INTRODUCTION

There’s a difference between those who sit on the sidelines, and those who play in the game.  Some people get involved in things, and others do not. I remember growing up I was on a football team.  This was 5th grade midgets football, and they had a weight limit—you had to be under 100 lbs to play on the team.   They didn’t want any bigger kids hurting the younger kids.  But I was just over 100 lbs and I remember having to sit on the bench for the first few games and working towards getting to the right weight so I could play in the game. It was hard work! I remember there was another guy, who was a few lbs heavier than me.  He was always sitting on the bench.  He rarely got to play because he really didn’t want to put in the effort to run a few extra laps or work hard so he could make weight; he sat on the bench most of the season.  Sometimes, after sitting on the bench, you get comfortable there. You enjoy the perks of saying you’re part of the team, but you don’t really have to put in the work to play.  You get the recognition for the wins of the team but you don’t really have to work hard to make them happen; it’s kind of the best of both worlds. 

The same is true in the spiritual realm as well. Sometimes there are those who sit on the sidelines and watch, when they could be getting involved. When everyone else is doing something, they are warming the bench. This tendency can show up in many different ways. It could be something like not making much effort in our spiritual lives. We want to sit on the bench so to speak by not getting involved very much in our own spiritual lives, and so we do minimal Bible reading or prayer or spiritual disciplines—we’re not really pursuing God in our spiritual lives, we’re just maintaining. Maybe it’s something like making other things a priority over God. We have all this other stuff in life and so when we should be serving, or should be getting involved, we don’t. Maybe it’s in the area of witnessing. You know God wants us to share the message about Jesus, but you just struggle doing it; you aren’t building relationships with unbelievers and aren’t having a testimony with unbelievers. Maybe for you it’s something like just not enjoying the salvation you have and savoring a relationship with God. We all have a tendency in some way, shape, or form, to be a bench warming Christian. We all have the tendency to sit on the sidelines when God wants us to get in the middle of the action. God doesn’t want us to just be a sidelines watcher when it comes to our spiritual lives. God doesn’t want us to just sit around on our padded seat cushion; he wants is to get busy! And as we come to our passage for this morning, we see that God wants us to choose worship over watching from the sidelines.  He wants us to choose serving over sitting. God doesn’t just want us to sit on the sidelines in our spiritual lives and watch, he wants us to get busy, and he wants us to get busy worshiping and praising him with our lives. And in our passage this morning, we are given the example of some individuals who experienced the truth about Jesus in the most remarkable way, and they had to decide: were they just going to sit on the sidelines and watch, or were they going to get to work and worship.  So today we’re going to look at the shepherds in Luke 2, and we’re going to learn from their example how we can be active in pursuing and worshipping God.  So from our text, I want you to remember our big idea for today:   

Big Idea: God wants us to choose worship over watching

Luke 2:8–20 NASB95

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” 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.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

1) People who choose worship over watching investigate message about Jesus

Explanation: notice with me their response after hearing the message. The text says there were shepherds watching their sheep in the fields. What kept them from going back to watching? This is where I get the idea of choosing worship over watching. They could have decided to stay where they were, go back to sleep, stay with their sheep. They didn’t have to leave. They could have stayed watching; they could have stayed watching their sheep in the field. They could have stayed on the sidelines—let someone else worship the king; send someone else to go find him. But they chose to not stay watchers, they wanted to be worshipers. So they left. But notice their intentionality here–they heard the message and went to investigate. They weren’t satisfied with just hearing part of the message, they wanted the whole thing. They wanted to have full knowledge. The news they heard was so incredible that they had to hear more.

Application: I think this is a challenge to our lives.  Sometimes in our own lives, we become so familiar with the Christmas message; so familiar with the news about Jesus, that we stop investigating. That we are satisfied with what we already know, so we stop investigating. Perhaps we think we are good, we have learned enough. Maybe we stop spending time in God’s word or prayer. Perhaps coming to church is just a formality–it’s something we do but we don’t really enjoy. We only halfheartedly sing; maybe we aren’t involved in giving; perhaps we look like we’re paying attention to the sermon but we don’t really think about it, or if we do, we don’t really apply it to our lives. We can all face the tendency to stop investigating the message of Jesus. We can all be like the shepherds if they would have stayed out in their fields and not investigated the message given to them and went to find Jesus. When we do this in our lives, we choose watching over worship. Instead of choosing to give ourselves to this message, we just want to sit around and focus on other things.

