{"id":2676,"date":"2011-12-31T11:21:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T17:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2011-12-31T15:35:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T21:35:10","slug":"a-lofty-announcement-for-lowly-shepherds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/a-lofty-announcement-for-lowly-shepherds\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lofty Announcement for Lowly Shepherds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his Christmas Eve message, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/messages\/Date\/DEC_24_2011.php\">Shepherds Who Follow the Lamb<\/a>,&#8221; Ryan unpacked the rich irony of the gospel found even in the announcement of Christ&#8217;s arrival recorded in\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esvbible.org\/search\/luke+2%3A1-20\/\">Luke 2:1-20<\/a>. God sent angels to deliver a lofty announcement to lowly shepherds about the King of Ages lying in a manger for animals.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a helpful excerpt from Ryan&#8217;s sermon to think on this week:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Maybe the best example of God coming to the lowly is the glorious, angelic announcement of Christ&#8217;s birth to shepherds.\u00c2\u00a0Just shepherds. No name shepherds. And an angel comes to them, with the most important news of all\u00c2\u00a0time. Other angels affirm the announcement with nothing less than loud angelic praise. God did not\u00c2\u00a0reveal the birth with a message in a bottle; not a singing bush. But angels and an angelic choir. All that\u00c2\u00a0for just shepherds. Not for the town mayor; not key religious leaders; not the influential or persuasive;\u00c2\u00a0not the famous or the rich. It was shepherds who got the most elaborate Christmas announcement of all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>God does in deed come to the lowly, and that is good news for all of us.<\/p>\n<p>Click\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/messages\/By_Series\/Christmas\/\">here<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for a catalog of\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/messages\/By_Series\/Christmas\/\">Christmas sermons<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0preached at DSC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his Christmas Eve message, &#8220;Shepherds Who Follow the Lamb,&#8221; Ryan unpacked the rich irony of the gospel&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/a-lofty-announcement-for-lowly-shepherds\/\">Continue Reading &rsaquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}