The Death of James, Peter’s Deliverance From Prison (Acts 12:6–19)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, February 9, 2025

Maybe you have seen the 1960’s television show Hogan’s Heroes? Colonel Hogan was the leader of a group of POWs in a German prison of war camp during World War II. The show is comic and reveals how many times the POWs can spy on the Germans to get information to the American and Allied forces. As all of you know, being a prisoner is never that comic.

In my research, I read of a US Army Air Core pilot flying back to England and hitting some flack. He crashed in Germany and was placed in a Stalag. He was eventually released (probably after the war); however, he could never see the men he was on the bomber with again.

In the Bible, there is one comic story about Peter, the Apostle, being miraculously released from prison. Let’s read Acts 12:5-19, and then I will show you that God answers prayer and we serve an amazing God who is not limited.

Acts 12:5–19 (ESV)

⁵ So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

⁶ Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. ⁷ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. ⁸ And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” ⁹ And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. ¹¹ When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

¹² When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. ¹³ And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. ¹⁴ Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. ¹⁵ They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” ¹⁶ But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. ¹⁷ But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he departed and went to another place.

¹⁸ Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. ¹⁹ And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.

Let’s talk about this passage:

1. God hears our prayers (verses 6-10):
   1. In verse 5, we heard the people were praying.
   2. In verse 6, we see that Peter was asleep.
   3. Would you be asleep in a prison?
   4. He is asleep between two soldiers. More soldiers were guarding the doors, and he was sleeping. The prisons were probably not that comfortable.
   5. It was customary back then to have your right hand chained to a soldier’s left hand; however, it appears Peter was chained on both sides to a soldier.
   6. Peter could be content because he knew and followed the Scriptures: Peter was content with the situation. He had faith and knew everything was going to be okay. This could be because he knew he would die an old man (John 21:18-19), or he was just not anxious (Phil. 4:11).
   7. Peter knew other principles: “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety” (Ps. 4:8). Or, “Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness” (Isa. 41:10).
   8. Peter wouldn’t be asleep for long.
   9. In verse 7, a light shines in; Peter is still asleep; however, now the guards are asleep too. Note, these are Roman guards. These are the best of the best, and they are sleeping!
   10. An Angel comes in and knocks him to wake him.
   11. The chains just fell off. Imagine that. How neat is that? Imagine being in a dark, dirty prison, and now it is all lit up by an angel, and your chains fall off.
   12. The angel tells him to put on his sandals and cloak.
   13. One of my sources suggested that Peter may have thought of this every time he laced his sandals and put on his cloak.
   14. Wow! What a thought, but think about this: this is a life-altering, life-changing experience. Would you forget it? An angel wakes him up.
   15. In the following few verses, Peter thinks this is a dream. He didn’t think it was real. They got up and went through some gates, including the one in the city. The gate opened by itself, and then the angel departed. The gate opened by itself. Realize that garage door and gate openers were not sold at Lowe’s in their day. This was God’s doing, and this is amazing. The angel just disappeared. Puff, gone.
   16. In verse 11, Peter realizes this is real. Peter had been thinking this was a dream the whole time. Peter did not think that this was real.
   17. I find that somewhat interesting. Peter witnessed the resurrection. He witnessed all the miracles of the resurrection. Remember Acts chapter 10, he witnessed that vision, but he did not think this was real. He could have thought this was simply another vision of what God wanted him to do. But he did not think it was real.
2. Peter at the house (Acts 12:11-17).
   1. Peter knocks on the door.
   2. A servant girl named Rhoda comes to answer; she hears Peter’s voice, and before she lets him in, she goes and tells the people he is there. They don’t believe her. However, she insists. They then say it is his angel. Peter keeps knocking, and eventually, they let him in.
   3. Peter tells them what happened and to tell James and the rest.
   4. They were praying for his release, and when he showed up, they did not believe it was him.
   5. Do we ever pray for something and not believe God will follow through?
   6. The story ends with Peter going to another place and Herod killing the guards.

Close:

Unfortunately, all prisoners of war do not get an escape like that. But wait, was Peter a prisoner of war? Yes! He was. We are all in a spiritual battle with the devil. They prayed, and God answered that prayer. We need to always pray about all things. We need not be surprised when God answers. Pray for God’s will and expect God’s will to come through. Also, remember there are many Christians right now being martyred for their faith. Pray for them.

Remember who you are in Christ.

Swindoll shares

Reading, in a little book called Jesus Makes Me Laugh, clever work, good humor, but underneath it is a real message, writes toward the end of the book, I remember going home from the Navy during World War II.

Because he is faithful.[1]

[1] From Insight for Living Daily Broadcast: God’s Mysterious Immutability, Part 2, Feb 5, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/insight-for-living-daily-broadcast/id89603501?i=1000688999795&r=1216
This material may be protected by copyright.

Let’s pray

God is Holy (Isa. 6:1-7)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, February 2, 2025

Once upon a time, there were two brothers, eight and ten years old, who were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it turned out they had had a hand in it. Their parents were at their wits’ end trying to control them. Hearing about a priest nearby who worked with delinquent boys, the mother suggested to the father that they ask the priest to talk with the boys. The father replied, “Sure, do that before I kill them!”

The mother went to the priest and made her request. He agreed, but said he wanted to see the younger boy first and alone. So the mother sent him to the priest. The priest sat the boy down across a huge, impressive desk he sat behind. For about five minutes they just sat and stared at each other. Finally, the priest pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, “Where is God?” The boy looked under the desk, in the corners of the room, all around, but said nothing. Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, “Where is God?” Again the boy looked all around but said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy’s nose, and asked, “WHERE IS GOD?” The boy panicked and ran all the way home.

Finding his older brother, he dragged him upstairs to their room and into the closet, where they usually plotted their mischief. He finally said, “We are in BIG trouble.” The older boy asked, “What do you mean, BIG trouble?” His brother replied, “God is missing, and they think we did it.”[1]

I don’t remember the date. I think it was a Sunday afternoon. A group of us went to a mall outside of Cincinnati. The group included Meagan and I, my brother, and my now sister-in-law. None of us were married at the time. I was twenty-one years old. While at the mall, we entered a jewelry store and looked at rings. It was not in our plans to look at engagement rings, but I could tell the one Meagan liked. It was a “princess cut” diamond ring. It was under the light and absolutely beautiful. The light made the diamond sparkle. It was the ring I knew I had to purchase for Meagan. I gave her that style ring a few months later as I proposed marriage to Meagan.

Do you ever notice that the jewelry looks more beautiful at the store? Why? The jewelry is clean and displayed in a way that shows its beauty. The light shows how gorgeous the diamonds are.

One could argue that the jewelry in the store is holy. That is a generic sense of the word. It means set apart for a purpose. That is very generic. It does not compare to the subject today, but I did want to use it to explore the holiness of God.

God is holy.

God is set apart. God is completely other than who we are.

My theme today:

God is holy; understand and take seriously the holiness of God.

Application:

Respond like Isaiah- woe is me…

Receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. The only way we can come into His presence is through Jesus.

1. Isaiah in the temple.
   1. Look at Isaiah 6:1 (ESV) In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
   2. This gives us some context.
   3. Understand that Isaiah was already a prophet of the Lord. We can read about that in Isaiah 1.
   4. Now, King Uzziah had died which was 740 B.C. This marks the end of a lengthy reign of prosperity (2 Chron. 26).
   5. Uzziah ascended to the throne when he was sixteen years old. He reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-two years. Think of it, fifty-two years!^[2]
   6. How many presidents have we seen in the last fifty-two years?
   7. Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, and Nixon.
   8. I like how R. C. Sproul shares: But when Isaiah entered the temple he saw another king, the Ultimate King, the One who sat forever on the throne of Judah. He saw the Lord.^[3]
   9. C. Sproul shares that the village of Rome was founded the same year Uzziah died. Also:
   10. He points out that most scholars think Isaiah is not seeing this in the temple but seeing into the Lord’s heavenly temple. Further, God created everything with what they need. He created fish with fins. God created Seraphim with the ability to cover themselves from the holiness of God.[4]
   11. So, Isaiah sees the Lord seated upon the throne.
   12. Did he see this? Yes.
   13. Was God literally there, or was this a vision?
   14. It was a vision, but we know it affected the temple Isaiah was in (verse 4).
2. The Holiness of God.
   1. Look at this. Isaiah sees the Lord upon a throne, high and lifted up.
   2. The train of His robe filled the temple.
   3. Isaiah is seeing the Lord in majesty.
   4. Once upon a time, I was in the sanctuary. I started with “once upon a time,” but this did happen. I was walking through and spending time in prayer. It was a Saturday evening, and it was dark outside. Then I thought I heard voices. Eventually, I did hear voices. After some phone calls, I realized that a radio station was coming through the speakers in the narthex. Now, that was quiet. However, what Isaiah sees is not quiet.
   5. Isaiah sees the greatness of God.
   6. How big is your view of God?
   7. I believe if we would only begin to recognize the awesomeness of God we would not trifle with Him.
   8. You are thinking, “I do not trifle with God.”
   9. Yes, you do.
   10. How seriously do you take worship?
   11. How seriously do you take sin? Do you realize that our sin is high treason against the creator of the universe?
   12. What if I told you that this facility had been exposed to a deadly virus and that anything you touched would contaminate you? What would you do? Would you hurry to wash your hands, clothes, and everything else? Would you wash them extra well? Would you try not to touch anything before you leave?
   13. Of course.
   14. Why don’t we think of sin that way?
   15. We are exposed, we are contaminated, and we do not care.
   16. God redeems us through Jesus, but we are not eager to seek Him to get help from our sins.
   17. God is holy.
   18. Isaiah 6:2–3 (ESV)
   19. ² Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;  the whole earth is full of his glory!”
   20. This is more detail.
   21. There are angels.
   22. What do the angels do? They cover their faces, possibly because no one can see the Lord.
   23. They cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts…”
   24. Do you know this is the only attribute of God repeated like that?
   25. In Hebrew, we cannot use the term “holiest.” No, they must repeat something three times to express that God is the most holy.
   26. Sproul shares: Nowhere else in scripture is an attribute of God repeated three times.
   27. Nowhere do we hear that He is “love, love, love.”
   28. Many scholars think that holiness is not a single attribute but one that captures all the others. Holiness makes Him unique. Holiness points to the transcendent majesty, the superlative greatness, the otherness that characterizes God and makes Him unique and worthy of our worship.[5]
   29. Isaiah 6:4 (ESV) ⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
   30. What Isaiah saw affected creation.
   31. There was an earthquake.
   32. There was smoke.
   33. This was Isaiah experiencing the holiness of God.
   34. Timothy Keller shares:
   35. One of the more hilarious examples of the presence of the holy is in Mark 4 where Jesus is in the boat with his disciples. There is a storm that comes up, and they’re all afraid. He calms the storm, and they’re terrified, because the rescue is more terrifying to them than the peril from which they were rescued.
   36. The storm isn’t anywhere near as terrifying as to realize you’re in the presence of God Almighty. They were terrified. They said, “Who is this?” I don’t know what Ludwig Feuerbach and Freud thought about Mark 4. Those are the guys who tried to explain religion. They said, “Religion grew up because when human beings were primitive we were scared of nature. We were scared of the storms, so we had to invent a God we could go to and get help from. We were afraid of impersonal nature, so we had to invent a God who would enable us to deal with the frightening world we lived in.”^[6]
3. Isaiah’s response.
   1. Isaiah 6:5 (ESV)
   2. ⁵ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
   3. How do we respond to the holiness of God?
   4. If we read Scripture and something convicts us, do we repent? Do we ask God for help so that we can do better? Do we get help? Do we repent to those we sinned against?
   5. How do we respond if we are convicted in a sermon like this?
   6. Isaiah 6:6–7 (ESV) ⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
   7. Sproul shares: A recent survey of ex-church members revealed that the main reason they stopped going to church was that they found it boring. It is difficult for many people to find worship a thrilling and moving experience. We note here, when God appeared in the temple, the doors and the thresholds were moved. The inert matter of doorposts, the inanimate thresholds, the wood and metal that could neither hear nor speak had the good sense to be moved by the presence of God. The literal meaning of the text is that they were shaken. They began to quake where they stood.^[7]
   8. How is God boring?
   9. I think too often, we try to entertain people because they find God boring.
   10. Again, Sproul: The doors of the temple were not the only things that were shaking. The thing that quaked the most in the building was the body of Isaiah. When he saw the living God, the reigning monarch of the universe displayed before his eyes in all of His holiness, Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me!”^[8]
   11. Do we know that we need forgiven?
   12. I saw in a video of a man getting pulled over by a police officer. The man quickly said, “I think I know why you pulled me over. Can I step out of the truck?” The officer said, “Yes.” The man said, “Can I step to the back of the truck?” The officer said, “Yes.” The man said, You see, the woman in the front seat is my wife. The woman in the back seat is my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law came to visit, and she and my wife started arguing. Eventually, my mother-in-law said to take her home right away. Officer, I am trying to get her home as quickly as possible. They may start talking if I take too long, and my mother-in-law may want to stay longer. Do you understand my problem?” The officer said, “Yes, I understand. I am going to give you a police escort. We will use the lights and everything.” They then left.
   13. That man will need to be forgiven for that one. Obviously, that is just for humor.
   14. Ha ha!
   15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave the illustration for this in one of his sermons I’ve never forgotten, and some of you have certainly heard it. He says if somebody comes to you and says, “I’ve paid one of your bills,” you have no idea how excited to be. It could be they’ve paid postage due, paid a couple of dollars so a package that had postage due could be received. On the other hand, maybe they paid $40,000 of your back IRS taxes. Until you know the actual amount of the debt, you don’t know how joyful to be. The size of the debt actually determines the magnitude of the joy.^[9]
   16. Do we recognize the holiness of God?
4. How do we respond to God?
   1. In Genesis 15:9-17 we see the account of the covenant ceremony between God and Abraham.
   2. God is making a covenant with Abraham.
   3. Abraham brings God a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
   4. The goat and the heifer are cut in two.
   5. A deep sleep falls upon Abram.
   6. God walks between the animals.
   7. That is an ancient covenant ceremony in which God was saying, “If I do not keep my covenant with you, may I be like these animals.
   8. Two thousand years later, Jesus was stricken for us.
   9. The Israelites and we did not keep the covenant with God. Yet, our holy God was stricken for us.
   10. Romans 5:8 (ESV) …but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
   11. Jesus went to the cross, and He was stricken.
   12. Jesus went to the cross, and He was cursed.
   13. Jesus was slain for us.
   14. Why?
   15. Because God is holy, and we needed a holy sacrifice for our sins.
   16. Receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. The only way we can come into His presence is through Jesus.
   17. How can we come into a relationship with a holy God? Only by receiving Him as Lord and Savior can we know Him. Jesus went to the cross for us.
   18. God is holy. That is why we need a Savior.

