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Good Tidings to All People
Advent Series: Messages
from the Angels
A sermon preached by Dr. James Flamming,
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Scripture: Luke 2:8-14
Advent. It is the word we Christians use to set us apart from the Christmas
celebrations of the secular world which basically organizes itself without God.
Their consumer celebrations have nothing to do with the coming of Christ. Advent
is our word. It means the arrival of our Christ. It is the celebration of the
coming of the one who came to earth to do five basic things:
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To be with us in our fears.
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To save us from our sins.
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To teach us how to love.
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To embody what God is really like.
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To birth within us abundant life, life eternal.
In
one way, our Lord Christ has already come. In another way he is always coming,
always just arriving, as we experience new beginnings and new breakthroughs with
Christ in our own lives. To open the door to new possibilities this Christmas we
are listening anew to the message the angels gave to the shepherds at the first
Christmas.
Last
week we heard the consistent Biblical word from the angel of the Lord: “Fear
not; Do not be afraid.” Why? The angel continued, “I bring you good news of
great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior
has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
Begin
with the phrase of the angel – good news. The King James translated it, glad
tidings. Peterson in The Message translates: “Don’t be afraid. I’m here
to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide.”
A
literal translation of the angel’s proclamation that day would be: “I announce
to you great joy.” People who walk with Christ experience a bonus: great joy.
One of those persons was Saul of Tarsus who became known as Paul the Apostle.”
His early life was rigid, religious, righteous, and joyless. His early religion
was also full of anger. He was hell bent on stamping out this false teaching
about Jesus being the Messiah.
Listen to his own testimony about that early life. Turn to Philippians 3:4, “If
anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee, as for zeal
persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” But look
what he has discovered in his walk with Christ. Turn the page to Philippians
4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice. . . And the
peace of God which passes understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus.” Paul’s religion had turned from a producer of anger to a
producer of joy and peace.
Check
your religion. Does it bring you joy or anger? Most of the world today thrives
on anger. People choose sides. They shout, they fume, they threaten. You see it
in everything from the legislature, to the congress, to sports, to the war in
Iraq. Alas, religion often follows the same pattern. In Iraq the Sunnis and the
Shia, who have so much in common, and are both disciplined Muslims, hate each
other. We Christians and we Baptists are not immune. We divide into differing
groups and label, suspect, and withdraw from one another. Check the pulse beat
of your religious experience – does it bring you joy or anger? If the heartbeat
of your faith is more anger than joy, I can guarantee you one thing – your
religion is not focused on the joy of knowing the Savior who has been born, but
upon your anger at people who don’t fit your filter.
I am
reminded of what Frederick Buechner wrote in Wishful Thinking:
“Of
the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your
wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue
the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last
toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back –
in many ways is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are
wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
One
day Lucy was chasing Charlie Brown, shouting, “I’ll get you, Charlie Brown. I’ll
catch you, and when I do, I’m going to knock your block off!” Suddenly Charlie
Brown screeched to a halt. He turned around and said with that contemplative
look on his face, “Wait a minute, Lucy. If you and I, as relatively small
children with relatively small problems, can’t sit down and talk through our
problems in a mature way, how can we expect the nations of the world to – “
Whereupon Lucy, POW!, slugged him with all of her might. Then she said, “I had
to hit him quick. He was beginning to make sense.”
If
anger is a dead giveaway of religion going in the wrong direction, joy is the
wonderful reflection of faith that is on the right track with Jesus Christ the
Lord.
Of
all of the things that might have been in our lives, joy may be at the top of
the list. Speaking of lists, notice where joy comes when he lists the fruit of
the Spirit. Turn to Galatians 5:22. Paul lists the results. Notice what rises to
the top: love, joy, and peace. I wonder if when we get to heaven we will realize
how much joy we missed because we just didn’t spent enough time with the Lord.
All of this joy finds its source in the One who came as our Savior, Jesus Christ
the Lord. No wonder the angels announcement was this, “I announce to you great
joy . . .”
