Episode 265: Go Tell: The Gift That Keeps On Giving! | Steve Henderson

Introduction

Good morning. God bless you. Happy New Year to you. Happy New Year. Can we give God praise for 2023? Would you pray with me please? Father, we are so grateful to be in your presence. We're so grateful that you are here. You've declared that you inhabit the praises of your people. So we rejoice in you today. We rejoice in this day, but we rejoice in the God that makes days. The God that comes and sees about us. The God that speaks to us by your Spirit and by your Word. God, do that today. Speak to us by your Spirit and by your Word today, and help us, God, to hear you, to follow you, to love you with our lives.

We give you thanks, the Holy Spirit, burn like fire in us. Burn away the things that are not like you, and refine us for your glory to be revealed, your presence to be made known, and your power to be manifested in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.

God is good. Hallelujah.

The Context of the Passage

Look, since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, all creation has been in need of a savior. Someone to pay the price and the penalty for sin once and for all. We made the first move to sin, God made the first move to send us a redeemer.

We see that all the way back in the book of beginnings, in Genesis 3:15. God prophesies that he's gonna send the Messiah. And he's speaking to Satan in this verse in particular:

For God so loved the world... — John 3:16

Genesis 3:15 says:
I will put enmity, open hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed offspring and her seed. He will fatally bruise your head, and you shall only bruise his heel.

This is God prophesying and promising the Messiah to come. And when we get over into Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 12, we see this promise fulfilled.

The passage reads:

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 the 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.

After these shepherds are blown away and probably terrified by the angels, they decided they're going to go investigate this message that they've been told. Would you have put on your police uniform and your police hat and gone to investigate to see if this message was real? A little sidebar—my wife is the neighborhood police. Not only is she the neighborhood police in my neighborhood, she serves several jurisdictions, many territories. If you do something wrong, she's gonna tell. As a matter of fact, she told me, boy, if you do something wrong, I'm gonna tell on you. She says, I'm not going to jail for you.

But look, these shepherds put on their investigative uniforms and wanted to see if there was enough evidence to believe what the angels had told them. They wanted to see if there was enough evidence.

So, listen to what happens in Luke 2:16-17:

And they went with haste, the shepherds, they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

There's the evidence to believe. They had received the message from the angels that a Savior was to be born, and now they see the evidence when they see the baby.

In verse 17, it says:
And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child. The shepherds are now talking to Mary and Joseph. The angel said to them, or the shepherds are saying, "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 the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

Can you imagine how excited these shepherds were? First of all, being visited by angels and all the miraculous things that took place. But what I'm really amazed at is, they didn't get distracted by all the miraculous stuff. They kept their focus on the priority of the message.

You know why I say that? Because distractions can cause you to lose focus on the message. Distractions could have been all the miraculous signs and they might have said, we just finished feeding the sheep when the angel came. Well, it was too late because some of the shepherds had already started running and hiding. But the angels and the message didn't change. The priority of the message is that the Savior of the world has been born, and they had evidence—seeing the baby—to believe.

Let me just tell you this: when you experience something, your experience begs for a response. Your experience demands a response.

Okay, you're looking at me like you don't get it. Some of you that are cooks, I like to cook, I dibble and dabble—my wife is a great cook. But let's say you fixed a great meal or somebody fixed a great meal for you. And you all sit down, eat it, and after the meal is over, you don't say anything about the meal. And your loved one or your friend says, "I think I might have left the roast in the oven just a little bit too long. Was it kinda dry?" They're trying to get a response from you from what you've experienced. Experience begs for a response.

This message that the angels gave to the shepherds, when they experienced it, it begs for a response from us. It begs for response that the mighty Savior, the Messiah, the one that came to redeem us from all our sin, has been born. And this experience demands a response from us.

Listen to the response from the shepherds in verse 17:

And when they saw it, the baby, they saw Jesus, 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 treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. It’s like there are two Christmases. Eric said it just a little while ago, second Christmas.

It's like there were two Christmases. The first Christmas is God giving us the Savior. The second Christmas is what are you going to do with Jesus? The gift that keeps on giving. What are you going to do with Jesus? What's your response to the experience that you have with him?

I think the shepherds possibly had a threefold mindset when they shared this message given by the angels:

First, assurance—because they saw it and believed it for themselves. They had an assurance because they experienced this personally.

The second is hope—because now, the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ, was born to all mankind. The hope that now the penalty for sin would be paid.

The third is authority—on the word that they were given because every detail the angels told them was true. Every detail was true. And let me tell you this: every detail in this Word is true. Every detail.

The shepherds went with that mindset, and they responded to their experience. If you've experienced the Savior, if you've experienced His power, it demands a response from you. If you've experienced His mercy, it demands a response. If you've experienced His grace, it demands a response. If you've experienced His love when it felt like nobody loved you, it demands a response.

What are you going to do with Jesus? The gift that keeps on giving.

Application

The second Christmas—the gift that keeps on giving.

My wife and I have visited many times by deer in our backyard, and I'm glad Quig lives nowhere near us. If you didn't know, he's a hunter, and deer are some of his prey. We've watched the deer visit our backyard, often seeing the entire family— the buck, the mom, the young ones.

Sometimes, we see only the mom and two baby deer. We've watched the baby deer grow. There's a fence that divides our yard from our neighbor's. The mom will go over to the fence, look at it—it’s about this high—and then look back at the baby deer. She looks over the fence to see if there's any trouble, any harm. Then she jumps over the fence.

The baby deer are frantic. They're like, "Mom's gone. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" They've tried to catch up by going around to a small opening. Then again, mom comes in, tries to teach them something. At the fence, she shows us that you've got to make a decision. Sometimes there will be hunters chasing you or trouble. You have to learn how to get through the fence, to get over the fence.

Yesterday, God showed us this one more time. As I was thinking about giving this message, the deer appeared—mom and two babies—in our backyard, around 4 p.m. Linda and I looked out the window, wondering if the deer would jump the fence.

The mom surveys the land. She looks back at her babies, then jumps with ease over the fence. The babies are going, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" One of them jumps yesterday, the other goes back to its old ways, meaning it might be a long way to catch up with mom.

Let me tell you—Jesus has already jumped over the fence. He's already gone over. Everything you'll ever go through, he's already done it. He's already conquered death, grave, hell. He's declared that we are overcomers—that we are more than conquerors.

So, we need to follow Him. But often, we get to the fence and are distracted by life, and forget the message of the Savior. We take the long way and forget that God is able in any situation. I want to remind you today: He is still able to save, to heal, and to deliver.

Do you believe that? He is the gift that keeps on giving, and it demands a response from you—to share your experiences, to tell others what He’s brought you through, that others might know He's still alive, able, still healing, still lifting up broken, bowed-down heads, mending broken hearts.

This is the God we serve, and it demands a response.

What will you do with Jesus? The gift that keeps on giving.

Conclusion

Would you pray with me? Father, we're so grateful that you gave us a gift—your only begotten Son—that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

We thank you now that your people have heard your Word. Now, do what you said—you said your Word would not return to you void, that it would accomplish what you sent it to do.

So, bless your Word now to your people and help us to live for you, to love you with all our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Bless you.