to see it for themselves.  "The natural man receiveth not the things of God for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritualy discerned." (1 Cointhians 2 verse 14)  The natural man is that man born into the world, born with a sinful nature.  That is us.  All because the Bible tells us each one of us has sinned and come short of the glory of God.  We are born tonight without God.  We are born into the world in sin by nature.  By practice he sent us a Saviour, one who can save us from all sin.  We could never reach that with our own intellect or ability.  Something we have to be enlightened to - God of heaven does that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  You and I cannot reach that ourselves.  In Acts 2 Peter preached to the multiude of people and they were pricked in their hearts.  Peter could preach to their ears, even convince their minds but never reach the hearts.  In Luke 24 the 2 on the road to Emmaeus were thinking back to the resurrection, couldn`t take it in.  These 2 disciples said "did not our hearts burn within us when he opened up the scriptures to us?" (Luke 24 verse 32)  Peter came to the house of Cornelius and opened up the word of God and preached when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  He took them through the istory of the nation of Israel then onto Christ and preached of his cross and resurrection.  Something happened - the Holy Spirit came down and fell on them.  God had a plan.

The shepherds encounter - verse 15.  The shepherds made their way down to Bethlehem and made it with haste.  Once they were enlightened they were not going to tarry.  As they entered that place they seen it just as the angels told them.  As they looked in the manger looked on him and found the one the angels told them.  Have you ever gazed upon the Lord in true believing faith?  Remember how he died one day.  The Roman Centurion heard every word that was cried - "it is finished" were the last words.  "Surely this was the Son of God" he said.  He seen him as he never seen him before.  What a gaze that was.  Have you ever looked to the Lord?  Maybe know him as the baby in manger.  Maybe now know him from  the stable, know him as he was growing up, dying on the cross but have never trusted him as Saviour and Lord.  We can be enlightened but most end with encounter with Christ on the cross.  In Acts 8 the Ethiopian eunich was making his way home when he came under such conviction.  His mind was being enlightened right from Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant.  He had his mind enlightened but not yet had an encounter with Christ.  As Philip preached to him the Holy Ghost opened up his mind.

The shepherds were encouraged - verses 16 and 17.  As they gazed on the face of the Saviour they were encouraged.  There is so much to discourage us.  Looking into another year, don`t know what is going to happen.  Maybe bleak for you.  Instead of doing that look on the face of the Lord and be greatly encouraged   The only place we can look is on the Lord.  A sight of the Saviour was all the disciples needed out in the boat when the wind and the rain increased.  David the King of Israel brought his men back to the village of Ziglag.  Something had happened when he was away.  The enemy had come down and raided that city and carried away their families.  The men would have stoned David but he "encouraged himself in the Lord".

The shepherds were enabled - verses 17 and 18.  These were shepherds not preachers or evangelists.  They were not used to going around telling others that something had happened that day.  When they gazed on the baby God opened their hearts to believe but opened their lips to tell others what had happened.  The apostle Paul knew needed help when it came to preaching .  He asked for others to pray for him "that utterance may be give unto me."  We need prayer when it comes to witnessing.  We need to pray for one another.  We need to support one another and tell what we have seen and witnessed.

Pressing towards the prize

Notes from a sermon heard on Sunday 1 January 2017

Philippians 3 verses 12 - 21

"I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

A new goal for 2017.  Maybe for someone it will be their goal.  The apostle Paul has one thing on his mind - pressing towards the high calling of God.  The apostle Paul often points his readers to something they can visualise, something that is seen unfolding before them.  Here he uses the figure of the athlete.  Paul likens the Christian walk to a race. He points to the line set before him.  It is not the starting point but the finishing line.  That is what is in his heart and mind.  The finishing line is very important to the athlete.  I am sure if you have ever been in a race, competed in a race the beginning is important and the pace is important too but there is nothing like that finishing line.  From the moment the starting pistol sounds or the flag drops before you there is only one thing on your mind - the finishing line.  Here is one important aspect to consider - you have got to start the race.  