Illustration: I think the man Samson in the Old Testament is an example of this. Samson was a Nazarite—that’s someone who is specifically set apart and set aside for God’s purpose. But even though Samson had this special calling on his life, he didn’t really live that way. Over and over again he broke God’s commands to get what he wanted. He was loose with women, he defiled himself by breaking his Nazarite commitments, and in the end, it cost him his life.

Application: for Samson, the life of following God had become too common to him. He lost interest in it and pursued other things instead. He decided in his life that he was going to be a watcher when it came to spiritual things, not a worshiper. We see the destruction it brought his life.  God wants us to choose worship over watching.

Let me tell you something—I just had this conversation with some men in a Bible study this week—our spiritual lives really are ordinary; they’re not really glamorous.  Now don’t get me wrong—a relationship with Jesus is GREAT!  But sometimes there’s a desire in our spiritual lives to pursue the exciting; to look for the next emotional experience that boosts our spiritual lives; to seek some sort of hype or spiritual high that will get us through to the next one comes along.  That’s not the spiritual life we find in scripture.  Guard against the mentality of looking for the next best thing spiritually. I’m going to go to this church because there is an emotional experience, or I’m going to do this because it’s like a shot of adrenaline into my spiritual life.  Sometimes as a pastor people will come and say “pastor, I’m not being fed.”  Usually what they mean is they’re not getting an emotional experience or their not looking for something new—new truth, new revelation, new way to practice the spiritual life.  Sometimes you can be so obsessed with the new that you neglect the old, or forget the basic.  I do a lot of counseling, and in almost every case I have, I’m not teaching people new truths they’ve never heard before, I’m reminding them of truths they have already heard that they have forgotten or neglected.  Don’t be duped into pursuing the explosive exciting or emotional spiritual experiences, looking for the next best things spiritually.  In many senses the spiritual life is ordinary—you know what to do, you just have to do it.  There’s not much glamour. You look at the life of Paul and everything he went through, it wasn’t glamourous! That’s why Paul tells us to exercise or discipline ourselves to godliness; we just have to do it.  In order to do that we need to investigate and keep investigating the message about Jesus. Don’t let it get old and familiar. Just because we know it, doesn’t mean we stop learning more and growing.  The process of investigating the things of God lasts a lifetime.  Don’t stop!

Big Idea: God wants us to choose worship over watching

2) People who choose worship over watching prioritize the message about Jesus

Explanation: notice with me that those who choose worship over watching prioritize the message about Jesus. Notice what the shepherds were doing in the fields. They were working. They were doing their jobs. They were making a living. But notice the value they placed on this message—it was so great that they left their jobs. They simply got up and left. We don’t know if they left their sheep abandoned in the fields or what. But they left their jobs right away—left the sheep in the field and went to find Jesus. What commitment! What devotion! They simply left their jobs and went to see Jesus.

Illustration: I don’t know about you, but there’s only certain things that will cause me to up and leave my job. There are only certain things that will cause me to just get up and walk away. It would have to be some sort of emergency or critical situation. Occasionally I’ll working, maybe I’m here in the office when the kids have off school, and I’ll get a cryptic text from my wife—”need you now”. This doesn’t happen a lot, but when I get one of those texts, I know I need to drop what I’m doing and run home. I never know what I’m going to find when I get home, but I know if I get a text like that it means a) she can’t text an explanation and b) she really needs help with something important.  But there are only certain situations that might cause us to up and leave our jobs. It would have to be a pretty important thing, wouldn’t it?

Application: for the shepherds, the message about Jesus was far more important than their job. They prioritized it above anything else! It caused them to drop what they were doing and go find Jesus. What if the message of Jesus had the same effect in our lives? What if the message of Jesus took priority over everything else in our lives? Over our jobs; over our schools; over our families; over our hobbies and interests—what would our lives look like if it had priority over those things? Maybe we would have more than a casual relationship with church. Maybe our Sunday school teaching times would be more well attended; perhaps our fellowship or discipleship times would be full of people who prioritized the message of Jesus; people would be serving—we wouldn’t have the stereotypical problem in churches where 80 % of the ministry is done by 20% of the people. If you’re not part of the 20%, maybe you need to focus more on prioritizing the message of Jesus that way God wants you to. I believe our church, and churches across the globe would be totally different if we simply followed the model of the shepherds and prioritized the message about Jesus.