[1] https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/where-is-god.html

^[2] R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 27.

^[3] R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 29.

[4] Renewing Your Mind. 03.10.2021

[5] Sproul, Renewing Your Mind; 03.11.2021

^[6] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[7] R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 39–40.

^[8] R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 40.

^[9] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

In College, I wrote a group paper titled Modern Martyrdom:

Here is a quote from a source we used:

“The grounds for hostility to the Christians were not always the same, and often opposition and persecution were localized. The loyalty of Christians to “Jesus as Lord,” however, was irreconcilable with the worship of the Roman emperor as “Lord,” and those emperors, such as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, who were the most deeply committed to unity and reform were also the ones who recognized the Christians as a threat to those goals and who therefore undertook to eliminate the threat. As in the history of other religions, especially Islam, opposition produced the exact contrary of its intended purpose, and, in the epigram of the North African church father Tertullian, the “blood of the martyrs” became the “seed of the church.”

Is it over? Is persecution over?

The birth of a healthy baby girl is usually a joyous occasion. But when Meriam Ibrahim gave birth to her daughter, Maya, on Tuesday, May 27, it triggered a two-year countdown to her execution.

On May 15, 2014, the 27-year-old Sudanese doctor was sentenced to death for apostasy by a Sudanese court. In addition, she was to endure 100 lashes for the crime of committing adultery—with her Christian husband. The judge ruled that the lashing would be carried out after she had recovered from delivering her baby and that her death by hanging would occur when her baby reached age two so she would have time to nurse the infant.

During her trial, the judge asked the young woman three times to recant her Christian faith, but she refused each time.[1] [I think she was released after some time]

That was recent. I read that over 100 million people are persecuted right now. A few years ago, I read that the Bible is illegal in 52 countries.

But Christianity is growing in these persecuted countries. Figure that out.

Jesus said in:

Matthew 5:10–12 (ESV)

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Paul the Apostle wrote in:

2 Timothy 3:12 (ESV)

¹² Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…

So, today, we come to a passage where the Jerusalem church is persecuted. We will look at that passage. I wish to teach that passage, and I also want to talk about persecution today. Goals today:

1. Learn about Acts 12:1-5
2. Learn about persecution in the world
3. Be ready for your Christian faith to be challenged, maybe even violently, especially if you are young.

Acts 12:1–5 (ESV)

About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. ² He killed James the brother of John with the sword, ³ and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. ⁴ And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. ⁵ So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

1. Let’s look at the passage: the apostles are persecuted.
   1. We have seen this before, but not so brutally.
   2. Now, it says, “about that time…”
   3. Take note: We are going back a few years before some of the previous events. This Herod—he died in A.D. 44. We know this.
   4. Things were going on, and it was political. So, what is going on? He wants to win points with his constituents and harm the apostles.
   5. Verse 2: He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
   6. There is a church history legend that James was witnessing until his death.
   7. He was trying to convert the person who was to behead him until his death. However, we do not know if some of those stories are factual. I like to believe they are true.
   8. Now, get this: James is killed, and that pleased the Jews. Can you believe it? It made the Jews feel good that someone was dead. So, Herod brings Peter in. Peter is locked up with 16 guards. Can you believe it? 16 guards.
   9. Peter, he is a dangerous man, right?
   10. We will find out that 16 guards were not enough. Yes, they will have one job, just one job!
   11. BUT— verse 5, there was a church praying, and they were praying for him fervently or earnestly. We’ll come back to that. But let me make a note right now. The American Church cannot handle persecution. Correction: Some American churches cannot handle persecution without changing to put the Word of God and the Gospel at the forefront. Additionally, We need holistic, communal prayer. However, we all have some waking up to do.
   12. Before we move on, James died. He died. Remember that death is not the end as a follower of Christ. Death is not the end. We have an eternal hope. In 1 Cor. 15:50, Paul writes: Where O death is the sting? As we talk about persecution, remember that James was saved. We have eternal life and eternal hope.
2.  Now, let’s talk about persecution.
   1. I know that this is a very depressing subject for some. For some, it is not for some of you. You are like, “Yes, a challenge. I’ll go, send me…”
   2. Sometimes, we often send people on a mission with the wrong expectations.
   3. Jesus did not do this. But we often glance over these verses, at least in America. We have John 15:20, in which Jesus said we will be persecuted. If they persecuted Him, they would persecute us. Now, we can look at this passage in three ways.
      1. We could say. Well, maybe not always, or perhaps we are verbally attacked or something like that. This may be true because I bet most of us have not been actually persecuted.
      2. Or, we may not be persecuted because we are not doing our job as witnesses.
         1. If I am being the witness of Jesus Christ, then the devil will kick back with persecution.
         2. Ephesians 6:12 says there is a real spiritual battle.
      3. There is a third option: maybe you are not persecuted because you do not know Jesus.
   4. What about hope for persecution? I will talk about some things that may give hope in a minute. But let me give a few other thoughts:
      1. Let me say that I have read books about Christians persecuted through the ages, and their testimonies seem to talk of Spirit-filled peace with them, though not always.
      2. Rev. 6:9-11: these are saints who died as martyrs:

Revelation 6:9–11 (ESV)

⁹ When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. ¹⁰ They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” ¹¹ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

• Pray to be ready-
  • Several years ago, a church member asked me about being ready for persecution; here are some personal applications that I pray for myself and my children:
    1. I will be a faithful witness in persecution as these disciples/apostles were.
    2. I must be a man of prayer, seeking the Lord, and in relationship with Him so that I am ready to be a witness in persecution. In verse 5, we see the church praying for him.
    3. I must be in the Word, always being ready to give an answer with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).
    4. I will know that persecution will come. Jesus said that we will be persecuted: Matthew 5:10-12; John 15:20: Jesus says that they persecuted me, they will persecute you.
    5. I will remember those in Acts 5:41 who rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ’s name.
    6. I will remember Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 3:12, that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
    7. I will remember Jesus’ words, not to worry about what to say (Matthew 10:19).
    8. I will pray for my brothers and sisters in need, as we see in verse 5, earnest prayer.

Close:

Jim Elliot wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” We must be prepared to do this.

Jim Elliot wrote that and then he was martyred for Christ.

I am not going to ask you about commitment; that is implied.

I am going to ask you about prayer. Pray for the persecuted church.

Pray for the church in America, yourself, your children, and this church that we can be strong witnesses.

Others, do you know Jesus? Why would people go through this for Jesus?

For life everlasting, that is the answer. We always try to live longer, but we never will, not on our own.

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Pray

[1] CNN and other articles on May, 16, 2014

https://www.cnn.com/2014/05/15/world/africa/sudan-christian-woman-apostasy/index.html

The Offering for Jerusalem (Acts 11:27–30)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 19, 2025

Think about God’s love:

Tim Keller shares:

But if you want to know that infinitely high and transcendent God loves you, and you can enter into an intimate, personal love relationship with him, the only way to find that out is in the Scripture. Why? Some people say, “What do you mean, only in the Scripture? That doesn’t really make sense.”

