STUDIES IN LUKE

� The secular world has fallen in love with angels.� Angels have become so popular in our culture that any book or movie on angels becomes an instant success.� Two

of the popular TV programs are about angels.� Touched By An Angel, features an Irish angel who goes about helping people out of life's trials, and always has a successful conclusion.� Every once in while she tells people she is an angel, and every so often she does something supernatural to prove it.� But she is very conservative with her miracles, and you find yourself impatient with her for not intervening faster.

�� The other series called, Heaven Help Us is no longer on, but it had a lot of things not even remotely related to Biblical revelation, but it was well done and satisfied the current hunger for spiritual reality.� The two angels are a young husband and wife who were killed in a plane crash.� They are assigned tasks each week to help people in sort of crisis.� It is made clear that their success in their good works will determine if they go to heaven or hell.� It is a works salvation theme all the way.� They are very nice angels and they always succeed.�

�� These two programs are, or were, watched by millions, and have a positive message about angels.� But they convey the false impression that people become angels at death, and that good works are a means of salvation.� They do convey the truth that there is a spirit world that cares about this world and what happens to people.� People long for this to be true.�� They do not want to trust Jesus as Savior, or submit to God's will, but they deeply desire to know that someone cares and is watching over them,� and that death is not the end.� This hunger for assurance of another world has led to numerous books on angels, and many of them are not from a Christian perspective. A number of modern artists are also into angels, and so the secular world is now competing with Christians in the exaltation of angels.�

�� The revival of interest in angels is both good and bad.� It is bad because of all the myths and false information, and the substituting of angels for God.� This makes the angels into idols, and destroys the very essence of what real angels are all about‑‑to increase the adoration of God, their Creator.� The good side is that it opens the door for Christians to talk about the Biblical reality of angels, and how they, like the Christmas angels, point men to the Lord Jesus.�

�� Angels play a major role in the theology of the three major religions of the world‑Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.� There are 109 references to angels in the Old Testament and 56 references to the Angel of the Lord.� In the New Testament there are 188 references to angels.� In the Koran there 101 references to angels.� Angelology is a branch of theology in the great religions of the world.� They also play a role in cults theology, and in the world of the occult.� The new age is into angels, and so are religious nuts and wackos.� In short, this is a subject that holds interest for most of mankind.� You could spend the rest of your life studying angels and never exhaust what is available.�

�� So much of what angels do is personal and subjective.� You cannot capture angelic experiences on film, or get them to sign their autograph or pose for a picture.

Hard objective evidence is hard to come by.� But when you begin to add up the enormous number of witnesses who describe their encounters with angels, you are forced to recognize there is too much evidence to ignore their reality.� I believe in angels� because the Bible reveals them and not because of any personal experience. But Hope MacDonald has had many experiences with angels, and she wrote the book, When Angels Appear.� She is a pastor's wife, and her book was published by Zondervan, an evangelical publishing house.�

�� She started her encounter with angels at age 4.� Her sister Marilyn was struck by a car and thrown 20 feet into the air.� She was rolling full speed into a large open sewer when all of the sudden she stopped right on the edge.� No one could understand how that could happen, but the sister said, "But didn't you see that huge beautiful angel standing in the sewer holding up her hands to keep me from rolling in?"� She never forgot this incident, and as an adult she began to do research on angels.� She discovered hundreds of books on the devil and demons, but all she could find in print were 8 books on angels.� This was back in 1982.� It seems that men have a greater fascination for evil than for good.� But today the good angels are hot and are getting a lot more attention.� Billy Graham in his book on angels says, "Angels� have a much more important place in the Bible than the devil and his demons."�

�� The angels played a major role in the Christmas story.� They announced the birth of Christ to both Mary and Joseph, and helped them work out the complexities of the virgin birth.� Angels announced His birth to the shepherds and sang the first Christmas song‑‑Glory to God in The Highest.� They protected the Christ child, and all His life Jesus was protected by the angels.� They would have even saved Him from the cross had He asked for that salvation.� We cannot not look at all the ways they were involved in the life of Jesus, but we see they also announced His second coming in Acts 1:10‑11, "Men of Galilee they said, "Why do you stand here looking into the sky?� This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven."� The angels will play a major role when Jesus returns, and for all eternity we will be partners in worship and service with the angels.�

�� It makes sense why angels would play a major role in the life of Jesus, for He had to be protected until He went to the cross.� God was not going to allow any accident,

or disease, or clever trick of Satan to destroy His plan before it was completed.� Angels are a vital part of the cast in the Christmas story, and in the whole story of the greatest life ever lived.� But question that men struggle with is, what is the role of angels in our lives?� The Christian world and the secular world have one concept of angels in common and that is the idea of the guardian angel.� These invisible beings are protecting us.� Who of us could not have been killed at some point in their life already?� I have not kept a list of near death experiences, but I know I had a couple as a teenager, one in college, and several since.� A second of difference in what happened could have led to my death in accidents.� Did my guardian angel give me protection, or was I just lucky, or did God in His providence spare me without angel involvement?�

�� Such questions get us into the realm of the unseen and the unknown.� This is a realm where it is hard to be dogmatic.� But Christians have always believed that angels are assigned to be with us.� Charles Wesley wrote,

"Angels, where'er we go

Attend our steps what'er betide.

With watchful care there charge defend

And evil turn aside.�

�� John Calvin, the great reformer wrote, "The angels are the dispensers and administrators of the Divine beneficence toward us:� They regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us."�� We could quote hundreds of other Christian leaders to confirm this is a Christian conviction.� Why then are we still so doubtful about the relevance of angels, and skeptical about their role in our lives?� It is because there seems to be an angel shortage.� They show up to protect in some dramatic instances, but in the majority of cases there does not seem to be enough angels to care for all of God's children, let alone, the whole human population.

�� Daniel had an angel show up to close the mouth of the lions, and he lived to tell about it.� But the hungry lions in the Roman Coliseums devoured Christians by the hundreds.� Where were their guardian angels?� For every angel story of marvelous intervention there are dozens of tragic stories where children are not spared, but die in accidents, fires, and with dreaded diseases.� This is open knowledge, and the result is, even Christians are somewhat skeptical of the whole idea of guardian angels.�

�� What we need to see is that there are very few supernatural experiences that all

God's people have in common.� Only Noah and his family survived the flood.� Many good people did not survive, including Methusalah.� Only the three friends of Daniel survived the fiery furnace.� All other believer's in history who have been subjected to intense fire have died.� Lazarus and a few others were raised from the dead, but hundreds of millions of dead Christians have never experienced such a resurrection. Only three of the twelve disciples got to see the transfiguration of Jesus, and only Moses and Elijah got to see Jesus on that mountain.� Only John, out of the twelve, got to see a vision of the New Jerusalem.� We could go on and on showing that we have no basis for expecting to be in on everything God does in the realm of the supernatural.�

�� If someone has an angel story do not be skeptical because you have never seen one.� I never have either, but I can easily except another Christians experience, for I know that is a part of God's plan.� Infinite variety with Christians having all sorts of experiences that other Christians do not have.� Some Christians are healed even though I may not be.� We need to avoid the false thinking that says because God does not always do something, He never does.� Thousands of Christians die of cancer every year.� Does that mean the stories cannot be true of Christians who are healed of cancer?�

�� My point is, just because most of us never see an angel is no valid reason for rejecting the accounts of Christians who have.� Remember, our theology is to be based on the Word of God and not on our personal experience.� God says a lot of things are true that you and I may never experience.� We will probably never hear the angels sing until we hear their praises in heaven, but do not reject the shepherds experience that first Christmas because you were not in on it.� Christians who have angelic experiences tend to be humbled by it, and do not become self‑righteous boasters, as if they are superior to the rest of us vision-less Christians.�

�� My own impression as I read of Christians who are spared by angels is that there is a lot less need for supernatural protection in the lives of Christians who do not do foolish and dangerous things.� Take the story of Brian for example.� This young man one hot summer night was coming home from a date and decided to stop by a friends home to take a dip in his pool.� It was late and everyone was in bed, and so he quietly walked through the back yard to the pool.� He was imagining how good the cool water would feel.� He climbed up on the diving board and stood poised ready to dive.

It was a� pitch black night, but all of the sudden he saw a brilliant glow, and as he stared, it took on a shape of an angel.� He slowly climbed down the ladder of the diving board and walked to the edge of the pool to get a closer look at the glimmering angel.� Instantly the glory was gone, and Brian was looking into the pool, totally empty of water.� The next day he learned that his friends parents had drained the pool for maintenance. Brian is now through college, and recognizes he owes his life to a guardian angel.

�� Many stories like this are doubtless true, but as you read them you realize they would not be necessary if people took common sense precautions.� Most Christians do not need a guardian angel to protect them from diving into empty pools because they make sure there is water before they dive.� The more safety principles you follow in life, the more likely it is you will never see a guardian angel.� Mother's have seen an angel lift their little child off the train track just as a train passes by. Most mothers will never see such a miraculous deliverance because they make sure their young child does not play on the tracks.� An ounce of prevention is still better than a pound of cure.� If we avoid tragic situations by forethought, we will seldom need supernatural intervention.�

�� Often our need for the help of guardian angels is to avoid the tragedy of other peoples neglect.� One Saturday afternoon a doctor came home to relax and watch� a game on TV.� Half way through the game he got an emergency call and had to rush back to the hospital.� He grabbed his bag and dashed out to his car in the driveway. He turned on the key and was ready to put the car into gear when he felt the presence of something telling him not to back out. �He was in a hurry and tried to resist such a strange impulse, but he felt he had to check.� When he got out and walked to the back of the car he saw his neighbors two year old boy sitting in his little rocking chair leaning up against the bumper watching the clouds go by.� Here� was a man who thanked God for his neighbors guardian angel, for he was only a few seconds away from a terrible tragedy.

�� As you read of angel experiences, the primary thing that stands out is that their task is to mercifully prevent the disasters that human mistakes set up for the forces of evil to exploit.� They are messengers of God to bring warning and guidance that prevent evil from gaining a victory.� They are God's soldiers in spiritual warfare. This was the major role of the angels in the Christmas story.� The angel of the Lord warned Joseph in a dream that Herod was out to kill the Christ child.� Angels kept both Mary and Joseph informed about the virgin birth, for other wise they could never have gotten through the trial this put their relationship through.� Angels were involved in every step of their experience, to guide, to inform, and to protect.� They were God's agents in history to see that evil did not thwart His plan.�

�� In this sense, God expects all His people to be partners with the angels.� The very word for angel means messenger, and is often applied to men, for men can play the role of the angels.� People do not become angels at death, but they can become angels before they die, in the sense that they can be messengers of God.� John the Baptist is called an angel three times in the Gospels.� His disciples, and the disciples of Jesus, are called angels.� At least seven times the term angel is applied to human servants.� Men can be messengers of God to bring warnings and guidance, and when they do, you can say, you are an angel.�

�� Angels have the advantage of being invisible, and of being supernatural.� They also have powers and information that we do not have.� But, the fact is, we can be very effective in doing some of the same things they do.� If you minister to someone and show kindness in any number of ways, and they say you are an angel, that is true, for you have played an angelic role in their life.� In this Christmas season we can play the role of angels and sing the praises of God for the gift of His son.� We can proclaim the good news of the incarnation to others, and we can point all people to the gift of God as the hope of the world.� Angelic activity is what Christian living is all about.� We can prevent life's greatest tragedy which is, being lost without the Savior.�

�� Pat Boone tells about a messed up teenager who had her life changed by playing an angel.� Fifteen year old Kathy Morrison was picked up in a big Midwestern city

as a vagrant and taken to Juvenile Hall.� She had no coat, no luggage, no nothing.

She had been working with the carnival where she was the human target for the knife throwing act.� They taught her how to short change the customers, and she learned on her own how to dodge knives when the boss was drunk.�

�� Her father died when she was eleven and her mother remarried.� The step father did not want her around.� It was a Godless home with liquor, obscene language, and a lot of violence.� She figured the cruel world could not be worse, so she took off enjoying the carnival.� It was shut down for the season, and so she was now on her own.� The judge asked if she had any place to stay or if there was any place she would like to stay. �She said there was a place where the knife‑thrower would drop her off when he went on a binge.� It was a place called The Sunshine Mission.� She said a nice lady there let me be an angel in the Christmas pageant.� I liked being an angel, and I liked the story of the little baby.� The judge sent Kathy back to the mission where she learned the full story about the baby.� She became a child of God by trusting Jesus as her Savior.� Pat Boone said she became a� part of the permanent staff there and played the role of an angel everyday of the year.�

�� It is of no benefit to anyone if you believe in angels but do not strive to play their role in service to God and man.� In this Christmas season, this has to be our focus,

that by word and deed we will minister to a needy world, and let the meaning of Christmas minister to us.� Pat Boone says that he and his family work at slowing down to listen to the angels at Christmas.� They try to plan ahead to avoid a hectic schedule so they can have a sense of peace as they celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.� The poem that helped him slow down is by Grace Noll Crowell called Facing Christmas‑‑

I shall attend to my little errands of love

�� Early this year,

So that the brief days before Christmas may be

Unhampered and clear

Of the fever of hurry.� The breathless rushing

�� That I had known in the past

Shall not possess me.� I shall be calm in my soul

And ready at last

For Christmas:

I shall have leisure‑‑I shall go out alone

From my roof and my door;

I shall not miss the silver silence of stars

As I have before;

And, Oh, perhaps‑‑if I stand there very still,

And very long‑‑

I shall hear what the clamor of living has kept from me;

The Angels' song!�

�� The shepherds heard the angels, and it was not� long before they were doing the same thing as the angels‑‑proclaiming the good news of Christmas.� They became angels, that is, messengers of God to others.� That is what the belief in angels is to do for all of us.� So let's listen, and not only believe in angels, but let's behave like them, and let's play angel.

2.�� THE VIRGIN BIRTH�� Based on Luke 1:26‑38

�� For many years the great battlefield of the Bible critics was the subject of the resurrection of Christ.� They felt that if they could demolish this truth and prove it to be only a myth, the whole structure of Christianity would crumble.� But the resurrection was in impregnable, and they could not even crack it, let alone shatter it.� The evidence was over whelming, and there were too many witnesses, for over 500 persons saw the resurrected Christ.� The critics changed their strategy then and decided to attack a biblical truth that did not have such strong evidence.

�� The virgin birth, by its very nature, could only have one who experienced it, and so the evidence would be scarce to support it.� The critics began to attack the virgin birth, and they have persuaded many that it is a doctrine that is no longer needed.� Many have been duped by the clever reasoning of these false prophets.� The best way to avoid being doped is to know what the Bible teaches, and so we want to examine what it says about the virgin birth.� This passage has more to say then all the rest of the Bible put together.�

�� Verse 26.� In the six months after Gabriel appeared to Zacharias and announced the birth of John the Baptist he was sent by God to the city of Nazareth.� What a place for an angel to be sent with one of the most magnificent and mysterious messages ever delivered.� This little town had a bad reputation.� It was a hot bed of corruption.� It was located on the highway between Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem.� It was a place where Roman soldiers often stayed overnight living in drunkenness and immorality.� It was a wild place, and one in which you would not go looking for those of pure lives and character.� That is why Nathaniel, when he heard that Jesus was from Nazareth, said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"� It was a city of evil, and yet this is the city to which God sends His angel.� One would suspect that when an angel is sent to such a city it would be with a message of wrath, but not so in this case.

�� Verse 27 says that he came to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph.� She was a virgin in the midst of vice.� She was a pure white lily in the putrid pond of iniquity.� What an unlikely place for God to find a girl worthy of the honor of bearing His Son.� Even a godly man like Nathaniel would never have looked in such a place, but God sees what no man sees.� His eyes penetrate the external, and He sees into the hearts of people.� This is an assuring truth for the struggling believer in a corrupt society.� You need never feel it is a useless and hopeless battle to stand for purity in a culture that lasts at such a standard.� God sees, and He will honor and reward those who honor His standard and not that of the culture.� It is always better to be pleasing to God than popular with the world.�

�� Mary was not one to conform to society.� She was engaged to a carpenter named Joseph.� The engagement period for Jews was about one year, and it was during this waiting period that the angel came to announce the virgin birth.� The timing here shows the wisdom of God in handling a delicate problem involved in bringing His Son into the world.� Had He chosen a girl who was not engaged there would be only shame to face, and there would be provision of a home.� On the other hand, if He chose a married woman she would no longer be a virgin.� So God chose Mary who was engaged, but not yet married.� Jesus then would have a godly home and adequate provision.� Joseph was able to provide well and so Jesus was not born into poverty.� It is of interest to note that this is the only verse in the Bible where the word virgin is used twice, and both times it refers to Mary.� Some modern versions do not use virgin even once, but use young woman or girl instead.��

�� In verse 28 we see that the angel apparently came to Mary at her home and greeted her with a statement that has become famous as the, "Hail Mary," or as it is in Latin, "Ave Maria."� Protestants have rebelled against the Catholic exalting of Mary, and the result is they have often gone to the other extreme of ignoring her.� She was highly favored of God, and so if anyone in the Bible deserves honor, it is the Virgin Mary.� To go beyond honoring her to the point of worshipping her is idolatry, but to ignore her is to forsake a beautiful biblical ideal of womanhood. Too often Protestants care more about Mary Magdalene, whose purity is very questionable, than about Mary whose purity even impressed God.� The Protestant Reformers had a very positive attitude toward Mary. Zwingli said, "We exalt and honor Mary by imitating her virtues and esteeming her as the mother of our Lord." Calvin said, "She is blessed as the elect instrument of God's work of redemption."

