Sermon: Luke 2:8-20

During this Advent season we have been looking at different characters in the Christmas narrative. First, we saw the exemplary faith that Mary had when God’s Angel declared to her that she was chosen for the high privilege of bearing the Son of God from her womb. Then we saw the devotion of the wisemen who travelled from east when God had made known to them that the king had been born. Then we looked at Simeon, the faithful and hopeful man who longed for the consolation of God and saw it. And this morning, to end this series of sermons, we look to the shepherds.

We enter into Luke’s account in the hours just after the birth of Jesus Christ. Verse 7, the verse just before this passage, says “she [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger.” And it’s here in verse 8 that we meet the shepherds who are the first in history to hear the good news of His birth announced. Until now, it had been promised and foretold by the prophets. It’s imminent arrival was declared by the Angel Gabriel to Mary and Zecheriah. But now, He’s been born. What was to come, has now come. What was to be fulfilled is now fulfilled. As the Angel says in verse 11 “unto you IS born this day in the city of David a Saviour.”

This birth marks the beginning of the most significant events in the history of the world. The life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the most important realities ever. Everything that has ever happened both in a secular sense and in a spiritual sense, revolves around Jesus Christ. Think about how we measure time. There’s what happened before the incarnation of Christ. We call those years BC- before Christ. And what has happened in the years of Christ’s incarnate rule over the earth. Which we call AD, a Latin abbreviation of Ano Domini- year of our Lord. Every time we write the date, December 28th, 2025, we silently declare that history itself, all history is subordinate to the baby who was born here in Luke 2.

And biblically, too, the coming of Jesus Christ marks the dawning of the New Covenant. The covenant long promised and looked for. Through the prophet Jeremiah 600 years earlier, God declared “Behold, the days are coming, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel… I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” This very scene that we enter into this morning, is the night that this promise begins to be fulfilled. The Son of God; the second person of the trinity; the one by whom and for whom all things exist, has now condescended from His exalted place in glory to take centre stage in His own world to reveal the fullness of deity in bodily form, and usher in His new and eternal covenant.

We would rightly think that such an occasion would call for great spectacle and celebration. But what we see instead is quite shocking- a baby born in a stable, and laid in a feeding trough. As RC Sproul says “The birth of a king’s son is generally made an occasion of public reveling and rejoicing. But the announcement of the birth of the Prince of Peace was made privately, at midnight, and without anything of worldly pomp and ostentation.”

If you were out for a midnight stroll through the streets of Bethlehem on this night and passed by the dark alley where Jesus was asleep, you would no doubt feel a sense of pity and sadness for them. You might even be tempted to think that His parents were perhaps homeless, and snuck into the manger for protection from the elements to give birth. Could this really be how the Son of the Most-High God, the Prince of Heaven, came in to the world? Could it be that He went from being the objects of heavens worship, to being housemates with farm animals? If it weren’t for the attending miracles and the heavenly declarations, we would have no reason to think so.

But, on the night that God sent forth His son into the world, He also sent forth an Angel to declare His arrival. And in verses 10 to 12 we have that declaration recorded. I want to briefly make some interpretive comments about his message, since that isn’t the focus of our time together, but it’s important to know what the shepherds would have been thinking when they heard it.

In verse 10 he begins with “Fear not!” Fear is the right response when the glory of a holy God appears. His pure light exposes your filth and you, for the first time, see yourself as you truly are. Your hidden sins, your corrupted thoughts, the pride and anger and vanity of your heart. All of it laid bare in front of Him who’s eyes see all. Given what He sees of you, and what you see of yourself in the light of His glory, you expect that He has come to condemn you. So you’re afraid.

But the Angel goes on to explain why on this occasion, fear is not the right response. “for behold I bring you good news of great joy”. The reason why the shepherds ought not to fear is because in place of the judgment that they expect and deserve, is the news that they need. Good news; as the King James put its “glad tidings”. The judge of all the earth; the creator to whom all are accountable, has sent me not to declare your guilt but to invite you into His gladness.

But how can this be? He is holy and righteous. He has written His law on the hearts of all people, and all have fallen short. I have sinned! I know I have sinned! If maybe I denied it before, there’s no escaping it now in the piercing light of God’s holiness. Even though it would be my undoing, He must, to uphold His goodness, punish me for my sins. How could He not?