Sure, you don’t need to believe God is love by reading the Scripture. In fact, lots and lots of people in New York over the years have told me, “I don’t believe in the Bible, because I believe in a God of love.” They say, “When I read the Bible I see this God of judgment, and he’s got his laws and all that sort of thing, but I don’t believe in a God of judgment. I believe in a God of love. That’s why I don’t believe the Bible.” Here’s what I always do. This is very Psalm 19-ish to do.

I say, “Oh, really? Okay, that’s interesting you believe God is a God of love. Where did that idea come from? Where did you get the idea that if there is a God, he must be a God of love? Did you look at nature, with all of its hurricanes, and volcanoes, and all of its forest fires, and all of its avalanches, and all of its tsunamis, and its tornadoes? Did you look at nature? Did you look at natural selection? Did you look at how nature really works? Did you see the animals in a pack, and then one of them is diseased, and they all turn and eat it?” Bye, Mom. You know, you’re holding the pack back.

Annie Dillard, who wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and won a Pulitzer Prize for it, went out into the woods by a creek in Virginia years ago to observe nature and thought it was going to fill her soul with a sense of love. It didn’t, because she saw that nature is red in tooth and claw! She saw it’s incredibly violent!^[1]

Think about that. People always think we can find ideas of love from nature, but I like how Tim Keller points out that you cannot. Christianity teaches a God of love. Christianity teaches that Christians are to love others. Someone once said, I think it was Fred Rogers, that whenever there is a tragedy, say a hurricane, look for the workers.

In this text, prophets come, and the church helps with a famine.

Let’s read the passage from Acts 11:27-30, and I want you to see that the church at Antioch agrees to help the church in Judea.

Acts 11:27–30 (ESV)

²⁷ Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). ²⁹ So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. ³⁰ And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

1. As we look at this passage notice that God sends prophets to tell us of a need. This is in verse 27.
   • Notice that God had already prepared the foundation for the prophets. So, in the previous few verses, God had opened up the Gospel to the Gentiles, and here in this passage, Antioch, this major city, had become this operation center for many to receive Christ. Now Barnabas had come and encouraged people to stay true to the Lord. That was verse 23. Barnabas is an encourager.
   • Then we come to verses 25 and 26, and Barnabas had gone to get Paul, and they teach the people for a whole year and are first called Christians in Antioch.
   • Why does that matter? Why do I belabor that? Why do I go back to the context? To be Christians means that they identify with Christ.
   • Now, we come to verse 27, and the Bible says, “About that time…” or in the N.I.V., it says, “During this time…” or the ESV says, “Now in these days…” It was while God was laying the foundation of the discipleship that God sent prophets.
   • I have a strong application that just hit me square in the jaw. Am I ready to hear from God today? Are you prepared to hear from God today? Suppose a prophet came here like this; what would I do? How would I react? What would I say? How would I respond?
   • They responded positively because they were being taught the Word of God.
   • They responded positively because they were being a disciple.
   • They responded positively because they were following Christ.
   • They responded positively because Barnabas encouraged them to stay true to the Lord.
   • They responded positively because they were Christ-ians—they identified with Christ.
   • Do I identify with Christ?
   • Do you identify with Christ?
   • Are you ready to hear from a prophet?
   • They were ready, and then the prophets came during this time.
   • So, one of them was Agabus, and verse 28 says that he stood up and spoke.
   • Know that the Bible says that he spoke “Through the Spirit.” He did not just talk in any way but “through the Spirit.” He has the gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit.
   • He told of a severe famine. This famine was to spread over the entire Roman world.
   • This is likely hyperbole. However, you should also note that there is a parenthesis. Luke tells us that this happened under Claudius’s reign. We know that there were several famines under him.
2. In verses 29-30, the church responds.
3. 1. We see that the church responds.
   2. They give.
   3. I notice here that Paul and Barnabas are willing to serve. They could have said, “No, no, no, choose someone else; I am not going on a mission trip to Jerusalem.” But they did not.
   4. I notice here that Paul and Barnabas are also trustworthy.
   5. I pray that I am trustworthy as well.
   6. I pray that I am willing to serve.

Close:

According to People magazine, two customers walked into a Lincoln, Neb., Cracker Barrel and asked to be seated with the “grumpiest” server they had. The restaurant host replied that there were no grumpy servers in that restaurant, but they did have the “happiest” server: 18-year-old Abigail Sailors.

After seating, the two patrons listened to Sailors’ life story, which included a mother incapacitated by a car crash, a father incarcerated for abuse, and a horrible foster care experience for herself and her four siblings. She finally found a forever home with John and Susi Sailors about five years ago. Sailors currently attends North Dakota’s Trinity Bible College where she majors in psychology and youth ministry and participates in basketball. But she admitted to her guests that she wasn’t sure how she would afford the next semester, since she was paying her own way.

“I’m just thankful,” she told the Lincoln Journal-Star. “Everything we went through, my attitude is: God blessed me with a lot of things. I’m doing good. That’s all that matters to me.”

One of the customers—a Trinity alumni, as it turns out—then proceeded to write a check to Sailors for $5,000 for tuition and another $1,000 for books and supplies, then left her a $100 tip. Sailors told the local media she couldn’t believe it and tried to thank them, but they both replied, “Thank God.”

Maybe you cannot serve in that way, but how can you serve?

First, do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Pray

^[1] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

The Antioch Church Witnesses to Gentiles (Acts 11:19–26)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 12, 2025

Think back for a minute to your days in school. What happens when there is a school bully? Okay, so there is a school bully, and there might be a few options; one option is that everyone will fight him and take him down. Everyone knows that he is the bully, so you all agree that at such and such a day, it is time to say no more, and everyone can take him out. But you know what too often might happen? No one will make the first move, right?

I love history. I love reading historical literature. One reason Rome could win so many battles was not because their army was better trained but because they could toughen things out longer. In ancient warfare, the battles were fought in hand-to-hand combat, so the battles were fought until one army fled. The Roman army was tougher. Okay, what am I getting at, you ask? Am I looking for another excuse to talk about William Wallace? No. I want to talk about Christian persecution.

Here we are in Acts 11:19-26, and it seems to be one of Luke’s common summary passages. He is referring to what has happened since Stephen’s stoning. Now, in the last chapter and the beginning of this chapter, God has opened Peter and some of the Jews in Jerusalem up to Gentiles.

Let’s read Acts 11:19-26.

My theme: the Antioch church witnesses to the Gentiles.

The application: Verses 23 and 24, stay True to the Lord, and may it be said of us like it was of Barnabas.

Turn in your Bibles to Acts 11:19-26:

Acts 11:19–26 (ESV)

¹⁹ Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. ²⁰ But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. ²¹ And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. ²² The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. ²³ When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, ²⁴ for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. ²⁵ So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, ²⁶ and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

1. The church begins to grow in the city of Antioch (Acts 11:19-21).
   1. Those who were scattered because of the persecution. Now, you must wonder, “What persecution is he writing about?” We must look back to Stephen’s stoning, which was in Acts 8:1 and 4, and that was when Saul was breathing murderous threats upon the church. At that time, there were wolves after the church. Everyone fled, everyone fled, except… except who?
   2. I heard about this excellent illustration recently. Someone comes to the house with a gun, so everyone will run except who? The kids may flee, the neighbors or friends can flee, but the dad will not flee. The dad is there to protect his children and his wife.
   3. In this case, this was true. The early believers all flee, except the apostles. The apostles stay in Jerusalem and protect the church.
   4. Wolves were on the attack, but they knew the Lord was in control.
   5. In verse 19, they made it through different cities and then to Antioch. Antioch was a very large city. Antioch was the third largest urban city of antiquity behind Rome and Alexandria. Interesting that this is where God will launch the mission to the Gentiles. That is so awesome!
   6. But at this point, the mission is only to Jews.
   7. Then there were some, we find in verse 20, who also started preaching to Gentiles: Praise God! Galatians 3:28!
   8. A large number who believed turned to the Lord. These people trusted the message of Jesus and repented, which is what it means to turn their lives over to Jesus.
2. Barnabas comes to Antioch to encourage the believers (Acts 11:22-26).
   1. Once again, in verse 22, we see that the Jerusalem church is still the home base. They hear something is going on, so they send Barnabas.
   2. In verse 23, what does he do? He rejoices.
   3. What do you do when you hear God does something amazing?
   4. What do I do when I hear God does something amazing?
   5. Do we rejoice?
   6. We become spiritual introverts instead of extroverts; we must outspokenly praise God!
   7. He encouraged them: this means that he brought them aid. He encouraged them to remain true to the Lord.
   8. That is an application for all of us. Remain True to the Lord— don’t fall away—stay true.
   9. Barnabas saw all these new believers.
   10. He is saying, “Remain faithful.”
   11. Look at the description of Barnabas in verse 24:
       1. He was a good man (that is only given by Luke about Joseph of Arimathea in Luke 23:50);
       2. Full of the Holy Spirit;
       3. Full of faith.

1. People were saved

That is something to praise God about.

Barnabas needed help. What did he do?

He went for Saul, and he searched for him. Now, it has been about nine years since Saul has become a believer, and verse 25 describes it as though it was hard to find him, but Barnabas finds him. Saul and Barnabas teach the people for a year. They taught great numbers. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

Saul may have been an outcast from his family by now for his Christianity. Also, Luke is setting this up for Acts 13 and Saul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey.

Notice something about the word “Christians”:

“It contains Jewish thought as the equivalent of the Messiah, the Anointed. (ii) It shows the Greek language in the substantive—’Christ.’ (iii) It also includes the Latin language in the adjectival ending ‘ians’ (Latin, iani). This universality is a reminder of the language of the title on the Cross.”

Something else, the “ians” means that we identify with Christ.

Close:

Swindoll shares:

Do you recall what David did after he killed Goliath? God had already appointed the young shepherd as the next king of Israel. Most young conquerors would have located the nearest Macy’s and tried on crowns. Not David. He went right back to the Judean hills to keep his father’s sheep—a true shepherd with a servant’s heart.

Paul kept a similar vigil in Tarsus. He waited patiently until Barnabas tapped him on the shoulder. Only then did he step into that critical, highly visible role of leadership. I find nothing more attractive in a gifted and competent leader than authentic humility. Paul’s giftedness was framed in the crucible of solitude where he had been honed and retooled by the living Christ.

The evangelist Dwight L. Moody, although unschooled, was a gifted man of God preaching in Birmingham, England, far back in 1875. A noted congregational minister and well-respected theologian, Dr. R. W. Dale, cooperated in that enormously successful campaign. After watching and listening to Moody preach and witnessing the incredible results of the ministry of that simple man, Dr. Dale wrote in his denominational magazine, “I told Mr. Moody that the work was most plainly of God, for I could see no real relation between him and what he had done. Moody laughed cheerily and said, ‘I should be very sorry if it were otherwise.'” No defensiveness, no feeling of being put upon, no embarrassing uneasiness. Moody was the most surprised of anyone that God chose to use him so mightily.

