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In the not too distant past men were
still required to stay out in the waiting room when their wives were
giving birth, and so you have a scene of three men waiting for this to
happen. The head nurse comes in and says to the first one,
“Congratulations! Your wife just gave birth to twins.” He said,
“That’s great. I’m going to sign a contract with the Minnesota Twins.
It will be great publicity.” She comes in a few minutes later and says
to the second one, “Congratulations! Your wife just had triplets.” He
said, “That’s great. I work for 3M,” (Had to be a Minnesota
hospital...) “and it will be great publicity.” Well about that time the
third guy starts running out the door as fast as he could. And she
says, “Wait, sir. Why are you running away?” He says, “I work for
7-UP.”
There are many things in this world
to be afraid of, takes courage to live. It really does. Takes courage
to live our lives; takes courage to grow old. Someone who called old
age the golden years, I’m not sure if they actually lived through them.
I found it takes courage to deal with ones limitations, to put it
mildly. But even in this world there is so many things going on, so
many things happen to us personally in the world. There is not a day
that goes by when we don’t get a prayer request for someone who is
facing a surgery, or a cancer or some kind of problem, or if not in our
church, with people around us. There are a lot of things to fear. Of
course we want to be brave. We want to buck up, you know, and feel like
we have courage; but sometimes it’s really hard. I’m reminded of a
story of a little boy who’s asked what he wanted to be when he grew up
and he says “I want to be a lion tamer. I want to enter the cage with
my chair and my whip and tame the lions; and, of course, I’ll have my
mommy with me.” Sometimes we need a “mommy”.
I want to talk about courage today,
particularly with regard to our faith because it takes courage to have
faith. I’ve chosen to read three stories, three Christmas stories, for
you. These stories most of you are probably familiar with, they come
from the first chapter of Luke. Now the scripture lesson is a little
bit long, but I want you to hear them, hear them again. In each case an
angel comes and visits someone and the first words out of his mouth are
practically “Do not be afraid. Fear not.” Or to put it positively
“Have courage.”
The first is Zechariah who would
become the father of John the Baptist. Zechariah was an old man and he
had prayed for a son for a long, long time; and he comes to the place
where he has given up hope. He’s taking his turn at the temple,
ministering there, and that’s where we find him when the angel comes
upon him. (Luke 1:11-14, 18-20)
11Then
an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the
altar of incense. 12When Zechariah saw him, he
was startled and was gripped with fear. 13But
the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has
been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give
him the name John. 14He will be a joy and
delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.”
18Zechariah
asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife
is well along in years."
19The
angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I
have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.
20And
now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens,
because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their
proper time."
The second story is
one we are all familiar with, the story of Mary. Again, Gabriel is sent
to tell her the most astounding thing; that she’s going to bear the
Messiah. Notice the differences in her response and some of the
similarities as well. (Luke 1:26-38)
26In
the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in
Galilee,
27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant
of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
28The
angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The
Lord is with you."
29Mary
was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting
this might be. 30But the angel said to her, "Do
not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31You
will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the
name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be
called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne
of his father David, 33and he will reign over
the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34"How
will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35The
angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of
the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called[a]
the Son of God. 36Even Elizabeth your relative
is going to have a child in her old age. 37For
nothing is impossible with God."
38"I
am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have
said."
The third story is
none other than the story of the shepherds. Probably Gabriel again,
though we are not told, but along with Gabriel a whole crowd of angels
lighting up the sky telling them, of course, not to be afraid and
announcing the good news. Notice their response as well. (Luke 2:8-18)
8And
there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over
their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord
appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they
were terrified. 10But the angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for
all the people. 11Today in the town of David a
Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12This
will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying
in a manger."
13Suddenly
a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising
God and saying, 14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When
the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one
another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened,
which the Lord has told us about."
16So
they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying
in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they
spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the
shepherds said to them.
This ends the reading
of God’s holy word. This is the word of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Father we ask you to be with us as we
hear your word. May it enter our hearts and minds and change them and
move them, inspire them. Be with us now Lord we pray for your honor and
glory in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It
takes courage to believe. This was Zechariah’s main problem. He was
having trouble believing. We’re not told a lot about Zechariah but I
suspect that he was a believer. He believed in the Lord but he had been
praying for this one thing for a long time and it hadn’t happened. He
probably hadn’t drifted to unbelief but he’d lost his hope. He’d lost
his faith and yet he comes to this event in his life and he’s told
something wonderful. He’s very much like all of us really. At one time
or other in our lives, maybe a lot of times in our lives, he asked the
simple question, “How can I be sure? How can I be sure?” It takes
courage to have faith. You know in our world it really is hard. We
have so many things militating against faith. A lot of people have a
lot of intellectual problems with faith. So when you go out and you try
to share your faith or you say you’re a believer, sometimes we’re
scoffed at or argued with. I remember when I first became a Christian
it wasn’t three days after I’d become a Christian I was just sharing
with one of my friends and he started arguing with me about it. He was
telling me about the bible and how some things were wrong with it and
all that sort of thing. I look back at it and I think I feel like I
would today if I heard somebody expounding on the DaVinci Code. They
have all this information but it’s not quite right. I didn’t know that
then; of course, I went to seminary and found out about all those things
and could have given him a great answer at the time but I was
intimidated. Most of us are when people confront us about believing.
