The report from Bethlehem: A shepherd signs in

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“Now there were in the same country shepherds abiding in their fields by night….” (Luke 2)

(Herewith we present a report from the youngest shepherd of that fateful night in the field outside Bethlehem, with the editor’s occasional remarks in italics.)

I was not supposed to work that night, it being a school night. My friend Elihu asked me to fill in for him.  Now, my father is not real thrilled with me hanging out with some of these characters who work night shifts with the sheep.  Shepherding is the ultimate unskilled labor and only those who can’t do anything else–or hesitate to show their faces in public in the day–need apply.

But Father knows I’m a good student and agreed that we could use the money.

Anyway, that’s how it happened that I had the most amazing experience of my young life.

Did I say I’m only 15? So, it’s not like I have seen everything, but this is surely the high point of my life so far. I can’t imagine it getting any better.

Shepherding anytime is no fun, but at night it is the most boring work imaginable. The sheep are not grazing and not even wandering around. They’re asleep. Even dumb animals know night-time is when you shut down and get some rest.  But, I’m not complaining. It’s a job, and there aren’t many of those around for people my age.

Mostly, we were there to protect the flocks from the wild animals. Several small flocks were intermingled across the meadow. It’s too much trouble to herd the sheep back and forth from their farms each evening and morning, and labor being cheap, there we were.

There were four of us on duty there that night. What were we talking about? I ‘ve almost forgotten. Something about Elihu’s real reason for missing work, I think. Yitzhak seems to think he has a girl somewhere and she sneaks out to meet him when her father isn’t looking. Since Yitzhak has done that a time or two, we teased him about being such an expert on the subject.

Scholars say shepherds in First Century Judea were notoriously dishonest and often disreputable.  It says something interesting about the Heavenly Father that they were chosen as the very first welcoming committee for the Lord Jesus. In a similar fashion, in our Lord’s parable about guests in the royal wedding banquet of Matthew 22, those who accepted the invitation were “both evil and good” (v.10). Clearly, the Heavenly Father is no Pharisee!

The night was dark. I mean, black dark. Then all of a sudden, it was like the noonday sun decided to pay a surprise visit. The world lit up. And this fellow–an angel we realized later, but it wasn’t obvious at first–was standing there in midair about 10 feet above our heads. I mean, just standing there, suspended in space.

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Lies the enemy whispers as we worship

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“We have come to worship Him” (Matthew 2:2).

The devil’s first plan of attack is to get us to worshiping him.

Most people are too smart for that kind of foolishness.

Satan tried that with our Lord, as recorded in Luke 4:7. “All these things will be yours if you will worship me.”  He soon found the futility of that.  Not then and hardly at all since has anyone wanted to bow down and worship this wicked, fallen angel.

Such a persistent enemy always has a backup plan. Plan B is to interfere with our worship of the living God.  Satan will do anything to throw a wrench into the works and shut down or hinder our daily submission to the Lord Jesus and all that involves (prayer, commitment, study of the Word, service, and such).

Not long ago, while sitting in church listening to the sermon, I made a list of the lies Satan whispers to God’s people who gather to worship Him….

–“This isn’t working.  You’re wasting your time here.”

It’s true the pragmatic mind–I think of Martha in Luke 10–cannot see the point in our sitting for an hour at the feet of Jesus, doing nothing productive.  Here was her sister Mary, for instance. She was just sitting there on the floor, listening and adoring and thinking.  The Lord said to Martha, “Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

—“Nothing they’re doing is inspiring.”

Pity the worship leaders.  They’re in a no-win situation.  They get criticized for putting on a performance and criticized for not performing well enough. They cannot do our worship for us, but we demand that they sing and preach and lead so well, our worship is automatic.

–“You don’t feel the song you are singing and so it’s pointless.”

Some of them are pointless, I fear.  But whether I “feel” the song I’m singing is beside the point. I do a lot of things that count with the Lord which I may not “feel.”

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The singer is nervous. Here’s what we told her.

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“Sing unto the Lord a new song” (Psalm 96:1; 98:1; etc).

She has a marvelous voice, one anybody this side of Juilliard would be proud to own.  When she sang in church with her musician husband, they blended wonderfully and blessed the congregation.  But she undermined her own effectiveness by her timidity, that paralyzing self-consciousness which froze her in place and refused to let her enjoy the moment.

Stage fright, we call it.

Who among us is unacquainted with that monster?

Most of us know precisely how she feels.

That’s why, on the final night of our revival meeting, as I expressed appreciation in private to this couple, I spoke to her quietly. “Can I tell you one thing about your presentation?”

She smiled shyly. “I know what you’re going to say.”

And she did, to a point.

I said, “You have a beautiful smile. Look at the sketch I did of you this week. You were smiling.  But I want you to use that smile when you sing.  It will double the effectiveness of what you share.”

Don’t ask me how I know that or whether it’s true.  I just believe it.

Nervousness.  Shyness. Fear. Stage fright. Self-consciousness. Fear of public performance.  However we phrase it, it’s a frightful thing that many of the Lord’s most-gifted servants have to contend with on a regular basis.