That was Paul. No wonder Barnabas wanted Paul to lead the program in Antioch. What a duet they sang! For an entire year these two men served side by side, and God was greatly glorified.

I love Warren Wiersbe’s succinct definition of ministry: “Ministry takes place when divine resources meet human needs through loving channels to the glory of God.” Paul and Barnabas could have sat for that portrait. Why did Paul and Barnabas experience such pleasure in serving together? No competition. No battle of egos. No one threatened by the other’s gifts. No hidden agendas. No unresolved conflicts. Their single-minded goal was to magnify Christ. It didn’t matter if the crowds multiplied to thousands or shrank to only a few. All that mattered was that Christ be proclaimed and worshipped.

Praise God for the power of two![1]

The application for us is in verses 23 and 24: stay true to the Lord, and may it be said of us like it was of Barnabas. He was a good man, full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. So, can we pursue being full of the Holy Spirit? Can we pursue being a good man or woman? Can we pursue being full of faith?

Do you identify with Christ? Are you a Christ-“ian”? If so, go and make disciples as they did in this passage.

God created us to be with him (Genesis 1-2).

Our sin separated us from God (Genesis 3).

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Genesis 4-Malachi 4).

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matthew – Luke).

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John-Jude).

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Revelation 22:5).

Pray

[1] Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com

https://www.insight.org/resources/daily-devotional/individual/the-power-of-two1

Special topic: Knowing God In the Details (John 17:3; Gal. 5:22-23)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, January 5, 2025

Pastor J. D. Greear writes:

I once heard the story of a man named Steve who, when he was 2 years old, became deaf after contracting spinal meningitis. For the next 58 years of his life, he lived in total silence—no music, no laughter, no voices of his loved ones. His life was full and happy enough, especially since he couldn’t remember much of the time before he lost his hearing. He had resigned himself, for better or worse, to life without sound.

Then, in 2001, his doctor proposed a procedure that could change Steve’s life forever.

This new surgical procedure would implant a sound wave detection device that could bypass the nonfunctioning part of Steve’s ear. Essentially, the device would transmit the audio signals directly to the auditory nerve in the brain. It wasn’t a dangerous procedure, so Steve happily decided to try it. But there was an annoying catch: They wouldn’t know if the surgery had been successful for six weeks. (What must those six weeks have been like?)

Finally, the day arrived. Steve and his wife came back to the audiologist’s office, nervous and excited. The audiologist programmed the cochlear implant on his device, held his finger over the final key, and looked to Steve to ask him if he was ready. Steve gave the go-ahead, and the audiologist pressed the button.

Then, the audiologist turned to Steve’s wife and gave a silent signal, prompting her to say something. She leaned toward Steve and gently said, “I love you.” Steve’s face broke into a bright smile. Not only could he hear again, but the first sounds he’d heard in six decades were words of personal love. Both he and his wife wept as they held each other, chattering away for the first time ever.[1]

I love that story!

What does it mean to know someone? Do you ever think about how profound it is to be able to say, ‘“My’ wife,” or ‘“My’ son,” or ‘“My’ daughter,” or ‘“My’ mom.” Putting that possessive pronoun, “my,” in front of the noun changes things. It is personal. It shows intimacy. It shows a personal connection. When I married Meagan, she became ‘“my’ wife.” She is not “your” wife. She is not someone else’s wife. She is “My” wife. There is a proper personal connection there.

Likewise, is Jesus “your” Savior? Is Jesus “your” friend? Do you have a relationship with Jesus?

Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)

¹⁷       The Lord your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

                  he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

                  he will exult over you with loud singing.

Today, is a special topic Sunday. Next week, we will return to Acts.

My theme is:

Knowing Jesus in the details

1. How do we know Him?
   1. John 17:3 (ESV) ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
   2. This verse is part of Jesus’s high priestly prayer.
   3. Jesus is spending time in prayer prior to the crucifixion.
   4. Jesus knew that the time had come (John 17:1) and now He is praying.
   5. Jesus talks about Himself in the second and third person. Glorify “Your” Son (John 17:1). Then, in verses 2-3 Jesus referred to Himself in the third person.
   6. In this prayer, Jesus shares how we receive eternal life.
   7. We must “know” the only true God. We must know Jesus Christ, whom He sent.
   8. Do we know Him?
   9. Do we know the real Jesus. Tim Keller shares about Heb 1:3:

      You know the average person sees … Here’s a book written to people in a setting just like ours, and it will not compromise. It starts right out saying what it says, and surely there are people today who say, “We’re never going to have global peace like this until everyone in their religion is willing to admit that all religions are equal, until everyone stops claiming, ‘My religion is the best one,’ or “My religion is the superior one.’ ”

      They say, “As long as people say things like this, we’re not going to have peace. Until everyone admits all religions are equally valid, we’re never going to have global peace.” I want to say in response to that, that is by no means the way to get global peace in the slightest. Here’s why. The only way all religions could be equally valid is if you assume either there is no God or there is a God who doesn’t hold people accountable for what they believe. Of course, that God is different than the God of all other religions.

      But do you hear what you’re saying? When you say all religions are equally valid, you are assuming a very particular view of God which you’re saying is better than what everyone else believes. Therefore, when you say, “Stop making exclusive claims! Religions have to stop making exclusive claims,” that is the most exclusive possible claim.

      Yet you won’t admit what you’re doing. What you’re saying is, “My white, Western, relativistic take on objectivity and subjectivity is the right one. Religions are subjectively true, but objectively they’re all basically the same.” You’re taking your view and putting it on top of everybody else’s.

      When another religion, when any religion says, “My religion is the best one. Convert!” there’s integrity there. There’s openness there. There’s self-knowledge there. There’s consistency there. But when you say, “All religions are equal. No religion should claim to be the superior one,” you’re making your spiritual view of reality the superior one. That’s hypocrisy. It’s infuriating to all the adherents of all other religions, and it will never lead to global peace.

      Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

   10. This is not referring to a one-time prayer.
   11. Dallas Willard shares: Accordingly, the only description of eternal life found in the words we have from Jesus is “This is eternal life, that they [his disciples] may know you, the only real God, and Jesus the anointed, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This may sound to us like “mere head knowledge.” But the biblical “know” always refers to an intimate, personal, interactive relationship.[2]
   12. Do we have an intimate, personal, interactive relationship with God?
   13. First, have we “Firmly made the decision to be with Him”?
   14. Have you decided that you want to live with Him? That would mean having a relationship with Him.
   15. Have you decided “to become like Him”?
   16. Have you decided “to learn and do all that He says”?
   17. Have you decided “to arrange your affairs around Him”?
   18. If you have done that and are striving for it, then I think you know God.
   19. This assumes confessing we are a sinner in need of a Savior. That means repenting.
   20. This assumes believing in Jesus as the One and only Savior.
   21. John 14:6
   22. John 3:16
   23. This assumes trusting in Him and committing to Him (Luke 9:23).

Tim Keller shares:

Jean-Paul Sartre in his work Being and Nothingness, where he has this very famous illustration. He says imagine yourself in a room, and you see a keyhole, and you see light through the keyhole. When you get down and look through the keyhole, you see people doing things, and they don’t know you’re watching.

Wow. There’s nothing more empowering and satisfying than to be the unviewed viewer, to be able to see everything and they don’t know you’re watching. You can see them; they can’t see you. One-way mirror. You can see them; they can’t see you. Now you have power. You’re in the driver’s seat.

Suddenly, in this illustration, as you’re looking through the keyhole and feeling really good, you hear a noise and you look behind you. You see another keyhole, and you see a little eye through that keyhole. You realize your unviewed viewing is being viewed by an unviewed viewer. You are now the object, not the subject. You’re dehumanized, and it’s unbearable. Why?

What Sartre says is there’s nothing more dehumanizing than to be out of control with what people see of you. We need to control how people see us. We need to control what people see. For someone to have access, for it to be uncovered, for someone to have complete access to what you’re thinking and what you’re doing and how you’re living without you knowing it or being in control of it is utterly dehumanizing. We cannot bear it. Why?

That’s an interesting illustration, isn’t it? Of course, Sartre is an existentialist. Sartre of course does not believe in moral absolutes. Of course he doesn’t believe we’re supposed to live up to somebody else’s standards for us. Of course not. Yet he says it is absolutely endemic to every human being to desperately want to be covered. We do not want people to see who we are. We don’t want people to see what we do, how we think. Why?

What Sartre is saying is if anybody has that kind of access to us, they will see things of which we are ashamed. We will do things, we will say things, we will think things of which we are deeply ashamed, and we cannot bear to have other people looking at it, to be able to look inside, to catch us. Why would that be? It’s stupid, frankly. It’s stupid to say, “Well, you traditional people have problems with guilt and shame, but you see, we create our own standards.”

What Sartre is pointing out is we don’t live up to our own standards either. Sure, here’s a traditional society, and they say, “The meaning in life is to live according to the given standards.” Here is our modern Western society, and they say, “The meaning in life is for you to work out your own standards,” but you don’t live up to your own standards either. You’re never the person you say you want to be. You’re never the person you aspire to be. You’re never the person you claim to be. Never.

That means everybody has a problem with guilt and shame. Everybody desperately needs to be covered. Everybody desperately wants to be covered, has to be covered, has to keep people from seeing who we really are. When we are exposed, we’re filled with guilt and shame. That’s true no matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what your century. It doesn’t matter what your culture. That’s why Franz Kafka says about modern people today … He was talking about the twentieth century, but it’s also true of the twenty-first century.

He says, “The state we find ourselves in today is we feel sinful quite independent of guilt.” That’s in his diaries. All of the commentators say … It was a brilliant thing. What he’s saying is we don’t have the concept of guilt. We’re sophisticated. We laugh at this whole idea of guilt, yet we still sense there’s something wrong with us. You may laugh. “I don’t believe in heaven or hell or the moral law. I don’t believe in sin.” Yet you know in yourself, your own heart, there’s a voice that’s always there calling you an idiot, calling you a fool, calling you a failure.^[3]

We need to be covered. We need forgiveness. We know that inside. We can only get that in Jesus.

2. Firmly making the decision to be with Him gives you eternal life.

1. 1. Eternal life means that we are alive spiritually.
   2. Are you alive spiritually?
   3. Tim Keller shares:
   4. Christianity is not defined in terms of intellect or morality. It’s not defined in terms of quantity, but in terms of essence and quality, and a change of essence, and a new constitution engrafted into your being.^[4]
   5. Keller defines it more. Plant life versus animal life, versus human life.
   6. But, we are dead spiritually without Jesus. Eternal life makes us alive spiritually. This means we know Jesus now.
   7. A person who gets eternal life says, “I was as uncomprehending of holiness, of love, of eternal life, of the righteousness God gives, of adoption into his family, of the gift of salvation, of heaven and hell … I was as uncomprehending of those things as an animal is uncomprehending of beauty and ugliness, of justice and tragedy.”^[5]
   8. What happens without eternal life is the concepts of holiness and of righteousness, of heaven and hell, spiritual truths, spiritual realities either are nonsense to a person without eternal life or they are simple abstractions, but they are not solidities, they’re not realities. They don’t affect you; they don’t control you. You never act as if they’re there. All the difference in the world … A person who becomes a Christian, a person who has received eternal life says, “Suddenly, there is a whole new part of reality I never saw. It never affected me. Those realities were never there. It’s like night and day.”
   9. A Christian is somebody to whom these realities have become realities indeed. They’ve become no longer abstractions. They’re not philosophical or academic things. They are realities. They are at the center of the being. They make a difference.
   10. The truth becomes alive. Spiritual truths become alive.^[6]
   11. Are you alive spiritually? Do you know Jesus?