�� To be favored of God did not mean a life of perpetual happiness for Mary.� It meant a great deal of mental agony.� It would have been easier to live a life of obscurity then to be the mother of God's Son.� Those who have done great things for God have often lived through great trials and made great sacrifices.� To be favored of God is often a burden as well as a blessing.� Mary had to see her Son grow up as a brilliant, healthy, handsome, happy and holy man, and then see Him despised, rejected and crucified.� She had to stand by helplessly and watch Him nailed to a cross.� Her blessing brought with it a bruised and broken heart.� It cost her dearly to be in the center of God's will.�

�� In verse 29 we see Mary's reaction to the greeting.� She was troubled and agitated.� It was not because of the angel's presence, but because of what He said.� She did not understand it.� In verse 30 the angel seeks to lessen her fear and assure her that she was pleasing in God's sight, and so she did not need to be afraid.� We see here that Mary did not consider herself to be perfect.� She was puzzled by God's favor, but God chose her because He was pleased with her life.� In verse 31 the angel goes on to spell out why he came.� It was to announce to Mary that she would conceive and give birth to a Son whose name was to be Jesus.� The name Jesus is a Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, and it means Savior.� We see here that Jesus was named from heaven by His Father, and not by His earthly parents.�� It was God who sent His Son to be a Savior, and not Mary and Joseph who raised Him to be a Savior.� He was the Savior before the world began, but now the angel announces what will take place in history.

�� Verse 32 says He shall be great and be called the Son of the Highest, and He shall sit on the throne of David His father.� Jesus fulfilled these prophecies and has become the greatest figure in human history.� No one has so changed history like Jesus has.� Even non‑Christians consider Him the greatest man that ever lived, and that His life is the greatest story ever told.� Peter in Acts 2 makes it clear that in the ascension Jesus took the throne of David, and He now reigns as Lord and Christ.� Some literalists insist that this setting on the throne of David is yet future, but there is no reason to doubt that it has been fulfilled along with the rest of this prophecy.� David is called the father of Jesus.� The literalist must spiritualize this, for David had been dead for centuries.� Jesus is called the Son of God, the Son of David, and the son of Joseph, but it is clear that the last two are due to decent and marriage.� Jesus has only one literal Father, and that is His Father in heaven.��

�� Verse 33.� This child is born to be a king who will reign over Israel forever.� He must be more than man, for only God can reign forever.� The angel is making it crystal clear to Mary that the one she is to bear is the Messiah who will set up His eternal kingdom.� Gentiles have been adopted into the household of Jacob, and they have become partakers of the covenant of God.� As Christians we have become a part of the true Israel over which Jesus reigns.� In verse 34 we see Mary's reaction to all this.� She is bewildered and does not understand.� Mary was the first to question the possibility of the virgin birth.� She has no husband and does not intend to have one for some time.� She does not understand how she could bear a child.� She was apparently not aware of Isa. 7:14 that prophesied the birth of Messiah from a virgin.�

�� The German scholar Harnack tried to prove that the story of the virgin birth was all made up to fulfill that Old Testament prophecy, but the facts prove just the opposite.� It was the reality of the virgin birth that brought that prophecy to light.� The Jews did not think of it as messianic.� It only became so after the fact of the virgin birth.� Mary knew it was impossible, but that is just the point of the virgin birth.� It was a miracle that only God could make possible.� In verse 35 the angel shows that Mary was to conceive by the direct energy of the Holy Spirit, and that is why the child would be holy and uncontaminated by sin.� He is the only begotten Son of God, and no other birth was ever like this.�

�� In verse 36 an example of God's working in a marvelous way is given.� He caused a barren woman to conceive in her old age.� Then in verse 37 he makes the statement that clenches the argument for all believers.� We are dealing here with God and not man, and the supernatural is no problem for God.� This is where the critics show their greatest folly.� Matthew Arnold said, "I do not believe in the virgin birth because it involves a miracle, and miracle do not happen."� Here is man's blind pride at its worst.� Naturally miracles do not just happen.� They are the working of God.� We do not expect people who do not believe in God to believe in the virgin birth.� This is a belief for Christians only, and for those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God.� It is connected with the entire Christian faith, and there is no point in trying to get people to believe it separated from the Gospel of Christ.� Nowhere in the New Testament was the virgin birth made a subject of belief.�� It is not necessary to salvation, but is like many other truths that are learned after one has accepted Christ as Savior.� When one accepts the Lordship of Jesus there can be no problem in accepting His miraculous birth. Once you accept that Jesus is the Son of God it is no problem accepting the way He came into human flesh. The New Testament does not make a big deal of it, but it is just stated as fact. Mary did not understand how God did it, but she just submitted to God's doing through her what He willed.

She bowed her to the angel's word

Declaring what the Father willed.

And suddenly the promised Lord

That pure and hallowed temple filled.

�� In verse 38 Mary believed and submitted herself to God's will.� She did not know how it could be, but the angel convinced her that with God it was no problem.� This is the solution to all the problems and doubts about the virgin birth.� We simply submit to God and take Him at His word.� How can God save sinners, and how can He do many other things?� The answer is always the same, for with God nothing is impossible.� If man will submit to God and believe His Word there are no problems in accepting the virgin birth, or any other miracle.�

3.� PRE‑CHRISTMAS SONG Based on Luke 1:39f

�� At an evening of musical entertainment one of the guests was not impressed with the woman who was singing. He leaned over to the man next to him and said, "What an awful voice.� I wonder who she is?"� "She is my wife," was the stiff reply."� "Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized.� "Of course its really not her voice but that terrible stuff she has to sing.� I wonder who wrote that ghastly song?"� "I did," was the even stiffer reply.� This singer was apparently something other than the one Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote, "The rude sea grew civil at her song, and certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the sea‑maids music."�

�� She certainly had less to offer than the singer of whom Hawthorne wrote:� "She poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit."� Her category was probably more fittingly described by Coleridge when he said, "Swans sing before they die‑Twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing."� It is with qualifications, and with an awareness of exceptions that we can agree with William Stidger who said, "Music is the voice of God."� The facts of life and revelation compel us to recognize that God is a God of harmony and song.� He has built music into the very nature of His creation.� The angel sang at the commencement of creation, and the whole company of the redeemed will join in a triumphant chorus at the consummation of creation.� In between these two universal concerts the pathway of God's providence in history is crowded with the saints singing songs of praise and thanksgiving.� God supplies the music, and John Drinkwater pictures all of creation as the great organ of God when he writes, "God is at the organ.� I can hear a mighty music echoing far and near."�

�� For those whose eyes and ears are open to the wonder, beauty and harmony of creation, music is ever present, and they can sing, "This is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres."� The greatest songs arise, however, when God plays the music of redemption.� The songs of salvation are the sweetest and the ones most filled with joy.� When Israel was delivered out of Egypt we read in Ex. 15:1, "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously..."� The Old Testament is filled with songs of praise, and this music not only carries over into the New Testament but is lifted to an even higher pitch.� The songs of the saints for salvation far surpass the tunes of nature.� Drinkwater wrote, "The universe is God's full organ; human lips and human lives are the solo stops."�

�� One of the greatest soloists of all is one we seldom think of as a singer, and yet she is the author and singer of the first great song of the New Testament, and the first pre‑Christmas song.� This is an honor few of us have ever thought of in connection with the Virgin Mary.� For 14 centuries this song has been used in liturgies for public worship.� Luke is the scholar who has done much research to open up to us insights and truths, which the other Gospel writers do not have.� As a doctor he is naturally interested in digging back into family history.� He is especially fascinated by the events surrounding births.� He may have specialized in babies.� He is the only one who tells us of the background of the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus.� He even gives remarkable facts concerning the pre‑natal leaping of John in his mother's womb.� Luke is not just satisfying his professional curiosity.� It is obvious that one of his major purposes is to show that Christianity was born in a burst of sacred song.� He alone, as the educated and cultured Greek, preserved for us the songs of those directly connected with the coming of Christ.�

�� We can consider this Dr. Luke's prescription for a sick and needy world. He knew the value of song for the health of the soul, and his first chapters are filled with the spiritual medicine of music. The song of the angels is the best known because it is most often used in Christmas events. The first pre‑Christmas songs, however, came from earth, and Mary's song called the Magnificate is the greatest. Ross said, "For sheer overflowing gladness, there is scarcely any hymn, ancient or modern, to compare with it." This is probably an overstatement, for all agree that Mary's song is almost totally grounded in the Old Testament. The sun of righteousness has not yet risen. He is still below the horizon. The joy expressed is due to the fact that he is near, but at this point no one knows of the cross and resurrection. Mary can only magnify the Lord according to the light which she had, and the full light of the Gospel was still hidden. This subtracted nothing from the ecstasy of her song, however, for she had been chosen to bear the Messiah. Joy filled her to the peak of her capacity, and she bursts into song.

�� Before we look at this great solo of praise we want to consider the background that leads up to it. Mary had received the revelation from the angel that she was to be the mother of the Messiah. He also told her of Elizabeth her kinsmen being 6 months pregnant with a son in her old age. Verses 39 and 40 reveal Mary to be the first person in history to be caught up in a pre‑Christmas rush as she makes haste to the hill country to visit Elizabeth. The timing here reveals God's love and concern for Mary as she faced a very trying and sensitive situation. God was not insensitive to the problems created for her by the reality of the virgin birth. He chose a relative of Mary's to give birth to John the Baptist, who would be the forerunner of Jesus. Imagine what this meant to Mary to have someone to talk to who would understand her situation. She was able to stay with Elizabeth until the birth of John and see the fulfillment of the first miracle.

�� It is no wonder then that with the destiny of the world in her womb she rushed off to visit Elizabeth to gain the understanding that only another woman could give her at such a time.� Mary could not have told her secret to anyone, let alone Joseph her betrothed.� She needed a godly woman like Elizabeth.� What made it wonderful is that Elizabeth would understand, for she was a part of the whole plan being unfolded.� They were not only kinsman of the flesh, but of the spirit as well.� Verse 41 indicates that the very air was electrified with expectation.� No period in all of history has ever been so pregnant with potential as when these two expectant mothers met and burst into song.� Even their fragmentary grasp of all that God was doing was more than they could contain.� All Mary needed to do was to greet Elizabeth and it had an explosive effect.� The babe in Elizabeth's womb leaped.� John the Baptist is probably the only person to ever be physically effected by the coming of Christ before He was even born.� The fact that Luke records this detail indicates that Mary and Elizabeth talked over their experiences and emotions thoroughly in the 3 months she was there, and Mary passed it on to Luke.

�� These two women play a prominent role in Luke's� pre‑Christmas account.� Even so, we have only a brief few minutes record out of that 3 month visit.� If we had it all our hymnbook could probably not contain all of the words of their songs of joy.� These 2 ladies would change the course of history and transform the lives of millions.� No two expectant mothers ever had so much to be excited about.� Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaims with a loud cry in verse 42, "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb."� She could only say this by the power of the Holy Spirit, for how could she know Mary was to be the mother of the Messiah?� What a thrill to her to have this knowledge, and to have it be a relative of hers.� It was just too much for her to comprehend.� How can God be doing all this and making me a central part of the whole drama?�

�� In verse 43 she asks why? �Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me.� Elizabeth feels Mary's visit is an honor of which she is not worthy.� Her humility was passed on to her son John, for he said he was not worthy of untying the shoelaces of Jesus.� He felt unworthy to baptize Jesus and said, "I must decrease, but He must increase."� Every person God used uniquely in connection with His Son's birth was a humble person.� Elizabeth has the honor of being the first person to refer to Jesus as her Lord.� Jesus has just been conceived and already these loyal servants of God were calling Him Lord.� Whether He be on the throne of the universe, or a microscopic being in the womb of Mary, He is Lord.� Mary is of a lower social class than Elizabeth, for she is the wife of a priest, but Elizabeth feels unworthy to have her in her home, for she has been so honored of God.

�� In verse 44 the unusual fact of pre‑natal activity is mentioned again.� It is nothing new for two pregnant women to get excited when they meet, but when even the baby gets excited, that is unique.� John the Baptist is the only person in the Bible that is revealed as being happy and capable of joy before he was born.� We can't pause to speculate, but this should cause us to refrain from writing off pre‑natal influence and experience as irrelevant.� In verse 45 Mary is blessed because of her belief.� She did not laugh at the angel as did Sarah in the Old Testament.� Elizabeth's husband was unable to speak because of his unbelief, but she did not doubt , but submitted herself to the will of God. Mary is one of the few chosen of God who did not make up some excuse for not wanting to cooperate with God's plan. She did not urge God to look for someone else, but in pure faith accepted the Word of God to her and went ahead in obedience. She receives confirmation that she is in the will of God by the words of Elizabeth, and she lifts her voice in song and sings the magnificent Magnificate.

�� In v. 46 Mary magnifies the Lord. God forbid that we should reverse the theme of her song and instead magnify Mary.� No greater honor has ever been bestowed upon a woman.� Mary reverses the negatives brought upon women because of Eve, and she raised womanhood to the level of dignity and the highest respect.� All women have been exalted because of her.� Mary's song does have reference to the fact that all generations will call her blessed, but the theme of her song is God's grace, strength, mercy and faithfulness. To magnify God sounds strange, for how can you magnify God who is already infinite in every attribute? We need to understand that when God is magnified there is no change in God, but in the one doing the magnifying. To magnify God is to give Him a larger place in one's life and thought through adoration and service. God is magnified when He becomes greater to us.� Mary is simply saying that her soul has expanded its vision of God.� He alone is the object of her adoration.� He is everything to her.� Her song is great because her theme is great.� Sister Miriam, a 20th century poet, wrote,

Give me the sun, a bird, a flower,

And I will spin you a song

That will live an hour.

Give me a heart, a joy, a tear

And I shall weave you a song

That will live a year.

� But give me a love death cannot sever

And I will build you a song

To live forever.

�� Mary's song will live forever because its theme is the eternal love and faithfulness of God.� Pre‑Christmas singing should characterize us as believers.� Even those who cannot carry a tune can enjoy music, for love always produces some kind of song.� F. W. Boreham wrote, "If a man is in love he can no more help singing than a bird can help flying.� You cannot love anything without singing about it.� Men love God; that is why we have hymnbooks.� Men love women; that is why we have ballads.� Men love their country; that is why we have national anthems.."�

��

4.�� THE BEAUTIFUL BENEDICTUS� Based on Luke 1:51‑80

�� One morning the 5‑year‑old son of a doctor overheard his father tell his mother "I don't know when I will be home.� I have been called out on a maternity case."� A few minutes after his father left the doorbell rang, and the little lad went to the door.� "Is the doctor in," inquired the caller.� "No sir," replied the boy. "Have you any idea when he will be back?" the man asked.� "I don't know sir," the boy answered, "He went out on an eternity case."

�� At first the boys mistake is only funny, and you see a bewildered caller convinced its hardly worth waiting for a man on an eternity case.� As you give the matter some thought, however, it has profound implication.� Maternity and eternity are not ill matched words infinitely separated in significance.� The story of Christmas and pre‑Christmas events link these terms together intimately.� Dr. Luke is not sharing these birth stories and songs because of his interest in maternity only, but because of his interest in eternity.� The birth of Jesus and His forerunner John the Baptist are eternity cases because the God of eternity has a direct involvement in these births.� By means of them He will open the gates of eternity to all people.� Never were maternity and eternity most closely linked.�

�� The birth of John the Baptist was the birth of one who would herald the coming dawn of a new day, which would be made bright by the Son of Righteousness who, said Malachi, would rise with healing in his wings.� Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets.� He predicted that a messenger would go before the Messiah to prepare his way.� Now after 400 years of silence this prophecy is being fulfilled in the birth of John the Baptist.� Some of the relatives following the rut of family tradition are upset with Elizabeth over her insistence that the child's name be John.� They thought it only right to honor his father by naming his Zacharias.� So they go to Zacharias assured that he would back them up and put his wife in her place.� To their shock he writes, "His name is John, which means the grace of God, or the Lord is gracious."� This was the name the angel gave him, and in this act of obedience he is released from his 9 months of being imprisoned in silence, and he breaks forth in a joyful song of salvation.�

�� He has been silent but not blind.� He saw the shining faces of Mary and Elizabeth as they sang the praises of God.� He saw the implication of what was happening, and he knew the dawn of a new day of salvation was about to break, and he uses his first words to greet it with a song.� The poet wrote,

� There's a light upon the mountain, and the day is at the spring

When our eyes shall see the beauty and the glory of the King.

Weary was our heart with waiting, and the night‑watch seemed so long,

But his triumph‑day is breaking, and we hale it with a song.�

�� This was Dr. Henry Burton's description of how saints will greet the second coming of Christ.� Zacharias has the same mood as he greets the first coming.� Nothing but song can begin to express the emotions of men who are aware of the nearness of the Savior.� Zacharias is glorious happy over his son, and of the role he will play in preparing the way, but he devotes only 2 verses to that.� He is aware that this is more than a maternity case.� It is an eternity case, and that is why the theme of his song is salvation, and all else is secondary.� This song is called the Benedictus from the first word in the Latin version, which is blessed in the English.� Like Mary's Magnificat, it has been a part of Christian worship for centuries.� St. Augustine back in the fourth century expressed how he loved it and sang it daily.

"O blessed hymn of joy and praise!� Divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost,

and divinely pronounced by the venerable priest, and daily sung in the church of God; Oh, may the words be often in my mouth, and the sweetness of them always in my heart."� In more recent times in the Church of England the Benedictus was revived after years of neglect.� In the Diary Of A Church Goer, Lord Courtney describes the impression made on him by hearing the Benedictus sung in church:� "The choir to‑day sang divinely the Benedictus....In my boyhood we rarely heard the Benedictus.� It was in the prayer book, doubtless, but practically never said or sung.� Now days it is reaccepted in use....nor is this surprising, for the Benedictus surely expressed the essence of all religion...."� Salvation is the essence, and that is what the Benedictus is all about.� It is so packed with the theology of salvation that we can't begin to look at all of its implications.� Everything in the song relates to salvation.� Consider first‑

I. THE AUTHOR OF SALVATION.

�� Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.� God punished Zacharias for his unbelief, and for 9 months he had to live in silence, and for 3 months watch Mary and Elizabeth sing and rejoice while he sat mute.� But he was not angry with God because of this discipline.� He could not wait to join in singing God's praise.� The words of Wordsworth describe the prayer of his heart.