The Angel goes on to explain. Verse 11 “for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” Standing in the presence of God, you know yourself to be condemned. Your only hope is if one would save you. This night the Saviour is born. But maybe that isn’t enough to still your fears. You’ve read of so-called saviours before. The very town you’re now in is the namesake of one who lived many generations before. It was supposed that he, King David, would be the great deliver of Israel. But he went the way of all flesh and was corrupted by the very sin that has affected all prophets and mighty men, and that now exposes you to judgment.

But this one is different. This Saviour is the Christ- the messiah, the anointed one- who has long been promised. This is the night of the seed of the woman. This one born unto you this day is the Lord Himself. The one in who’s name I now address you; The one who’s glory now consumes you with fear. This very night His Son has taken on flesh and is born of a woman to deliver you from the curse of the law. The Lord has sent the Lord into the world.

“and this will be a sign for you” he goes on to say. This will be the evidence that the Lord who is high and lifted up- to whom all belong and to whom all will bow- has humbled Himself to the lowest place to rescue sinners, deliver them from their sin, and grant them everlasting joy, “you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger”.

Seems like a strange sign doesn’t it? After the glorious depiction of the Saviour who had been born, we might expect them to be sent to a palace or the temple. But the significance of this sign is twofold. First, this sign is identifying. What are the chances that on this night, in this same town of Bethlehem there would be more than one baby born in such an unusual setting. If they come across a baby in a manger, they will have found the one the Angel is here telling them about.

Secondly, this sign is instructive. It teaches the shepherds something about the nature of this one who is Lord. The King of heaven and the joy of Heaven has come to earth. Surely, since He rules over the hearts of men, He could have made a way to be born in any place. But He didn’t! And here’s why. So that it could be a sign to the shepherds, and to us, that this God is nothing like what we would expect. The God who is high and holy is also humble. The God who’s majesty should make us tremble is the God who’s mercy should make us trust. The God who’s face we should run from is the God who’s Son we should run to. He is the Lion who can devour the mighty and the lamb who can save the lowly. The God from whom we deserve judgment is the God who offers us joy.

This is what the Angel is announcing to the shepherds. And I want to spend the rest of our time looking together at them- the shepherds- and what we can learn from their encounter and response.

The first thing to be noted is this: the shepherds were unworthy. Now this isn’t explicitly stated, but If we were living in the 1st century, that statement would almost be redundant. Shepherd’s held one of the lowest places in wider society and even more so in religious society. As Warren Weirsbe says “Their work not only made them ceremonially unclean, but it kept them away from the temple for weeks at a time so that they could not be made clean.” Because of their nomadic lifestyle they were largely disconnected from the covenant people of God and the corporate worship of God. Since their work consisted of following herds of sheep passing from town to town, they gained a reputation as drifters and thieves. They were seen as so untrustworthy, that historical documents tell us they weren’t even allowed to give testimony in a legal court. They ranked among the lowest of the low in 1st century social structure.

And not only that. We might be able to make sense of this passage if there was some kind of indication that though they were despised by the culture, they had a heart after God and were seekers of God. But the passage doesn’t give us any indication of that. It says they were “out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night”. In other words, they were just going about their life, working their job, doing their duty. Not worthy. Not seeking.

While the influential, the mighty and the powerful of the world are asleep, God sends an Angel to humble shepherds working the night shift to announce the greatest news the world has ever heard. Why? Because as Mary says just one chapter earlier “He has...exalted those of humble estate”. And as Zechariah prophesied “the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” This angelic visitation to the shepherds is fulfilling these words. He has come to the humble who are literally sitting in darkness. There has never been greater news than what the Angel declared, and there could be no less worthy recipients than these night-shift working shepherds.

So why them? Well, I think the reason is so that we would ask that exact question. All of the Bible has been leading up to this point, when the king of glory becomes the son of Mary. This is the beginning of the final act of redemption. The long-awaited King of Israel and Saviour of the world has come. How could the announcement of this first be made to lowly shepherds out in the fields? As John Calvin says “though God had, at his command, many honourable and distinguished witnesses, he passed by them, and chose shepherds, persons of humble rank, and of no account among men.”