• Knowing Him in the details?
  1. When we know Jesus, we have a relationship with Him.
  2. Oftentimes, I have talked about this with spiritual disciplines. I have talked about prayer, Bible study, fasting, silence, etc.
  3. But, do we care about the fruit?
  4. If an apple tree did not produce apples, but tomatoes it would have serious problems.
  5. Do we pray—“Lord, help me to have the fruit of a relationship with You.”?
  6. Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV)
  7. ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
  8. I call that knowing God in the details.

Dallas Willard shares:

Our problem is that we don’t truly see the greatness of Christ. In his book Your God Is Too Small, J. B. Phillips laid his finger on the chronic problem of failing to grasp how big God is and our failure to understand the greatness of Christ. When Christians talk about Jesus, they struggle because they have a tiny Christ, a puny Christ who doesn’t compare well with others.

My University of Southern California students have occasionally asked, “Why are you a disciple of Jesus?” My answer has been to ask, “Who else did you have in mind?” And I mean this seriously. They’ve wanted to talk about Buddha, Gandhi, or even their favorite musician or politician, but none of them compare to Christ on close examination.

The reality is that everyone is following somebody. But people are typically not thinking about what is guiding their lives. Good questions for each of us to ask are, Who am I really following? Who do I look up to? Who are my role models? No matter who that might be, that person’s goodness is finite and even limited. But the goodness of God available through following Jesus is so unfathomable you will never see the end of it.[1]

A lot of folks sitting in range of the kingdom are not there for the purpose of discipleship. Often it’s because they haven’t been challenged or even taught how to be a disciple. Other times, they’ve had it explained and have turned away. Even in the Western world, many people have never heard anything about life in the kingdom of God. They think the church is the building on the corner instead of a people who are infiltrating the whole world. This will continue until people realize the solution to human problems is not a human solution. It is learning to live in the kingdom of God through apprenticeship to Jesus Christ and increasingly becoming like him and of his kingdom.[2]

 Firmly make the decision to be with Him.

In order to become like Him, to learn and do all that He says, and to arrange your affairs around Him.

Prayer

[1] Willard, Dallas. The Scandal of the Kingdom: How the Parables of Jesus Revolutionize Life with God (pp. 83-84). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[2] Willard, Dallas. The Scandal of the Kingdom: How the Parables of Jesus Revolutionize Life with God (pp. 96-97). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[1] J. D. Greear: blog on 11.19.2024

https://jdgreear.com/the-first-sounds-we-hear-are-words-of-personal-love/

[2] From The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. Copyright © 1997 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

^[3] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[4] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[5] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[6] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

This Will Be a Sign Unto You… (Luke 2:8-14)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on December 24, 2024

I like to watch BBC television shows. More specifically, I like to watch shows about the royal line throughout the history of England. One thing I realized is that when the political climate shifted it was better off to be far away from the king. It was better to be ordinary. In Luke’s Gospel, the angels appeared to ordinary people. They came to common, ordinary people to tell about the Savior’s birth.

The shepherds were ordinary, but the angels came to them—let’s re-read the passage:

Luke 2:8–14 (ESV)

⁸ And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. ¹⁰ And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

         ¹⁴       “Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

1. The extraordinary took on the ordinary.
   1. Timothy Keller quotes C.S. Lewis:
   2. S. Lewis, listen carefully. Listen very carefully to this one.
   3. He says, “… the power of the Higher, just in so far as it is truly Higher, to come down … to include the less. Thus solid bodies exemplify many truths of plane geometry, but plane figures no truths of solid geometry … Montaigne became kittenish with his kitten but she never talked philosophy to him. Everywhere the great enters the little—its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness.”
   4. Thus when I’m at peace and joy, I can enter into the hurt of someone who is angry and despondent. But when I’m angry and despondent, I cannot enter into joy and peace. Why? Because joy and peace are higher, greater. That’s why, I can add, Lincoln can understand Hitler, but Hitler will never be able to understand Lincoln. Why? Because Lincoln is greater.
   5. He is saying how do you know, therefore, something is really high and really great? Because it can come down. It can enter into the lesser. It can sympathize. It can humble itself. You’re strong enough to be weak. You’re secure enough to be vulnerable.[1]
   6. Why did the angels come to these shepherds?
   7. They announce the Savior has been born. They worship the Lord.
   8. The shepherds go to see the Lord.
   9. Why?
   10. Because we have a problem.
   11. God is holy and our sin violates His holiness.
   12. Jesus came to restore our relationship with Him.
   13. The whole Old Testament was pointing to a time when God would unite us with Him.
   14. So, in a nutshell Christmas is all about Jesus’ birth. God became a human being so that He could die for our sins. God brought events involving kings, common people, and shepherds in order to bring His Son into the world. Jesus lived among us for 33 years and then died in our place. He died for our sins.
   15. Do you believe that?
   16. In a talk Tim Keller gave on J.R.R. Tolkien back when The Lord of the Rings movies were new, he spoke about the uniqueness of the gospel story. I’ll recount what he said as it makes clear how we should see Christ entering the world to save us as the ultimate story.
   17. Tolkien and Lewis were having a conversation as they made their way around Addison’s Walk in Oxford. This is a paraphrase, but it captures accurately the essence of what Tim said:
   18. Tolkien asks:What moves you most? What gives your life meaning? 
   19. Lewis replies:The stories I love. When I’m done with a story I love, it inspires me. I’m ready to be better. They inspire me and move me. They give me meaning in life.
   20. Tolkien says:The reason that stories move you is they get in touch with some underlying reality. 
   21. Then Tim explained:All the good stories that move you … like Beauty and the Beast — love really can change people — point to an underlying reality. Even though the story isn’t true, it gets at some kind of underlying reality we identify with. 
   22. But here’s what I want you to know [and what Tolkien said to Lewis], the gospel story — the story of Jesus Christ being born in a manger, living his life here on earth, dying and being resurrected — is not one more story pointing to an underlying reality. The gospel story is the reality to which all the other stories point.
   23. Tolkien goes on to say to Lewis that the gospel story isn’t that good will triumph over evil. The gospel story is that the underlying reality came into this world to save us. It’s the ultimate story where victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat. Tolkien even coined a word for it: eucatastrophe. All good stories have elements of the gospel story woven into them if they end with eucatastrophe.[2]
2. Respond
   1. You cannot be indifferent to Jesus.
   2. Have you come to a point in your life where you have accepted Jesus into your heart for forgiveness of your sins. Jesus didn’t come to earth just to live with us; He came to instruct us and to die in our place.
   3. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The Bible says that the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). The Bible says that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by Him (John 14:6). The Bible teaches that sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2). The Bible says that God will not let the guilty go unpunished (2 Thess 1:8-9). Yet, the Bible teaches that God loves the people of the world (John 3:16). That is a dilemma. God can’t tell a lie, or He wouldn’t be God (Numbers 23:19). God doesn’t change His mind (1 Sam 15:29). That is why God sent Jesus. The guilty must go punished. Jesus took our punishment on the cross. The penalty of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life.
   4. One of the most exciting things that you can do while celebrating Jesus’ birthday is to make it your spiritual birthday as well. You can accept Jesus’ free gift of salvation right now.

1. God created us to be with him (Gen. 1-2).
2. Our sin separated us from God (Gen. 3).
3. Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen. 4-Mal. 4).
4. Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matt. – Luke).
5. Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John – Jude).
6. Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Rev. 22:5).

Prayer

[1] ¹  Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, 2012-2013 (New York: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

[2] Gospel In Life email. December 17, 2024

From Nazareth to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-7)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on December 22, 2024

I love this story from Swindoll:

I think it was my barber who told me several years ago what they used to do when their kids were small. He said, “We had the most curious kids in the world. And we knew no matter what we did, they would find the gifts. So we had a deal with our neighbors. We would keep all the neighbors’ presents in our closet, and we would give all of our gifts to the neighbors. Naturally the kids would peek, but we acted like we didn’t know about it. And then Christmas Eve, when all the kids were asleep, we would swap and wrap all the gifts.” And he said, “You should have seen my kids when they looked out in the street and saw bicycles being ridden they thought they were gonna get for their Christmas!”[1] [1] Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1501 Other Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2016), 81–82.

Again from Swindoll:

If news networks had been invented in 1809, they would’ve covered one story: Napoleon sweeping across Austria like a wildfire. Napoleon was the talk of the world, on the move from Trafalgar to Waterloo. Everything was about Napoleon.

Now, at the same time, babies were being born, but who cared? Someone should have! Whole cadres of world-changers took their first breaths in 1809. Let’s take a trip back and see for ourselves.

Our first stop: Liverpool, where Baby William is meeting the world. No one has a clue he’s destined to become Great Britain’s Prime Minister—not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. William Gladstone, 1809.

Cross the Atlantic to Cambridge, and you’ll hear the cry of another baby named Oliver. A prodigy, Oliver enters Harvard at 16, graduates before 20, gets his medical degree, practices medicine, and begins teaching at Dartmouth and Harvard. Today, his legacy includes a long list of still-respected books. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809.

Travel up and cross the Charles River until you get to Boston, where another baby, Edgar, is being born. Edgar’s father quickly abandons him; soon after, his mother dies. A family named Allan take Edgar in, and he takes their last name as his middle. He becomes the father of the American short story. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809.

Back across the pond, journey to Shropshire, where a family welcomes their fifth child, a boy. Soon, they realize they have a young scientist on their hands. Before he dies, he’s spread his theory of evolution around the world. Charles Darwin, 1809.

Over in Lincolnshire, Baby Alfred takes his first breath. Before he’s buried, he becomes the poet laureate of Ireland and Great Britain, still among the most admired and prolific poets. Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809.

We can’t leave out a one-room log cabin in Kentucky, where Thomas and Nancy are thrilled to welcome their second child, whom they name after his grandfather. They can little imagine their baby will lead the nation through civil war. Abraham Lincoln, 1809.

All these men born in 1809 . . . but who cared? Few historical buffs could name one of Napoleon’s campaigns! What seemed super-significant proved, ultimately, no more exciting than a Sunday-afternoon nap. What seemed totally insignificant was, in fact, the genesis of an era.

Let’s go back farther, to the first century. Rome captivated the world. Bordered by the Atlantic, the Euphrates, the Danube and the Rhine, and the burning sands of the Sahara, the Roman Empire was vast and vicious. Political intrigue, racial tension, rampant immorality, and enormous military might occupied everyone’s attention. All eyes were on Augustus—the Caesar who demanded a census.