Big Idea: God wants us to choose worship over watching

3) People who choose worship over watching share the message about Jesus

Explanation: notice also that those who choose worship over watching share the message about Jesus. They share it. We see that the shepherds couldn’t keep quiet—they went and told others. Verses 17-18 talk about this. They left what they were doing and what did they do? They went back to their jobs right? They went back to tend their sheep right? No! They told everyone! They made known the statements that we made known to them. And they were so convincing that all who heard wondered at it. The word used here indicates that they marveled; they were astonished. They didn’t think the shepherds were crazy—seeing angels in the sky, they told their message so convincingly that they believed and were amazed!

We could do better at sharing the message this convincingly, don’t you think? We could do more to get people amazed at our message. Truth be told, many times believers aren’t even sharing the message, much less sharing it convincingly. Christmas is such a great time to do that! You have a tremendous opportunity over the Christmas time to share with other, just like the shepherds did. Let me share with you a quote that someone shared with me that sticks out to me: found people find people. Let me ask you: what if the verse here were told about us: and all who heard it wondered at the things told them by Faith Baptist Church? We need to share! Here are some ideas: when the cashier says “happy holidays”, you look at him or her and says “Oh, I say Merry Christmas, because Christmas is about the birth of Jesus.” And that will hopefully open a door for conversation, but if not, you’ve at least pointed someone to Jesus. Maybe you can do this by inviting someone to our Christmas Eve service so that they can hear the message about Jesus. You could give someone a Christmas tract or booklet. You could host a Christmas tea and invite your neighbors as a way to connect with them. There are so many ways you can be like the shepherds—sharing the message of Jesus!

Illustration: Jesus recognized this tendency in the lives of his followers to keep quiet about his message. He gave 2 object lesson about sharing the good news in Matthew 5:13-16. The first is salt—listen to what he says: You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Sometimes I think we miss the severity of what Jesus is saying. If you aren’t salting the earth with the savor of the Gospel—if your lifestyle has lost its effect, you’re essentially useless. Christ continues: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. He says we are a light. We are to be like a city on a hill that you see for miles around. We are not to be like a lamp that is put under a basket. You see, too often that’s what believers are like. We are a lamp under a basket, and someone only sees the light if they pick up the basket.

Application: Let me tell you what this often times looks like—“well I’m a witness, if someone asks me about Jesus I’ll tell them.” And we assume that witnessing and sharing the news about Jesus is something that happens when someone specifically asks you, and if you have an answer prepared, you’re ready and you’re a gospel witness. That’s not the imagery Christ gives. Being prepared is great, but witnesses witness—they testify.  We are to be a city on a hill—you can see us far off! You can tell miles away! This idea of sharing applies to all of us.  Maybe you need to be intentional, perhaps you need to be strategic.  Maybe for you, you don’t work with a lot of other people and you don’t have much of a social life—you go to work, home, church, and groceries and that’s it. Don’t use that as an excuse.  Don’t say what you can’t do, tell me what you can do! Maybe you need to join a local club or sports league, a gym, get some ice fishing buddies and meet people.  Or create a new rhythm—go to the same place every week.  That’s what I do, unless I have a meeting or something come up I’m at Jitters every Tuesday morning, and I try to be at McDonald’s every Sunday at 6 am.  Why?  To create routine and meet people—you don’t get to use the excuse that I don’t know anybody; there are people all around us!  

 We need to follow the model of the shepherds. The shepherds were so excited and emphatic with sharing their message that it made an impact with those around. Can that be said of your Gospel witness?  Or do you prefer to sit on the sidelines?

Big Idea: God wants us to choose worship over watching

4) People who choose worship over watching enjoy the message about Jesus

Explanation: we learn one more action step we can take to choose worship over watching, and that’s to enjoy the message about Jesus. We need to enjoy the message about Jesus. That’s what the shepherds did! We see from their response in the verses they rejoiced! The text says: the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen. Not only did they have a public message and witness, they also kept some back for themselves. They glorified God; they praised him for what he had done. They engaged in their own private worship of cherishing and treasuring God in their hearts.