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,

That I may have the power to sing of Thee,

And sound Thy praises everlastingly.

�� The God of Israel, whom he had served for many years as a priest, was the author of salvation.� The God of creation and revelation, who was the God of the Old Testament, was the one who was breaking into history to redeem man and to give light to those that sat in darkness.� The value of this pre‑Christmas song in the Gospel of Luke is that it knits the Old Testament and the New Testament together in an unbreakable bond.� God's plan of salvation is consistent and continuous.� There is perfect continuity as we move from the old to the new.� The author of our salvation is the God of Israel.� The horn of salvation He raised up, meaning Jesus, was of the house of David, and was promised to the fathers, and foretold by the prophets since the world began.� All passed history has been moving toward the events that Zacharias knew were to soon take place.� Christmas was a climatic fulfillment of the hope of the Old Testament, and the dramatic beginning of a whole new program in God's plan of salvation.� There is not break, however, for the Lord God of Israel is the author of salvation in both the Old and the New Testament.� Consider secondly‑

II. THE ACTS OF SALVATION.

�� This is the main emphasis of this song of praise.� The acts of God on behalf of man is what thrills Zacharias.� G. Campbell Morgan said, "This song is not in adoration of the God who acts, but in celebration of the acts of God."�� In other words, it is a song about salvation, and not about the Savior.� It acknowledges the Savior, but it emphasizes what the Savior has done to save.� He has visited and redeemed His people.� He uses past tense as if God had already acted, which, of course, He has, for Mary stands before him with the Messiah in her womb.� The incarnation is already an historical fact.� Nothing has happened yet outside the small circle of those intimately involved, but Zacharias uses the prophetic past tense, which means that it is so sure that it is as good as done.� God has come to visit and redeem His people, and to set them free from the clutches of the earthly that they might be a heavenly people reigning with Him in a kingdom not of this world.

�� Morgan points out that the word visit in the Greek is the word from which we get Episcopal, which means to govern or to have oversight.� Jesus came not just to look man's situation over, but to take the reigns of authority, and to rule and guide and oversee.� When God steps into the chariot of history, it is not just to ride, but to take the reigns and guide.� Zacharias in describing the acts of God seems to imply that they will be physical, and that He will destroy the Romans and set them free from political oppression.� This was the hope of many who longed for the Messiah.� However, Zacharias goes on to make it clear that the salvation he sings of is spiritual.� His son is to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah by giving them the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sin.� The goal is to serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness, and to be guided into the way of peace.�

�� The language is a mixture of the Old and New Testament concept of salvation.� Salvation in the Old was thought of in terms of being delivered from the enemy forces that sought to destroy you.� It was physical and collective.� In the New Testament the stress is on the enemy of sin and the individual being rescued from the forces of sin through the forgiveness of God.� Here we see God being praised for His acts of salvation on both levels.� It is good for us to keep in mind that there are different levels of salvation, and though they are not all of equal importance, they are all equally real and valid.� There is physical, mental and spiritual salvation, and Zacharias refers to each of them in his song.� The study of them puts us into a third category‑

III. THE AIMS OF SALVATION.

�� God's actions on behalf of men for their salvation on each of the three levels have distinctive aims.� When Zacharias speaks of being saved from the hand of enemies and those who hate, he is referring to physical salvation, the aim of which is obvious, and that is to preserve life and health.� When he speaks of freedom to serve God without fear, he is speaking of mental salvation, and the aim is to have mentally alert servants and worshipers.� When he speaks of forgiveness of sin, he is dealing with salvation on the spiritual level, and the aim is eternal life and the sanctification of the present life.� We tend to think of salvation only on this 3rd and highest level because this is the emphasis of the New Testament.� Before Christ the emphasis was on the other levels, and so in this song of transition we see them all.

�� The aim of salvation on any level is deliverance of some form of evil.� If one is not at the mercy of some evil, there is no need for a Savior.� In the Old Testament Lot was saved from Sodom and Israel was saved from famine, and from many enemies.� This physical salvation may be less important in terms of eternity, but when you are faced with physical destruction by a physical enemy it becomes a desperate need.� Mary Queen of Scots on the night before her execution wrote this poem prayer:

O Lord God almighty!� My hope is in Thee!

O Jesus beloved, now liberate me!

In durance the drearest, in bonds the serverest‑

My desire is to Thee!

In sign and crying, on bended knees lying,

I adore‑I implore Thou woulds't liberate me!

�� This is not a prayer for the salvation of her soul, but it is for physical salvation, and who can doubt that it is a valid prayer?� Zacharias longs for salvation on the physical level.� He wants to be free from enemies and oppression.� This kind of salvation will not get anyone into heaven, but it makes life on earth so much more pleasant.� Jesus gave a large portion of His minister to bringing physical salvation to people.� He delivered them from disease, hunger and death.� Salvation on the mental level was also an important part of His ministry.� He delivered people from ignorance, fear and anxiety by means of the truth.� Millions of volumes have been written about mental salvation, for it has been the heart cry from many, as it was from the poet who wrote‑

Out of my unreality,

My false seeming,

My fond dreaming,

Good Lord deliver me,

And knit my heart to Thee!

Out of my instability,

Aimless action,

Frenzied faction,

Lord, bid me come to Thee,

Thee Hav'n where I would be.

Into Thy deep tranquility,

Thy still being,

Thy clear seeing,

Lord, bring my soul at last,

This tyranny o'erpast.

�� Here is a cry for deliverance, not for the body, but for the mind and soul, and not from sin, but from the evils that make life aimless and frustrating.� This is a legitimate level of salvation, and a level that Christians should long to attain.� The point is, however,� these first two levels of salvation can be experienced by all people.� Jesus is not the exclusive Savior on these levels.� A gun can save a man from physical destruction, and from his enemy.� Medicine can save his life from disease.� Food can save him from starvation.� Psychiatry and rest, and various kinds of therapy can save from the evils of mental breakdown.� There are many saviors on the first two stories of the three‑story building of salvation.��

�� In the last part of this song the emphasis is on spiritual salvation, which is deliverance from sin and being led out of bondage to darkness into the light of peace with God.� On this level Jesus is the exclusive Savior and hope of man.� In verse 77 he says that forgiveness of sin was the essence of the salvation the Messiah was to bring.� This is the essence of what is new about the New Testament.� God in Christ finished the three‑story building of salvation, and He made the 3rd level adequate to accommodate all.

�� The beautiful benedictus ends on the high note of spiritual salvation, the aim of which is to redeem man from sin, darkness and death.� Zacharias saw that the dawn of a new day of salvation was about to break.� The light, which lights every man was coming into the world.� Before the dawn the birds sing and usher in the day with song.�� Here, in the modest home of an obscure priest, the dawn of a new day of salvation is ushered in by the songs of Mary and Zacharias.� The bright and morning star is on the horizon.�

Look and see, the orient morning

Breaks along the heathen sky;

Lo!� The expected day is dawning,

Glorious dayspring from on high!

�� The beauty of the benedictus lies in its eloquent description of the salvation of the Messiah.� In verse 78 the tender mercy of God is behind the beautiful dawning of the new day.� God did not flood the world with the light of His glory in a single sudden flash, for that would destroy man as certainly as the flood of His wrath.� In tenderness He gently comes like the dawn in the form of a child.� The aim, says Zacharias in verse 79, is to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.� Man is lost and in darkness, and he lives in the fear of death.� This song celebrates the giving of the Savior who saves the whole man‑body, mind and spirit.� If Zacharias could sing so joyously at the dawn of this new day, how much more ought we to sing who live in the noon day sun?�

Now, death is life!� And grief is turned to joy!

Since glory shown on that auspicious morn,

When God incarnate came, not to destroy,

But man to save and manhood's state adorn.

�� We need not sit in sin's dark prison, the Son of Righteousness has risen.

�� The light He brought can give release, and guide us in the way of peace.

�� This is the aim of salvation for which the author of salvation performs the acts of salvation.� Focus your mind on the theme of salvation, and open your heart to God's gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, and Christmas will always be a season of song.� It is the glory of the story of salvation that makes this song of Zacharias a beautiful benedictus.�

5.�� THE MIND OF THE MASTER Based on Luke 2:40‑52

�� A teacher began his Sunday School class by starting a discussion.� He said he was reading in the Bible about a living dog and a dead lion, and he asked the class which they would rather be?� There was a pause, and then Jack spoke up and said, "I'd rather be the living dog.� It's better to be alive than dead any day."� Alec spoke up and said, "Oh, I don't know about that.� A dead lion has been a living lion while a living dog will be a dead dog someday.� I think I'd rather be the dead lion."� A third child had just sat in silence, but then he responded, "Well, I'd like to be a little of both.� I'd like to be a lion like the one, and alive like the other."� I am sure the teacher was surprised at this clever solution.� Children can often surprise us with their ability to answer questions in ways that we would not think of.

�� This was the case with Jesus when He was a child.� One of the very first impressions we get of Jesus is that He was a brilliant boy.� He had a keen mind, and Luke makes a point of this fact.� In 2:40 he writes, "The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon Him."� Luke goes on to show just how sharp His mental growth was by telling us of His experience in the temple with the scholars.� In verses 46‑47 he says that Jesus was listening and asking questions, and all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and answers.� Jesus was only 12 years old, but He was already a diligent student, and was able to carry on intelligent conversations with mature theologians.�

�� We are not to read into this that Jesus was putting the teachers of the temple to shame by His superior wisdom.�� The language indicates that He was a student.� He was learning from them, but was a very keen student with provocative questions and perceptive answers.� Luke closes the chapter with another reference to the growth of Jesus in the four basic areas of manhood:� The physical, the intellectual, the spiritual, and the social.� We want to focus on His intellect.�

�� The very fact of the growth of Christ in knowledge and wisdom is a clear demonstration of the reality of His full humanity.� As a child He was not only not the omniscient God that He was in pre‑incarnate state, but He was not even a mature man.� Jesus was a true child, and was immature and ignorant of a great deal about life.� He had to learn and mature by means of study, observation, and by asking questions and listening to others.� This is one obvious reason why we do not have any record of the words and acts of Jesus as a boy and a young man.� In that state when He had not yet grown to full maturity of wisdom and perfection of mind, His words were not of eternal value.� His wisdom at that point was not worthy of being recorded for all generations, for it would not yet be greater than the wisdom of the scholars of His day.

�� Jesus waited until His preparation was complete to begin His ministry of public teaching.� His years of silence up to that point were years of profound preparation in thought.� Jesus was not just killing time.� He had a mother and family to provide for, but He was also developing His mind through the study of Scripture.� Jesus only had three and a half years of ministry, but He changed the world because He developed quality of thinking.� His mind was in perfect accord with the mind of God before He acted.� We can never know the IQ of Jesus, but we can assume that as a strong healthy child with the pure human heritage of Mary, and the perfect divine heritage of the Holy Spirit, that He was a genius.� Apocryphal stories have Him teaching astronomy and other sciences of the day, and there is no reason to doubt that Jesus could have done so.� It is only doubtful that He did because this was not His ministry.� He did reveal, however, that He was a well educated man, even though He did not attend any formal school of higher education.

�� In John 7:15 we see the response of the people to the teaching of Jesus in the temple.� "The Jews marveled at it, saying, how is it that this man has learning, when He has never studied?"� G. Campbell Morgan comments:� "The emphasis of their question lay, not upon the spiritual teaching of Jesus, but upon the illustrations He used, and upon the evident acquaintance with what was then spoken of as learning.� It was not that they were overwhelmed by t a sense of His spiritual insight, for, then as now, men knew that spiritual insight often belonged to those who had no learning.� They were impressed by the beauty of His expression, the wealth of His illustration, and His evident familiarity with those things, to become acquainted with which, men gave themselves up to long courses of study.� The mind of Christ was refined, cultured, and beautiful..."

�

�� Jesus was self educated, and was an intellectual of His day.� He knew His nations past history well through His study of the Old Testament.� He used it often in His teaching, and for sake of argument He could refer back to the stories of Naaman, and the widow of Zarephath.� He was alert to the contemporary events, and He used them for illustrations, as in the case of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, and the 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell.� He was exceptionally perceptive in the use of nature and the common events of life for illustrating spiritual truth.�

�� Jesus was a student of all times, and He was aware of what was, what is, and what was to be.� The point we are emphasizing, however, is that He was this as a man and not as God.� He emptied Himself of His omniscience when He became a man, and clearly took upon Himself the limitations of finite intelligence.� When He was a child in Nazareth He, like Paul in Tarsus, spoke like a child, thought like a child, and acted like a child, but as He matured He put away childish things.� Jesus had to develop His capacity just as all men do.� Percy Ainsworth said, "Nazareth was silent concerning the great One who had stooped to share its lowly life, because it did not know that He was great, or that He had stooped."� He was only an ordinary carpenter to them until He began to express His wisdom and power in teaching and miracles.

�� Jesus had wisdom superior to any man who ever lived.� Solomon had this distinction before, but Jesus said a greater than Solomon is here, and He was referring to Himself.� His wisdom and knowledge was supernatural in that it was often beyond what even a perfect could know, but it was nevertheless human knowledge in the sense that it was possible only because of His perfect relationship to God.� What I am saying is one of the paradoxes of Christ's humanity.� Both His growth and wisdom and His perfection of wisdom demonstrate the full reality of His humanity.� His growth and limitation show Him to be like us, but His perfection shows Him to beyond us, but as an ideal to which we can strive, because He reached that point by developing to its full capacity the relationship of one's humanity to God.� To put it simply, everything that Jesus did and knew which was supernatural, He did as a man, and thus revealed the possibilities of manhood in perfect relationship to God.�

�� S. D. Gordon in Quiet Talks About Jesus states his view of this same idea.� He says of Jesus, "He was as truly human as though only human....In His ability to read men's thoughts and know their lives without finding out by ordinary means, His knowledge ahead of coming events, His knowledge of and control over nature, He clearly was more than the human we know.�� Yet until we know more than we seem to now of the proper powers of an un-fallen man matured and growing in the use and control of those powers we cannot draw here any line between human and divine.� But the whole presumption is in favor of believing that in all of this Jesus was simply exercising the proper human power which with Him were not hurt by sin but ever increasing in use."� This is all the more likely when we consider that men who were imperfect and sinners were endowed by God with supernatural knowledge and power.�

�� Men before and after Jesus did miracles, and foresaw the future.� Jesus said men after Him would do even greater things than He did.� Jesus demonstrated the great potential of manhood in the realm of the mind if it is centered on God and His will.� The secret of the wisdom and power of Jesus was in His total dependence upon God His Father.� Listen to His own words in John 5:19‑20.� "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing, for what ever He does, that the Son does likewise.� For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that He Himself is doing, and greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel."�

�� The perfect submission of His manhood to God allowed His humanity to be an instrument of supernatural knowledge and power.� Knowledge in a human mind becomes a force for God in the world when the mind is open to God's leading to fulfill His purpose.� If intellectuals are often fools, and promoters of evil, it is not due to their being intellectuals, but due to the lack of their vision of God and yieldedness to His will.�

�� Jesus would have us learn all we can to the glory of God.� All knowledge can be so used.� Jesus was a keen user of logic, and He used it constantly in His teaching to persuade, and in His arguments with His opponents.� Jesus would have us develop our minds as instruments for God's purpose, even as He did.� He said to His disciples that they should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.� He urged men to come to Him and learn of Him.� He was the fulfillment of the ideal man of the Old Testament.� He was a man of knowledge and wisdom.� John says He was� full of grace and truth.� Paul says that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.� The mind of Christ has had a great impact on this world, greater than any other mind.� His church has done more to influence the intellectual development of mankind than any other institution.�

�� Bill Harvey wrote,

He never wrote a book with pen and ink,

But with His life, He caused more men to think

Then any other man.� He never played

Upon an instrument, and yet He made

More hearts to sing and made more fingers glide

Along the string and ivory and guide

More melodies of praise to Him than all

The symphonies this world could e'er recall.

Neither architect nor artist He

Was ever called in rugged Galilee,

And yet, a steeple seldom points above

But what a builder has been thinking of

The Carpenter, the Craftsman of Ages.

He built and He is building yet, and sages

Who are wise still recognized this King

And say He's Lord of all; of everything.

�� He is Lord of our minds, and He commands us to love God with all of our mind.� Paul says that we are to let the mind of Christ be in us.� To learn of and submit to the mind of the Master is to begin a journey toward the highest possible intellectual development of your humanity.

