Luke tonight, Luke chapter 2 verse 8 through verse 14.
We see in this passage in Luke chapter 2 verse 8 through 14, we see the shepherds in the
field keeping watch over their flocks by night.
And the angels of the Lord appear before them with this great news.
We see this multitude of angels, a lot of angels there.
And instead of me reading through the text, we're going to let an old friend read through
the text tonight.
So listen along and follow along.
I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about.
Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?
Church, hurry round, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Lights please.
And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their
flock by night.
And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them.
The glory of the Lord so wronged about them, and they were sore of faith.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, while rendering your tidings of great
joy, it shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in this video of David, a saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you.
He shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in an anchor, and suddenly those
with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, good will turn them in.
That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
Now I don't know about you guys, but I've seen that a million times, and some of you
have seen it a million more times than me, but it's good.
It's a good tradition, and most of you, if you've been paying attention for the last
10 years, you knew we were going to watch that tonight.
Because we do it every year, the last Wednesday before Christmas, we always play it, and spoiler
alert, we probably will play it next year too.
That's one of my favorite traditions.
Now we have a lot of traditions at Christmas, and a lot of these things we celebrate are
good traditions, and some of them may not all be based in biblical things.
They're not all tied in with anything in scripture, but that doesn't make them bad, because we
enjoy eating the food at Christmas, or the decorations, or watching Charlie Brown, and
all that good stuff.
But what a beautiful show, what a beautiful scene in that show.
And so if you don't watch Charlie Brown every year, you should.
Let's pray for a second, then we'll talk.
God, we come to you, we thank you for this time of year, and I hope, dear Lord, that
it makes us think about Jesus, but I hope not just this time of year, dear Lord, but
that on a regular basis that we would not be sidetracked with the distractions of the
world, but that we would always strive to keep Jesus at the center of our life, dear
Lord.
And I pray that maybe in the midst of Christmas that we kind of feel like Charlie Brown, dear
Lord, and maybe we just kind of forget about Jesus.
But not just Christmas, maybe a lot of days, and maybe we just need to be reminded of the
truth of the fact of what Linus shared for us tonight from your word, and that is that
Jesus Christ came.
And so we rejoice that he came, and we rejoice that he gave his life on the cross, dear Lord.
And I pray, dear Lord, that we would learn something from this text tonight, that we
would rejoice in the Savior that come, dear Lord, but we would follow him, dear Lord,
that we would rejoice like these shepherds did, that we would not just hear the news
of the Savior, dear Lord, and go about our lives, but that we would rejoice in that and
accept that news and seek out that Savior.
So I pray, God, that you be with us in the next few minutes, and I ask these things in
Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Now, Peanuts, the cartoon strip, the first one that was written was written in 1950,
so it's been around for quite some time.
This particular cartoon that we watch every year, Charlie Brown Christmas, it came out
in 1965.
But between 1950 and 1965, there was one thing that never occurred, that occurred in this
episode, in this clip that we just saw.
Now, some of you, probably all of you know this.
I'm probably just a little behind.
But I figured this out just tonight before church.
I just noticed this for the first time, and some of you may have noticed it too.
Linus gets up there to recite these scriptures, and Linus, as you know, his key part of his
character is he always has his security blanket.
Now, what you probably don't realize is that Charles Shultz, that's pretty much where the
phrase security blanket comes from, is the character of Linus.
Now, the term was around a few years before that used here and there, but Charlie Brown
and the Peanuts characters, they kind of popularized that term, that phrase security blanket, and
we use that sometimes today.
And that comes from, it was made popular by Linus because he was always afraid.
He was kind of childish.
You know, he'd suck his thumb.
He always had his blanket, and there was security in that blanket.
He had to have his blanket or else he was going to be scared.
So, he always had his blanket with him for 15 years.
But what you may have noticed is, as he stood up there and began to recite Luke chapter
2, verses 8 through 14, when he got to the verse that said, fear not, notice what Linus
does.
Where is his blanket?
For the first time in 15 years, Linus drops his security blanket.
The moment that he begins to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and he begins to
acknowledge that the angels say the Savior has come and there's nothing to fear.
In that moment, you see a change, if you go back and watch this episode, you see a change.
He's not fearful at all.
He's standing boldly with his arms out as he begins to repeat the words of this scripture
and his security blanket by his side.
In the whole episode, they're worried about Christmas and getting ready for Christmas
and the Christmas trees and Charlie Brown doing what Charlie Brown does and they're
working on their Christmas play.
But then when it comes down to it, Linus comes out to the middle of that stage, the lights
fade, everything else falls into the background, Charlie Brown, the Christmas tree, everybody
else exits the stage, everything else gets dark, and the spotlight for that minute and
a half is on nothing but the word of God.