An event of such transcendent significance should be declared to the priests, or the nobles, or the governors or the righteous, or someone of some import, or so we think… And we would be wrong to think that… The message here is that we are all the shepherds. We are all unworthy. Before God’s holiness, and apart from God’s grace, there is none righteous. As Romans 3 says “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. We must first believe that like the shepherds we are unworthy, before we can receive the righteousness and joy of heaven which has come to us in the humble form of this baby in Bethlehem.

These opening verses are meant to orient and humble our hearts to identify with the shepherds so that we might imitate their response. So let’s look at what that response was.

Look with me at verse 15. This is now after they have heard the heavenly message from the Angel. And now they respond. The first aspect of their response is this: they obeyed swiftly. “When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing… And they went with haste”

Immediately after the messengers from heaven departs, the shepherds resolve to go search for the announced saviour. They said “let us go”. This is where is where obedience to the Lord always begins. Before a step was taken, they first made up in their minds and exhorted one another toward going. Even though the Angel never strictly commanded them to go- he simply said “you will find a baby wrapped”, not “go and find a baby wrapped”- they perceived the authority and design of God in the words declared by the angel and so they resolved to go.

They recognized a universal truth, that when a king speaks, no matter what is said, His words ought to be honoured and lived in light of. The King said “you will find” so they resolved to take the necessary actions to go and find. And not only did they resolve, but they actually went. Verse 16 says “they went with haste”. There is a necessary relationship between resolve and action in their obedience. It would not be enough for them to say they will go, then simply return to their work.

When the command is to move their bodies, no amount of reflection or pondering in their minds will constitute obedience. God did not intend for them to think about how beautiful the baby must be, or how humble the setting of His birth sounded. They were intended to go.

This is something that has always been a struggle for us. We often confuse the purpose of knowledge and its relationship to action. We can wrongly assume that the aim of the Christian life is merely to grow in our understanding of doctrine or our ability to memorize or defend the scriptures. Maybe like me, you’ve had countless Sunday’s when you’ve heard the word preached, or countless times when you’ve read the Bible yourself, and though you would describe the time as edifying, within minutes or hours you’ve already forgotten what you read.

Now, I’m not coming down on us for not having better memory’s, but I wonder if part of the reason why we experience this phenomenon is rooted in our failure to realize that the aim of hearing God’s word is obedience, not just information. Paul says in 1st Timothy 1 “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” The word of God is meant to purify our hearts, inform our conscience, deepen our faith and then result in love. And love isn’t merely a sentimental feeling, but the sum of God’s law, God’s commands to us. That’s the aim. That’s when we’ll know that the word of God has hit the bullseye of our heart- when it produces loving obedience.

Let me suggest one way that we can grow in our conformity to this intended relationship between knowledge and obedience: Whenever you listen to a sermon, or whenever you read the bible, before you move on to the next thing (whether that is having a conversation with someone after service, or closing your bible and moving on to your next task), ask this one question: what should I DO in light of what I just heard or read. Reflect on the sermon or the reading, pray and ask God to help you apply it to your life, then come up with just one verb. Make a plan to carry it out, and begin in haste to do it.

This is what the Shepherds evidently did. They heard the word of God; inwardly they determined what the revelation ought to lead them to do; then they invoked each other’s obedience, and went with haste.

And their swift obedience was motivated by the second aspect of their response: they believed. “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” Their resolve and swift obedience were founded on their belief in the trustworthiness of what they heard. They determined to go look for the baby because they were convinced He was there to be found.

Before they arrived at the manger, or laid eyes on the Saviour, they said to each other “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” How could they have known, if they hadn’t yet seen it? To their ears, the existence of the baby in the manger was as sure as the announcement of Him. This is one of the clearest depictions of what biblical faith looks like. Hebrews 11 says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

On this night, these shepherds received the best news they’d ever heard. Someone had come to save them and bring them peace. The long-awaited king had arrived to give hope to unworthy people like them. And because they believed the testimony of the Angel- because they had faith in his word- their hope was undergirded with an assurance and a conviction. “This thing has happened”.

