[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected] I'm just going to talk for a few minutes. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the story of the shepherds, because there's some really confusing bits in it, I think, at least. Anyway, I read it and I'm like, what's going on here? But first, before I do that, here's a question for you. What's a normal job like?
[00:00:34] What's kind of like a normal job that people do?
[00:00:39] Builder. Builder.
[00:00:46] Businessman. Yeah, yeah. Kids, what do some of your parents do for a job?
[00:01:00] Project manager and a builder.
[00:01:05] She goes to Youth Business International. Fantastic.
[00:01:12] Your mum is a nurse.
[00:01:15] Say it again. They go to work. Yes.
[00:01:22] I don't know about you, but I was thinking, I think, like, if we sort of surveyed.
[00:01:27] Right. Going to an office is quite a normal job these days, isn't it? You know, being part of running a business in some sort of finance or operations or things like that. Admin. Everyone does admin of some sort, don't they, in their job?
[00:01:44] There's quite a lot of people, I'd say, in retail, you know, who's involved in retail in shops? Oh, it's a few. Oh, not many then. Okay. But education, lots of people in teaching and things like that. Health care.
[00:01:58] Lots of people in health care and things. They're kind of like. They're all kind of normal jobs, aren't they? Builders, normal jobs.
[00:02:07] And looking at the shepherds, they were normal jobs.
[00:02:13] They were just sort of your average ordinary jobs, you know. So if you're not convinced, then there's quite a lot of noise over here, isn't there? I'm gonna have to keep shouting.
[00:02:27] Thank you. Shh.
[00:02:30] Shh. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic. It's not going to work, is it?
[00:02:35] So shepherds were sort of normal people because most people were involved in some kind of production of food, in farming of some sort, whether it's crops, whether it's vegetables or things like that. Vines, grapes. Whether it's sheep. Because, like, if you go through the Gospels, when Jesus illustrates his teaching points, he talks so much about farming, doesn't he?
[00:03:03] He uses these everyday stories. This is what people are involved in.
[00:03:08] So shepherds were kind of normal people. They were normal people doing normal jobs. I wonder what your place of work would be like if angels turned up.
[00:03:18] Okay, if you're at your office, your place of work, if angels turned up, I'm sure first security would get involved, do you know, and then health and safety. I mean, the angels, trumpets, all that noise, you know, we can't have that going on around here.
[00:03:34] But the shepherds got this message, didn't they? They had this message to tell and it was given to them by these angels, right? And if you thought of people like angels, some big, big kind of announcements that you're going to make, you're going to be invited to go and see something, right? If you had a big trumpet, a big affair to come and invite you to go and see something, where do you think you'd be going?
[00:04:03] I mean, you know, an invitation to the Oscars, that's in the New Year, isn't it? Or the Emmys. Or you'd be like, I've got a VIP pass, backstage pass to my favourite artist. Or to go and meet the England football team or something like that. Or go to 10 Downing street or something. You'd think that, wouldn't you? Maybe 10 Downing Street's a bit of a push, isn't it? The other things you'd be more interested in, you'd think it's, hey, this is an invitation to go and see something big, right? You'd be expecting the red carpet and everything, wouldn't you?
[00:04:38] But where did the angels tell them to go? They said, let me just read it out for you. It says, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
[00:04:51] So they were invited to go to the city of David. Where is the city of David?
[00:04:59] Bethlehem.
[00:05:00] That's a good, that's a good answer, isn't it? Or is it?
[00:05:06] Is the city of David, Bethlehem?
[00:05:11] Because if we go back, let's dial back all the way to the Old Testament, right?
[00:05:16] The Old Testament, David's king. David's was pronounced as king over all of Israel, right?
[00:05:25] There were some arguments before this. Let's not go over that bit. But he comes together and all Israel come together, and they say, you are king. And do you know the first thing David does?
[00:05:36] He takes his army and he goes and conquers the city, small city of Jerusalem, and he conquers this Jerusalem and he says, this is going to be my home. So he sets up this city as his home.
[00:05:52] This is where this becomes the capital of the nation. And do you know what he calls it?
[00:05:57] The City of David.
[00:06:02] And so he rules from the city of David and this Jerusalem, and this Jerusalem becomes the most prominent, the most important city in, in all of Israel. This is where the Temple is. This is where the palaces are. This is the center of Israel. So the question is, why didn't the shepherds go to Jerusalem?
[00:06:25] Why did they go to Bethlehem?
[00:06:29] I mean, Jerusalem is the big fancy place, right? You'd expect this big announcement to go, come to this big fancy place, come to where the palaces are.
[00:06:38] But they didn't. They went to Bethlehem. Why? Because actually, Bethlehem is also called the City of David.
[00:06:46] Why? Because it was not the city that he set up and that was his home, it was the city he was born in.
[00:06:52] David was born in the city. And city is a bit of a stretch, right?
[00:06:57] We translate into the word city. A city is basically just a fortified town. It's a town with walls on, that's all.
[00:07:05] But they went to the place of Bethlehem. I don't know why the shepherds went.
[00:07:10] I presume the angels gave them a nudge and said, no, not that one, that one over there. Do you know, they were camped out somewhere halfway between, it seems. And so they went to this little town, this town of Bethlehem, a little town of Bethlehem.