6.�� THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SMALL�� Based on Luke 2:41‑52

�� God loves to get His will done in this world by means of little things, little places, and little people.� You and I are conditioned to look for big things like New York, London, or Paris, but God with His infinite sense of humor often has His eye on hick towns like Bethlehem or Bridges Creek, Virginia, or Hodgenville, Kentucky, or Epworth, England, or Dole, France.� Out of these podunk little places came the Lord Jesus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John Wesley, and Louis Pasteur.�

�� If we were planning history we would have had Jesus born in Jerusalem, or better yet, in the capital of the Empire‑Rome.� But God is not all that impressed by the big.� To an infinite God everything is small, and He seems to favor the small even from the human perspective.� The small is the foundation for both His physical creation and His spiritual kingdom.� We want to focus on the significance of the small because we are so conditioned by our culture that we forget the biblical perspective.� In Scripture we see God specializing in using the small.� Those who are in small churches can easily feel powerless and loose a sense of self‑esteem.� We need to counter our culture by the biblical revelation that God is a lover of the little and has a great appreciation for the small.� He took Goliath with little David and reduced the army of Gideon to 300 to show that He does not need the big to get His will done.�

�� The real question is the one that Mark Twain's daughter Susie asked when she broke one of her favorite toys.� Her mother tried to console her by saying, "There, there Susie, you mustn't cry over little things."� Susie thought for a moment and then asked, "Mama, what is little things?"� To a child the Mid‑East crisis is no big deal.� What really matters is their toys.� The size of anything depends on your perspective.�� We need to recognize that the entire universe is built out of atoms that are so small they cannot be seen.� Everything that is big and significant is made out of the exceeding small.� This means that the small is really big and very significant.� All visible reality is built out of invisible tiny atoms.� God made every realm of creation in this same way so that all is dependant upon the small.� Look at the three categories by which we sum up all of creation:� The animal, the mineral and the vegetable kingdoms.�

I. ANIMAL.

�� Man fits into this category and no matter how big a man gets he is a product of the small.� The egg is about one twenty millionth of an ounce.� This is not exactly jumbo, but compared to the sperm that fertilizes it, it is massive, for it is 85 thousand times larger than the sperm.� Your life and the life of every person begins with the microscopic and in that small package are all of the genes that determine how big you and all parts of you will be.�

�� God made everything out of nothing, and He goes on making everything and every person out of as near to nothing as you can get in size, for it is God's way to use the small.�

II. MINERAL.

�� Back in 1956 when I was in my first year of college scientist discovered that the universe is full of particles they called neutrinos.� There are billions of them going through our skulls right now coming from the sun and stars, and perhaps even other galaxies.� But you can't even blame your headache on them, for they are so small they could go through your head and not touch a thing.� It is not because your head is so empty, for even if your head is made out of solid steel they would still make it through just as easily as a bat makes it out of Mammoth Cave without hitting the walls.

�� These particles are so small that they shoot through the entire earth at the speed of light and never fell a bump.� They can only be stopped by a direct head on collision with another elementary particle, and the chances of this are one in ten thousand million.� Atoms would need microscopes of enormous power to see these tiny bits of reality.� They are closer to thought than they are to matter, and that is why there are many physicists who feel that matter is just another form of spirit.� They can take a reading of your brain because your brain is throwing off stuff even greater than these neutrinos.� The idea of all creation being commanded into being by the Word of God is no longer an inconceivable idea as it once was.� It is made reasonable by what science has discovered about matter.

�� Eddington, the great scientist, said, "The stuff of the world is mind‑stuff."� Matter is made up of such small pieces that it cannot be distinguished form thought.� Sir James Jeans said, "The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."� All we see is a thought in the mind of God which He commanded to take form so that we could see it.� It is still like thought when it is broken down into its basic elements.� Science is dealing with the invisible when it gets down to the bottom of things.� These neutrinos are as mysterious to them as our angels to the theologians.�

�� John Updike the novelist wrote this poem to celebrate the neutrino:�

Neutrinos, they are very small,

They have no charge and have no mass,

And do not interact at all.

The earth is just a silly ball

To them, through which they simply pass,

Like dust maids down a drafty hall,

Or photons through a sheet of glass.

They snub the most exquisite gas,

Ignore the most substantial wall,

Cold‑shoulder steel and sounding brass,

Insult the stallion in his stall,

And, scorning barriers of class,

Infiltrate you and me!� Like tall

And painless guillotines, they fall

Down through our heads into the grass.

III. VEGETABLE.

�� An ancient story is told of Ammi who said to his son, "Bring me a fruit from that tree and break it open.� What do you see?"� The son replied, "Some small seeds."� The father then said, "Break open a seed and what do you see?"� "Nothing," he responded.� "My child," said Ammi, "Where you see nothing, there dwells a mighty tree.� There is no great or small to the God that maketh all."�

�� All God makes in the vegetable kingdom is made out of the small.� Every seed is a mere fraction of the fruit, or the tree, or the vine it can produce.� The big always come from the small in this kingdom from which we get the food we so love.� It would be crazy if we had to plant a coconut to get a peanut.� The big is the finished product, but it gets its existence from the small.� The small seems so insignificant, but it is really the key to the big.� If you have no small you will get no big.�

�� This has many applications.� If man does not get very small quantities of what are called trace elements from the vegetable kingdom he will die.� This was discovered by the Dutch doctor Christiaan Eijkman who cured beriberi by giving sailors rice with the hulls on rather than polished white rice.� The polished rice was not poison, but it lacked a trace substance necessary for health.� This lead to the revolutionary discovery of diseases caused by the lack of something.� Dietary deficiency diseases are caused by the absence of a small bit of matter in the body.� This lead to the discovery of vitamins and how the body has a daily requirement of all sorts of tiny substances.� You live, move, and breathe because of minute bits of stuff that keep your body running.� You and all the animal kingdom keep going because of the small.�

�� God uses the small all through the Bible to give victories to His people.� Someone wrote, "Shamgar had an oxgoad, David had a sling, Samson had a jawbone, Rahab had a string, Mary had some ointment, Aaron had a rod, Dorus had a needle, all were used for God."� We don't want to suggest, however, that the small is somehow sanctified just by being small.� The small is equally effective in the realm of evil.� Termites destroy more homes than earthquakes and matches and cigarettes cause more fires than volcanoes.�� More heartache and sorrow is caused by little words and deeds of unkindness than by major acts of hostility.

�� The small is a great tool of the devil.� It was by means of a mere piece of fruit that he brought about the downfall of man.� He is a clever user of the small, but that is all the more reason to recognize its value.� It is a major mistake to think that the real test of our Christian commitment is in the big events of life.� The fact is, real Christian living is in everyday commonplace circumstances.� It is what we do when nobody is looking or even cares that reveals the reality of our faith.� Chuck Swindall said it forcefully:�

Small things are the genuinely big things in the kingdom of

God.� It is here we truly face the issues of obedience and

discipleship.� It is not hard to be a model disciple amid

camera lights and press releases.� But in the small corners

of life, in those areas of service that will never be newsworthy

or gain us any recognition, we must hammer out the meaning

of obedience.�

�� Chuck ought to know when he says that the bigger you get the greater the battle with pride, and the greater the danger of forgetting that the ministry of small things is the foundation of all ministry.� The bottom line is that being small is no handicap for God.� He loves to use the small to accomplish His will.�� Give Jesus the lunch of a little boy and He will feed the crowd.� You need not fret that you cannot give more than what you got, for what you've got is all He needs. Stone wrote,

I cannot throw my arms

Around the world,

Nor wipe its tears,

Nor heal its wounds.

If I hold close one child,

Teach her to pray

And by example point the way,

Lord, won't you accept this mite?

�� The answer is yes, for He will use even a cup of cold water just as much as the ocean to accomplish His will.� A match will produce a fire as real as the torch, and most people only need that much flame.� The small if just as real as the big and often more fitting to the need.� Do not reject the small as being second class, for sometimes it is the best.� I'll take the diamond over the glacier any day, and everyday I get more use out of a toothpick than I do a log, for the small fits the need better than the big.� The backhoe is very important, but most often my need is for a spoon.� The big can be good, but it is often not as frequently needed as the small.

�� Isaac Asimov, the most voluminous writer I am aware of, has developed what he calls The Rule Of Numerous Small.� It works like this:� There are more stones in the world than boulders, and there are more pebbles than stones, and there are more grains of sand than pebbles.� The smaller the size of anything, the more numerous they are.� There are more mice than elephants, and more flies than mice, and more bacteria than flies.� It works in space too, for there are more second magnitude stars than first magnitude, and more third than second, and so on, so that the smaller the category of stars the more of them there are.� For every star that is bigger and brighter than our sun there are 20 less massive and less luminous.� For every skyscraper there are many small buildings, and so the rule fits the works of man as well as the works of God.

�� We could show how this applies to all sorts of realms in human society.� For every large mall there are many small ones, and for every large business there are many small businesses, and for every large car there are many small cars, and for every large church there are many small churches.� We have to assume that this reality of the numerous small is just a freak of nature, or it is the result of the plan and the providence of God.� Whenever we see any form of universal order we can assume it is part of God's plan.� This means the small is inevitable in every realm of life.� A one or two child family is not a failure just because there are families of five to ten.� Modern families are not failures because they are not what old time families were in size.� Does anyone look at a small family and feel they are without redeeming social value?� Not at all, for the small family is the majority, and they can fulfill the God ordained purpose of the family quite nicely.�

�� God has no problem working with the small size of anything.� He is the one who started human history with only two people.� He could have started with ten thousand or a million, but He chose to start small, and, in fact, the smallest He could begin with‑just one male and one female.� In the flood God only saved a small group of 8 people, and He began the new world with this small group.� When God formed a people for His own He did not start with a tribe, but with Abraham and his wife.�� When Jesus started the church He followed the same pattern and chose a small group of 12.� The churches of the New Testament were usually house churches and by their very nature had to be small groups.

�� The small group has been a powerful force in our modern world in both the secular and the spiritual realm.� Many churches have built vast ministries by specializing in small groups.� The largest church in the world in Soul, Korea is based on cell groups.� The big church is at its best when it is built on the values of the small group.� I choose this text dealing with the only picture we have of the boyhood of Jesus because it reveals the power of the small group in His growth and development.� Verse 41 says that every year that Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem for the big Passover Feast.� It was a mammoth event that drew great crowds.� It was like our 4th of July.� Jesus was involved with the big events of His day, and He created many such big events Himself as He gathered great crowds and did miracles.� There is no hostility toward the big in the New Testament.� It is a good and valid part of life and celebration.

�� But the fact is, the focus is on the small group for growth.� Jesus was found in the temple courts in the midst of the teachers listening and asking them questions.� This was not the massive crowd event, but the small group event where there was a dealing with the issues of truth, God's Word, and its relation to life.� Here is where we find the Son of God growing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.� He went home and was obedient to His parents, which is the number one small group experience of life‑the family.� Small groups are to be an extension of the family.� That is the key value of the small group.� It can become a family where all know each other, and all can feel free to be who they really are.� They can become close and intimate in their sharing and their learning from one another.�

�� Our purpose in this message was just to establish the universal principle of the significance of the small.� Communion is an illustration of our theme.� It is the smallest conceivable meal, and yet it represents the biggest value in human history, for it is representing the death of Christ for the sins of the world.� These little elements are symbolic of the event and the power that is far beyond anything else for impact.� There is nothing to compare with it.� The salvation of everyone who will be in eternity will be because of what is symbolized by these small and trivial elements.� It almost seems sacrilegious to have something so puny representing what is so powerful.� But it was good enough for Jesus, for He recognized the significance of the small, and He wanted to give to us all that which would keep us every mindful of it so that we would be every looking for more treasures in this truth concerning the significance of the small.�

7.�� STAR SEARCH� Based on Luke 2:41‑52

� On Columbus Day 1992 American scientist launched the greatest search in history.� NASA called it Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI for short.� Frank White in his book The Seti Factor tells us this project using radio scopes and newly developed computer technology was designed to scan the sky for signals that may be sent by any civilization beyond our solar system.� It is estimated that in 25 years man will know if there are other intelligent beings in our universe.

�� They began by searching the thousand sun‑like stars within 80 light years of earth.� They had hoped to pick up signals that may come from a star that has a planet like our own sun has.� The amazing computer is able to process an entire encyclopedia full of random noise per second.� It is 10 billion times more comprehension than the sum of all previous searches.� They began this search on Columbus Day in honor of a man who went searching for a new world and found it.� Man is a searching being by nature.� God made him as curious as the cat, but with more tools to search with, and the result is that man has searched the microcosm and the macrocosm for life invisible to the naked eye.

�� This literal star search is fascinating to scientists and theologians as they speculate about life on other planets.� My only problem with the search is that it is another of man's efforts to find the meaning of life by searching in all the wrong places.� Man has searched the planet for a paradise and has not found it in materialism, hedonism, or any other ism.� Like the Prodigal Son, man has wasted his substance in riotous living, and instead of going home to the Father he is hoping to find an elder brother somewhere out in space who will give him a lift, and give him the hope of finding meaning without going home.�

�� Man continues to side step the one search that God wants all men to get into, and which He reviewed through Jeremiah the prophet.� God says in Jer. 29:11‑14, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.� Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.� You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.� I will be found by you declares the Lord."� Wow!� Here is a search guaranteed to succeed and put you into communication with the most intelligent life in the universe.�

�� Many are the stories that parallel that of the Academy Award winning actress Joan Fontaine.� She was sickly from birth and spent her life searching for health.�� Her stepfather was a military man who had all of life regimented, and with no warmth and affection.� She spent her life searching for love.� All her success and riches and fame never met her need.� It was only when she found Christ and joined the body of Christ that she felt her search was completed, for she finally felt that she belonged.�

�� If we expect the coming year to be a good one, then we have to be committed to be searchers.�� Only searchers find the best.� All of the lost and hidden stuff in the world is found by searchers.� That is why God is Himself the Sovereign Searcher.� As soon as Adam and Eve fell God came searching for them in the garden. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.� None are wiser than those who seek to be found by the searching Savior.� And for those found and saved there is still the need to be searched by the Lord's laser light so they can be cleansed.� Psa. 139 begins, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me."� And it ends with, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.� See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."� This is a prayer, not only for every New Year, but for every new day as we call on God to do a sin search and get it out of the way so we can see the way to go to please Him.

�� While man is searching the heavens for a sign of intelligent life heaven is searching earth for a sign of intelligent response to God's communication.� In Jer. 17:10 God says, "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."� God has a scanner going at all times trying to pick up signals from everyone of His children that would indicate that they long to know and do His will.� Paul writes in Rom. 8:27, "And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."�

�� What kinds of signals will God pick up from our hearts and minds in the coming year?� Will they be strong signals of obedience, or dying signals that reveal we have joined the secular search for the meaning of life in other realms?�

It is possible for Christians to lose their way and get off the track of God's will, they can become weary in well doing.� It is possible for the best of people to get so preoccupied with other things that they lose Christ, and this brings us to our text, for here in Luke 2 we see a literal example of the best people losing Christ.� We hear often about the lost sheep, but seldom to never do we hear of the shepherd being lost, but here is a case where Jesus, The Great Shepherd, is lost, and His parents who lost Him are frantically in search for Him.�

�� I don't know if you have ever lost one of your children, but it is one of the most frightening experiences of life.� I know, for Lavonne and I lost our first son Steven for several hours.� Jesus was 12, and so He could take care of Himself, but Steve was only 3.� We were boarding on hysteria.� I ran across a field in back of the apartments where we lived.� My heart was pounding as I looked over the cliff in fear that I would find him at the bottom.� Lavonne had gotten neighbors to help scan the neighborhood.�� Kidnapping didn't seem logical since I was a student and could barely keep my car running.� It was a total mystery as to where he could be.� But finally we found him playing inside a public phone booth on the corner.� He was on the floor with the door shut and so no one could see him.� It was not as noble a place as the temple where Jesus was found, but we were so happy and relieved when that search was over.�

�� Many of you could tell stories about a lost child because it happens frequently, and even to those who are in the center of God's will.� Mary is the only woman in history to conceive by the Holy Spirit, and yet she lost that sacred child.� Mary is the only woman ever to give birth to the Word made flesh, and yet she lost Him.� Mary is the only woman ever chosen by God to raise His only begotten Son, and yet she lost this precious child.� This would not look good on anybodies resume, but here it is on Mary's record.� Would you hire her to run your childcare center?� She is the least likely person to ever loose her child, but she did it, and she demonstrates for all time that even the best can blow it.� They can make mistakes by being too preoccupied and by taking too much for granted.

�� Verse 44 says, "Thinking He was in their company, they traveled on for a day.� Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends."� They assumed Jesus was with some friends of the family, and so they went a whole day and never even gave Him a thought.� We cannot throw any stones here, for Joseph and Mary were not being neglectful parents.� They just forget to check out their assumptions.� They made this trip every year to Jerusalem, and this was not the first time Jesus had been off with friends or relatives and not hanging around His parents all day.� At 12 years old it was even more likely He would not stay at His parent's side.� It was a normal thing for Jesus to be gone all day.� They just did not check to see if it was the case that time.� They made the common mistake of taking too much for granted.� It cost them a great deal of emotional anxiety as well as 3 lost days.

�� Theirs was a search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, for Jesus had His origin from outside of our universe.� Jesus was the very form of life that NASA was looking for.� If you read the motive behind the expensive search of the stars, you will discover that the scientists are really looking for a Savior.� They hope to find beings who have made it through the dangerous technological state that man is now in.� Man has the capacity to eliminate life on this planet.� If they can find a civilization that has reached this state and survived, that will give hope that we too can survive.� Man is looking for an intelligent mind with great power who does not use it to destroy, but uses it to save and benefit others.�

�� This is the very person that Mary and Joseph were looking for.� They did not fully grasp all that He was to be, but He was the one who would have all power in heaven and on earth, but who longed to use that power to save rather than destroy the earth.� Jesus was and is the very being that man is scanning the stars to find.� The Christian Gospel is the good news that there is intelligent life in this universe beyond our earth.� It is friendly, and it will come to our aid and save us from our sin and folly, and our inability to use power wisely.� Jesus has already come and made the way into the kingdom of heaven possible for all who trust Him as the Way.� Man is spending a fortune seeking for a Savior in the heavens, and the fact is He can be found freely in Jesus Christ.�

�� This means that in reality Jesus is still lost to millions, and unfortunately they are not searching for Him as was Joseph and Mary.� They were bad examples in losing Jesus, but they were good examples in that they began to search for Him as soon as they knew He was lost.� They were soon searching for the Savoir, and that is the key to everyone's happy New Year.� None will be as happy as those who spend the New Year searching for Jesus.� Even for us who have trusted in Him need to keep searching, for Jesus is infinite, and no believer has begun to find all that there is in Jesus.� He dwells fully in us when we ask Him into our lives, but we have not found all of Him.� There is ever more to learn and to experience of Him.�

�� When they found Jesus He was in the temple among the teachers.� He was listening to them and asking them questions.� Most 12 year olds who are lost are not found in school.� Whoever heard of a run away who ran away from home to go to school?� But that is what we see here.� Jesus was a lover of learning, and He was searching of more understanding of the Word of God.� Even the Savior was engaged in searching for more light.� That is a key to the happy life, and the life that is pleasing to God.� God was pleased with His Son, for He was ever a seeker to know and do His will.� A happy New Year is not determined by whether or not all goes smooth.� From God's point of view a happy New Year is a year in which you search for and find more knowledge of God and His will.�

�� We had lost Jesus again if we do not make this coming year one in which we listen to the Word of God, and ask questions to seek more understanding.� Jesus was ever searching for more knowledge, for truth is infinite and so the search is never complete.� Who are we who see through a glass darkly to ever stop searching for more light?� Spurgeon was one of the most brilliant theologians and preachers, and he said, "Although we may understand enough to be saved by the truth, yet the full depth of the truth is understood by no man, and if, therefore, we make it the rule to limit our faith by our understanding, we shall have an extremely limited range of faith."