Sometimes we need to get back to that. Sometimes the message about Jesus becomes so common that we don’t really take the time to marvel at it and cherish it ourselves. We get so busy, even with good things. We get so busy serving—something God wants us to do, that we forget to take time and enjoy. When was the last time you just sat down and celebrated what we have in Christ? When was the last time you did what the shepherds did—you glorified and praised God for all you had seen? Too many times we are so busy serving, that we don’t have any time for being.  We are so busy serving Christ that we don’t take time to celebrate being in Christ. We’ve gotten so accustomed to serving, that we’d rather serve than worship! We would rather skip a service to serve than sit in the service and hear a message. We’d rather be involved in the background and keep ourselves busy than discipline ourselves to participate in a worship service. We will come to church only if we are serving, but we won’t come if we are to sit and learn. Somehow, we’ve gotten things backwards, haven’t we? If there should be a priority in our spiritual lives, we ought to prioritize being. We ought to prioritize enjoying the message about Jesus! We ought to prioritize doing what the shepherds did—glorifying and praising God for all that we have heard.  Often times our lives display the opposite of joy; we have hearts full of bitterness, complaining, criticism.  As a pastor unfortunately sometimes you hear people, or hear about people complaining. And let me say, if you’re complaining, you are not enjoying. The two don’t co-exist. If you’re complaining you’re not enjoying what you have in Christ. And rather than complaining, God wants us to respond like the shepherds—glorifying and praising him!  So many times, the realities of being a believer in Jesus get lost in life. We need to get back to treasuring God! We need to learn from the example of Jesus and treasure our savior and what he has done for us!

Illustration: Sometimes we just have to take time to remember or review the truth of what God has done.  This reminds me of spelling tests in our home.  Our three oldest kids are all old enough that they have spelling tests.  And one thing we learned about spelling tests—the more we review the better we remember.  The more we take time and focus on learning the words, the better we will actually do about remembering them.

Application: it’s the same way with us in our spiritual lives. Sometimes we need to take the time and put in the effort to refresh our memories of what God has done for us so that we can enjoy him and his gifts. We need to take time and review his blessings, in order to enjoy them. Christmas is a great time for us to do this!  Don’t be someone who sits around and watches this Christmas season!

Big Idea: God wants us to choose worship over watching

CONCLUSION

Well, we began this morning with a discussion on sitting on the bench. I talked about my experience as a bench warmer, and we recognized that sometimes it can be easy to sit on the bench—you don’t really have to do anything!

It can be easy for us to get this way with our spiritual lives. We enjoy sitting on the bench; we enjoy watching. The shepherds could have enjoyed watching as well. They could have stayed in the field watching their sheep, but they didn’t. They decided to get busy and put their effort into worshipping God. That’s what God wants of us as well. God wants us to choose worship over watching. God doesn’t want us to be bench warming Christians; he doesn’t want us to sit on the sidelines. He wants us to learn from the example of the shepherds and choose worship over watching.

So when we’re tempted to not make much effort in our spiritual life, to do minimal Bible reading or prayer or spiritual disciplines, God wants us to choose worship over watching. Or when we struggle to prioritize God over other things in life and would maybe choose something else over God; something else over coming to church; something else over getting involved with God’s people; God wants us to choose worship over watching. When it comes to our witnessing and we’re tempted to remain silent or be so busy with our own life that we’re not building relationships with unbelievers, God wants us to choose worship over watching. When it comes to enjoying our salvation, and we’re tempted to not really value what God has done for us, God wants us to choose worship over watching.  When it comes to the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season and the buying of gifts and planning of family celebrations, God wants us to choose worship over watching. 

We all have a tendency in some way, shape, or form, to be watchers. We all have the tendency to sit on the sidelines when God wants us to get in the middle of the action. What would our church look like if we chose worship over watching? I think we would have a lot more church members, because instead of just warming a pew we would have people getting involved. I think we would have a lot more people serving, because members would realize their membership responsibilities and find a place to make a difference. I think more people would be visiting our church and people would be getting saved because we would all be doing our part to share the message of Jesus to those around. And our hearts would be revived, because we have taken the time to truly understand and value what Christ has done for us. That’s what we could look like if we followed the example of the shepherds and chose Jesus over the other things in our lives. Let’s be like the shepherds! Let’s choose worship over watching!