And that's how Christmas should be for us, and that's how every day of the year should
be for us.
And maybe Christmas is a good time for us to refocus.
Maybe, just maybe, we're a little more like Linus than we care to admit.
Maybe, in our lives, we've got some security blankets that we hold on to, some things that
we find security in, some things that we trust, some things that we just don't really want
to let go of.
But maybe the words of this scripture need to ring true in our lives, that we need to
acknowledge that on that night, all those years ago, a savior was born.
And when those angels appeared, they said, fear not.
Fear not.
We come to bring you good news.
Well, there's good news tonight, that there are things in our life that are really, really
scary, serious things.
But we have a savior who has come, we have a savior who has died for us, and when we
put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear, because we have a savior
who has conquered our sin, he's conquered death, he gives us the strength to go against
whatever it is we may come upon in our life.
So, those angels that night, all those years ago, they brought some really good news, some
great news, some good tidings, some great joy.
They brought it to the shepherds of all people.
Now, I don't know why God chose the shepherds.
I would suspect, I would guess, this is just my opinion, that God sent those angels to
appear to the shepherds, because the shepherds were just humble men who were going to receive
the message.
Now, I don't know if he had sent this message to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, what they
would have done with it.
Now, maybe even if they would have heard that the savior was born, I don't know if their
reaction, what it would have been when they would have went and they would have saw him
wrapped snugly and swaddling clothes and laying in a manger.
My guess would be, is that most of them would have said, this ain't the savior.
This ain't no savior of ours, laying here in an animal trough.
That would be my guess, but not so for the shepherds.
They received this news, the greatest news that had ever come to this planet, that a
savior had come, that the savior had come.
The savior that had been prophesied for thousands of years had come onto the scene, and he is
the one and only savior.
And so that was good news that those shepherds received that night.
It was good news that they listened to that night, and when they heard the news of the
savior, they began to seek him out, and they found him.
And so what about you and I?
Now, we don't have a multitude of heavenly hosts coming before us tonight.
Maybe we will be a lot, I don't know.
Maybe God will send a multitude of heavenly hosts to see all of us tonight, or maybe he
won't.
But we have the truth of their word.
We can believe the truth of their word, or we can reject the truth of their word.
But it's true whether you believe it or not.
It's true that all those years ago, that God sent his angels to reveal this beautiful message
to these shepherds and say, look, there is hope.
There is hope.
There can be peace.
There can be joy.
There can be deliverance, because the one who can offer these things to you, the Messiah
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has been born, and God's word attests to that page after
page after page.
We have that good news in front of us tonight in our Bibles, on our phones, whatever we're
reading it on.
We have the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The shepherds heard the good news, and they rejoiced in the good news.
What about you and I?
Do we rejoice in the news of Jesus Christ tonight?
Do you know that he has forgiven your sins tonight?
Do you know that he wants to forgive your sins if you would just ask for repentance,
if you would just ask for forgiveness and repent of your sins, Jesus Christ would forgive
you.
If we would just stop trusting in our security blankets and trying to find our deliverance
and security in the world, but humble in ourselves before the Lord, be in front and center, and
put everything else to the side, put the spotlight on the word of God and on Jesus Christ, and
drop everything else and say, right now, God's word is going to be my focus.
The truth of God's word that is Jesus Christ is going to be my focus.
Maybe this Christmas season is a good place for us to start seeing those areas in our
life where we need other things to fade away, and we need God to be in the spotlight of
our life.
Let's pray.
We thank you for your good words, dear Lord.
We thank you that we have cool cartoons like Charlie Brown and all these characters, dear
Lord.
We thank you that even in a cool cartoon, dear Lord, that we still see that you're glorified.
We still see that you're praised.
We still see that your word is front and center.
Dear Lord, I pray that we would take that word, that we would listen to that word, that
we would long for that word, dear Lord, that we would put your word front and center in
our life, that we would drop all the things of the world that may be distracting us from
you, that we would let everything else fade into the background, dear Lord, and that you
would be at the center of our lives.
I pray, God, that you would help us to hear the good news of your word, that if there
are some that do not know Jesus Christ, that they would trust in him.
Maybe they trust in him tonight, but dear Lord, maybe they've been living in some sin,
and maybe there's just the struggles and the fears of their life, and been getting the
best of them, and I pray, dear Lord, that they would just give those things to you tonight,
that they would trust you, that they would seek you, that they would rejoice in you,
and that we would be like those shepherds, dear Lord, that we would humble ourselves
before you at the sound of your word and of Jesus Christ.
I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.