�� Listen to Acts 17:11:� "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and searched the Scriptures everyday to see if what Paul said was true."� Not all Christians are equal in their wisdom.� The wisest are those who never cease to search for more.� When God quits sending signals you can quit searching for more light, but until then a happy New Year and a happy life depends on being a searcher.� Some years back a group of boys were making a shack on Mystic River.� They dug up some old coins from the 17 and 1800's.� It was only a stones throw from the historic Craddock House of Revolutionary fame.� The news brought out an army of men who dug up the whole river bank looking for more buried treasure.� They only found 35 dollars worth of additional coins.� God expects us to want wisdom like these people wanted treasure.�

�� Prov. 2:3‑5 says, "If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God."� That is what Jesus was doing in the temple, and He was so thirsty for knowledge He just let His family and friends leave town as He stayed on alone to soak up more of the Word of God.� He was lost in searching, and that is why they were searching for Him.� To be Christ like means a lot of things, but as we see here, it means to have the humility to admit you do not know it all.� Even as a grown man Jesus had the humility to admit He did not know it all.� He said in Mark 13:32, "No man knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

�� Only those who know they do not know become perpetual searchers for more truth. �Those who think they know enough stop searching, and they lose Jesus, for He is back with the searchers as they move on preoccupied with other things.� David McKenna writes about Chuck Colson after his conversion.� He knew it was genuine when this hatchet man of the White House, who had all of the answers, admitted that he did not understand his theology.� He began to search diligently, however, and he became a man of wisdom and a spokesman for evangelical Christianity.� His happiness was found in searching, and that will be the case for all of us who become searchers.

�� In verse 49 we read the first words of the Word become flesh‑that is the first words that were recorded.� Jesus asks, "Why were you searching for me?� Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"� These first words of Jesus are a hint of what is to come.� Jesus is always asking questions and making people think.� His first words are two questions to His parents?� Unfortunately they were not true or false questions, but essay type questions, and Joseph and Mary did not pass this test.� In fact, verse 50 says, "But they did not understand what He was saying to them."� Here are the first recorded words of God in flesh, and they were not understood.�

�� Language experts expect the same problem in the SETI program.� They may pick up signals that are a language of intelligent beings, but which we do not understand.� Intelligent beings can form a multitude of ways for communication.� Here we see Jesus speaking in their own tongue, and yet they could not grasp His meaning.� They lived with Jesus and raised Him, and yet they could not always understand Him.� They had to be perpetual seekers seeking for a deeper grasp of the mind and purpose of the Christ.�

�� Here in this story of Christ and His parents we see the universal problem of all relationships.� It is a breakdown in communication.� Mary was unhappy with Jesus for what He put them through, and Jesus was frustrated with her for not understanding.� Most problems of parents and children, husbands and wives, and friends with friends are due to a lack of understanding.� That is also the fear of those seeking contact with life on other planets.� What if they think we are invading their space, and they have superior weapons to destroy us?� The Bible begins with a breakdown in understanding between God and man, and here we see it again in the beginning of the New Testament.� This just confirms the point all the more that we have to be searchers seeking for more understanding of the will of God and the mind of Christ.�

�� You would assume that raising the perfect child would be a piece of cake, but you would be wrong, for we see tension, heartache, and misunderstanding even in the ideal family.� Maybe on another planet we will find it, but on this planet there is no problem free family.� There is no such thing, and this one incident in the life of Jesus illustrates that.� We get one glimpse of the entire youth of Jesus and it is a picture of family tension.� It takes patience to raise a family, and a constant search for better communication.� We tend to be like the little boy who had some baby teeth extracted.� The dentist said, "Don't worry Bobby, they will soon grow back again."� Bobby asked, "Will they be up in time for supper?"� We wish that good things would happen quickly, but they just take time.�

�� Jesus had to go home with Mary and Joseph and patiently grow to be ready for God's work.� They all had to patiently learn what God's plan was.� Life is a perpetual search for understanding.� It seems strange that man spends a fortune to find life on other planets when there are millions who have not even found life abundant on this planet.� That is the life that Jesus brought into this world.� In I John 5:12 John writes, "He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."� Jesus is lost to masses of people, and the result is that the extraterrestrial life man so longs for is right at his fingertips, and it is free, but he does not know it.

�� For those who have lost Christ by being preoccupied with other things, like His parents were, take note of how it was three days of searching before they found Him.� Here they were as key actors in God's plan of salvation, and yet they had no providential guidance that took them right to Jesus.� They had to sweat it out.� They had lost Him and they had to find Him.� The point is, it may not easy to get back into a pattern of giving Jesus priority in your life.� If by neglect and preoccupation Jesus has been lost in your life, it may take some long hard searching to find Him and Him back into His proper place.� Not everything we do that is wise and right, and according to God's will, is easy.� It was hard for Joseph and Mary, and it may be hard for you to get Jesus back as the top priority in your life.� But it is worth all the pain it may bring, and so I challenge you to make this a year that you be a star searcher, and make Jesus the star you are searching for.�

��

8.� �TRIUMPH OVER TEMPTATION� Based on Luke 4:1‑13

�� Plato had a friend named Trachilus who had a very close call and almost lost his life in a storm at sea.� The ship actually sank and he was thrown into the sea, but he managed to get to shore.� When he reached his home he ordered his servants to wall up the two windows in his chamber that overlooked the sea.� He was afraid that some bright day he would look at the tranquil scene of beauty and be tempted to once again venture out on its treacherous waters.� This is one of man's major methods of fighting temptation.� It is by striving not to see it.

�� There is no doubt about it that what we see is a primary lure of temptation.� Had Adam and Eve never looked upon the forbidden fruit and seen it's loveliness they would not have been so easily enticed to taste it.� Had David not seen the beauty of Bathsheba he would not have been lured into the sin that so marred his life.� Had Lot's wife been unable to look back at Sodom she would not have become a pillar of salt.

�� The story is repeated for perpetually as people testify that had they never seen that automobile with the key in it they never would have stolen it.� Had they never seen that door open, they never would have entered the building, and on and on it goes.� What the eyes see provoke all kinds of feelings in the mind and body, and that is why we teach the children to sing, "Be careful little eyes what you see."� But the fact is, there is no escape from seeing what can entice you to choose evil.� Even before television it was nearly impossible, but now it is definitely impossible.� Sin is so visible in our world today that we could accuracy describe our period of history as the times of temptation.

�� It is reassuring for us to see that Jesus went through such a time as this himself.� Satan took Him to a high place so He could see all the kingdoms and all their splendor.� We sometimes think of His temptation as a one time ordeal, and so we dismiss it as totally different from the lifetime battle that we have to endure.� We imagine the testing of Jesus to be like this:� "Yes, I'll never forget that day when I was about 30 years old, and I had a terrible time of triple temptation."� We figure that anyone can get through a tough day, and so we tend to doubt that Jesus really knows what temptation is all about for the average man.�

�� Take note of the precise language of Luke in verse 2:� "Where for 40 days He was tempted by the devil."� We think in terms of 40 days of fasting and then a day of temptation, but Luke says it was 40 days of temptation.� We are talking a major battle here, and not a mere skirmish for a day.�� W. Graham Scroggie writes, "...it is not the 40th day that we fear so much as the 39 days of petty assault, of guerilla warfare, of irritating trial....But Jesus faced these also.� In ways of which we have no record, He was assaulted by the devil during the whole period, and the 40th day temptations were but the last, concentrated, and desperate assault of the infuriated foe upon His weakened body but loyal spirit."�

�� Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, and not just in the 3 areas of which we have record here.� The last verse of this record makes it clear that when it was done it was far from over.� Satan just withdrew to lick his wounds and prepare for another assault at an opportune time.� In other words, a careful reading of this temptation account makes clear that this triple temptation, though of tremendous significance, is only a trickle of the total temptation Jesus had to endure.� Someone said that those who flee from temptation usually leave a forwarding address.� Satan catches up with them, and so it was with Jesus, for this ordeal of His was not just a one‑time shot.

�� We do not live in a world that Jesus does not understand.� He knows every trick of the devil, and He knows the power of temptation.� We need to take seriously Heb. 2:18, "Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted." �Let's recognize that Jesus has been there.� He knows the power of persistent temptation, and He also knows the way to victory.�� The study of His temptation is one of the best things we can do to learn how to handle this universal experience.�

�� When I say universal, I mean it in an absolute sense.� Death is universal, but we have a couple of exceptions in the Bible of those who never died such as Enoch and Elijah.� We say sin is universal, but we have one exception, for Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, and yet He was without sin.� But the one thing we can say is absolutely universal from Adam to the last person on earth is temptation.� God cannot be tempted, but man cannot not be tempted.� Nobody, not even God in human flesh, can escape the testing, for it is part of what it means to be human in a fallen world.� This leads us to the first point we want to consider about Christ's temptation, and that is the paradoxical reality of‑

I. THE VALUE OF TEMPTATION.

�� Matthew begins his account in 4:1 by saying, "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil."� Luke begins with an emphasis also on Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit.� If you think being a Spirit filled Christian will shelter you from temptation, think again.� This encounter of the Savior and Satan was no accident.� It was an appointment.� It was a part of God's plan and an important event in the life of our Lord.� John Milton saw this.� His two greatest poems are Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.� The first deals with the temptation of Adam and Eve and their failure and fall.� The second deals with the temptation of Christ and His success.

�� Milton is saying that what Adam lost Jesus regained in the wilderness of temptation.� It is true that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but where did he earn the right to be the spotless Lamb of God worthy of being such a sacrifice to atone for sin?� It was here in the desert where He was put to the test, and it was here that He passed the test.� Here is where Jesus became our Savior, and He could never become such without being tempted, and that is why He was led of the Spirit to be tempted.� This means that there is value in temptation, and not only for Jesus, but for all of us.� That is why it is so universal.� No person can be what God made them to be without temptation.�

�� Walter Baghot said, "It is good to be without vice, but it is not good to be without temptation."� This is biblical, and that is why God allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve, and why He led His Son to be tempted.� Temptation is from the Latin temptatia, which means a testing or trying out.� Not to be tempted would be to have God reject you before you got a chance to prove you can see evil and choose good.� Products are tested to see if they will serve the purpose for which they are made.� Man is made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.� The only way He can fulfill this purpose is to have the ability to see evil and choose what is good.� This can only be tested by making the choice of evil possible, and that is what temptation is.� It is the lure and enticement to choose what is not God's will.�

�� William Prescott was right when he said, "Where there is no temptation there can be little claim to virtue."� There are many sins that I feel no enticement toward at all.� I am not virtuous by avoiding these, for my dog avoids them also.� I am only virtuous by avoiding the ones I find appealing.� The man who has an opportunity to steal and doesn't do it, even though he feels like doing it, is more virtuous than the man who never feels like stealing.� If you never feel like doing something, you are not being tested, and so you never choose good when evil was not a tempting choice.� The man who has an opportunity to do evil, and also feels the enticement of it, but then chooses not to do it, that man makes a virtuous choice.� Edmund Vance Cooke wrote,

So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay

To have tricked temptation and turned it away,

But wait, my friend, for a different day;

Wait till you want to want to!

�� What this means is that most righteous people are those who have felt the pull of sin in the world, but who have had the power to say no.� Martin Luther praised temptation as one of his key teachers.� He wrote, "Temptation is one of the three things needed for a saint's development."� We have all heard that we need to study the Bible and pray, but we have missed this one that we also need to be tempted to grow.� John Bunyan wrote, "Temptation provokes us to look upward to God."� Jesus could not have been our Savior without temptation, and none of us can be all that God wants us to be without temptation.� We are to love and hate temptation at the same time, for it is the door to both good and evil.� It is important to see this, for if you only feel negative about temptation, you will fail to sense when you are led of the Spirit to be tempted for the sake of growth and advancement in the kingdom of God.

�� Every temptation is an opportunity to demonstrate where we stand.� It is one thing to say, "I am for honesty and morality."� But it is another thing to choose honesty and morality when the dishonest and immoral is enticing you and making you feel they are so appealing.� The Christian will have these feeling where evil can seem so good.� Can it be good to have such feelings?� Yes it is, for that is when you value system is truly tested.� Is it just something you were taught like the multiplication table, or is it something you really believe?� Temptation will put you to the test and reveal just how deep your commitment is to the values you profess.� Temptation separates the men from the boys.� The temptation of Jesus made Him the most unique man ever, for He felt the appeal of it in all points, and yet He chose to follow, not His subjective feelings, but the objective Word of God.

�� The point is, this was good, and there is great value in temptation, for the testing tells you where you really are, and that is valuable knowledge.� If you know there is a area where the enticement of evil could win over you, that is where you pray, "Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil."� This encounter of the Savior with Satan in the wilderness is the ultimate conflict, which rises far above those like David against Goliath, or Israel against Assyria.� This is the heavy weight championship of the universe.�� No one else had ever defeated Satan, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.��

�� Jesus was a hybrid of both God and man.� Such a being had never before existed, and now He had to be tested.� Could He take the pressure of being in the flesh and not yield to the lust of the flesh?� Could He see with human eyes and think with a human mind and not be lured by the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?� These were the questions that had to be answered, and not on paper, but in actual combat conditions of light against darkness.� Some people do not take the testing seriously.� They see it as a trivial time of play‑acting, for they Jesus could not sin anyway, and so it was not big deal.� Such a view misses the tremendous significance of this encounter.� It denies the reality of Satan's cleverness, and the reality of Christ's freedom.

�� There is no temptation unless there is the freedom to choose what is offered.� If Jesus could not turn stones into bread, it would be no temptation.� It is no temptation for us because we do not have the freedom to make that choice and turn stones into bread.� That was a choice Jesus could make, and He felt the need for bread after 40 days of fasting.� He could have jumped off the temple and not been injured, and He could have won the crowds to Him by this spectacular feat of magic.� He could have bowed to Satan and become the greatest ruler the world has ever known.� Jesus had the freedom to make these choices, and so they were real temptations.� Satan was not merely playing games.�� This triple temptation package was subtlety at its best, and had anyone of them worked he would have thrown a monkey wrench into God's plan of salvation.� Humanity would have been under his control.� Jesus would have had to die for His own sin, like all other men, and not be a Savior of the world.

�� Thank God that Jesus remained loyal to the Word of God, and He became the first man not subject to the kingdom of darkness.� Because He passed this test Jesus became the founder of a new kingdom for man.� It is the kingdom of light where men can gain victory over the powers of darkness.� It is the kingdom where the gates of hell cannot prevail.� We note that the angels did not come to comfort Jesus until the battle was over.� He had to pass this test on His own on the level of His humanity.� He had to earn the right to be our Savior and Lord as a man, and He could not have done so without being tempted, and that is why we see the value of temptation.

�� We need not fear the feelings of temptation as if it meant that we are not good.� The best of people feel these feelings.� Adam and Eve felt them as perfect specimens of manhood.� Jesus felt them as the only perfect man.� Feelings that make disobedience to God seem appealing are not sinful.� They are testing to see if you will put your money where your mouth is.� Will you surrender to your feelings, or will you be loyal to the objective values you know to be the will of God?� Every temptation is a call for a decision.� We need to ask, "Is how I feel my guide, or is what God says my guide?"� The Christian who begins to conform to the world is easily identified as one who, like the world, does what he feels like doing.� Strong Christians feel the same feelings, but they do not choose to follow their feelings.

�� Peter Marshall, the great preacher made so famous after his death by his wife Catherine Marshall, tells of his many temptations.� He was constantly tempted to use time unwisely and to procrastinate in his reading and sermon preparation.� He was tempted to run away from problems and move to other areas of service.� He was tempted to give in to discouragement when things did not go his way, and his leadership was not accepted.� He had his female problems as well.� He once had to tell a very attractive woman that she was ugly and unappealing to him to get her to stop enticing him to fly to Mexico with her, and it worked.� The point is, here was a godly man with all kinds of feelings that were very real.� He felt them deeply, but he did not choose to make these feelings the basis for his behavior.� He chose to do the will of God, and out of that choice came other feelings that counter those negative ones and made him a greater servant of the kingdom of God.� Secondly we look at,

II. THE VICTORY OVER TEMPTATION.

�� The victory is what gives it value.� If one fails to pass the test, it can hardly be called a value.� Had Jesus failed it would have been the second fall of man, and we have no way of knowing if there could have ever been another chance.� The whole plan of God for man's glorification depended on this victory over temptation.�� One of the reasons we do not recognize the tremendous value of this victory is because it does not seem like Jesus overcame any great sin.� We fail to see the cleverness of Satan, and so we miss the impact of his appeal.� We need to see that Satan is not appealing to a sinful nature in Jesus, and as was the case with Adam and Eve.� A sinful nature is not necessary for temptation.� Sin does not begin with what is evil.� It begins with what is good, normal and natural, but which is beyond the bounds set by God.