Now, we have all learned we can make ourselves smile.  You just turn your lips up.  But commanding our knees not to knock, our voice not to flutter, or our spirits not to panic is another matter altogether.  Anxiety does not respond to commands, otherwise I’d have long ago left behind that tension I feel before doing certain things (which will remain nameless here for the simple reason that they do not matter).

So, readers will want to understand that in talking to the young singer, I was speaking to my own inner self as well.

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Where is God? she asked. He had the answer.

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Patty Duke’s autobiography is Call Me Anna.  One evening last week Bertha and I caught the last of the movie The Miracle Worker, in which Patty Duke played a young Helen Keller.  For her amazing performance, she became the youngest person to win the Academy Award.

We were so touched by her performance, I went online and found her autobiography and ordered it that night.  It was delivered two days later.

Patty Duke’s childhood was a mess by any standards.  You read of how she was treated–used, abused, manipulated, lied to–and you feel some people are going to burn in hell for this.  I’ve not finished the book–I read a couple of chapters and lay the book aside for a day or two–it’s difficult.  And today I came across this…

Patty Duke became involved in the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  She says, For someone my age who had not been trained to deal with seriously ill people, (this work) was initially traumatic.  It takes an enormous toll to see these exquisite-looking, bright children who are withered and tortured in their little bodies.  You might be bright and cheery in front of them, but inside it hurts and you’re enraged.  You’re saying to yourself, ‘What the hell is life about? Where’s this just God I keep hearing about?’  It’s tough stuff to wrestle with, especially when all (the parent-substitutes) would give me were trite answers to serious questions.  

I have read further, but cannot get past this outburst in which she blames God for the suffering.

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The first chapter of our book “Pray Anyway”

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At the end, we will tell how to order the book.  Here is chapter one...

HAVE TROUBLE PRAYING?  NO PROBLEM.  JUST PRAY ANYWAY.

While others spring from the bed each morning eager to spend an hour with the Lord in prayer, do you feel like the only one who has to drag yourself over to a chair and open the Bible and force yourself to think spiritual thoughts?

Welcome to the club.

Others pray smoothly and eloquently and always know what to say; but you are the only one who stumbles along haltingly as though you were just learning to speak or were trying out a foreign language.

Sound familiar?

Others are never plagued by doubt and offer up these magnificent sacrifices of praise and intercession that Heaven welcomes, values as jewels, and immediately rewards; you’re the only person who fights back the doubts as you pray and wonders whether the whole business is accomplishing anything.

Others see answers to their prayers as a matter of routine; you’re the only one who doesn’t.

Yeah, right.

It does feel that way sometime.

But it’s wrong.

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The elements of thanksgiving

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Everyone agrees gratitude is a wonderful thing. We know it when we see it.We appreciate it when someone extends it in our direction. We miss it when it’s gone. We resent the absence of it in our children and co-workers.

What we have trouble with is nailing that sucker down.

What exactly is thankfulness (gratitude, an appreciative spirit, etc.)? Several sermons on the subject in my library dance all around the subject, blaming it on this, attributing it to that, everything but identifying what exactly it is.

What follows will not be the final word on this subject. You knew this, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows that I’m aware of it too.

As the expression goes about art, “I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it.” Seems to me a justice once said that about pornography. No doubt, it applies to a wide assortment of subjects, including gratitude.

Here is one snapshot of thankfulness.

To be candid with you, I have drifted in and out of this attitude of gratitude in years past. But it’s all different now in my life. Every day is a gift. Every moment is a precious treasure. If you haven’t been through something like cancer, you can’t know what I’m talking about. –David Jeremiah, “God in You,” p. 105.

I’ve had cancer. Twice.  Surgery twice. Once in 2004 and again in 2021.

Cancer on the tongue.  Yes, the tongue.  If you want to hurt a Baptist preacher, that’s the place! (I went through radiation and chemo, and at the age of 85, they say I’m cancer free.)

I’m grateful.

Here are the four elements of my gratitude, and perhaps of yours.

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So, what do you think about in the middle of the night?

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Here is my answer. It’s from this website fifteen years ago.  (I’ve tweaked it a tad.)

The mind is a funny thing. It can be creative in the small hours of the morning and solve your problems. As a high school algebra student, I had that happen more than once. I’d go to bed puzzled about a problem, then wake up with the answer.

Great when your mind solves a problem without actually involving you in the process!

The mind can also be anxious in those hours. Half the people I know who wake up between midnight and dawn tell me they are worried about unidentified problems. Anxiety is a sleep-stealer.

Once in a while, I have awakened with a great article that just cried to be written. On one occasion, I got up and wrote it down. Next morning, far from being disappointed, I was impressed. Good stuff, I thought. I worked with it over the next few days and then sent it off to several magazines to see if the editors had a use for it.

