Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You With the 'In' Crowd? | Advent | Luke 2:8-20

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

We crave exclusivity. But what happens when you aren't included? Does God play by such rules? Do you need to be better before you're worthy of God? Jensen shares how God's reveals Jesus's birth to ordinary, weak and unclean people. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Luke 2:8-20 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Imagine with me for a second. You're in second grade, you're out on your school's playground, enjoying your recess and minding your business. And then, the most popular girl in your class starts handing out birthday invitations to the girls in your class. She's been talking about her party for a while now. Her mom set up a limo to pick the birthday entourage up from school and take them to Libby, which is basically the equivalent of a spa for little girls. It's the dream birthday party.

But as the most popular girl in your class starts handing out these invitations, you all realize she doesn't have very many. This is exclusive. Only the coolest girls are going to get a ride in a limo and get their hair crimped and sprayed with glitter. And when it's all over, you are not one of them. Devastating. And sadly, a true story that haunted yours truly throughout grade school. But it makes sense to me. When you're throwing the coolest birthday party of the year, you want the coolest and most important people there. And when you're a really important second grade girl, you want to make sure you announce your birthday party in the most exclusive and dramatic way possible.

Everyone knew who was important, and everyone wished they could have been part of such and amazing experience. And to be fair, I'm sure that this girl in my second grade class has grown up to be a perfectly kind human who is nice to a lot of people. And I really can't blame her. I mean, we all have similar desires inside of us. We want to be surrounded by important people. We want people to know we're important. We want to be part of the exclusive clubs and parties. And we all probably know the sting of being on the outside of those things. Our world thrives on exclusivity and the desire of those on the outside to make it in. Now, if the most popular girl in my second grade class knew how the world works, you'd expect that someone much more important,

much more worthy, would know the same principles. And we meet someone much more important in Luke too. We are told that a savior who is Christ the Lord has just been born. This is the long promised Savior that God has long foretold would rescue all people from their brokenness and restore all of creation back into a right relationship with himself. He is Christ, the Messiah, the king. Now, in this time, Caesar Augustus would have been called the savior of the world, but here, here is the true Savior, even more important than Augustus. And what's even crazier than all of this is that this Savior, the Christ, the king, is the Lord. This baby is God himself in the flesh, fully divine.

Yahweh has become man and today is his birthday. And just as we'd expect someone this important gets an incredible birthday announcement. No pretty invitations on a playground, but an entire host of angels announcing his birth. These angels are shining with the glory of God as they appear and sing out all together. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. This king bringing glory and peace to the earth, the long-awaited savior of the world, the one to rescue his people and write the curse of Adam, gets a birth announcement like none before and none after.

All the glory do is given, and I'm sure it's given to the right people, right? The important people, the ones who deserve to know about this amazing, incredible, life-changing news, the ones with power, with status, with something to bring to the table of this new life that is the king of all creation. Except it doesn't happen like that. Luke 2.8. And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, Fear not. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in a city of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you.

You will find a baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. This majestic birth announcement of the king of all creation is given to a group of ordinary shepherds from nowhere special with seemingly nothing special to give. And yet, this is who God chooses to let into the good news of who this baby really is. In the Gospel of Luke, we see the good news of this baby

given to an old priest, Zachariah, a young girl Mary, and now these ordinary shepherds. And it's important to note that in this time of Jesus, shepherds would have been considered unclean by the community of God's people because of the work they did. These were not the important people. They were the weak, the vulnerable, and the unclean. And yet, God chooses to give this incredible announcement of good news to them. You see, we follow a God who isn't concerned with status or worldly importance, but with bringing those who are outside into the goodness and glory of his good news. Luke 2 continues on,

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary, Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart. and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told.

When it was just as the angels had said, the shepherds share the good news they had just been given. We see Mary the young vulnerable mother moved again by the truth of who had just been born to her. And we see these ordinary, unclean shepherds glorifying and praising God for the gift they had been. given in receiving this news. I am so often tempted to think that God plays by our rules, that he wants someone accomplished to come to the table, someone important, someone who can bring a clean heart, an abundance of theological knowledge, a platform that can change the lives of thousands. I spend so much time trying to clean up my act, get my sin under control, be a better person before I think I'm worthy, or even able to come before God and

spend time with him. I think God wants clean, important people in his corner. But on his first birthday, at the beginning of this cosmic plan to save the world finally coming to light, Jesus invites a group of ordinary, unclean shepherds to come meet him in his manger. He entrusts these men with the truth of the gospel, the truth of who he is. Not because they were important, or ready or prepared or could help his cause, but because he wanted them there. And the ordinary unclean shepherds, moved by what they have been told, worshipped the Lord.

They gave the only thing they could. They laid their devotion and worship at the feet of the king of creation. The good news of the gospel is for everyone, and it changes everything. That night on a hill when a host of angels told a group of ordinary, unclean shepherds that the savior of the world, the king of all creation, the God of the universe had come to earth as a baby. Everything changed. Hope was born.

Peace was brought down to earth and the glory of God came to dwell among ordinary, unclean people. And the promised work of restoring creation began. God is in the business of bringing outsiders into his kingdom. And that is good news for you and for me. He isn't waiting for us to become worthy because we can't. He isn't waiting for us to get our act together because we won't. The good news has been proclaimed to everyone. The invitation to see and believe who this baby really is is wide open.

Right now today, he is called. calling you and me to grasp the richness of this good news and to come before him and worship him as we are. Will you join the shepherds today? Will you glorify and praise the king of all creation for all you have heard and seen him do through the good news of the gospel? Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.