Go
one step further. The angel announced not only great joy – but that it was to be
to all people.
Yesterday morning at our prayer breakfast we heard from our missionaries, Chris
and Debra Winans, our missionaries to Japan. Less than one-half of one percent
of the people in Japan are Christians. If you were here last Sunday they shared
with us their testimony in word and song. Yesterday they had with them one of
their helpers, Hiromi. Hers is a vibrant testimony. She become a Christian about
four years ago and shared with us the immense difference knowing Christ had made
in her life. She flew over to be with the Winans during their year on furlough.
The Winans are our kind of folks. I married them in this room back in the
eighties. Later they felt God calling them to be missionaries. After their
training they were sent to Japan where they are doing such a great work. I
thought to myself, “We sent them there. What if we didn’t give and pray and work
so they could go.”
Speaking of giving, your finance committee has said to me, let the folks know
that we really need their help in December. For ten months our giving held up
wonderfully well, and we have been able to meet our mission needs throughout the
world. But something happened in November. And if we don’t catch up this month
of December, we will have to cut back our ministries to our own children, youth
and adults, but also our missionaries around the world. This Christmas time of
giving, don’t forget to take out your offering packet and put your Christmas
gift in two envelopes – one to our church budget and one to our International
Missions.
The
Angel said – “I announce great joy to all people.” I am one of those people and
so are you. To all people.
John
Killinger tells a powerful story about a man who is all alone in a hotel room in
Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression, so depressed that he can’t
even bring himself to go down to the restaurant for food.
He is
a powerful man, the chairman of a large shipping company, but at this moment, he
is overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life. He lies there on a lonely
hotel bed far from home, wallowing in self-pity. All of his life he has been a
workaholic. He has been an anxious man, worrying about everything, every little
detail. That day, in that Canadian hotel, he hit bottom. He moaned aloud, “Life
isn’t worth living. I wish I were dead.” Then he began talking as if God were
there and he said, “God, it’s a joke, isn’t it. Life is nothing but a joke.”
Suddenly it occurred to him that this was the first time he had talked to God
since he was a little boy. He was silent for a moment and then he began to pray.
He later described it like this:
“I
just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in, and how tired I was and
how I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next?
A voice! I heard a voice say, “It doesn’t have to be that way.” That’s all. I
sat straight up and turned around. I laughed at myself. I thought I must be
hearing things. But then I was absolutely certain that I had heard those words:
“It doesn’t have to be that way!”
He
got home and talked to his wife about it. Then he talked to his brother who was
a minister. He asked, “Do you think that was God speaking to me?”
His
brother replied, “Of course, because that is the message of God to you and to
every one of us. That’s the message of the Bible. That’s why Jesus Christ came
into the world to save us, to deliver us, to free us, to change us, and to show
us that “It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to be anxious or
depressed or selfish or hopeless. Jesus Christ can turn your life around. If you
will welcome him into your heart, he will make you a new person.
A few
days later the man called his brother and said, “You were right. It has really
happened. I’ve done it. I’ve had a rebirth. I’m a new man. Christ has turned my
life around for me.”
The
man is still prone to anxiety. He still has to work hard. But now he has a
source of strength he didn’t used to have. Sometimes he leaves his office and
goes to a church nearby and prays. He explains, “It clears my head. It reminds
me of who I am and whose I am. Each time, as I sit there in the sanctuary I
think back on those words, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
The
angels said as much so long ago: “I announce to you great joy – it doesn’t have
to be that way.” The Savior, Jesus our Lord, has been saying that for two
thousand years. He says it to us today – “It doesn’t have to be that way.” Now
that, my friend, is an announcement of Good News which shall be to all people.
Even us.
If
you have no relationship with the Lord, may you give your life to him today. If
you’ve been away from the Lord for a time, listen to this: “It doesn’t have to
be that way.” Give your life to the Lord, today.
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