�� There is no evil in eating a delicious piece of fruit.� There is no evil in changing a stone into bread, or of trying to get popularity or power to benefit others. �The devil is not stupid.� He did not try and entice Adam and Eve into chopping down all the trees in Eden.� He got them to lose all the trees and beauty of Eden, not by an appeal to do what is folly and obviously evil, but by an appeal to do what seemed so right.� Satan did not come to Jesus with an appeal to steal fishing nets left unattended and sell them to other fishermen.� He did not appeal to him to support His movement by raiding other boats to fund it.� Satan came offering to meet normal and natural desires, and to achieve goals which were legitimate, and which were appealing to the most pure and righteous.

Dr. Kyle defined temptation like this:� "Temptation is the incitement of our natural desires to go beyond the bounds set by God."� This is good, for it does not say an incitement to do evil and what is unnatural.� We get the idea in our heads that temptation is only to do what is evil.� Not so, for it is often to do what is normal and natural, but beyond the bounds set by God.� The erotic feeling of passion, for example, is a God given and God blest emotion.� It is good and normal.� When David looked at Bathsheba taking a bath it was not wrong for him to be erotically stimulated.� That is the way God intended the naked body of a woman to affect a man.� It was normal and natural for him to feel as he did.� The temptation was to go beyond the bounds set by God.� There would have been no problem had he satisfied those feelings stimulated with his own wife as God intended.� His mistake was in satisfying them with the wife of Uriah.� He let perfectly normal feelings led him to choose folly rather than the wisdom God had clearly revealed.�

�� The problem was that David did not see far enough.� He did not see beyond the sin to its consequences.� The Son of David also saw the enticing side of people's allegiance to him.� It was a glorious vision that no doubt gave him a feeling of power and joy when he thought of the good he could do as lord over the kingdoms of the world.� But Jesus gained His victory over temptation, not by avoiding the temptation and the feeling, and not by rolling up the windows of His soul so that He could not see the appealing offer, but instead, by seeing deeper and further than the scene that Satan.� Jesus won the victory by seeing the consequences of how His choice would affect His relationship to God.� Life was not a matter of bread, popularity, or power.� He saw that life was primarily� in His relationship to God.� Any choice that shatters that relationship is folly beyond compare.

�� Jesus had an ultimate allegiance by which He could test all His feelings, and that is how He could conquer over threat of the tempter.� His question was never, "Does this feel right," for He knew that feelings cannot be a final guide.� His question was always, "Does it fit my loyalty and commitment to honor God in all that I do?"� The way to win is not to try and escape the enticing visions of temptation, but to see them in the light of a greater picture.� People who fall for Satan's view of life see from too narrow a perspective.� If they would take the blinders off and see the hole they would see that which leads to victory.

�� The Christian professor Ed Kindson says, "The first step in conquering temptation is to visualize the sin and its terrible consequences."� If only Adam and Eve could have looked beyond the lovely fruit; if only David could have looked beyond the lovely body, and seen all of the pain that momentary pleasure would produce.� They were tempted by what they saw, but they could have overcome the temptation by seeing further and seeing more.� Buchner Fanning said, "When the mirage of temptation is lifted, we see sin as a barren desert, a desolate wilderness whose wastes are endless.� Its waters are bitter and its shade is spiritual darkness.� Its singing birds are but the bats and owls from the caves of doom, and its morning breezes are but the hissings of fiery serpents.�� Its beauty is artificial; its promises are false; its guides are liars."�

�� It is shortsighted folly to do evil, thinking that good will result.� This is rationalizing.� It is like the thief who murmured as he broke the window, "God helps those who help themselves."� Victory is in seeing the total picture in the light of God's objective word.�� A young man said to his bride after the wedding, "Honey, I don't feel married, do you?"� She replied, "Dear, you have better adjust your feelings to fit the facts."� That is what victory over temptation is all about.� Jesus adjusted His feelings to fit the facts of God's revealed will.� In doing so, the temptation lost its power.� The mirage faded, and he felt one of life's greatest feelings, which is the feeling of triumph over temptation.�

9.�� LABOR AND LEISURE� Based on Luke 6:1‑11

� Charlemagne founded great schools of learning even though he could not read nor write.� Eliza Peters, an English woman, could also not read or write, but when she died she left her money to buy books for a medical school so that others could advance their learning.� You do not have to know how to do something yourself to help others learn to do it.� It is possible for a bachelor to teach you how to be happily married.� It is possible for a single nurse to teach you how to care for a baby, even though she has never had a baby.� It is possible for an architect, who has never pounded a nail, to instruct you on how to build your house or church.� It is even possible for a secular teacher to help a child learn the 23rd Psalm or the Lord's Prayer. ��

�� The point of all this is, when it comes to balancing your life between work and rest I am no great authority.� I got an early start at being a workaholic.� I worked 40 hours a week in secular employment at the same time I was a full time pastor as well as a student in seminary.� Any one of the three could have kept me busy enough, but I was doing all three.� I lived under pressure and was on a treadmill that would not stop, and this became a life‑style for me.� It took me years to learn to take a day off.� I am no authority on the balanced life, but I can still help you see the wisdom of it, and why it is the will of God for us.� I am still learning, but some who get this wisdom early may be able to avoid the long way around that I have taken, and get to the practice of the balanced life sooner.

�� The essence of the balanced life is to learn not to put all your eggs in one basket.� The Pharisees were great examples of how not to live.� Their whole life was so involved in keeping the law that they became terrible specimens of humanity.� They lost all human compassion for people because all that mattered to them was the law.� They were the ultimate in legalists, and Jesus had nothing but conflict with them because He cared more about people and their needs.� When His disciples were hungry and took some grain to eat as they walked through the field, He was not concerned about the petty issue of whether this was work or not.� There was precedent in the Old Testament where David ate the bread that only the priests were supposed to eat.� The Pharisees had no defense against this historical record.� But they did not like it.

�� Jesus added insult to injury and healed a man on the Sabbath.� He again had an unanswerable argument when He said, "Is it lawful to do good or evil on the Sabbath‑to save or destroy life?"� They had no clever comeback, for there was none.� Jesus had outsmarted them and they were furious.� They began to plot how to get rid of Him.� If you can't destroy a man's arguments, you either have to accept his truth or destroy the man.� They choose the latter and plotted His murder.� This illustrates just how serious it is to become addicted to any idea or concept that is not absolute.� The Sabbath was the addiction of the Pharisees.� They could be called Sabbathaholics, and the New Testament is clearly anti‑Sabbathaholic.�

�� The New Testament is radically different from the Old Testament when it comes to the Sabbath.� Paul stresses the liberty of the individual conscience.� He writes to the Christians in Rome where there was obvious conflict among those who felt obligated to keep the whole law, and those who felt equally obligated not to be bound by it.� He wrote in Rom. 14:5, "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.� Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind."� The idea of one Christian trying to regulate another Christian's life, and telling them they should not shop on Sunday, eat out, or go to a sporting event says Paul is an attempt to play God.

In verse 4 he asks, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?� To his own master he stands or falls."�

�� Paul is shockingly liberal when it comes to the liberty of the individual as to how he observes the Sabbath, or any other day.� If a Christian is convinced that what he does pleases his Lord, then he the right to do that without flack from fellow servants.� Paul came to this conclusion because he believed that the Old Testament laws concerning the Sabbath were repealed by the coming of Christ.�

He made this clear when he wrote in Col. 2:16‑17, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day.� These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality, however, is found in Christ."�

�� Paul is saying that it is just as inappropriate for one Christian to judge another on how he keeps the Sabbath as to judge him for drinking coffee rather than tea.� In other words, legalism is a dead horse for the Christian when it comes to the Sabbath laws.� Those who believe that 7th day is still the only valid day for worship write tons of literature to prove that Christians are still under the laws of the Sabbath, but it will not hold up under Paul's clear rejection.� But Paul's point would also make it wrong for us to judge those who still keep the Sabbath laws, for that is part of the liberty the Christian has.� If a Christian wants to be just as Jewish as they can be, that is their privilege.� They just do not have a right to impose a conviction on Christians who would rather not be legalistic.�

�� When I was in the Middle East Conference we had a 7th day Baptist Church as part of our conference for years.� There was no problem until they began to put fliers on the car windows of other conference people worshipping at their church on Sunday.� They were telling them that they were wrong to be worshipping on Sunday rather than on the Sabbath, which they said was Saturday.� We had to ask this church to leave our fellowship, not because of what they believed and practiced, but because they tried to impose it on others, for this is the very thing Paul says is to be rejected.� If Christians say this is how they like to observe a day that is fine, but they are to respect the right of other Christians to be convinced that other ways are equally fine.� To ever make up a list of the right ways to spend the Sabbath, or any other day, and label this the Christian way is to reject the New Testament revelation, and forsake the way of grace for the way of law.�

�� Strong, the Baptist theologian, had a legalistic background.� Sunday was a colossal bore to him.� He thought God must be very dull, for the Lord's Day was a day of boredom and lack of enjoyment.� Then as he grew up he discovered that Sunday was a day of resurrection and new life for the dead.� His Sunday's were like the morgue, and not life a celebration of life, and a day of festivity.� His tradition made it a day of no fun because they went back to the shadow in the Old Testament and filled it with law and restrictions.� He saw the folly of this, and saw that Christians are to look to Christ and His resurrection, joy and victory rather than to the shadow of the past.� Sunday should be a day we love and treasure, and not one we dread.

�� It is one of the sin's of legalistic minds that has robbed millions of Christians of the joy of Sunday celebration.� It all began calling Sunday the Sabbath.� The Sabbath is the 7th day of the week and Sunday is the first.� They have never been the same day, nor can they ever be.� But because Christians have linked them as one they have often robbed Sunday of its light by clouding it with the heavy shadow of the Sabbath.� This is not biblical, for it a rejection of God's greater gift.� Sunday is not the Sabbath but it is a day on which we are to fulfill the principle of the Sabbath.�

�� Jesus often broke the Sabbath law, but He kept the principle of the Sabbath, which was the balanced life of labor and leisure.� If Jesus would have been an workaholic who never took a day off to get away for rest from His labor, we would have to conclude that there was no permanent principle in the Sabbath law.� It would be pure legalism to be thrown out as irrelevant to the Christian, but Jesus did practice the balance life and became our guide to keeping the permanent principle.� Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.� This means there is an essential value of this gift of God to man that never passes away.� It is this essence that we must seek to preserve no matter how much of the legalism that we discard.�

�� It is not the law written on tablets that really matters, but the law that is written in the very nature of man.�� This law says that labor must be balanced with leisure or man will suffer the loss of life as God intended it to be.�� No man can be fully human without this balance.� All work and no play makes, not only John a dull boy, but every Tom, Dick and Harry, and Sue, May and Mary are equally dull girls without this balance.� The abundant life Jesus came to bring us is the balanced life where we get out of life what is good for the whole man.� We need rest, not because the law demands it, but because our nature demands it.� The Christian is to obey the principle of the Sabbath for the same reason he eats and drinks.� He needs it for his own well being, and not because it is a law.

�� God has made us so that we need diversion.� We are not machines that can crank out the same product day after day and year after year with no variety.� I never heard of a printing press complaining because all it ever does is print with black ink.� It never gets red or green, and it never gets to print anything but newspaper.� A machine is designed to be able to do the same thing over and over with endless repetition and no variation.� That is what is hard on man, and that is why man has invented the machine.�� Man is made for variety, and he needs to very his activity to be healthy and happy.

�� The Sabbath principle is anti‑slavery and anti‑machine‑like work.� It demands that man be man and get a break from the slavery of work and perpetual labor.� It demands some diversion that expands man's potential to be more than an animal or a machine.� The diversion is to exalt man's humanity, and to develop his mind and soul.� If his work is doing what is mental and spiritual, then the rest and diversion will likely be physical to balance out the whole man.� The point is, every man has more to his being than can be developed in work.� They need time spent in areas that develop what work cannot develop.� The principle of the Sabbath is to aid man in becoming all that he can be, and so that he will grow in all areas.�

�� Health, happiness and holiness all depend upon man being a creature of great diversity and not limited to one sphere of life.� The unbalanced life is a perversion of what it means to be human.� That is why the workaholic is a sinner.� They have developed only on sphere of their humanity and have left the rest go to seed.� How you get this diversity cannot be a matter of legalism, for people have all different needs.� It is folly to try and regulate them as if they were machines.� The more complex society becomes, the more foolish it is to try and define what rest and diversion is.� What is important is a life where body, mind and spirit get what they need to grow and develop.

�� The goal of the Sabbath principle is that people will become what God made them to be.� God is not merely brute force.� He is power controlled by reason and wisdom.� God is mind, and that mind is guided by holiness and righteousness.� There is balance in God so that He is the only absolutely perfect person in the universe.� Jesus reflected that perfection of the Father in His humanity by the perfect balance of His life.� The goal of the Sabbath principle is that we too by the balance life might become more Christ‑like.

�� The Pharisees were only pigmies of men because they kept the Sabbath and all of its laws, but they did not develop compassion for people.� They hated Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath because they were so addicted to one narrow aspect of life.� They neglected the greater aspects of love and compassion for people.� They turned the Sabbath into an idol, and they made what was meant for a blessing to become a burden. �Work is also a blessing that becomes a burden when it robs us of balance.� The essence of all the Sabbath law is this:� God is anti‑workaholic, and pro‑rest and relaxation.� We want to look at these two things as we seek for balance.�

I. THE WORKAHOLIC LIFESTYLE.

�� The worst part of this bad habit is that it makes you look like a saint rather than a sinner in our culture.� We deplore the drug addict, but we admire the work addict.� He represents strength, success and energetic persistence.� All that we admire in America is found in the workaholic.� Dr. Charles White, Director of Gerontology at the University of Texas Health Center estimates that as many as 50% of all white collar workers in America are workaholics.�� This means that they do not know how to enjoy leisure, but can only feel useful when they are working.� They make their wives or husbands feel like they are always in second place to their work.�� They get more satisfaction out of work than they do with their family, and so if there is any conflict between work and family, work wins out and this means long hours of labor, and only bits of time with the family.

�� Ted Engstrom in The Work Traps says that these people have a deep need to achieve that makes their work their god.� In other words, a workaholic is a form of idolatry.� All other values are subordinate to their god, and even weekends and vacations are endured rather than enjoyed, for they long to be back with their first love.� This, of course, leads to many wives saying that they need help.� The workaholic is very often a divorced person, for few mates can live long at second fiddle to a job.� They justify their divorce on the basis of abandonment just as God divorced Israel when she abandoned Him for other gods.�

�� The point is, this addiction to work like all addictions is destructive of the health of the individual, of the home, and of all relationships.� It is a very serious sin even though it is greatly admired.� Some sins are despicable, and we are repulsed by them, but other sins are appealing and the sin of work addiction is one of them.� The result is that the Christian is more attracted to this sin than most other additions, for it is so respectable.� They can play any role in the church they desire even though they are workaholics.� Ted Engstrom does point out that there is difference between a workaholic than a person who just loves his job.� The workaholic often hates his job but feels compelled to work all the time anyway.� The person who just loves to work can also let go of it and enjoy leisure, but the workaholic cannot enjoy leisure, but only work.� What he is doing is giving us a way out if we really love what we do, for then we are like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford who work all the time and are heroes for it.�

�� I think this may be a dangerous loophole that will enable a workaholic to justify his addiction.� The fact is, Jesus worked hard and He loved what He did.� He put in long hours, but He also had the balanced life.� He could enjoy leisure and solitude, and He called His disciples to come apart and escape the work scene for a time of rest.� It is no justification that you love your work if you put it before your relationships.� Godly people who devote their lives to revival and other Christian service often end up with children who rebel.� It is just as much folly to worship and serve a good false god as to worship a bad false god.� Idolatry does not have a good and bad side, for it is always bad no matter how noble the goal you serve.� It is wiser and safer to recognize that even if much good has come out of it, the workaholic is not living the balanced life.�

�� Workaholics often become successful, but at the expense of the values that are greater than success.� Billy Wilder of Hollywood, when the studios were on strike back in 1981, told of how terrible it was to be out of work.� He said, "...this gives a man a terrible sense of impotence, because a man is his achievements.� To be able to work 25 hours a day, 8 days a week is a privilege."� This is a fanaticism that goes beyond the average workaholic, but the idea of your work being you is very common.

�� Picasso the artist said, "Always, you put more of yourself into your work, until one day, you never know exactly which day, it happens‑you are your work.�

The passions that motivate you may change, but it is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction."� When he called work the ultimate seduction he was saying that it can seduce us away from God, family, and every other person and value in life, and become our idol, and when it does this it robs us of the balanced life and makes us slaves to a narrow segment of life.�

�� The problem with Martha was not that she loved to cook and work at being a great hostess.� Hospitality is one of the gifts, and we can thank God for those people who have to work hard at making life enjoyable for others.� Her problem was her lack of balance.� She could not cease to be a workaholic and take on the role of a leisurely hostess, and just sit down and enjoy her company.� The ideal hostess is not one who is ever working.� That makes people feel nervous and unable to relax.� The ideal is one who can relax with her guests and enjoy the fruit of her labor.�

�� Since I have never cooked or served a meal in my life I may not seem like much of an authority, but the fact is, I have an abundance of experience of being where Jesus was in being cooked for and served.� My experience confirms this.� There is much more appreciation for the hostess who has a balance in her labor and leisure.� If for some reason it was impossible for Martha to achieve this balance on this occasion, she would have been wise to recognize the value of Mary in supplying the balance by sitting with the guests.� Here is a case where two are better than one, and together they added balance to the experience.� Martha's problem was that she could not see the value of this balance, and she wanted Mary to join her on the workaholic side and let the leisure side be forgotten.� Her problem was that she did not see the value of the balance, and that is the blindness of all addiction.� It cannot see the value of anything but the addition.

�� Most changes in life are not to be made by throwing out of one thing and replacing it with another.� They are to be made by the keeping of what we have and adding to it that which gives it balance.� The problem with the workaholic is not that he or she loves to work.� The problem is that they don't love enough other things like leisure and rest to give them balance.� The evil of this is that it robs them of being a whole person, which is God's will for all of His children.� An unknown poet wrote,

If your nose is close to the grindstone rough,

And you hold it down there long enough,

In time you'll say there's no such thing

As brooks that babble and birds that sing.