No one cared about a couple making the 90-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. What could be more important than Caesar’s decisions in Rome?

Yet, mighty Augustus had unintentionally become a mere errand boy for the fulfillment of Micah’s prediction. While Rome was busy making history, God arrived. He pitched His fleshly tent on straw in a humble Bethlehem stable. Reeling from the wake of the Greats—Alexander, Herod, and Augustus—the world overlooked Jesus.

It still does. Many believers do too.

Our times aren’t altogether different than 1809 or even the first century. That list of Roman distractions sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Political intrigue. Racial tension. Rampant immorality. Enormous military might. To enhance our tunnel vision, we DO have news networks. Most of us have smartphones that alert us to every new development in (and friend’s opinion about) the “it” story. It’s easy to get sucked into the fear and anxiety.

Don’t misread me. The events flashing across our news channels matter. Some of them have deeply impacted you. They are not trivial. But make no mistake—Satan wants to distract you from the message of Christmas. It’s a message we need today as much as those who lived under the crushing weight of Rome’s heavy boot.

So, here it is: Immanuel—God with Us.

Christmas is about God’s coming down to live in this weary world with us. The long-awaited Messiah finally letting out His first cry. The Savior, the only Hope for a world that drowns Him out. The conquering King of Kings, who is coming again to make wrong right once and for all.

That King is OUR King!

As life rages around you, please pause. Feel the truth of God’s drawing near to you. Let His Word drive out your fear and let His hope bind your heart. Fix your eyes on Him and receive your King! [Dec. 5, 2017 article]

Another time and another place, I was visiting with one of our senior saints. I was talking about Christmas, and she said, “I don’t know how they had babies back then.” I said something like, “Yes, and to be traveling during the ninth month of pregnancy!” We continued our conversation, and I parted ways, but I have to imagine the travel for the first Christmas was very difficult.

But think about Christmas today. Our difficulty and even our busyness is of our own doing.

What do you have to get done for Christmas?

Shout some things out:

Bake cookies

More shopping

More decorating

Wrap gifts

Travel

Groceries

Etc.

These are all great things, but they are nothing compared to what Mary and Joseph went through. I do not mean to criticize anyone here, either.

Now, switch gears and think about a difficult time that ended okay… Maybe you did not know God would use it for good until later. Perhaps you were laid off for a while, but God gave you a better job. Maybe you were laid off but realized you didn’t need the job. Perhaps something else was taken from you…

I also believe that God can use our hard times.

We will look at Luke 2:1-7 and mainly focus on the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

When we think about Mary and Joseph traveling, it was not in a car; they had no CD player or any other modern luxuries.

Think about it: they are traveling; Mary is in her ninth month of pregnancy. Mary could not have been enjoying this as a sightseeing journey. But God used this arduous journey to bring the Savior into the world.

Let me say right now that I greatly benefited in ideas as well as cultural and geographical information from Adam Hamilton’s book, The Journey.[1]

Theme:

Mary and Joseph had a difficult journey heading into Jesus’s birth. God was going to use this for the good.

Application:

Let God use difficult things you go through for His glory and purposes.

Let’s read the passage:

Luke 2:1–7 (ESV)

2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And all went to be registered, each to his own town. ⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. ⁶ And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

1. Let’s start by talking about what led up to the journey.
   1. It is likely that while Mary was visiting her relative, Elizabeth, she went to see Joseph and tell him she was pregnant. During that time, she would have been in Ein Karem, which is close to Bethlehem, where Joseph is from. Of course, Joseph was likely upset, but then God spoke to him in a dream (Matthew 1:20-23), and he decided to stay by her.
   2. Following that, they likely talked to her parents and planned a wedding. We could call it eloping if we want. It is likely that they got married when she was about five months pregnant with our Lord.
   3. There could have been people questioning things; likely, there were.
   4. Likely, they traveled the 70-some miles back to Nazareth for the wedding.
   5. It was common in that day that there would be a formal engagement. Following the formal engagement, a husband would build a room in his father’s house. About a year later, he would marry the bride-to-be, and they would live at the father of the groom’s house until they could afford their own house and land.
   6. In this case, things are different. Maybe they planned to live at Joseph’s parents’ house after baby Jesus was born. However, they were in Nazareth before the census. It seems that they were planning to give birth in Nazareth. Nazareth would allow Mary to be close to her parents and maybe a midwife she would know.
   7. But then the census comes. The census meant that they would have to travel to Bethlehem. Bethlehem was Joseph’s hometown, and since Mary married him, she would have to register with him in Bethlehem.
   8. So, now they must travel.
   9. Mary is likely nine months pregnant; do you think she was excited to travel? What do you think?
   10. I think she might have been thinking, “This is not how it was supposed to be. Why am I going through this?” She likely was having a hard time.
   11. Sometimes, we are also in difficult situations, and we may be asking questions of the Lord. We may be going through cancer, the loss of a loved one, being out of work, or dealing with difficult children. We can be sure that God is with us. We can be sure that God can also use what we are going through for His glory and will.

• Let’s think about the travel.
  1. There is no mention of a donkey, though Joseph likely would have procured an animal for her to ride on. The apocryphal Gospel of James does mention a donkey.
  2. They would have a descent from the hills into the Jezreel Valley. This would have been the easiest part of the journey and may have taken the first two days.
  3. The Jezreel Valley was the location of so many of the ancient battles that it became synonymous with war and bloodshed. The writer of Revelation saw the final, apocalyptic battle between good and evil—the battle of Armageddon— taking place here (Armageddon means “hill of Megiddo,” with Megiddo being a city built upon a hill along the Jezreel Valley— see Revelation 16:16.).
  4. The child in Mary’s womb would be called the Prince of Peace, yet someday will return on a white horse to wage war against evil and ultimately to triumph over it (Rev. 19:11-16).
  5. The journey would become more difficult after several days, as it followed the ancient road, which curved back and forth as it ascended and descended the hills and mountains of central Israel.
  6. Mary and Joseph would have traveled up higher and higher hills.
  7. From Jerusalem, it would only be a few hour’s walk to Bethlehem across several miles of arid desert and some hills.
  8. Then they arrive at Bethlehem.

• But think about Jesus’s birth. If Joseph is from Bethlehem, why is there no place to stay?
  1. Think about a first-century home:
  2. Central room that served as a kitchen and living area,
  3. Sleeping quarters where parents slept,
  4. The guest room where children slept and yielded to guests when there was company,
  5. The children slept with their parents or in the living area when there were guests.
  6. There was also a stable or small barn either behind the home or, in the case of homes built around caves, beneath the home. The stable protected the animals from predators or animals at night.
  7. Assuming Joseph’s family was of modest income, they would have had one guest room. The guest room might hold bed mats for six people sleeping side by side. The main living room and kitchen could hold several more.
  8. How many of Joseph’s extended family were in Bethlehem because of the census?
  9. If Joseph had four or five siblings, each of them had family, it is easy to see why the guest room would have had no room.
  10. Imagine her sitting on the birthing stool, between contractions, choking back the tears, thinking this is not how it was supposed to be.

1. Some final applications:
   1. This was not a silent night.
   2. All was not calm and bright.
   3. It was a disappointing and depressing night. It was hard.
   4. He was born not in a hospital or guest room but in a stable.
   5. We all have difficult journeys:
   6. Jacob’s son, Joseph, was sold into slavery (Gen. 37).
   7. David fled Saul to the Philistines for a few years (1 Samuel 19ff and chapter 27) and wrote Psalms asking, “Why do You allow my enemies to prosper?” “When are You going to save me?” That was not the end of the story.
   8. Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego were told to bow down and worship the king’s image, but they didn’t (Daniel 3). That was not the end of the story.
   9. The people of Israel were exiled for 400 years, but that was not the end.
   10. Now, the child born in a stable would walk to Calvary, but that was not the end of the story.

All of us take difficult journeys but God walks with us. God redeems the journeys, and that is not the end of the story.

Mary could not see that the angels would be rejoicing. She could not see that we would be reading the story two thousand years later.  However, we are.

R. C. Sproul shares:

Every time I hear the prohibition “Don’t be afraid,” I think of my days teaching nineteenth-century philosophy and teaching the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the existential nihilist. Nietzsche said that there is no meaning to life, that everything is an exercise in futility. All there is at the end of the day is nothingness. At the same time, Nietzsche called for the superman, the Übermensch, to demonstrate what he called “dialectical courage.” He said: “The superman is the man who builds his house on the slope of Vesuvius. He sends his ship into uncharted seas.” He’s afraid of nothing. He’s defiant. He challenges this meaningless world in “which he lives, and he lives his life with a spirit of courage.

What is dialectical courage? What Nietzsche meant is contradictory courage, irrational courage. He called on people to be courageous, even though their courage is equally meaningless. That is, he could give no sound reason for calling anyone to be courageous or to be fearless. In the New Testament, Jesus says to His followers, “Take heart,” and He gives a reason for that command. “Take heart,” Jesus says. “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Years before, the angel said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (vv. 10–11).

The shepherds likely understood that the word Christ was the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, or “anointed one,” and this was an announcement that the long-awaited Savior had come into the world.[1]

[1] Excerpt From. Luke. R.C. Sproul
https://books.apple.com/us/book/luke/id1534659946
This material may be protected by copyright.

Prayer

God created us to be with him (Gen. 1-2).

Our sin separated us from God (Gen. 3).

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen. 4-Mal 4).

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matt. – Luke).

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John – Jude).

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Rev. 22:5).

[1] Rev 2:20-23

Hamilton, Adam (2011-09-01). The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem. Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

The American storyteller Garrison Keillor recently claimed that you don’t have to believe in Jesus to have a great Christmas. Keillor said,

Although you may decide that instead of Christmas carols you are going to hold hands and breathe in unison, Christmas will still live deep in the cockles of your heart—or actually in your neo-cortex, stored as zillions of neuron impulses … It’s [your brain] that sends tears to your eyes when you smell the saffron cookies that your grandma used to make or you sing Silent Night. So Christmas is: number one lights, number two food, number three song, number four being with people you like. You need no more.