There is an experience Paul points to in verse 12.  The apostle Paul was apprehended of Christ Jesus.  The apostle Paul had already started the race.  He already had begun his homeward journey.  Each and every experience is different for everyone.  For you maybe it was in a gospel meeting or mission or maybe when you came home from church.  God came to you in that fleeting moment and God opened up your heart that somehow you might receive the word of God.  Salvation is of the Lord.  The Holy Spirit was speaking to you.  God was working in your heart, opening up your eyes to show you your need of salvation, the depths and sinfulness of your heart.  Showing you the cross of Calvary on the one side and showing you your sinfulness, on the other the sinlessness of the Saviour.  Then as you thought on it you came to a saving faith in Christ.  Can you look back to a time when you trusted Christ as your Saviour? The apostle Paul had many experiences he could depend on.  Many thought he was ready for home.  Verse 15 he was circumcised on the eighth day.  He was of the stock of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law faultless.  That is not a saving experience however.  He had everything going for him.  He was zealous for the Jewish faith yet it didn`t help him.  He hated the name of Christians.  He demanded the high priests to give him letters that if he found anyone in the way he could put them into prison, do as much as he could against them.  That young man left Jerusalem breathing out threatenings and  slaughter.  He was as far away from God as he could get, heading to Damascus that if he found anyone believing in Christ he could take them and throw them into prison.  Far away from God.  Maybe that is what you are saying tonight.  You have no thought in your heart for Christ.  Yes you have a little bit of churchianity or christianity but that is it.  Paul as he travelled along at midday was brought to his knees in the dust.  Paul cried out "Lord, what will you have me to do?"  The Lord replied "it is hard to kick against the pricks." (Acts 9 verse 5)  Paul was coming under the hand of God.  God was making himself real to him.  He found him in the very dust.  If you want to find Christ you have got to be prepared to step down and humble yourself.  God brought him to his knees.  What about that experience for you?  Think of Saul in the Old Testament scriptures.  Someone had left the gate open and his father`s donkeys escaped.  Saul was sent after them.  God had a task for Saul.  He used this as an excuse to get him into the place he wanted him to be in.  Why are you in this place tonight?  You are here because God wants to save your soul.  Saul went to look for the donkeys.  They were found and sent home.  God got him where he wanted him to be.  He was turned into another man.  The Bible tells us that is true conversion, not half hearted.  He brought a man to his knees before a thrice holy God and changed his life, his attitude, his mood, his temperament, his activities.  He was a complete new creature in Christ Jesus.  Is that the experience in your life?

See the energy that is used.  He is pressing on here, there is no turning back.  One man came to Jesus realising he did not have what Jesus` disciples had.  He wasn`t saved and if not saved wouldn`t be with God in heaven.  He would be lost for all eternity.  He came to the feet of Christ and asked "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  He was serious but when it came to the striving he stopped short.  Is there that striving in your life for salvation?  Salvation does not come easy.  If we are to be saved we have to desire it with all our hearts.  That is the soul that will be saved.  Jeremiah 29 verse 13 "ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart."  All the searching has to be after God.  No half measures here.  Jesus asked a question many a person has asked down through the years - "are there few that be saved?"  Forget about the few that be saved but consider this - are you saved?  What are you depending on for heaven?  Luke 13 verse 24 "strive to enter in at the straight gate."  Striving, pressing.  "For many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able to."  The word strive means to agonise with all your being.  By this I am not saying there is anything we can do to earn our salvation.  We must however comply with all our hearts.  Maybe the Lord has put a finger on your life and you do not want to give it up.  Is there something holding you back from getting saved? Maybe it is a relationship.  Maybe something very simple - friends, loved ones, family.  There are many different things.  You are going to have to strive if you want to be saved.  Think of the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years.  She had one opportunity.  Jesus was passing by and she reached forward and touched the hem of Jesus garment.  She was saved.  Are you going to look to the one who has come to seek and to save your soul?  He is able to save you.  He died to save you.  He poured our his precious blood to save you.