These three will all your world compose‑

Just you, the stone, and your worn out nose!

�� Without balance there are very few values in life that can remain good.� Lack of balance turns the good into an evil.� Jesus brought balance to the Sabbath, and He brought balance into work by stressing the importance of leisure.�

II. THE LEISURE LIFESTYLE.

�� Jesus honored labor, but He was not a workaholic.� He recognized the need to get away from it all and get rest.� Just when the crowds were so vast that they could not handle them, or even get a chance to eat, Jesus said to them in Mark 6:31, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."� Long before the word burnout was invented Jesus knew of the reality of it, and He would not let it happen to His disciples.� Even though He had to leave crowds of longing people He called them apart.� This was the prescription of the Great Physician.� Any Christian who refused to take vacations is not a noble saint, but a rebel against the Lord who made us and knows what we need.� It was not the law of the Sabbath, but the law of nature that Jesus was obeying, and He expects us to obey it.� Rest from the labor of serving people is vital to the balance life.

�� Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath principle.� He did not have a mass of laws to live by, but just the principle of balance.� You work hard, but you also get away from it and do not idolize it, even if it is the noble work in the world.� Jesus went about doing good, but He also stopped and got rest so He could feel good Himself.� That is balance living, and that is why the workaholic is out of God's will.� Learning to love leisure is an important aspect of the Christian life.�� From the Chinese point of view culture is the product of leisure.� Only those who use leisure wisely can be cultured.� People who are always busy are not wise people, even if they are rich and famous.� The only wise people are those who know how to loft gracefully.� To be lazy is to loft foolishly, but to loft gracefully is to so use time that it beautifies the total man.

�� Jesus said in Matt. 11:28‑29, "Come to me all ye who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.� Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."� Jesus embodies the Sabbath principle, which says, don't be a slave or a workaholic.� Come apart from your labor and in leisure learn of Him, and develop His spirit of gentleness and humbleness, and find rest for your souls.� Jesus says that the body, mind and soul needs rest.� The whole man needs it because it is in rest that the whole man grows.� This defines rest for us.� It is that activity, or lack of activity, that refreshes, restores and revitalizes that body, mind and soul.�

�� If we are following the Shepherd, He will make us to lie down in green pastures.� If we are lost and wandering sheep, we will probably be laboring all the time because we lack the security of being in the Shepherd's fold.� To be able to relax and enjoy leisure is a sign of faith in the Shepherd.� May God help us all develop balance in our labor and our leisure.�

10. ��DIGGING DEEP�� Based on Luke 6:46‑49

� Dr. Victor Heiser, author of the one time best seller An American Doctor's Odyssey, was 16 years old when the tragic Johnstown flood struck in 1889.� He was out in the barn getting a horse when he heard a dreadful roar.� When he ran to the door he saw his father up at the house frantically motioning for him to get to the top of the barn.� In a few seconds he was up on the roof, and in a few more seconds he saw a mass of houses, freight cars, trees and animals strike his house.� It collapsed like an eggshell, but the barn was torn from its foundation and began to roll.� By scrambling and crawling he was able to keep on top.� The barn struck a neighbor's house.� He leaped into the air and landed on the house just as it collapsed.� Fortunately another house rose up beside him and he was able to cling to it.

�� He lived this experience over and over many times in his dreams, and he vividly recalled his fingernails digging deep into the shingles.� He was sweep into a jam of wreckage and had to constantly dodge the deathblows of trees and beams that came roaring pass.� A freight car came crashing into the wreckage and he was thrown like a bullet into open waters.� He was sweep into another jam of wreckage against a brick building that was still on its foundation.� He managed to get to the roof of this solid structure, and with others there he was able to rescue people being sweep by until there were 19 gathered on that still standing building.�

�� It was raining hard, and so they opened the skylight and got down into the attic where they spent a night of terror listening to the roar of the water and the crashing of buildings all around them.� Their building held, but most did not.� Two thousand and nine were recovered, and many were never found.� Those in buildings with deep and solid foundations lived to tell of this fearful flood.� Many gathered with the Rev. Beale in the First Presbyterian Church in the heart of the city.� The waters filled the basement, but it with stood the flood and everyone there was spared.� Life or death depended on the foundation of the building you were in.� A solid foundation meant life, and a shallow foundation meant death.�

�� This is so obvious a truth when we consider a physical flood, but men do not always realize that this is equally valid in the spiritual realm.� Jesus concluded His most extended sermon on record, the Sermon on the Mount, with an illustration concerning the need for depth.� Jesus was vitally concerned about the matter of foundations, and He wanted to impress all with its importance.� Whether you are wise of foolish depends on what you do with this issue.� If you dig deep to lay your foundation, you are wise.� If you are satisfied to be shallow, you are foolish, and what you build will never hold up in the flood, which the storms of life bring at some point.� Jesus implies that all will be tested by the flood.�

�� Jesus was a carpenter, and there is no way to know how many homes He built, or help build, before He began His ministry of building the kingdom of God.� One thing we can be sure of, however, and that is that none of them fell in the rainy season because of a shallow and shabby foundation.� Jesus was a builder of quality in both the secular task of building a home, and in the sacred task of building a life.� He expected all who followed Him to do likewise, and to avoid being superficial, but to dig deep.

�� The interesting thing to observe here is, that which makes the great difference between the wise and the foolish builder is not conspicuous.� The two houses may look identical, and, in fact, the one with no foundation may even look superior as far as looks go.� The shallow life may be as appealing as the deep one.� Appearances are deceiving.� It is when the flood comes to test them that the hidden foundation proves its value, and leaves the man who dug deep standing justified.�

�� No life can escape testing, and that is why Jesus was so insistent upon depth.� You recall in His parable of the sower how some seed fell on ground where it had little soil.� It sprang up quickly, but it had no depth, and so when the sun arose it was scorched and withered away.� Depth is not a luxury.� It is a necessity for survival.� When God plants He knows the value of depth.� In Psa. 80:8‑9 Israel is compared to a vine which God planted.� "You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.� You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land."� In the New Testament Jesus takes over this image and applied to Himself and the church.� He says, "I am the vine and you are the branches."� Jesus is the vine with roots of infinite depth.� There are adequate resources in Him for the branches to grow into all the world and bare fruit.�

�� Christianity could not have survived without being rooted in Christ, for He alone has the depth to keep the church standing through the floods of persecution.� God the Father plants deep; God the Son grows deep, and God the Holy Spirit reveals the depths.� Paul says in I Cor. 2:10, "For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God."� The subject of depth is one of the most important for a Christian to grasp.� The disciples had fished all night and caught nothing, but when they listened to Jesus and launched out into the deep their nets were breaking because of the great catch.� Digging deep, growing deep, and fishing deep are common themes in Scripture, and they challenge us to give more attention to the dimensions of depth.� I wrote these questions for all to consider:

Is there nothing in your net?

Then you haven't gone out yet

To the depths where fish abundant can be caught.

Will you empty handed be

In the shallows of the sea,

Or will you launch out deeper as you ought?

�� To help you answer these questions we want to answer another question, which we must understand.� The question is, what did Jesus mean by depth?� What does digging deep and laying a solid foundation for life mean?� In building a house it is easy to understand digging deep, but in building a life there is no literal digging to be done, and so we can easily miss the point of Jesus.� Therefore, let us consider the question, what is depth in building a life?�

�� Verse 46 makes it crystal clear that depth is not in mere speech.� The Lordship of Christ in our lives is not made real by merely saying Lord, Lord, if we do not then do what He commands.� A verbal Christian is not a vital Christian.� The Christian who thinks he is growing and sending roots deep because he is increasing his religious vocabulary is deceived.� Nothing is more shallow than mere verbal growth.� Jesus knew that the greatest temptation His followers would have would be to accept creeds for deeds.

�� Most Christians take talk far more seriously than Jesus did.� We all tend to accept or reject people on the basis of their speech.� If they say the right things in the right way they are in, but Jesus says, and all of history proves, we are building on the sand when we do this.� Right words are meaningless without right actions.� Spurgeon said, "The common temptation, is, instead of really repenting, to talk about repentance; instead of heartily believing, to say, 'I believe,' without believing, instead of truly loving, to talk of love, without loving...."�

�� Christians easily develop the dangerous habit of taking their talk too seriously.� They tend to think that if they memorize a Bible passage that the experience of that passage is theirs.� They think if they quote Paul, who said, "I am crucified with Christ," that they are, therefore, deeply consecrated and surrendered, when in reality they may be nothing of the kind.� Jesus was not warning unbelievers, but He was warning those who loved and followed Him to beware of verbalization without obedience.� Do not build on your words, but on your deeds.� Satan will lead you, if you allow it, to build a high tower of which you will be proud, but if it is built on words alone it will fall in the flood.�

�� Do not build on the shifting sand of sentiment, but on the solid rock of sound doctrine and reason.� Many Christians are moved by emotion to start building, and they begin to build up a Christian life without bothering to dig deep, and they are even proud of the fact that they do not waste time with digging as others do.� They feel it is a sign of greater faith to leave the foundation to God.� Their attitude is that the Lord will protect.� They forget that emotion is the lighting and heating system of the home of life, and it makes the home enjoyable and pleasant when it is built.� They allow it to become the basis for building, and the result is they are seldom prepared for the flood.� They lose their faith and feel God has forsaken them.� They are cared away by the flood of changing times, and they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine.� Why?� It is because they did not dig deep, but had a superficial faith that could not stand under pressure.�

�� Jesus never built a house on the sand and then said, "I will not have to worry because my Father in heaven will protect it."� If you don't dig deep, it makes no difference who you are, your house will not stand.� Jesus was warning His followers not to make the same mistake that brought Israel to a fall.� They honored God with their lips, but their heart was far from Him, and they did not obey His Word.� Depth is in deeds is what Jesus was saying.� Depth is not in feelings or speech.� The intellect and emotion are important, but they are not the foundation.� The will is the foundation of the Christian life.� The Christian who does not dig deep and sink his will into the solid rock of obedience, will be a shallow Christian however gloriously he speaks of Christ, and however warmly he feels toward Christ.� Some poet wrote‑

Not words of winning note,

Not thoughts from life remote,

Not fine religious airs,

Not sweetly languid prayers,

Not love of scent and creeds,

Wanted: deeds.

�� It is not what Jesus said that saves us, but it is what He did at Calvary.� The Word did not merely speak, but He became incarnate in flesh, and He lived and died for our benefit.� It is what He did that robbed Satan of his victory, and gave us the victory instead.� Many others have said great things, but nobody ever did what He did.� Deeds make the difference, for depth is in deeds.� Jesus makes it clear that the only difference between the man who went deep and the man who was shallow was in their deeds.� Both heard His words, but one did them and the other did not.� The only distinction among hearers of the Word that really matters is that between those who are hearers only, and those who are hearers plus doers.

�� Depth is found primarily in what you do.� Action is the measure of one's foundation.� Any other test of Christian maturity leads to deception.� James says in 1:22, "Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."� In the day of judgment the Scripture says repeatedly that we will be judged according to our deeds.� It will be according to what we have done in the body, and not according to our profession, but according to our practice.� "Let you light so shine that men may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."� This was the message of Jesus.� It is not just your words but your works that are a witness.�

�� The question is not, what do you say to your non‑Christian friends and neighbors, but what do you do?� There is no argument against good deeds.� The issue is not your speaking of the love of God, but of your demonstration of it in action.� The Good Samaritan helped a beaten man by taking him to an inn and paying for his care.� Jesus could have said that He spoke to him of the love of God also, but He did not.� Jesus pictured the value of this man by action only.� We are not to assume that words are not important, but only that they are not sufficient alone.� Words without deeds are superficial, but deeds with or without words are a deep expression of values.�

�� One of the strangest paradoxes of life is that we tend to call a man who is active in all kinds of projects for people a do‑gooder.� By this we mean that he has a shallow philosophy for the cure of the world's ills.� Then we come to Scripture and discover that it teaches clearly that the only Christians who are really deep and solidly Christ‑like are those who are do‑gooders.� Jesus went about doing good, and Paul in Gal. 6:9‑10 says, "Let us not grow weary in well‑doing....let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."� There is no escaping the fact that depth in doing.� A Christian who is not a do‑gooder is shallow however much theology he knows.� Our problem is not Christian education, for you can hear and know the Word of God, and still build on the sand.� Our problem is Christian action.� We are not digging deed because we are not doing.� The purpose for hearing is that we might be motivated to be doing.

�� Massilon, the famed French preacher and orator, use to say, "I don't want people leaving my church saying, what a wonderful sermon, what a wonderful preacher.� I want them to go out saying, I will do something."� That is precisely how Jesus felt, and that is why He ended the Sermon on the Mount with this challenge to be doers and not hearers only, for in doing one is digging deep.� Only these will be fruitful and wise, and only these will stand firm in the flood.� None of us will escape, and so none of us can afford to avoid examining our lives to determine if we are digging deep.� Someone wrote,

God will not ask thy race,

Nor will He ask thy birth.

Alone He will demand of thee,

What hast thou done on earth?

�� Lowell wrote, "Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."� It does not do a great deal of good in your life to read the Bible if you do not obey it.� The prayer that Jesus taught is not, thy will be talked about, thy will be sung, thy will be voted on, thy will be praised, thy will be taught, but, thy will be done.� Merrill wrote,

Thy will be done on earth,

On bended knee we pray,

Then leave our prayer before the throne

And rise and go our way.�

And earth is filled with woe,

And war, and evil, still,

For lack of men whose prayer is, Lo

I come to do thy will.

Thy will be done on earth,

Lord, grant me grace to see

That if thy will is to be done,

It must be done by me.�

��

11.�� THE DILEMMA OF DOUBT� Based on Luke 7_18‑35

�It is a pain to struggle with doubt, but there is a great debate as to whether this is a helpful or harmful type of suffering.� In Camelot, King Arthur says to Lancelot that he is satisfied he did the right thing in starting the round table.� Lancelot replies, "Your majesty, did you ever doubt it?"� And Arthur responds, "Lance, only a fool never doubts."

�� An army of followers will march to that drum beat, and praise the virtue of doubt.� But they will face a mighty host who feel just the opposite; that only a fool would ever doubt.� One of these leaders writes,

Is there no knowledge to be had?

Has God not spoken once for all?

Indeed He has, all doubt is mad

And destined to disastrous fall.

For God is God, and truth is true.

All doubt is sinful in His sight,

And doubters will have cause to rue

Their doubt through hell's undoubted night.

�� So the authorities agree, you are damned if you do, or damned if you don't doubt.� Thus we are stuck with the dilemma of doubt.� It is always confusing when the same thing can be good or evil, for this forces us to think and be discerning.� We would prefer that all the good guys road on white horses, and all the bad guys road on black horses.� That way, you don't have to strain to evaluate and discern, for you just know by the visual evidence.

�� Have you ever turned TV on in the middle of a story, and watched it for a few minutes.� It can be very frustrating because you do not know the context of the story, and you do not know who the heroes are, and who are the villains.�� The result is, you do not know where you stand, and who you are for or against in the conflict.� The bad guy may be so deceptively noble that you are attracted to him before you discover he is the villain.� We can only feel comfortable in our convictions when we have the whole context before us, and can see how each piece fits the whole.

�� Our text in Luke 7 will help us see the dilemma of doubt in its full context so we can grasp how people can come to such radically opposite conclusions.� In this text we see that both sides of the battle are correct.� Doubt is both demanded and damnable.� It has both positive and negative qualities that make it a cause for both helpful and harmful suffering.� In order to see the whole we want to examine the individual parts of this dilemma, and we start with the negative.

I.� DOUBT IS DAMNABLE.

�� None are so blind as those who will not see, and Jesus describes the Pharisees, and experts in the law, as deliberate doubters who refused to see the light that God has put in front of their face.� They are locked into a damnable doubt that God would ever do anything apart from them.� The result is that no amount of evidence will overcome their blindness.

�� God sends John the Baptist as a solemn, somber, and serious prophet, and they reject him as a madman with a demon.� God then sends His Son as a life‑loving leader who joins his people for the sharing of the enjoyable social events of life.� They reject him as too worldly; a glutton, wine bibber, and friend of tax collectors and sinners.

�� Jesus describes them like spoiled children who don't want to play funeral or wedding.� They will not be led, but stubbornly resist all evidence so that no light can penetrate their dungeon of doubt, and they remain in the darkness of disbelief.� You cannot find any better example of the danger of doubt.� These blind leaders of the blind were literally damned by their doubt.� Heaven was at their fingertips, but their doubt was leading them to hell and separation from Christ who offered them eternal life.�

�� It is true that some of these leaders, like Joseph of Arimathea began to doubt their doubts, and came to the place where they believed. But most never did, and must have had great fears that it might be true that Jesus was the Messiah, for He did many miracles before their very eyes.� The unbeliever has more to lose than anyone, and so his doubts are very frightening.� Those who attack the believer try to throw him into a state of doubt,� but this is a two edge sword, and cuts even deeper into the unbeliever when you throw him into doubt about his disbelief.� A young skeptic said to Archbishop Temple, "You only believe what you believe because of your early upbringing."� Temple replied, "You only believe that I believe what I believe� because of my early upbringing because of your early upbringing."� The skeptic was banged into silence by his own boomerang.

�� Remember, doubt is really the faith of unbelief, and you can throw a scare into the doubter by causing him to doubt that his doubt is a sure thing.� Doubt is a valid weapon for the soldier of light to use in combat with those in darkness.� Unbelievers must be tormented by the fear that maybe they are wrong, and belief is right.� This is the way the lost are saved.� But some are so blind they will not see the flaws in their doubt.� They believe their unbelief is the final word, and they doubt all that contradicts it.� Doubters give doubt such a bad name that we seldom see that it also has a positive side that we must consider.