Tim Keller comments on Keillor’s quote:

Keillor is saying that it doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not. You can still hold hands, you can still breathe in unison. All the good feelings of Christmas are just a reaction in our brain. But here’s why that doesn’t work. I know enough about Garrison Keillor to know that he is very upset with cruelty and prejudice. But if it’s really true that there is no God, if there is no supernatural or miracles, and if everything is a function of natural causes—if that is all true, then it is also true that love, and joy, and even cruelty and prejudice are just all chemical reactions stored in our brain. Keillor is against cruelty and prejudice, but if it’s true that everything is just chemistry, then how in the world can you say there’s a moral difference between love and cruelty, between kissing someone or killing someone? They’re both nothing but neuro-chemical responses. So if there is no God, and if Christmas is all about lights, songs, and being with nice people and your neo-cortex going crazy about it, then I don’t see how Keillor can stand up and say that there is something wrong with cruelty and prejudice. He can’t do it. Without the theology behind Christmas, you lose the core meaning of Christmas.[1]

So, as we move towards Christmas, remember the importance of what is happening. Remember the reality and the truth of what is happening. Next, we see specific values in Mary’s Magnificat to get closer to today’s message. We see particular values addressed. The Magnificat is addressing injustice. We’ll look at that briefly, but let’s look at the bigger picture. The Gospel is addressing injustice. Somehow, we know and believe in morality. Somehow, we think certain things are wrong, and others are right. Somehow, we believe in love. We believe in joy. We get these values somewhere. The Bible teaches that we get these values from God (Romans 1:18-19; 2:15). Even more than that, we believe that certain things are wrong. If we believe certain things are wrong, like murder, stealing, telling lies, and just being mean, which the Bible calls sin, how do we make it right? Jesus’s death and resurrection take care of our sins.

So, Mary is pregnant with Jesus. She is likely a little bit down. She doesn’t know how she is going to handle everything coming her way, but her relative, Elizabeth, encourages her. Have you ever been encouraged?

Have you ever thought you had more coming your way than you could handle?

Who encouraged you?

Who motivated you?

Let’s look at the passage.

Let’s read Luke 1:39-45:

Luke 1:39–45 (ESV)

³⁹ In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, ⁴⁰ and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, ⁴² and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! ⁴³ And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Theme: Mary visits Elizabeth, and she is encouraged.

Applications: Kneel before Jesus as Lord and be used by God to encourage others.

1. Kneel before Jesus as Lord.
   1. We need to notice who the first person to call Jesus Lord was. If you look at this passage, you will see that it was Elizabeth.
   2. Let me put this in context. The angel Gabriel visits Mary and tells her she will be pregnant with the Messiah. That happens in Luke 1:26-38. That passage ends with Mary saying, “I am the Lord’s servant…” Then Mary leaves and goes to visit her relative, Elizabeth. This was likely an 8–9-day journey through mountains and rough land. She is going from Nazareth to Ein Karem, which is the traditional location of Elizabeth and Zachariah’s home.
   3. Adam Hamilton believes that another reason for Mary to visit Elizabeth would be the proximity of her home to the home of Joseph. Tradition says that her home would have been in Ein Karem just about an hour walk and a few miles from the Temple mount in Jerusalem. Ein Karem is mentioned in Jeremiah 6:1 and Nehemiah 3:14 as “Beth-Haccherem” Ein Karem is 80 miles from Mary’s home in Nazareth. This may have taken 8-9 days and she would not have traveled alone. Mary stayed with Elizabeth until the end of the pregnancy.[2]
   4. Mary enters Elizabeth’s house and says, “Elizabeth, it’s me!” Then the baby in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptizer, leaped in her womb. Verse 41 says that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Understand that is a fantastic statement. In the Old Testament, only prophets and certain kings received the Holy Spirit. So, in Psalm 51:11, King David laments: “Take not the Holy Spirit from me.” There was a fear of losing the Holy Spirit.
   5. It was once said, “I wonder what it was like for Moses to talk to God as he did.” Yet Moses could have thought, “What is it like to have God with you?” We receive the Holy Spirit when we commit to Christ (John 14-17). We have God with us. (2 Cor. 6:16) Don’t take this lightly.
   6. Now, having the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth encourages Mary.
   7. She says in verse 42: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child that you bear.”
   8. Imagine Mary being down and struggling with this task and now her relative is saying, “You are blessed.” “You are really blessed.”
   9. But verse 43: “But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
   10. Catch this: Elizabeth is ordinary, and God calls her to do something extraordinary. She is bearing John the Baptizer. She is encouraging Mary. She is saying, “Who am I?” But then she calls Jesus “Lord.”
   11. How would she know? She is filled with the Holy Spirit and is the first to call Jesus Lord.
   12. In verses 39-45, 3 times, the word “blessed” is used. Twice, it refers to Mary and once to Jesus.
2. Be an encourager.
   1. Mary is likely 10 days pregnant at this point. She has not been pregnant long.
   2. She needs encouragement, and Elizabeth gave her that encouragement.
   3. Everyone needs an encourager. Let me jump to mentors. Elizabeth is an older woman, not Mary’s mom, who can voice wisdom in her life. I have often heard that everyone should have a mentor, be mentoring someone else, and have a peer they can connect with. How are you doing in this area?
   4. I heard about a church that decided to take this mentoring seriously, so on all of their committees; they chose to have one-third of the participants be fifty-five and older, one-third is to be thirty-five through fifty-five years old-, and one-third of the members are to be thirty-five and younger. What an excellent idea for mentoring.
3. The Gospel is counter-cultural, let’s look at the Magnificat.
   56. Mary’s Magnificat is in verses 46-56.
   57. Magnificat comes from the Latin: “magnify” or “praise.” This is based on how Mary began her Psalm: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46).
   58. Mary was from a small town that could barely be a dot on a map. Joseph was a carpenter whose net worth could fit in a toolbox.
   59. He scatters the proud and pulls down the mighty from their thrones (verses 51-52).
   60. Compare this with what Jesus will later say:
   61. Jesus had said, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first” (Matthew 20:16)
   62. Jesus said, “If you really want to be great, you will be the servant of others” (Matthew 20:26)
   63. Jesus said, “If you are invited to a wedding banquet, take the lower seat” (Luke 14:8).
   64. Jesus said through James, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (James 4:10).
   65. In Mary’s Magnificat, we find a picture of a God who is for the underdog and is for people who have been made to feel like nobodies. Those are the ones He lifts. That is the character of the God proclaimed in the Scriptures. That is the character of His Son.
   66. The Magnificat says that “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed” (verse 53).
   67. This is an opportunity for the rich to humble themselves and be used of God.
   68. The Magnificat is counter cultural. The Magnificat is about how God uses ordinary people for extraordinary things.

So, review:

Mary and Elizabeth are two ordinary people who God used to do the extraordinary.

Theme: Mary visits Elizabeth, and she is encouraged.

Applications: Kneel before Jesus as Lord and be used by God to encourage others.

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him (Genesis 1-2).

Our sin separated us from God (Genesis 3).

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen. 4-Mal. 4).

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (Matthew – Luke).

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life (John – Jude).

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever (Revelation 22:5).

Pray

[1] Adapted from Tim Keller, “God with Us: Conversations with Tim Keller about Christmas”

[2] Hamilton, Adam (2011-09-01). The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem. Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

Okay, let’s have a Christmas pageant. Let’s just pretend for a moment:

Who wants to be the innkeeper? Raise your hand

Who wants to be Joseph? Raise your hand; someone is Joseph.

Who wants to be the camel? Ha, come on, someone play a camel.

Who wants to be the wise man? Raise your hand.

Who else do we need? Who wants to be shepherds? We need several raise your hands.

Who wants to be the doctor? The doctor? She was having a baby; do you think there was a doctor there? No, there was not. Who wants to be the nurse? Who wants to be the mother of Mary?

No nurse.

No doctor.

No Mother.

Who wants to be Mary? Someone raise your hand.

Do you think Mary wanted to be Mary?

Have you ever been asked to do a difficult, honorable, or noble task, but you did not know that you could do it? Have you been there?

That is what Mary felt. Mary was a world changer. She changed the world as the mother of Jesus. We would not be here if it were not for Mary. Think about this: We have a mission statement from Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This could not have happened without Mary. Mary gave birth to the One who gave that commission.

Let’s look at Mary’s commissioning:

Luke 1:26–38 (ESV)

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Theme:

Mary was highly favored for a difficult task, which she humbly accepted.

Application:

Sometimes, God’s call is not easy. Accept the call as Mary did.

1. I want to focus on one word: “Highly Favored.”
   1. This word is the word for “grace.”
   2. It is only used in this way in Ephesians 1:6 having to do with God giving us His grace.
   3. This verse is saying that Mary has received God’s grace or God’s favor.
   4. This is Gabriel’s greeting to Mary. Gabriel says, “The Lord is with you.”
   5. She is twice told that she has received grace or favor, in verse 28 and verse 30: ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
   6. As one writes about grace: Grace is at the center of what God was doing in Christmas. The child to be born of Mary would embody and incarnate grace. His message would be a message of grace. His life would demonstrate grace to sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. They had been taught that there was no place for them in the synagogue, that God’s judgment and wrath was upon them; Jesus devoted his life to showing them that it was God’s love, mercy, and kindness that were offered to them. Jesus showed them grace.[1]
   7. Do we realize who she would be the mother to?
   8. Those who wrote the great hymns of Christmas know it.  They’ve always known it.  Our carols celebrate it.  “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”  “Yea, Lord, we great Thee, born this happy morning,” “Come adore on bended knee Christ the Lord,” “Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord,” “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity.”  “Jesus, our Immanuel.”  “Yet in the dark street shineth the everlasting light.”  “Oh come with us, abide with us, our Lord, Immanuel.”  The carol says, “Jesus, Lord at Thy birth,” “Incense owns a Deity nigh,” “The virgin’s sweet boy is the Lord of the earth,”  “Word of the Father now in flesh appearing,”  “How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name,”  “God with man is now residing, suddenly the Lord descending.”  The carol says, “Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown when Thou camest to earth for me.”  “And the Father gave His Son, gave His own beloved One.”  Son of the Most High, Son of God, God in human flesh; this amazing child is God come down. Grace has power. When you show kindness, compassion, goodness, or love to someone who does not deserve it, the act of grace has the power to change hearts, to heal broken relationships, and to reconcile people and even nations. Grace changes the one who receives it, but it also changes the one who gives it.[2]
   9. She certainly is the mother of God; she raised Jesus.
   10. Do you think she was happy for this task?
2. Let’s talk more about Mary.
   1. Mary was from a tiny town called Nazareth.
   2. Nazareth would not even make it on a list of cities. It was just a tiny little village.
   3. We would think if God were going to send His Son into the world, He would pick a woman from Rome or Jerusalem, but He didn’t.
   4. I believe God wanted to show that He chooses the nobodies.
   5. Mary was likely 13 years old. Think about that.
   6. She was from humble beginnings.
   7. She was likely uneducated.
   8. She was likely raised to be very devoted to God.
   9. Mary is told how things will happen. The power of God, the Most High, will overshadow her. Mary is not told exactly what is going to happen, but if God did not cause her to conceive, then Jesus would be a clone of her. People have lacked faith in the virgin birth in the past, but with all of the science these days and how we can artificially inseminate, do we need to doubt God?
   10. So, Mary is told precisely what will happen.
   11. Again, I return to the question: Do you think Mary wanted to be Mary?
   12. Do you think Mary wanted to go and tell Joseph she was pregnant? Do you think Mary was scared? Do you think Mary was concerned to talk to her parents? Having a baby was scary back then, but all these responsibilities and the great humility also.
   13. As a brief aside think of how confounding it is that God became a man.
   14. Look at verses 34-35:
   15. Luke 1:34–35 (ESV)
   16. ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
   17. ³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
   18. God became a man!
   19. This comes from Timothy Keller:
   20. For example, all relationships (certainly marriages but all relationships) … Certainly parent and child, all of this always happens. Sometimes you get into conversations that go roughly like this:
   21. “You’re to blame.”
   22. “Oh, no. You’re to blame.”
   23. “Oh, no, no. It’s you.”
   24. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It’s not me. It’s you.”
   25. “No, it’s you.”
   26. “No, it’s you.”