InterVarsity Press’ His magazine bought the article and ran it in a choice place–the inside back cover. Over the next 15 years, from time to time I would receive small checks in the mail from other magazines that ran it. Several notes from editors in foreign countries like Korea and New Zealand advised me they were running the article.

So, I learned that when something is hammering on my brain in the middle of the night, to get up and write it down.

So, one morning this week, I was lying in bed thinking about this world we’re privileged to live in. About this planet we are privileged to live on. This is the result…

NO VIBRATIONS.

Here we are on this globe we named Earth, hurling through space at so many thousands of miles per minute. The most amazing thing to me is the absence of vibrations.

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The awesomeness of handling the Word of God

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“…rightly dividing the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

The other day I posted this on Facebook…

Ever wonder how pastors deal with Sunday morning anxiety?  They’re about to enter the pulpit and lead a congregation to worship the living God, then open His book and declare its life-changing message.  What a responsibility!  How do they cope with so great a burden? I’ll tell you how. They breathe deeply, commit it all to the Lord, and keep telling themselves, ‘Relax, hotshot. This is not about you.‘  —  Most have to say it about 150 times before the message gets through.  For some, 600 repeititons are required. And alas, some never get the message and approach this most solemn of responsibilities thinking it’s all about them.

That generated some response.  And one in particular that resonated with me.

A friend expressed concern for those who cope with “the burden and fear of handling the word of God.”

Right.  Handling the Word of God is both a burden and a fear.

Standing before groups large and small or even individuals and opening God’s Word is a privilege, an opportunity, a responsibility, and a lot of other things. But it’s also a burden and a fear.

We must never take this lightly.  Lives hang in the balance.

The burden of the Lord.

Old Testament prophets would sometimes begin their assignment by announcing “The burden of the Lord” (e.g., Nahum 1:1).  Any pastor who claims not to feel the burden from time to time has been playing at the business of preaching. Well, either that, or delivering someone else’s sermons.

Lives hang in the balance.  People who hear the Word and believe may live forever. Those who reject Christ will have eternity to regret their decision.  And the determining factor sometimes can be the way one declared the “whole counsel of God.”

No wonder some preachers think this is about them, since so much is at risk here. If I do it well, God uses it to change lives forever. And if I do it poorly or get in the way, those who reject my ineffective message will more than likely reject my Savior too.

The burden is enormous.

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Why we celebrate thanksgiving

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In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.  –First Thessalonians 5:18

The leaders of this country knew something, something vital about people.  If they are not led to do otherwise, people will gripe and complain and insist on their rights.

It’s human nature. Ask any pastor.  Ask any school principal.  Ask any parent.

Ask our political leaders.

And when people gripe and complain, the infection spreads like wildfire and does just as much damage.

Firefighters know the way to head off a big fire is to light a backfire.

My uncle was a forest ranger in Bankhead National Forest in north Alabama.  When I was 15, he hired me to help him for part of the summer.  Two dollars a day it was!  Not much, but it was two dollars more than this farm boy was making!

I still recall him saying, “Joe, do you know how to set a backfire?”  I had no clue.  He showed me.  The fire was up ahead and coming this way.  But Uncle Cecil and I walked around setting small fires that we let burn a few minutes, then extinguished.  Then, when the fire arrived, its fuel was all gone, all burned out.  And the fire died.

That’s how it is with griping and complaining, with grumbling and insisting on our rights. The way to douse that conflagration is by getting ahead of it and setting a backfire of thanksgiving.

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What I would not do for a great story!

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“And without parables (great stories!) Jesus did not teach” (Mark 4:34).

I once sat through a long convention session just to hear a motivational speaker.  The story with which he opened was so good it became a mainstay in my arsenal of great illustrations and sermon-helpers.

Time well spent.

I’ve read entire books and come away with one paragraph that became a staple in my preaching thereafter.  It was time well used and money well spent.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling Eat, Pray, Love”--which a zillion people loved but of which I am not one; sorry!–attended a party 20 years ago and heard something from a fellow whose name she has long forgotten.  She says, Sometimes I think this man came into my life for the sole purpose of telling me this story, which has delighted and inspired me ever since.

That’s how it works.  One story, a lifetime of benefit.

Gilbert says the man told of his younger brother who was an aspiring artist.  Living in Paris and struggling to get by, he seized every opportunity to get his name before people.  One day, in a cafe’ he met some people who invited him to a party that weekend at a castle in the Loire Valley.  This was big stuff and he eagerly accepted the opportunity to hobnob with people of wealth and influence.

This would be the party of the year, they said.  The rich and famous would be in attendance, as well as members of European royalty.  And, they informed him, it was to be a masquerade ball where everyone went all out on their costumes.  “Dress up, they said, and join us!”

All that week, the little brother worked on a costume he was sure would knock them dead.  His outfit would be the centerpiece of the ball, the one sure to generate the most interest and conversation.  When the day came, he rented a car and drove three hours to the castle.  He changed into his costume in the car and walked up to the castle, head held high, confidence and excitement exuding from the pores of his skin.

Entering the castle, he quickly realized his mistake.

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