Paul is estimating here on his way.  He keeps a trace on the road of how far he has come on the way to heaven.  He is still striving for one thing - the crown.  He hasn`t given up.  Ephesians 2 verse 8 "for by grace are you saved, it is the gift of God."  Where are you tonight from this time last year it is a good measuring rod.

Paul`s expectancy - verse 14.  The athlete in the race will stretch every sinew, make every effort to reach that final line.  Peter said "when the chief shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." (1 Peter 5 verse 4)  Paul sitting in an old prison house was not feeling sorry for himself.  He did not think of God coming and releasing him or of someone coming to help him escape.  He said "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only but  unto all them also that love his appearing." (2 Timothy 4 verses 7 and 8)  Can you see yourself with that crown tonight?  Have you begun that race?  When he steps up to receive his prize that is the purpose of his crowning.  Will you experience God`s salvation., the beginning of the Christian life?  One day that will take you to heaven and home.  Come to Christ and trust him as your Saviour.  Do not depend on something that is not there.

casting our burdens on the Lord

Sermon notes from Sunday 1 January 2017

Psalm 55

"Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee, he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."

We always begin the year by looking at our motto verse.  It is not something to be put up somewhere but it is much than that.  It is a promise God has given to us that we might depend upon, stand upon and take us through many difficult situations.  As we gaze on the motto verse we know God is able to do what he he says in this verse.  God is still in control.  In verse 16 the tone of the Psalm changes.  The Psalmist begins in verses 1 to 9 by pouring out his complaints.  Here is a man who feels so hard done by, he has had so many personal encounters.  In verses 9 to 15 he still is in the mood of prayer but rather than complaining he now prays against his enemies.  He prays that God would deal with those enemies.  In these verses he speaks of a very close friend who walked with him to the house of God and wrestled with him in prayer.  The Psalmist decides to take every problem he has and cast it on the Lord because the Lord has invited him to do so.  Maybe there is a burden, a difficulty you are bearing.  Somehow it seems so dark, somehow it seems so deep that you feel you are never going to get through it.  The Lord says to bring it to him and cast it at his feet.  None shall escape those burdens. They will come.  We see some of the greatest Christians down through the word of God and in the world today who had similar burdens.  I often say those with the biggest smiles on their faces are those who carry the biggest burdens.  I want us to think of the burden today.  A burden is something that is wearisome, heavy and hard to bear.

