Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Zechariah and Elizabeth were an older couple from an unknown town in the hill country of Judea who had been childless their entire lives.
Sure, they were of the right pedigree—both descended from Aaron, the original High Priest—but they were now a couple of no bodies.
If you’ve heard of the Sadducees, you may or may not know that this was the priestly class.
Most of the priests, though not all, and certainly the chief priests were Sadducees.
Being that Luke never called Zechariah a Sadducee is good indication that he was not one of them.
Thus, a poor, lowly priest who was doing his duty unto the Lord and not for any vainglory.
It was to this older couple that God gave a child who would be the forerunner of the Messiah.
Likewise, Joseph and Mary—Mary still being a young maiden, a virgin, having never known a man—lived in Nazareth which was well-known throughout Galilee and Judea as a place where no good would ever come.
A carpenter and a girl were given the privilege to rear the very Son of God.
This child would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, a small town that boasted one big name—King David—and that was about a thousand years beforehand.
When we first began Luke, I told you that he had an affinity for those on the fringe of society—the outcast, the poor, the forgotten, the marginalized.
People like Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, and as we see today: the shepherds.
But this text isn’t all about shepherds; it’s about the gospel.
It’s the first evangelism experience.
Up until now, there had been prophecies of the coming Messiah, but now, those prophesies are turned into reality.
So as we open up the text, I want us to see three elements that every gospel encounter must have to make it a success.
And when you hear them, your mind will be blown.
The first element that must be present is that there must be an evangelizer.
The second element that must be present is that there must be an evangelized person.
Finally, it is necessary that the evangel—the good news must be present.
An Evangeler
An Evangelized
The Evangel
If these three elements are not present, then evangelism has not taken place and thus cannot be successful.
That being said, we pray for two other elements, but these are not required for successful evangelism: faith and furor.
The Evangelizer
The first element of successful evangelism is that there must be an evangelizer.
Someone must speak the good news.
This ought not really surprise us too much.
In Romans 10, Paul asked the question: how can someone believe in whom they’ve never heard?
Someone has to tell them.
We could equate that to this passage.
How could the shepherds have known that the Christ-child was lying in a manger if no one came and told them?
But who was there to tell them?
Only two people knew about it and they were a bit preoccupied at the moment.
So we see that God sent the first evangelizers.
We’re not told who this evangelizer was.
Most likely it was Gabriel.
He seems to be God’s number one spokes-angel, but we can’t be dogmatic about it; nor do we need to worry about it.
All that matters was that he was faithful to go, faithful to give, and faithful to glorify.
Now, it’s been rightly said that not everyone is an evangelist.
That’s true if we are talking about a profession or even a calling and gifting, which I believe Paul speaks of in Ephesians 4. This is why I call this first element “the evangelizer.”
I want us to get the idea of a profession out of our heads and replace it with the idea of one who evangelizes—someone who shares the gospel.
We could call them evangelicals as that’s what it technically means, but that has too much baggage and political thought behind it.
So I call us evangelizers.
The angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to the shepherds.
It actually says that he stood near the shepherds.
The idea is certainly one of sudden appearance.
He wasn’t standing next to them one moment, and the next moment he was.
But the idea of standing next to them is a very real idea.
He wasn’t standing over them.
He wasn’t floating up in the sky.
He was standing next to them.
If we want to be good evangelists, standing next to people is going to need to be our norm, not the exception.
There is something to be said about social media evangelism.
There’s something to be said about text evangelism and phone call evangelism.
But our normal evangelizing efforts ought to be done next to people.
We cannot evangelize those whom we are avoiding.
Paul wrote
Jesus went into the house of Matthew to meet with his friends, a bunch of tax-collectors and sinners as the Pharisees called them.
Peter went to Cornelius’ home to share with him the good news even though he was a Gentile and considered unclean.
Philip, though supernaturally transported to the road, made it a point to get into the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch.
If we are hoping for successful evangelism efforts, then our normal routine is to be a present evangelizer.
The Evangelized
But there is a second element that must be present if evangelism is going to be a success.
There must be the evangelized.
In essence, someone must not only tell the gospel message, but someone must be told the gospel message.
That seems obvious enough.
You might be wondering why I am going to such lengths to state two obvious points (knowing a third is coming soon!).
It is because we need to go back to the fundamentals sometimes and relearn what we already know because we too often we think we’re beyond the fundamentals—too often we have complicated the most simplist of doctrine.
Here we have the evangelized.
Here they are.
Shepherds.
I started off talking about Zechariah and Elizabeth from Nowheresville, Judea, not part of the ruling class of Sadducees, but just a faithful couple living for God.
Outsiders.
Then there was Joseph and Mary.
Even worse.
Nazarenes.
Pastor Matt described Nazareth as the East St. Louis of Galilee.
By reputation, people stirred clear.
But now we’ve just about hit the bottom of the barrel.
Shepherds.
There was only one group that was worse than shepherds: lepers.
Shepherds were not only dirty in body—spending all their time among the sheep out in the hot sun and filth.
They were considered dirty in soul.
If one was a shepherd, it meant no one trusted you.
It meant rumors spreading about you.
Everyone avoided you and walked on the other side of the street.
Accusations and innuendos were the norm.
These were the men the evangelizer evangelized.
May I ask you, beloved, who is it that we evangelize?
Are they those who have dirty souls or those who look squeaky clean?
Are they the filthy or the pure?
Are they the ones everyone avoids are the ones everyone approves?
Are they the ruffians or the rich ones?
Are we going after the broken or the beautiful?
And as I ask these questions, we need to be careful where our thoughts lead us.
For one, we could spiritualize the questions.
Well, spiritually speaking, everyone is broken.
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