Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, we are in a sermon series entitled the Cast of Characters of Christmas… We started last week talking about the prophets who some 2700 years foretold the events surrounding the Birth of Christ.

We are going to be looking at another cast of

Characters … and that is ...The Angels…

The Angels are not extras in the drama of Christmas story - God had assigned them a perfect part in the story… they were going be responsible for announcing His coming..

… The angels are the master Communicators.... in scripture..

The word Angel literally means messenger… they are heavenly communicators… Their role is basically two fold to Deliver and explain God’s messages… .

Billy Graham wrote a book on Angels and He called them ... God’s Secret agents… because… angels are actively involved in the drama Salvation history …

We find in the Bible they always show up at crucial moments… and especially around the incarnation

we see them.. ..

Announcing the birth of Jesus

Announcing the resurrection

Revealing the Gospel is for the gentiles

Foretelling the second coming

Foretelling the the final triumph of Jesus at the end of the age.

The angels are both God’s secret agents and master communicators...

It was Gabriel who Communicated to Mary when she was just a teenager that she would be mother of Jesus…and that she would be the first and only woman who would experience an immaculate conception.

How do you explain that to teenage girl..

What is incredible is that Mary understood the angels explanation ... and was willing to believe and accept the message.

Gabriel also Communicated to Joseph when he discovered Mary was pregnant… Being a righteous man — he wanted to do the right thing....

He was secretly planning on divorce Mary — but then Gabriel comes on the scene and explains that the Child within Mary was from the Lord himself… that the Holy Spirit had overshadowed Mary..and as a virgin she would conceive a son… His name would be Jesus and he would save the world from their sins.. Amazingly,Joseph also believed the message..

Angels were powerful communicators… of God messages.

The question is…

What lesson do we learn from the Angels when they Speak?

What are the take aways

The First thing is that we learn is the importance of the spoken word....

We learn from the angels the importance of communication..

Communication is key component of life…and we are living at a time when you would think that communication would be easy… Today in the we can literally pick up our phone… and speak to anyone in the world..

But as we are learning that Technology doesn’t solve all our interpersonal and communications problems.... in some ways we have never been more disconnected than we are today.

Sherry Turkle, a professor at M.I.T. and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, has spent the last 15 years studying how our "plugged-in lives" have changed who we are.

What she has discovered is that all of our technological devices have produced a world in which we are always communicating but we're seldom having real conversations.

We have all these tools that you would imagine would increase our communication… give us more time families, friends and relationships

But the studies tell us differently… we are told..

The typical U.S. married couple spends 4 minutes a day in "meaningful conversation" with each other.

That's 0.3 percent of the hours in a day.

Preaching Today.

Not is the frequency of communication important but what we communicate..

George Bernard Shaw Irish literary critic, playwright, and essayist (said 70 years ago).

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

We learn from the Angels that Communication itself is important…

But, not just that but what they are communicating!

The message they are sending into the world..

We talk somewhere between 13 -16 000 words per day…

What do all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sentences say about your life and the condition of our heart?

What is the message we sending out into the world..

T/s Let look at our text and see what message the angels were sending out into the world....

What do we learn when Angels Speak?

First we learn the importance of the spoken word…

The second thing is the importance of the content of our words.. the angels proclaim The Good News.... Evangelion... a message of hope, joy, peace and salvation..

The angels words are centered in the Proclaimation of Christ…

The reason the angels were affective communicators… is because their words were tied to their message.... message of Good News...

T/S We learn for a a message to be communicated ...

1.The Message Has to be Credible.

There is the story of three lunatics in an insane asylum: The first lunatic said to the second, "Did you know that I'm Napoleon Bonaparte?"

Indignantly, the second lunatic replied, "I beg your pardon!

It just so happens that I am Napoleon Bonaparte!"

The first one said, "Oh yeah!

Who says you're Napoleon Bonaparte?"

The second responded, "God told me so."

That aroused the third lunatic who said, "no I DID NOT!"

Now you know as good as I do that no one would take seriously these three men’s claims about who they are--especially the third one.

Why?

Because none of them had the proofs to give credibility to their claims…

T/s What makes something credible/ Believable?

a.

It has to true for all people… it can’t be true for some people some of the time, it has to be true for all people all of the time.. Regardless of their age or socio-economic background.

What we find in our text

Just outside of Bethlehem in the neighborhood were there were these bedouin shepherds looking after their sheep... .. Luke tells us

This is a common scene in Israel ... on a star lit night with the shepherds in the plains guarding their sheep from potential predators.. What seems like an ordinary night is going to quickly Change…

The Angels — these master communicators appear to these ordinary shepherds.

You might have thought they would have chosen to reveal the birth of Christ to the Theologians of the Day… or may be the Royal family in Jerusalem...

But the angels choose theto Shepherds??

… What is even more surprising is that in those times Shepherds were despised by the “good,” respectable people of that day.

According to the Mishnah (jewish commentary) , shepherds were under a ban.

They were regarded as thieves.

The only people lower than shepherds at that particular time in Jewish history were lepers.

Scholars speculate that the only reason the flocks were so close to Jerusalem was was because these men were keeping the sacrificial animals for the temple…

God comes only to those who the least in the world!

Paul tells us in Corinthians that God chose the foolish things of the world confound the wise…

In Corinth the currency of the day was intellectualism .. Corinth was a lot like our day… where.. Wisdom, knowledge, intellect, and education are the primary cultural currency in most of today’s cities.

We all want to make it—to have influence, to “make a difference”—and the way that we seek to accomplish this is through the accumulation of knowledge.

Symbols of knowledge (academic degrees, institutional association, etc.) are symbols of latent power...

Well the Bible turns that story upside down… God has a different understanding of wisdom and power than the one revealed in the common cultural story-line...

The angels come to the least of them.

T/s What makes something credible/ Believable? first of all if something is Credible… It has to be applicable to all people…

2. The message should come with some proofs or signs...

The angels tell the shepherds that when they arrive in Bethlehem they will find a baby, and this baby will be “wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Not only would this sign help the shepherds find the right baby, it would also attest to the truth of the angel’s words to the last detail.

While there might be other newborn babies in Bethlehem wrapped in strips of cloth, there would be only one “lying in a manger.”

We know this was undeniable proof because of the way these shepherds responded --- immediately after seeing Jesus they go proclaim the very things they had seen..

T/What makes something credible/ Believable?

It has to be applicable to all people… it can’t be true for some people it has to be true for all people… It has to come with proof or signs third…

3. It has to have a credible witnessess..

Every History book we pick up is the testimony of a witness of history… Remember that Luke is the Author of the Gospel of Luke He is Doctor and Historian…

What Luke tells us that these angels were credible witnesses..

These angels stood before the throne room of God day and night.. proclaiming the Glory and the goodness of God… The angles reflected not their own glory but the glory of the Lord Shone around them.

The angel of the Lord (Gabriel) appears to the shepherds .. we are told that the glory of Lord blazed around them.. this was an awesome scene...

The angels were before the throne room of God and so when angels manifest -- the still reflected the glory of God..

These angels who have been before the throne of God for eternity past and still enamored with the Glory of God… Have the testimony that a Stable not so far from them --- Jesus the Christ was to be born…

T/s What do the angels teach us about communicating effectively?

1.The message Has to be Credible.