A Shepherd’s Night

I am going to give a short prelude to this Sunday’s sermon with this blog. I realized something as I was reading the story of the birth of Christ in Luke 2. A thought hit me as I was reading Luke 2:8. It is not a normal thought from this passage – which is pretty much the norm for me as I read Scripture. I often see things that I wonder why I saw them, but some times they really help others experience the love of Christ in their lives. I hope this is one of those thoughts.

What were these shepherds doing? They were shepherding. They were just out in the field watching the sheep. It was not Christmas – there was no such thing. They were just doing regular stuff on a regular night living their regular lives. That is when I realized this, “God does remarkable things in the lives of regular people living regular days.”

Maybe you already knew that, but I think we forget that way too much. Often in our spiritual lives we want God to only do the extraordinary. We get busy looking for something big and awesome for us to do for God and fail to realize that the coolest stuff he does is most often in the midst of common life.

God revealed himself to this shepherds in a remarkable way but they had done nothing to deserve that. They had not worked up a plan for the mighty work of God. It is impossible for man to plan the revealing of the glory of God all we can do is participate in it when he moves. Sure we can pray for it. We can work toward the things we know he has called us to do. We can be obedient in our regular lives expecting God to do remarkable things. He will, however, not move because we say so. He moves because he already said he would. He is at work in the lives of men.

See that is the good news of great joy. There has been born to us a Savior that is Christ the Lord. The Chosen One of God has come in the flesh. Literally the Immanuel – God with us – is who Jesus is. He is doing the remarkable around us everyday. It is remarkable every time one life is redeemed. It is remarkable every time one of his followers responds to his grace. It is remarkable every time the people of God raise their hands and declare the worth of God even though those hands raised and those lips that move are not worthy of such action.

It is indeed remarkable that every regular day in our regular lives people like you and me have the great privilege of living redeemed. So don’t just live a regular life, live a redeemed life, but realize that the Redeemer will do the remarkable in the midst of the regular if you live constantly ready to respond to His work.

Allow God to do the remarkable through you by living redeemed in the midst of the regular.