If you’re hear this morning and you’re skeptical about the claims of the Bible, maybe you’re thinking “well, yea, of course they believed it. It’s a feel-good message that benefits them. Why wouldn’t they want to believe it.” That’s a fair point. Just because a promise would result in a good outcome for us doesn’t mean it’s true. Whether that outcome is the forgiveness of sins, a clean conscience, reconciliation with God, victory over disease and death, life forever in heaven and inexpressible joy. We as humans have a natural tendency to want to believe something, if its being true would benefit us. But just because it sounds appealing, doesn’t mean it’s true…… But it also doesn’t mean it’s not.

And notice, the confidence of the shepherds wasn’t rooted in the benefits they might receive if it were true, but instead on the source of the revelation itself. Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” The faith they had, which led to their resolve and obedience, were rooted in the fact that God had spoken. The angel was simply a messenger, but the glory that surrounded Him was the glory of God. The words that he delivered were the words of God. And the shepherds perceived that. “The Lord has made known these things to us”. This is why they believed it.

Have you ever heard the voice of God, non-Christian friend? If you were to, would you believe and obey it? We as Christians believe that this book, the Bible, is the word of God. We believe that when we read it, God is speaking to us. And we believe that for many reasons. One of them is because of the predictive prophecies we find throughout the Bible.

For example, this whole past month we have been looking together at the narrative of Jesus’ birth. Did you know that in the Bible there are almost 50 prophecies that pertain specifically to the birth of Christ? That’s almost fifty prophecies’, all beyond the ability of one human to orchestrate and bring about, written and read ranging from 400 to 4000 years before Jesus was born, all precisely fulfilled in the birth of Christ. Not to mention another 300 that He would fulfill in His entire earthly ministry. How could this be?

Berkley educated mathematician and professor Peter Stoner conducted an exercise with his students in 1953, to mathematically determine the probability of Jesus fulfilling the prophecies made about Him. Instead of looking at all 350, they chose just 8, and calculated the likelihood that would be fulfilled by one person. You know what they found? A 1 in 1 quadrillion chance for that to happen.

Since most of us don’t even know how many zeros that number would have, let me illustrate it like this: If you took a quadrillion loonies and laid them flat next to each other, they would cover the entire state of Texas 2 feet high. Now imagine that just 1 of those loonies had an ‘X’ on them, and you were blindfolded and told to walk in any direction and find that one. The probability of one person in history fulfilling just a fraction of the prophecies that Jesus did, is the same probability as you finding that loonie. In mathematical terms it’s an impossibility.

But as Jesus said in Luke 18 “what is impossible with man, is possible with God”. We believe that in the pages of scripture, the voice of God is heard. And not merely because of things like fulfilled prophecy, but because by God’s grace when we open the Bible, we see the same glory that the Shepherds saw when the Angel encountered them. The Bible has a self-authenticating glory, that turns our hearts and opens our eyes to see divine beauty in the story of redemption.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, the same “God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Our faith is not irrational, but it is suprarational. Rationality and logic do no oppose the faith, but they aren’t sufficient to make one believe. God alone can cause us to see His glory shining in the face and in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you’ve never read the Bible for yourself, try it this week. Most of us have some days off. Try reading a book like the gospel of John, and ask God to open your eyes to the divine glory of Christ in the pages of scripture. And when we do see it, we hear his word with the authority inherent to it, and rightly submit to it.

Paul commended the Christians in Thessalonica for this very thing. He says to them “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Brother and sister, are you receiving and accepting the scriptures as the very word of the God who created and saves? The one who knows the end from the beginning because He is the author of both? What promises are you struggling to believe this morning? What commands are you failing to obey? Remember, the bible is not like fortune cookies or ancient proverbs or any other human book. It is the word of Almighty God. If he has said it, you can have strong assurance and live with unbending conviction that it is true and will come to pass.

So let me modify my suggestion from earlier. Instead of merely asking “what should I do” after hearing a sermon or reading the Bible. Ask instead “what would I do if I believed this to be the word of the living God before whom I will soon stand and give an account of my life?” Whatever that thing is, do that.

This is what the shepherds did. They swiftly obeyed the message of the angel because they believed it to be coming from the Lord Himself.

The third aspect of their response is this: they beheld Jesus. Look with me at verse 16 “And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.” Their faith led them to search out the baby, and here their faith becomes sight. They laid eyes on the One Angel spoke of, and find Him exactly as He was described: wrapped in swaddling cloths and laying in a manger.