[00:07:29] We're guessing that it's maybe 50 to 100 households.
[00:07:34] That's the kind of size of town, not very big.
[00:07:38] And they went to try and find this place where Mary and Joseph were. I mean, if you think of a town of maybe 50 or 100 households, it's probably the length of your road, right?
[00:07:49] That's about it, isn't it? If people were turned up new, you'd know all about it. They'd maybe knock on a few doors and go, hey, anyone heard of Mary and Jesus? And they're like, yeah, down there. All the commotion's down there. Go down there. And so they went there and Mary and Joseph, contrary to popular belief, there wasn't no room at the inn. It's not like that. They turned up to the Hilton and the Hilton said no. And they'd gone to the Premier Inn and the Premier Inn said no. They even went to the Travel Lodge and there was no room at the Travel Lodge. It wasn't like that. They just turned up at a relative's house.
[00:08:28] Bethlehem Hem was Joseph's ancestral town. That's where his family had grown up. And so that was. He was going back about the census and they were likely at a relative's house and there was no room in guest room or whatever in the place that they were staying. They'd all been crammed in together.
[00:08:51] And so Mary had given birth to little baby Jesus and they put him in a manger, a feeding trough for animals because there wasn't anywhere else.
[00:09:02] Hopefully. We're hoping that they cleaned it out first and put him in there. But this wasn't a fancy affair.
[00:09:10] This was a baby being born in a home.
[00:09:14] Babies were born in homes. They weren't born in hospitals, they weren't hospitals. They were born at home with the help of relatives. And I try to look up to say how many babies were born in Bethlehem in that year. Okay, it's not one born every minute like the TV show, but guessing of it, it would probably be something like 20 or 30 in the year for that town. So babies being born is kind of an everyday kind of thing.
[00:09:46] It was an everyday kind of thing.
[00:09:49] So we had normal people, ordinary people, shepherds going to an ordinary town to celebrate something that happens quite often.
[00:10:03] There was nothing special about it.
[00:10:07] Why do we celebrate? It was because the message was extraordinary.
[00:10:13] It's because what was being communicated there that day was extraordinary.
[00:10:20] I think, you know, I put myself in the shepherds, they would have turned up going, knocking on the door, oh, is this Mary and Joseph?
[00:10:28] I've got a message.
[00:10:31] Maybe they were a bit worried about giving the message.
[00:10:35] Do you know, I'm going to Anna announce this is the baby that everyone is waiting for for hundreds of years. This is the one.
[00:10:43] Maybe they were a bit nervous, maybe they tried to sort of say something and the parents, the people, the family were going, no, clear off, go on, off you go. I'm not listening to that rubbish. Maybe Mary and Joseph heard and said, oh, actually we should let them in. Maybe they hadn't told their family.
[00:11:06] It was secrets for them, wasn't was like stuff that had been communicated to them from angels.
[00:11:12] An angel appeared to Mary. Joseph had a dream.
[00:11:16] Maybe they weren't really sure about what was going on.
[00:11:20] But then these shepherds arrived to tell them, no, it is really true.
[00:11:27] It is really true. Maybe the band could come back up.
[00:11:32] And this is the point.
[00:11:33] It's not the miracle of the story because it's not extraordinary, it's not fantastic, it's an everyday occurrence. But this message is extraordinary in the middle of all of it.
[00:11:47] And it says to us, just as Laura and Stuart were saying, this is a message for each and every one of us.
[00:11:55] It's an extraordinary message that for people like you and me, people that are just doing our day to day for every single one of us. And this is an extraordinary invitation.
[00:12:11] It's more important than going backstage at a Taylor Swift concert, if you can imagine.
[00:12:19] It's more important than getting an Invite to England football team training grounds with them because it's going to have more significance in your life. Not just this life, but also the next.
[00:12:34] This is the invitation to come and know Jesus, to believe in him that came as a baby, that he raised up, that he taught and did miracles, that he went and was killed on the cross, crucified.
[00:12:49] He was died. He died for our wrongdoings. We all the things that we did wrong so that we might know God, so that we might come in to know him as our Father.
[00:13:02] And so as Jesus was raised to life after he was killed and went to heaven, that we also will go and be with Him.
[00:13:12] This is the message of Christ. This is the message of Christmas. This is the message that. That the shepherds wanted Mary and Joseph to know, the family to know, and everyone else to know. Perhaps you could stand if you're able. And we were going to sing our last song.
[00:13:38] I want you to just reflect on that message and know that this is a message for us.
[00:13:48] It is a message for you and me today.
[00:13:52] And perhaps you've heard this message many times before, but I want to invite you, as we sing this song, to respond to Jesus and just say, lord, I believe.
[00:14:03] I believe that you came to earth. I believe you died and rose again. I believe my future is in you. I believe that you are the king of kings.
[00:14:13] And maybe you've never responded to that message at all. Maybe it's something new to you. Well, I want to invite you to respond to that message this morning. Don't put it off.
[00:14:24] God himself is here amongst us and he is drawing us. He is calling us to respond to Him.
[00:14:33] So as we go through this song, we're going to sing this last song and finish our service. But why don't you just pray out to God in the midst of it and say, God, I believe in you and I invite you into my life as well.
[00:14:47] Let's praise God.
