This Is for You: Good News of Great Joy!

The angel said to them,

“Do not be afraid.

I bring you good news of great joy

that will be for all the people.”

 

One of the most well-known scenes in the Christmas story is the angelic announcement to the shepherds.

Before we explore some of the rich meanings of the angel’s message, I encourage you to read the scene recorded in Luke 2:1-20.

Now that you have read it, let’s go a little deeper into the Christmas story.

 

It is good news

Negative good news is when you find out that a negative thing, something you were afraid of, isn’t going to happen after all. It’s not the bad news you were afraid of, but it doesn’t really do you any positive good because it just leaves you in the same place you were before the whole thing started.

Positive good news means something added to your life that leaves you better off than you were before.

The Christmas story could be both kinds of news.

Negative: you don’t have to go to hell.

Positive: God loves you and wants to bless you.

 

It is news of great joy

God wants you to be joyful.

Joy is the second listed fruit of the Holy Spirit, right after love.

If your life isn’t characterized by joy, you don’t have everything God wants you to have.

Joy is not something God demands from you; it’s something God wants to give to you.

The things that bring you joy are the things that build you up. The joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10). So, figure out what brings you joy, and do more of it! And one thing guaranteed to bring you joy is to think and reflect and pray about the good news of great joy that is the Christmas story: that God loves you (John 3:16),

so much that he gave his only Son, that [you or] whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life!

 

It is for all the people

Most news that’s good for somebody is bad for somebody else. But the Christmas story is good news for all the people. That means the Christmas story is a story to be shared with all the people.

But the good news of the gospel is not a bag of candy to be hoarded. Just the opposite. The more we tell it, the more people hear it and receive it and believe it and act on it by putting their faith in Jesus, the more joy there is for everybody. In fact, the word “gospel” means “good news.” When we talk about spreading the gospel, it means telling people the good news.

The Christmas story is not just good news for church folks. It’s not just great joy for Christians. It’s for all the people. Old people and young people. Majority people and minority people. Good people and bad people. Messed-up people and people who don’t know they’re messed up.

And how is the good news going to get to all these people? You and me.

A little band of shepherds. A caravan of wise men. A motley crew of fishermen. A tax collector. A fanatical rabbi who was struck blind for three days. Put them all together and throw in their families, and you’ll have fewer people than we’ll have in an average-sized Christian community today. But they changed the world. How? By telling people the good news.

 

What is this good news?

To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 

 A Savior. God himself, the second person of the Trinity, left his throne in heaven and came on a desperate rescue mission to save us.

My wife Paula is a saver. I’ll start to throw something away, and she’ll say, “Don’t throw that out! I want to save it.” She’s always saving things to fix up or put to a new use.

Jesus didn’t just come to save you from bad stuff. If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, he saved you to something.

He saved you from eternal death to eternal life.

He saved you from sin to be the righteousness of God.

He saved you from darkness to be the light of the world.

He saved you from your past to be a new creature.

He saved you from loneliness to be a child of God.

Jesus came to save you from legalism and formalism, to become a living stone, being built together with other living stones into a holy temple —a dwelling place for the manifest presence of God.

He saved you from disgrace to be a royal priesthood.

He saved you from barrenness to bear the fruit of the Spirit:

From hatred to love.

From discouragement to joy.

From anxiety to peace.

From hurry to patience.

From meanness to kindness.

From malice to goodness.

From treachery to faithfulness.

From harshness to gentleness.

From lust and obsession to self-control.

Jesus came to save you from despair to hope.

He saved you from doubt to faith.

He saved you from busyness to rest.

He saved you from a spirit of fear, to power and love, and a sound mind.

 

Once you were slaves, but now you are free.

Once you were dead in your trespasses and sins, but now you are alive in the Lord.

Once you were no people, but now you are the people of God.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be; but we have God’s promise that by the power at work within us, he is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.

This is good news!

This is news of great joy for all the people, and we can’t keep it to ourselves!

Let me know what you think. You can write to me using this link. 

FORWARD TO the next post in this Advent series

BACK TO The Meaning of Ave Maria

David’s bio: After 38 years as a pastor, Dr. Wentz now focuses on writing. Over fifteen thousand copies of his first book, Pastoring: The Nuts and Bolts, have been distributed free to train pastors in developing and minority-Christian countries through the Doing Christianity nonprofit, which he heads. David lives in the Missouri Ozarks with his wife, Paula.

You can get a glimpse of David’s ministry and heart at his website: pastordavidwentz.com.

David is the author of eight books, including When Church Stops Working and Pastoring Revival. His most recent is John Wesley’s The Scripture Way of Salvation: Set in Modern Language with Introduction and Suggestions for Group Use, part of the best-selling John Wesley in Modern Language series. All are available on your Amazon site in print, eBook, and audio formats.

Image credit: Unknown. If you know the source of this image, please contact this website.