This is a permitted burden.  God allows the Psalmist to have a burden and he allows you and me to have a burden too.  It is not to bring us down, to break us or turn us away but rather to bring us closer to the Lord.  I take great comfort and knowledge when a problem comes into my life in knowing that God has permitted it.  He doesn`t allow anything to come into my life without his say so.  He knows every detail of your life.  He has looked at the problem and allowed it.  Israel had a burden - because they turned their backs on God, God allowed the Assyrian army to come down and carry them into captivity.  We read also of Judah, the southern tribes of Israel followed Israel and turned their backs on God too.  God allowed Babylon to come and take them into captivity.  There are other burdens which are not because of sinfulness.  Don`t think this is God`s punishment on you because you have sinned somehow.  Job 1 verse 6.  Job was a man who trusted God yet here we read that one day Satan came into God`s presence to discuss Job.  In the book of Revelation it says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren.  Satan comes to criticise Job.  He is the one who criticises in the ears of God all that Job was doing on earth.  In verse 8 we read of God`s own testimony of Job "there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil."  Satan replies "if you would allow me to attack him you would see what is in him.  He would curse you."  Verse 11.  In verse 12 the Lord gives permission to Satan "so Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord".  He had been in God`s presence and God allowed him to bring a burden on Job`s life.  Whenever we are being weighed down by every burden it is a difficult thing but we can be sure that the God of heaven knows all about it.  God told Satan "you do what you want but don`t touch his life."  Verse 15 what a burden this was.  A man who owned a great farm of land had all of it taken from him in a second.  Verse 16 now his sheep were gone, his livelihood was dwindled away.  Verse 17 first it was the oxen then the sheep and now the camels.  In verse 18 we read his own family is also taken.  Within the space of a few hours everything was taken from him.  Why?  Because God permitted it.  Chapter 2 - is the devil content?  Not a bit of it.  The devil comes again into the presence of God.  He brings the same accusation in verse 5 against Job.  He has taken away his livelihood, his wealth and his family and now he is sitting on his own.  The devil tells God it is not enough, you come with sickness and he will curse you.  Verse 6 "behold he is in thine hand but save his life."  What did Satan do to Job?  He smote Job with boils from his feet to his head.  The devil is strong but the Lord is mightier.  He was able to come in and go into his home.  Took his family away, his livelihood and then touched his body.  All he could do was try and get some ease from his body.  Isn`t it terrible to imagine what he was thinking through all of this?  To crown it all off his wife come to him in verse 9 and her advice is "curse God and die".  Not much encouragement to Job at this stage.  This as the burden the Lord allowed him to carry.  God allows us a burden to bring us closer to himself.  A permitted burden.  Maybe God will allow a burden to rest upon our shoulders to test and try us, to help to prove that he is able to carry us through.

A privileged burden.  God saw the Psalmist bearing under the burden.  Remember when Jesus said "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."  Why not cast your burden on the Lord today.  He knew the burden the Psalmist was under but he also knew the cares the Psalmist had too,  He knows the size of it, the weight of it, where it comes from.  1 Corinthians 10 verse 13.  Paul wrote to a church under great pressure and difficulty.  "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it."  Sometimes the devil is good at that.  Things are sore and hard on us.  The devil gets us into a corner and tells us you are the only one suffering, everyone else is having a great time.  Paul goes into the fellowship and says there is no temptation fallen unto you but God is faithful.  He will not suffer you with the temptation but will also make a way to escape that you might be able to bear it.  With the burden he has provided a way of escape.  One day that way will come.  It is coming.  That is why it is privileged.  God wouldn`t allow Satan to touch his life.  Job said he knoweth the way that I take.  "For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous".  

The purpose of the burden.  If instructions are to be followed it will bring him closer to the Lord - why - because he has to cast them on the Lord.  That is the purpose you are carrying today, to make you more dependent on the Lord.  If we could handle it alone I wouldn`t need the Lord.  Sometimes we find that hard to take in.  Mary and Martha were 2 sisters who had a brother Lazarus.  Lazarus was sick.  When sickness comes into the home it is a heavy burden and affects everyone.  Mary and Martha`s brother Lazarus died then the Lord tarried his coming.  What a tremendous burden that was to bear.  Jesus spoke to his disciples about this burden "this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God" (John 11 verse 4)  Here was the burden in the home of Mary and Martha.  The purpose was to glorify God of heaven.  That heavy burden was to bring glory to God.  How can that be?  God would reach through this situation.  As Jesus called him from the very depths of dead he told Lazarus to come forth and he stepped forth.  "then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on him." (John 11 verse 45)  That was the purpose of this time of sickness.  He didn`t want to break Mary and Martha`s heart.  Was this an attack of the devil because they had sinned?  No it was to bring people to know Christ personally.  Jesus saved many that day because they believed on him through Lazarus.  See what is coming out of this home.  Glory to God in the salvation of many souls.  All began with the burden on 2 sisters.  Isn`t that what happened to Joseph yet he was able to say "God meant it for good"?  

This is a personal burden.  You are bearing a burden no one knows anything about.  God knows all about it.  Take it, lift it to him today and he will sustain you.