Matt Chandler - An Unexpected Breakthrough

Well, good afternoon! It’s going to take me a while to remember that we’re post-lunch now. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to be in Luke chapter 2, looking at verses 8 through 14. One of the things I feel like I’ve tried to say ad nauseam for the last decade is that God’s economics, or the kingdom’s economics, are different from our own. We do things differently than God does, and that’s honestly far more significant than most of us think. If you can recall Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount or how God operates, it becomes clear very quickly that the things we value and the way we believe things get done are not how God tends to do them. Jesus says, «Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are you when people persecute you,» and that is not our economy, is it? We say, «Blessed are the rich,» right? «Blessed are you when no one says anything negative about you,» «Blessed are you if you have likes on Instagram.» We live in a world where these assumptions don’t align with God’s economy. We don’t see persecution as something that indicates we are blessed. Someone dislikes me? Not because I’m a jerk, but because I’m so in love with Jesus that I’m different. If you look at how God gets things done in the Bible, it’s small over fast, weak over powerful, slow over speedy. His economy is different from ours, and that appears in this passage in particular. One thing we have to be careful of as Christians in 2018, as I mentioned last week from 1 Peter, is that the prophets believed you and I have a very privileged position in the history of redemption. If you were here last week, you might remember that. If not, let me briefly say: you and I live in a period where we can see the fulfillment of Christ’s coming and the mission of God given to Abram in Genesis 12 and 15, as well as the outflow of God’s mission reaching the ends of the earth. We see it because we’re in Dallas worshiping Jesus, so we have a privileged position. The prophets didn’t get to see that; they knew it was coming and prophesied so that we might rejoice in our privileged seat. Now, one issue with that privileged seat is that we often read back the Scriptures through what we know now, which they certainly did not know then. Are you tracking with me? So when we come to a familiar passage like the one we’re about to read, we make assumptions that aren’t true, and we may miss out on the text’s richness. With that said, let’s look together at Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 8. It says this: «In the same region, around Bethlehem, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. The angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.' Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.'» Now, I want to chat about this explosion in the darkness of the sky outside of Bethlehem. Because you and I are in 2018, and many of us have been in church our whole lives, we’ve been led to believe—because the prophets said this would happen—there was great expectation that this event was going to occur around this time. And that’s not true. There is nothing in the Bible and nothing in the intertestamental period—the 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament—suggesting that anyone was saying, «The Messiah is going to be here any minute now.» If you’re thinking, «Well, I don’t know about that,» consider this: we have all sorts of things in our Bible stating that Christ is going to return at any time. Is anyone expecting that today? Living as if that could happen tonight? In the night sky, we have more information than they did, and yet most of us don’t live expectantly. Are you tracking with me? When the sky lights up, when the kingdom of God breaks into the ordinary, it does so at a really unexpected time. The shepherds were not expecting this. I guarantee it.