So many of our Christmas decorations romanticize this scene, but this would have been a most repulsive sight. What would you think if you saw a woman giving birth in the middle of the night in a dark alley behind a dumpster, and then make a bed out of the trash for his first nights sleep? You would be heartbroken and appalled and even disgusted at the conditions. And what if you later found out that this baby was the son of the most wealthy man in our nation? You wouldn’t even be able to fathom that being true.

As John Calvin asks “what could be more improbable than to believe that he was the King of the whole people, who was deemed unworthy to be ranked with the lowest of the multitude? or to expect the restoration of the kingdom and salvation from him, whose poverty and want were such, that he was thrown into a stable?” If it had not been for the word from the angel, we would think these men foolish to believe that there in the feeding trough was laying the Son of God incarnate.

But, like Calvin says of the shepherds “The glory of God was so fully before their eyes, and reverence for his Word was so deeply impressed upon their minds, that the elevation of their faith easily rose above all that appeared shameful or despicable in Christ.” What they heard of Jesus from the angel became the lens through which they saw Him in the manger. What others would have seen as a poverty-stricken baby to be saved, they saw as a saviour and king to be worshipped.

This would not be the last time that the earthly circumstances of Jesus would give cause to question His divine identity. All throughout His life, the Son of God faced discrimination and rejection for not fitting the mold that people expected. In John 1 it says “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”

Why? Well one of the reasons was the disparity between what people expected and how Jesus appeared. The people were expecting a mighty warrior and political deliverer. One who would free them from the colonisation of the Roman Empire and usher in peace and prosperity. They read the Old Testament prophecies, that “the government would be on His shoulders” and “of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” And they heard political deliverance and military conquest.

So when Jesus arrived on the scene and a young man named Nathaniel was told “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” he asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” How could our deliver and saviour come from the small, one traffic light town of Nazareth? If He was the Son of God, He would come from the halls of power and nobility.

Or when Jesus said “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” They couldn’t fathom this being the one who was to come. How could we put all our trust and confidence in a homeless man? If he was the son of God, he would own the cattle on a thousand hills.

Or when He hung there bloodied on the cross, desperately gasping for breath in agonizing pain, they wouldn’t dare submit themselves to Him as Lord. Instead, as Matthew 27 records “those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

But those with the eyes of faith see a different story. They remember the prophecy of Isaiah 53 “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” The majesty of Jesus to the eyes of a believer, isn’t physical. It’s spiritual. We desire Him, not because of His earthly beauty but because of His divine beauty. And this beauty wasn’t demonstrated in spite of His humble and humiliating life, but through it.

“you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” “Though he was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

His condescension says nothing about His lack, but everything about ours. He lowered Himself to our poverty, took on our sin, died our death, so that we might see His glory and worship Him forever. This is what the shepherds saw when they beheld Jesus. Not a baby to be pitied, but the Saviour who is Christ the Lord. What do you see?

The fourth aspect of the shepherds response was this: they shared the good news. Verse 17“And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.” Maybe they didn’t know whether or not Mary and Joseph knew the significance and identity of the baby that was entrusted to them. Or maybe it was just sheer excitement over being such an early part of a story that would change the world forever.

But whatever the reason, they had to tell about their angelic encounter. “Do you know who this baby is, Mary and Joseph? Do you realize that just 2 feet from us, lay the Son of God who will save us? Do you realize that this night, every promise of God for thousands of years have found their ‘yes’ and ‘amen’? He did it. He did exactly what He said He would do. Immanuel, God with us, is with us right now.”

Just imagine the overwhelming sense of awe in that stable, as this group of strangers sits around, all united by the baby that lay in the midst of them. All playing different roles in the narrative; all having been called from different kinds of lives and different places; all having experienced the grace of God that invaded their unworthy and hopeless lives; and all listening as a shepherd tells them about the good news- the gospel- of great joy.

Does that sound familiar? Look around. This is what we’re doing right now. Since the very night of Jesus’ birth, He has drawn people to Himself and to each other, so that they might speak about His divine beauty and the marvellous things He has done.

And notice, that for none of the people present, this would have been the first time they learned of these things. Mary and Joseph, and whoever might have been travelling with them to Bethlehem, would have known it since an Angel declared it directly to them. The shepherds already knew it, because they too had it told to them by an Angel. And yet, look at the response in verse 18. “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.”