• “No, it’s you.”
• What’s happening? The relationship is falling apart because neither side will budge an inch. Neither side will take any blame. Neither side will make any concession. Neither side will admit. Neither side will drop the defenses. You are defending yourself at every point where the other person is accusing you or charging you. At every point! As long as those defenses are up, your relationship is going away, and on it goes. Sometimes this happens:
• “No, no. It’s you.”
• “No, no. It’s you.”
• “No, no, no, no. It’s you.”
• “Okay, it’s me.”
• “No, no … Yeah!” Now what happens there? Sometimes it’s:
• “It’s you.”
• “No, it’s you.”
• “No, it’s you.”
• “No, it’s you.”
• “No, it’s you.”
• “Yes, it’s me.”
• “Yes, it’s you. Yes, it’s you!”
• Sometimes the piling on happens for a while, but I’ll tell you what begins to happen immediately. The relationship starts to heal. Sometimes it starts to deepen. It starts to come back. Why? Because one of you dropped defenses. I mean, certainly it goes like this. You know, even if you feel like the other person is 80 percent wrong, exaggerating, throwing in a lot of fabrications, almost always the person is at least 20 person right. You know it.
• The relationship starts to come back because you take that 20 percent, and you admit it. You say, “Yeah, it’s me. Yes, I am to blame. I am to blame here. I am willing to do that.” You make yourself vulnerable, and you drop your defenses. It can hurt! It’s very hard, because very often the other person keeps piling on for a while. In general, it won’t be long before not only the relationship is restored, but very often it’s deeper than it’s ever been before. It’s more intimate than it’s ever been before.
• Why would you do that? Because in the midst of all the yelling and all the hostility, one of you decides, in spite of how distorted that other person is right now and how distorted we are both because of our anger, “I want that person back. I want the person I love back.” The only way to do that is you take down your shield somewhere, and you let one of the verbal blows land. You say, “Yes, it’s true. It’s me. I’m wrong. I admit it.”

• It hurts, but it’s the only way. In fact, almost always it works, and the relationship begins to at least come back. At least it stops deteriorating. Later on, it might actually get better. In many, many cases, it gets deeper than it ever was before because you have done a costly act of redemption for the relationship. You let your defenses down.
• Why does that work? Do you know why that works? It works because you are made in the image of the One who gave the ultimate expression of this part of his own nature at Christmas, because at Christmas when the unassailable God, the omnipotent God, became a baby, we have the ultimate example of letting your defenses down.^[3]
• C. S. Lewis years ago very famously put it something like this: “If you want your heart to never be broken, give it no one. If you don’t want your heart to be broken, if you don’t want to be vulnerable, if you don’t want your heart to be broken, then don’t give it to anyone.” He says, in that little casket of self-centeredness, your heart will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

• Because, you see, there’s absolutely no way to have a relationship without becoming vulnerable. There’s no way to get back a relationship or deepen a relationship or get it more intimate without becoming vulnerable and hurt. Here’s what Christmas tells you. There is no other religion that even tells you this about God. No other religion even claims it. Secularism says the incarnation is a miracle. It’s impossible. Judaism and Islam say it’s impossible for God to become a baby. Eastern religions say it’s impossible.
• Only Christianity says God became breakable. God literally became breakable. God became fragile. God became breakable. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back. To get you back! Jesus Christ became utterly fragile. God became utterly breakable and died on the cross to pay for our sins and to reconcile to himself anyone who was willing to admit they need that extreme a salvation.^[4]
• Martin Luther, in one of his nativity sermons, put it like this. He said are you afraid of God? He places before you a Babe with whom you may take refuge. You cannot fear a Babe, for nothing is more appealing to the human heart than a baby.
• “To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap … of his most gracious mother.” You see, the consuming fire, the whirlwind, became a baby in order to become someone who could be hurt. Why? Why? To have intimacy, a relationship. He did all of that to get near us. If you know that, if this isn’t just a metaphor, this isn’t just a sweet symbol, if you know it, blessed are you if you know it was really accomplished.^[5]
• Mary would tell her relatives and Joseph. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, and then we have the Magnificat.

• Let’s look at Mary’s response.
  1. And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her (Verse 38).
  2. Sometimes, the Lord’s calling is difficult, but we must follow through.
  3. We must follow through like Mary did and just respond, I am the servant of the Lord…
  4. There’s a place where Martin Luther in one of his nativity sermons says something like, “Do you know what a stable smells like?” Now I’m paraphrasing, but this is Luther, and this is the way he was. He said something like, “Do you know what a stable smells like? Do you know what that family would have smelled like after the birth and they went out into the city? If they were standing next to you, how would you have felt about them? How would you have regarded them?^[6]
  5. Verse 29: ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.^[7]
  6. I like what Timothy Keller shares:
  7. Literally it says, the word wondered is the word dialogizomai, which means to logic through something, to rationally think. Dialogizomai. You can see it (logic). To think through. To furiously analyze. Then it says to furiously analyze what kind of greeting this might be. What that means is she is sitting there saying, “Is this a hallucination, or is this a dream, or is this the real thing?”
  8. She is going through categories of possibilities, and she is saying, “Am I seeing things?” Now this isn’t the way you write a legend. No, if you’re going to write a legend that’s supposed to promote the piety of the faithful, you don’t say, “And the angel appeared unto Mary and said, ‘Greetings! Hail!’ ” Then usually what happens is Mary says immediately, “I am the Lord’s servant.” Right?
  9. That’s how you write a legend, but that’s not what happens. Here’s what Luke tells you what happened. The angel appeared, and Mary sat there and said, “Am I seeing things? Are you real? What’s going on here? I can’t be seeing this. What’s the matter? This is weird.” In other words, Mary is reacting just the way you would react.
  10. There are a lot of people maybe in this room and a lot of people who would say, “Well, I’m a modern skeptical person. Back then, people were primitive. They believed in these things, but I’m different.” No, you’re not. Not at all. Don’t you dare hide behind that. Mary is reacting exactly like you would have. She is dialogizomai. She is trying to think logically through it. She is trying to figure out, “What in the world? How do I account for this? How do I account for this? Am I dreaming? Did I eat something? Is this a flashback? What is going on here?”
  11. Let me show you how it works. Let me show you. Let’s enter in here. Let me help you do the same thing. How do you account for this? That’s what she is saying. She is saying, “How do I account for this data?” See? She did not have a grid. She did not have a worldview that included angels and visions and things like that happening to her. Okay, now let’s do it with us ourselves.
  12. How do you account for the fact that Mary … or maybe let’s just say Luke … these early Christians believed God had become flesh and the one he had become, a human being, Jesus Christ, needed to be worshiped? How do you account for that? Would you think with me? Think through it. Was this a kind of development, you know, a trend out of Greek thinking? No. There was absolutely nothing about Greco-Roman thinking at the time.
  13. Everything about their worldview said, “Matter is bad. The physical is bad.” They mean nothing. Nothing! There was no trend. There was nothing in that culture that would ever lead anybody to believe the creator God would become human. Oh, okay. Eastern religions. Is this sort of a development, an extension of Eastern religions? No. Eastern religions believe matter and the physical is an illusion, that it’s going to pass away eventually.
  14. Well, the Jews. Oh, yeah. But listen. In other words, as much as we can say Eastern and Western religion and philosophy were completely against … totally against … the whole concept, there was absolutely no way this developed out of there (the concept of the incarnation). The last people in the whole world who would ever believe some human being should be worshiped would be the Jews, who didn’t even speak God’s name, don’t even write God’s name, even to this day.^[8]
  15. S. Lewis used to say something like, “The reason I believe in Christianity is because nobody is brilliant enough or crazy enough to have thought this up.”^[9]
  16. Later Mary says, “I am the Lord’s servant…”
  17. Can we respond this way? Can we respond to God’s Word and honorably say.
  18. “I am the Lord’s servant, and I will follow the rules.”
  19. “I am the Lord’s servant I will walk in integrity.”
  20. “I am the Lord’s servant and will not spread that rumor.”
  21. “I am the Lord’s servant and will not gossip on Facebook.”
  22. “I am the Lord’s servant, and I won’t look at that website.”
  23. “I am the Lord’s servant, and I will not have road rage.”
  24. “I am the Lord’s servant, and I will apologize for my behavior.”
  25. “I am the Lord’s servant, and I will treat people with respect.”
  26. “I am the Lord’s servant. I will share the Gospel with people, pray, read the Bible, work at the food pantry, help someone with a meal, and give someone grace.”
  27. I am the Lord’s servant… we must pray about it and live like Mary.

Remember grace and favor; it is such a gift. That was such a privilege for Mary. Give people grace this week. Give people favor this week.

Dorothy Sayers says, “[The incarnation] means … that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. […] He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself.

He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. […] He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.” So in the package, there’s a unique resource for suffering.^[10]

Timothy Keller:

If you believe in Christmas, you’re also in this unique spot. No other religion … whether it’s secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religions, Judaism, or Islam … no religion believes God became breakable. No religion, no view, believes God suffered. Thirdly, none of them believe God has a body. Eastern religions believe the physical is an illusion. Greek and Romans at the time believed the physical was bad. Judaism and Islam don’t believe God would do such a thing.

Christianity, Christmas, teaches God is not just concerned about the spiritual because he is not just a spirit anymore. This is so outrageous. He has a body! Because he has a body, he knows what it’s like to be poor. He knows what it’s like to be a refugee running away from persecution, having to go to Egypt. He knows what it’s like to be hungry. He knows what it’s like to be beaten. He knows what it’s like to be stabbed. He knows what it’s like to be speared. He knows what it’s like to be dead. He knows what it’s like.

Therefore, if you put the doctrine of the incarnation and Christmas together with the doctrine of the resurrection … In other words, if you put Christmas and Easter together, here’s what you have. We have a God who is not just concerned about the spirit but also the body. He created body and spirit. He is going to redeem body and spirit. Christianity is the one religion (Christmas, in particular) that leads us to be able to talk about redeeming people from guilt and unbelief and creating safe streets and warm, affordable housing for the poor in the same breath.^[11]

Be encouraged. We have all received God’s grace.

So, would you want to be Mary? But remember Mary’s response; we can respond in the same way.

Pray

[1] Hamilton, Adam (2011-09-01). The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Kindle Locations 238-242). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/42-7/the-greatest-child-ever-born

^[3] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[4] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[5] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[6] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 1:29.

^[8] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[9] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[10] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

^[11] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).