II.� DOUBT IS DEMANDED.

�� John the Baptist represents the doubter who is just the opposite of the Pharisees.� Their doubt drove them to the denial of all evidence, but his doubt drove him to seek more evidence.� John was in prison for doing the will of God, and even one so use to being deprived of life's luxuries, can not be happy in such bondage.� John began to doubt whether or not Jesus was really the Messiah.� This one who said of Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," was now isolated and felt forsaken.� His personal crisis led him into the shadows of doubt, and he asked his disciples to go to Jesus and ask Him right out if He was the one who was to come, or if they should expect someone else?�

�� John was saying, I have lost my certainty and lack assurance, and I need some evidence to eliminate the doubts that are creeping into my faith.� This kind of doubt can hurt, but it is like the pain of exercise; it hurts, but it leads to the strengthening of the muscle.� Doubt that motivates a man to seek for more evidence is not harmful to his faith, but helpful, for it will lead him, as it did John, to get that which supports his faith.� Jesus did not say, go back and tell John I've had it with him.� If he can't take a crisis like being thrown into a dungeon without doubt, then he is no friend of mine.� Jesus did not condemn this doubt at all, but responded with the very thing John needed‑evidence.� The very things that were to happen when the Messiah came, are happening.� The sick are being healed; the blind are made to see; lepers are restored; and the dead are even raised, and the poor are receiving the good news.

�� The Bible does not call this kind of doubt damnable, but rather, says it is demanded as one of the weapons of warfare in the battle of light and darkness.� Paul stated it in I Thess. 5:21, "Test everything, hold fast to the good."� The Christian is to face this world of so many false prophets and cults with doubt; a doubt that refuses to accept anything without testing it according to God's Word.� Jesus expected to be tested Himself, and said, don't believe me because I say something, believe me because of my works.� In other words, talk is cheap, and we need to see the fruit of what is said in action, and until we do, doubt is our ally to keep us from being led astray.

�� If we care to avoid being tossed about by every wind of doctrine, we must be doubters who question, test, and evaluate, and be discerning as to what is of God and what is not.� Doubt becomes a partner with faith in helping us discern the will of God.� Tennyson said,� "There lives more faith in honest doubt believe me, than in half the creeds."� Rosalind Rinker said, "Faith and doubt coexist to some degree within everyone."� We are all like the man who came to Jesus and said, "Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief."� He had both faith and doubt, and so it was with John the Baptist, and so it is with Christians all through history.

�� It is important that we see this so that we corral our doubts and make them servants of faith rather than enemies of faith.� It is not wrong or evil when you get overwhelmed by the burdens of life to doubt the workings of God.� This can be a time of great growth if you do not fear it, but recognize that the circumstances demand doubt that seeks for more light to support faith.� When Rosalind Rinker went through a time of doubt as a Christian author, Bill Stern, the director of Young Life told her, "You haven't begun to know what you believe until you have had a few doubts."� She came to the point where she learned not to fear her doubts, for they helped her become a more mature Christian by forcing her to probe and search, and think through her faith, so it could stand up strong under attack. Those who have not faced the doubts can be overwhelmed and lose their faith, if they have not thought through a crisis before it strikes.

�� Rosalind Rinker pressed on into the ocean of infinite truth instead of waiting in the shallow water of superficial faith, and she became stronger, and wrote, "There was a time when people with serious doubts and questions about God disturbed me, now I can smile with understanding while assuring them they are on the road to new discoveries."�

�� Young people are notorious for going through a time of doubting all they have heard in church, and what they have been taught at home.� They feel they cannot swallow all they have been fed.� This is no time to panic and condemn them.� They are simply going through the process of developing a first hand, rather than a second hand, faith.� This is good, and not evil.�

�� Job was a great doubter, yet God preferred his honest doubt to the superficial faith of his comforters.� They were dogmatic believers in orthodox views.�� They said all who suffer deserve to suffer, because they are being punished for their sin.� Job said, I not only doubt it, I deny it, for that is a false view of life and suffering, and I will not let you cram it down my throat, however orthodox and traditional it is.� Job refused to join their chorus which went:� That old time religion is good enough for me.� He said, its not good enough for me, and I want a better understanding of the issue.� God responded to this great doubter with favor, and the orthodox believers he condemned.�

�� The book of Job makes it clear that doubt can be, and often is, the key factor in overcoming a falsehood that has gotten a hold of the minds of even the godly.� Thank God for great doubters like Martin Luther who said, "I cannot believe God keeps people in purgatory a certain length of time depending on how much their family is willing to pay to get them released."� We are not called to have faith in everything that claims to be food for the soul.� We are called to test it and evaluate it, and judge it by its fruit.� To have faith in everything, or to believe in everything is the same as believing nothing.� The most watered down faith you can have is a faith that says one religion is as good as the next.� Robert Ingersall, the famous American atheist, had what sounds like a noble faith.� He wrote back in 1888, "I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claim the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed...."

�� The Christian cannot say this, and so the atheist can sound more noble then the Christian.� But the Christian has to be committed to doubt, for error and folly, corruption and deception, are everywhere in this fallen world.� It is to be partners with folly not to doubt.� We need to doubt that everything said about God, or for God, is true.� We need to doubt that God approves of everything people believe and do in His name.� Doubt is demanded for those who are committed to the Word of God, for the world is flooded with ideas that are based on human cleverness and deception rather than the mind of God.� Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and beware of wolves in sheep clothing.� Test everything says Paul.� Nothing should escape the dynamics of doubt, for that is our protection against faith which is folly.� True faith needs doubt to protect it, and keep it free of error and nonsense.� Doubt is an ally of true faith.

�� Mike Yaconelli, the editor of Agape Force grasped this truth and expressed it forcefully.� "Frankly, I'm bored by so many Christians today.� You can't carry on an intelligent discussion because they know everything, have an opinion on all subjects and have no questions."� Someone said a Sunday School student only really begins to grow when he stops answering the questions, and begins to question the answers.� That is what he is getting at.� So many Christians fear questions, for it implies doubt that we have all of the answers.� Doubt is the enemy, and so do not give doubt a foothold by questioning tradition.

�� Yaconelli goes on, "I am no longer intimidated by those who, because of my questions, have written me off as a spiritual casualty.� In fact, I'm beginning to see that having all the answers may deny me the exhilaration of a constantly growing faith that wagers what I know of me on what I know of Christ.� Maybe our easy answers have caused us to miss the thrill of discovery, the freshness of uncharted horizons, the excitement of saying, "I don't know" and then trusting Christ anyway.� For some reason not having all the answers has become unwritten sin.� I am free from that now.� I can admit my doubts, my weaknesses, my insufficiency‑knowing Christ is sufficient, and trusting him with all my heart, and still feel inadequate."�

�� He is not saying, I doubt Christ, but I doubt that I fully understand Christ, and am being Christlike in all my conduct and convictions.� That is good doubt, for what he is saying is that he refuses to believe that Christians have all the answers, and that they, like Job's friends, can set everybody straight on all the issues of life.� He has his doubts, and because of his doubts he is compelled to seek for more light, and thereby become a growing Christian.� It is a paradox, but the uncertain and doubt filled Job was more pleasing to God than his cocksure dogmatic friends who had all the answers, and no doubts.

�� That is why doubt is not just recommended, it is demanded by the Bible, for without it man so easily drifts into equating his convictions with the Word of God.�� This leads to idolatry of man made systems and ideas, and a loss of motivation to constantly seek to get more light from God's Word.� Why seek if you think you have it all?� But if you doubt that you have it all, you will seek for more.� That is what John the Baptist was doing.� He was seeking for more light, and that is good doubt that motivates such a search.� The Pharisees had none of this kind of doubt.� They knew it all, and had all the answers, and were thus blind to God's new light in Christ.� Their lack of this demanded doubt led them to the blindness of damnable doubt where they doubted all that was true, and ended in the darkness of disbelief.

�� Had they only doubted that they had all the answers; Had they only doubted that they possessed all the light that God had; Had they only doubted that they alone could be right, they may have ended up as soldiers of faith, for that doubt would have opened them up to the Christ they rejected.� Do not be down on doubt that leads men to search for more light.� Charles Spurgeon was a strong Calvinist, yet he was not down, even on the doubt that came into one's life that makes you wonder if you are really a Christian.� He writes, "We are told by certain devines, that we should never doubt our safety.� Beloved, we should never doubt God, but I am inclined to think that no man who exercises a holy watchfulness over himself, and a holy earnestness to be found accepted at the last, can be at all times without doubt as to his own interest in Christ."�

�� He goes on to say that some who do not doubt take it for granted that they are safe regardless of their life, and they drift from God and holiness.�� It is better to doubt once in a while, and so to keep examining your life, and make sure you are living in a faith pleasing to God.� In other words, doubt keeps the Calvinist enough like the Arminian to keep them from being presumptuous, and thus motivated to strive for sanctification.� The Arminian needs to doubt his theology, and find security.� The Calvinist needs to doubt his theology, and live an examined life for security.� Doubt is what keeps all theology in balance.�

�� The point is, doubt can always be made a virtue if it is handled right, and used as an opportunity for growth.� John the Baptist was using his this way, but the Pharisees were using their doubt as an excuse to not grow, and a shield to prevent their having to see the light.� There are doubtless some Christians who never doubt, but it is doubtful they are very strong Christians.� It is the Christian who has gone through inner debates of doubt that has grown and become strong in faith.� Many can testify with Dostoeveski who wrote, "It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ.� My "Hosanna" is born of a furnace of doubt."�

�� We need to stop fearing doubt and recognize it as an ally to faith.� People who fear doubt too much are often repressing doubt.� The famous Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal said, "He who fearth to doubt, Lord, in that fear doubteth Thee."� Progress in almost all realms of life depends on someone doubting that all is known in that area of life.� They press on to new discoveries, and so we need to doubt that we know all we can of Christ, and that we are all we can be in Christ.� It is this doubt that leads us to be open for growth.�

�� There are many who have had this positive view of doubt.� Galileo called doubt the father of invention.� Dante said, "Doubting charms me not less than knowledge."� Stanislous said, "To believe with certainly we must begin with doubting."� Albert Guerod said, "Systems which end doubt are devices for drugging thought."� H. L. Menchen wrote, "Men became civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."�

�� Doubt is a conformation of faith, for it is an indication of the seriousness and value of faith to the doubter.� I do not doubt information I receive about the life of turtles on Pacific Islands.� I do not doubt what I am told about butterflies in Porto

Rico.� These and millions of other bits of information are not relevant to my life, and not important enough to doubt.� But I do doubt in areas of vital importance to me.� The nurse who works with aids patience has to doubt that she is safe from the disease, and take precautions, for her life is at stake.� It is healthy to be skeptical in such a context.

�� If I am being offered a $300 dollar watch for $20 dollars, I have an obligation to be doubtful.� If I have faith in all I am told, I will be a prime target for the con man. Doubt and skepticism are part of the armor that protects us from much folly.� In the realm of religious truth we must be skeptical, and doubt much of what we read and hear.� The Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonika because they searched the Scripture to see if what Paul taught was so.� They doubted the Apostle Paul, and none were condemned for this doubting.� In fact, they were commended, for they took truth seriously enough to check it out.� Some have called this the Protestant Principle:� The critical element that says, we do not take pronouncements from anybody as authorities until they can be established to be Biblical, and thus reflect the mind of God.� Only doubters can make this principle work.

�� We must always remember the sunny side of doubt, for doubt is not just aimed at the truth, but can also be aimed at the false, and it is a virtue to doubt the false.� It is a virtue to doubt Satan and his lies that say wickedness leads to happiness.� It is a virtue to doubt that the world, flesh, and devil have valid answers.� Thank God for doubt, for it is the other side of faith that makes faith strong.� The sunny side of doubt is the doubt that death ends all, and the doubt that Jesus would lie to us, and not really prepare a place for us to be with Him forever.� The more you get into the sunny side of doubt, the more doubt becomes an exciting virtue.� To believe in anything positive, you have to not believe in its opposite.� If I have faith in Christ, I must doubt the ways of anti‑Christ.� All faith is backed up by doubt in its opposite.

�� Before Columbus launched out into the deep to prove the world is round, he had to doubt the old theory that it was flat.� The sinner who responds to the Gospel in faith must doubt that he can save himself, or that there is any other way to be forgiven of his sin.� The point of all this is, do� not let doubt be your enemy, but make it your friend.� Jesus understood John's doubt, and he will understand yours.

Come to Christ, as John did, and seek for answers to the mysteries that puzzle you and provoke doubt.� It can be painful, but the end result will be the pleasure of a deeper faith.� Don't let doubt drag you into darkness as it did the Pharisees, but let it drive you to the light like it did John.�

�� The idea of doubt being demanded has to be seen in the context of an intellectual struggle to acquire insight into truth.� It does not fit a situation where the issue is trust, or not trust.� When Peter walked on the water, and then because of his fear lost faith, and began to sink, Jesus saved him and asked, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"� The implication is that Peter's doubt was of no value whatever, for it was a sheer loss of faith.� He cease to trust Christ, and relied on his own senses.� This is not the damnable doubting of the Pharisees, but it is a dangerous doubting none the less.� It is doubt which has made a decision to side with unbelief, and when doubt sides with unbelief, it is unbelief.� Peter ceased to trust Christ and he sank.� Job doubted his friends theology, and he even doubted God's justice and loving care, but he never cease to trust God.� Job's doubt was good, for it did not plunge him into unbelief.� Doubt will not hurt us as long as we always put our trust in Christ. Someone wrote this poem that sums it up‑

"I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea

Come drifting home with broken masts and sails.

I shall believe the hand that never fails

From seeming evil worketh good for me,

And though I weep because those sails are tattered,

Still will I cry, while my best hopes are shattered,

I trust in thee."�

��

12. ��FOCUS ON FEET Based on Luke 7:36‑50

�Centuries ago the Danes decided to invade Scotland.� They very cleverly moved their great army in the night so they could creep up on the Scottish forces and take them by surprise.� In order to make this advance as noiseless as possible they came barefooted.� As they neared the sleeping Scots, one unfortunate Dane brought his foot down on a bristling thistle.� He let out with a roar of pain that was like a trumpet blast which rang through the sleeping camp.�

The Scots were alerted, and quickly grabbed their weapons, and the Danes were driven back.�

�� One could say that they came within one foot of victory, but one foot led to their defeat. The thistle from that time on was adopted as the national emblem of Scotland. Feet are vital for the onward march, but they can also be your foe and lead you to defeat because of their weakness.� Not all have the feet of the Kentucky backwoods farmer who never wore shoes.� One day he came into the cabin and stood by the fireplace with his callused feet.� His wife said, "You'd better move your feet a mite, you're standin on a live coal."� He replied, "Which foot?"� Unfortunately, most foot soldiers do not have feet that tough.� Even Achilles, the great Greek warrior, had one weak spot, and that was the heel of his foot.� It was by means of an arrow in his heel that he was brought to defeat.� Our feet determine whether we stand or fall in more ways than one.�

�� The statue, or government, or organization, with feet of clay is easily toppled.� When we want somebody to become independent, we tell them to stand on their own two feet, and to get both feet on the ground.� The unstable position and shaky argument puts a man where we say he doesn't have a leg to stand on.� All of the many texts about the Christian walk and the Christian stand make clear that feet are essential equipment for the Christian life, for you cannot stand or walk without feet.�

�� The feet can bring you to defeat, or they can march you to victory.� Either way the feet play a major role in every life, and that includes the life of our Lord.� There are 27 references to the feet of Jesus in the New Testament.� That is likely a greater focus on feet than you will find in the biography of any other man.� Biblical times were times of far greater foot consciousness.� There are 4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words for feet.� There are 162 references to feet in the Old Testament, and 75 in the New Testament.� Feet were just more conspicuous in that world where walking, marching, and cleaning of feet, and sitting at the feet of others, were daily events.

�� The feet of Jesus were exposed, and so more people beheld the feet of Christ than other great men of history.� The feet of Jesus were the center of so much of His activity.� In Matt. 15:30 we read, "Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, blind, the crippled, the dumb and many others, and laid them at His feet, and He healed them."� Mary became famous for sitting at the feet of Jesus and soaking in the wisdom of His teaching.� Many were laid at His feet unable to walk, and Jesus lifted them up and stood them on their own two feet again, and enabled them to walk and be restored to the world of folks with feet that would function again.� Only those who have lost the ability to walk can appreciate how beautiful it must have been to be laid at the feet of one, who because He created feet could fix them, and make them work again.��

�� "I cried because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet," is a popular saying, but here were crowds who wept for joy, for those with no feet walked away from the feet of Jesus having been made whole.� Walking is being revived in our day for health and exercise, but in the day of Christ walking was a necessity, and that is why one of the most frequent miracles of the New Testament was that of making the lame walk.� To be put back on your feet was to be given new life.� We take our feet for granted, and do not often consider that they are one of the wonders of creation.

�� Leonardo da Vinci called the feet, "A masterpiece of engineering and a work of art."� There are 26 bones in each foot or 52 in both, and that is one forth of the bones in our body.� By means of these instruments the average person by the age of 55 has walked 70,000 miles, or 2 and one half times around the world.� Gilette Burgess may sound silly, but he was rightly amazed when he wrote‑

My feet, they haul me round the house,

And hoist me up the stairs.

I only have to steer them, and

They ride me everywheres.

�� Another poet wrote some lines that became more well known.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And departing leave behind us

Footprints in the sands of time.

�� Jesus did so more than any other who has ever lived, and we want to sit at His feet and focus on them, for His footprints have changed the course of history. Every place the feet of Jesus touched have become places of deep interest, study, and research. We cannot look at all 27 references, and so we will only get a foot in the door of this lowly yet lofty subject. We will focus on the feet of Jesus from the point of view of them being instruments of sovereignty, suffering, and of service. First lets look at His feet as‑

I. INSTRUMENTS OF SOVEREIGNTY.