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Pagosa Springs SDA

Skip Dodson

The Urgency of the Gospel

God is good to bring us to his house today, even in the wake of this typical Pagosa Springs weather.

We're thankful though, thankful that all of you are with us this morning, and we are looking forward, I am looking forward to sharing with you this message.

You know I oftentimes don't necessarily follow any sort of liturgical calendar.

I don't necessarily think that Adventists should do that Because you know God is the 1 who reveals in his word the things that we should share not some guy that made up a calendar in some place, but it is a blessing to celebrate Christmas on God's holy day And so I am going to be sharing this message entitled The Urgency of the Gospel from Luke, chapter 2.

But before we do that, Let's take a moment to pray and ask that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes because without him, without the Holy Spirit, we will not discern the meaning of the truth that we encounter today.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the privilege that we have of assembling in your house.

Even though there are fewer souls here than usual, Father, we are grateful for this opportunity.

And Lord, we pray for the presence of your divine Holy Spirit today.

We need him so that we will not underestimate the message of Christmas.

We need him so that we will not overestimate our own capabilities, our own righteousness.

Lord, we want to have the message today strike home in our hearts.

Open my mouth to speak your words in accordance with your will.

The commencement of the Second World War introduced a modernized version of an old military tactic.

The Germans referred to it as Blitzkrieg, lightning war.

Blitzkrieg had its roots in earlier military strategy, including the influential work of the 19th century Prussian general Karl Clauswitz.

Clauswitz called it the concentration principle, the idea that concentrating forces against an enemy and making a single blow against a carefully chosen target, which he referred to as the Schwerpunkt.

We get a little German lesson this morning.

The Schwerpunkt is simply what Germans call the center of gravity, the most important point in the tactical strategy.

Concentrating the forces against that particular target was more effective than dispersing the same amount of forces over a wider area.

In the wake of their defeat in World War I, German military leaders determined that a lack of mobile, maneuverable forces and flexible tactics had led that conflict to bog down in the attrition of French warfare.

As a result, while France focused its efforts between the wars on building up its defensive border, the Germans decided to prepare for a shorter conflict, 1 through military maneuvers, rather than in the trenches.

Now, no 1 could argue the success of these tactics.

What I mean is the success of the Blitzkrieg, especially in 1939 and 1940.

The tactical blunder came in June 1941 when Germany tried to use the same approach in its invasion of the Soviet Union.

The sheer size of Russia, along with its climate, which was often averse to maneuverability, such as ours is today, And the fact that the German forces and infrastructure were already divided across Europe led to the disastrous failed invasion and Germany's ultimate defeat.

But despite its lack of universal applicability, Lightning war type tactics were used in later conflicts by the Israelis in 1967 and even by our own troops in the Iraq war.

Yes, it is still true and has always been true that immediate decisive action is often a key to victory in battle.

And most of us have lived long enough to recognize that many things in life possess that same sort of urgency.

And it is certainly and ultimately true when it comes to the Gospel.

Immediate and decisive action is what God calls for in response to the Christmas story.

The gospel and its proclamation call us to move.

Friends, we need look no further than the shepherds of Bethlehem for an example of how to respond to the urgency of the gospel.

This is exemplified in our scripture reading this morning, so let's review it once again, Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 15, if you have your Bible.

There may be 1 in the pew right in front of you if you did not bring 1 this morning.

I'll be reading from the New King James Version.

Bible says, now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were greatly afraid.

Then the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to 1 another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us." So much in this passage that we could dwell upon this morning, and I hope you'll keep your Bible open, But the 1 general observation that I will point out here is simple yet obvious, and that is this.

God does not measure worth of character the way we so often do.

Status, educational attainments, wealth, popularity, not 1 or any of these things mean anything to God.

The 1 thing God considers is the condition of the heart.

Is the will on His side or is it on the side of the enemy?

Consider in your mind, please, all the other people that were dwelling in the vicinity of the birth of our Savior.

The ruling class of the nation was not far away.

The Jewish leaders, chief priests, they were all there, The members of the Sanhedrin with their elegant robes and their generously furnished estates.

The learned scribes with their libraries of scholarly books, they were there.

So were the selfish, grasping money changers that made their living at the Temple of God extorting high rates of conversion from those that were coming from long distances away in order to exchange their money into temple currency.

But the fact of the matter is this, God did not choose to honor any of those people with a special revelation of his glory on the night of the birth of the world's Redeemer.

He sent a special news bulletin to only 1 group of people, the shepherds.

I say this is important because it illustrates the way God has always worked through history and how he is still working today.

Has God always gone for the important people and what we what earthly people consider important people to carry out his mission?

You can go all the way back to Moses, the man of whom we said much, I think, in our Sabbath school lesson this morning.

The man whom God called to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt.

Yes, he was a gifted man, I will grant you that.

But what was he doing when God called him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

And yet God called that man to be the leader of his people.

The little brother of a bunch of apparently more qualified men.

And yet it was him that was chosen over all of them to lead Israel.

I could go on and on, but I mustn't keep you.

But consider also those that were called to herald the second coming of Jesus Christ in this very nation in which we make our home.

Were they a collection of great intellects and scholars?

Were they the wealthy and powerful people of their age?

Rather, God chose gentlemen farmers like William Miller and Hiram Edson.

He chose Joseph Bates, a retired sea captain.

He chose James White, a farm boy turned school teacher.

And he chose Ellen White, the daughter of a hat maker from Portland, Maine, with a mere 3 years of formal education on her resume to be his special messenger.

Friends, the great lesson of the Shepherds of Bethlehem is that God chooses the people that He desires to use, not the people that we would think that he ought to choose.

There is nothing, no rating for worldly status and accomplishments and degrees in God's method of interviewing for positions.

And even if you've made mistakes in the past like Moses did and like David did and like all the rest of them did, God can still use you and I in his service.

And who would like to say today Lord here I am change my heart and whatever you wish way you wish but use me in your service to glorify you I want to I want to raise my hand to that But the main focus of the message this morning is on this urgency that is present in the gospel message.

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The Urgency of the Gospel

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