Everyone was amazed and astonished. Not because they didn’t know it, but because the news is inexhaustibly amazing. There is no richer, more glorious, more profound truth than the good news of great joy in Jesus Christ. The more we hear it, the more we treasure it. The more we study it, the more we realize we haven’t even scratched the surface.

News that amazing must be told, and that’s what the shepherds did. That is why we are sitting here in Etobicoke in 2025 telling this same news. Because they were amazed and in their amazement they told the news. And the person they told was amazed too, and told someone else. And on and on through the generations and across the globe, this news of the Christ child has astonished hearts and opened mouths, and like a glorious forest fire has reached even to you on the other side of the world.

And it’s not meant to stop with you. For 2000 years the Lord’s pattern has been clear: hear the gospel, believe and treasure the gospel, tell the gospel. See glory in Christ, speak of the glory of Christ. This is what we mean when we sing “go tell it on the mountains”. If someone will give you their ear, give them the good news. If someone is lost and hopeless, give them the good news. If someone is proud and arrogant, give them the good news. This is good news for all people.

And there are still so many, in our families, at our workplaces, in our neighbourhoods and in unreached tribes in remote places that have never heard it. As Wiersbe says “Telling others about the Saviour is a solemn obligation as well as a great privilege, and we who are believers must be faithful.”

Maybe this can be our first test drive of the approach to scripture I commended earlier. “What would I do if I believed this to be the word of the living God before whom I will soon stand and give an account of my life?” I would follow the example of the shepherds and tell someone.

And it’s true that we all have different gifts and aren’t all called to be street preachers or full-time evangelists. But it’s also true that we all have an innate desire to speak about the things about which we’re most amazed. And we should be amazed above all that God in Christ has reconciled the world to Himself, and that all who put their trust in Him, all who treasure and follow Him, will have everlasting joy in His presence.

May God help us to be more amazed at this news in the year ahead and like the shepherds did, tell more people about it.

Which is related to this last aspect of their response: they lived for the glory and praise of God. “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

As the night came to a close, the shepherds returned to their work, forever changed. These men worked an agonizing and tiring job. Endless miles of walking, dealing with wayward sheep and gruelling weather. In Genesis 3, after the sin of mankind, God says “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground” These shepherds would have felt this curse right down to their bones.

And though they have now experienced the salvation of God, they still went back to their same work. As Wiersbe says “they humbly returned to their duties, new men going back to the same old job.” And though the work would still be difficult, they could now find new meaning in it because of their encounter with Christ.

In place of the curse of Genesis 3, they could now live in light of the command in Colossians 3. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” They could find new motivation and joy in their work, because they were now doing it in service of the One who so loved them and came to save them.

Their eyes were now opened for the first time and they could offer up their bodies, as Romans 12 says “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” All of life has now become worship for them. Which is why they return to their very mundane and weary work, glorifying and praising God.

Isn’t it ironic, that those who would have been barred from Israels corporate worship because of their ceremonial uncleanness, are now enabled by the Spirit to glorify and praise Him at all times and in all places? This is what God desires. Jesus said in John 4 “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

This truth doesn’t downplay the centrality of corporate worship, that will always be central to the Christians experience, even in heaven. But it does give more significance to all the hours we spend away from the corporate gathering. Every righteous task you do- whether working in an office, coaching a sports team, making a home, studying for a test, serving a client, sharing the gospel, raising children, reading a book, praying, going for a walk, swimming in a pool, gazing at the sunset, laughing until your belly hurts, comforting the hurting, rejoicing with those who rejoice, showing hospitality to a stranger, or a million other things you might do.

Every righteous task can be done as an expression of glory and praise to God. And in fact, if it is done rightly, it must be an expression of glory and praise to Him.

Our passage ends with the glory and praise of God, and so to do our lives. That is the end, the purpose of all things. As our historic confessions say: The chief end of man is to glorifying God and enjoy Him forever.

This is what we see in the shepherds: their fear and trembling before the glory of God; their swift obedience and faith in God; their beholding of the god-man Jesus Christ; and their sharing of the good news. What began with the angels glorifying and praising God has now infected them and spread through them.

May it infect and spread through us more and more, that God may be glorified and we might experience more of His great joy.