You know, in our modern world it is O.K. to believe things but we are
told to keep it private. “That’s just between you.” “Don’t be public
about it.” “Leave it in your churches.” Of course, we are finding out
that faith really does have public consequences, big time, for good or
for ill. But it takes courage in the face of ridicule.
It
takes courage just in the face of our lives. You know, I’ve talked to
so many people that have had so many terrible things happen to them and
they still have faith. I just, “Wow!” You have so many people
sometimes have things happen to them and it destroys their faith. Just
living life is hard. It takes courage to keep believing, not only in
our personal lives but in the world itself. You know, going to Tijuana
is really easy; it is very safe. If you haven’t been to a place like
that or to Africa or someplace, you ought to go, or at least read about
it, because you’ll see some things and you are going to go “Wow.” The
world is not an easy place. It takes courage to have belief in the face
of ridicule or circumstances or the evil of the world. What are we to
say? I like the response that Gabriel gives. Zechariah says “How can I
be sure?” And Gabriel just says, “I’m Gabriel!” I know I may be
reading into the story a little bit but it’s almost to me is like
Gabriel is saying to Zechariah, “Well, Dah! I’m here. What more do you
want?” And he says, “I’m Gabriel. I stand at the side of the throne of
God, The Authority. The foundation of what we believe.” And yet, it
is still hard.
How are
we to believe? I think there are some unshakable things we need to have
in our faith, some non-negotiables. One is of course that God is real.
That God exists but much more than that. We need to believe that God is
good. There is sometimes in our lives some of the evidence suggests
that God isn’t good. If you haven’t had the bad things happen to you,
you will, or at least you will see them. Sometimes the evidence isn’t
that good for God’s goodness. Many people lost their faith over that
very issue. We have to believe that God is good and that God is going
to win in the end. God is all powerful and He’s going to win and it’s
going to work out. We have to believe those things. We have to take
that foundation and interpret the facts. You know, sometimes people
say, “I believe in science.” But what’s science but information. We
should rejoice in that information and learn it, but it is a matter of
interpreting the information. If you come at it from one perspective,
of unbelief, you are going to get unbelief when you come out of it. If
you come at it through belief, you will get belief when you come out of
it. It takes courage to believe.
It
takes courage to be used of God. I say all the time that I just am
amazed at the story of Mary, the young Jewish girl fifteen years old,
barely, maybe younger and yet her response is similar. She asked “How
can I be sure?” Though it’s not really like Zechariah. Zechariah seems
to have lost hope but Mary just wants a clarification. She has that
rock foundation of belief. She believes in God. She’s just asking the
question, “This is not the natural order of things. How’s it going to
work? How are we going to see this through?” So she’s not really
afraid in the sense of lost hope, but if she has time to think about it
she ought to be afraid of a lot of other things. Can you imagine your
daughter or your granddaughter or friend coming home, saying “Guess
what? I’m pregnant and I’m pregnant by God’s action.” What would our
reaction be? The nearest trip to the counseling office, I think. And
maybe even to an institution. Certainly we would not believe this and
Mary was going to face unbelief by her husband and certainly her family
and everybody else. She was going to be looked at as an immoral woman,
among other things. Yet, she just wants this clarification. When it’s
told to her that it’s going to be by the power of God, and she believes
that her God could actually do this, she just says the most powerful of
words. She says, “Let it be to me as you have said. I am the Lord’s
servant.” It takes courage to be used of God. And yet I think we are
very much afraid of being used of God. You know, for one thing, we
really are afraid of being ridiculed. Of being called a religious
fanatic. I am reminded of a story of a man named Robert Short who wrote
a book called “The Gospel According to Peanuts.” He was kind of a wild
child in college and he came home one day and his mother just wept over
him and said, “Oh my son, he’s an unbeliever. He’s a pagan. What am I
going to do?” Well he went back to college and the Lord got a hold of
him and changed his life. He came home and yet his mother still cried.
She said, “Oh what am I going to do? My son’s now a religious
fanatic.” We are afraid of that. We are afraid of being shamed. We
are afraid that if we say “Let it be to me as you have said.” God’s
going to make us do something embarrassing. There is nothing more
powerful than shame. So many people refuse to do things because they
are afraid that they are going to be embarrassed. We are afraid of
these things. We are afraid that God is going to embarrass us.
I think
we are also afraid it’s just going to plain take too much time. You
know, deep down inside we really believe that our lives are our own, and
“oh yeah we’ll carve out a little time for God, but it has to be only a
little bit. It can’t be too much. I’ve got my life to live. Is it
going to take too much time?” Have you ever said to the Lord, “Do with
me whatever you want to?” Have you ever said that? Whatever time it
takes, whatever it is. Now, it takes courage to do that.
It
takes courage also to go. I like the story of the shepherds. You know,
a lot of times when we think of shepherds we have the Christmas card
sort of view. You know, clean shepherds with the little crooked thing
and with little white sheep lying around and the Nativity and all those
kinds of different things. Let me read you about shepherds. In Jesus’
day faithful Jews were warned by their Rabbis against entering into six
professions. One of the forbidden occupations was shepherding.
Conscientious Pharisees would never consider doing business with a
shepherd. They would buy wool and milk but never from a shepherd
himself. Shepherds weren’t allowed to give testimony in a court. In
fact, shepherds weren’t permitted to enter places of worship. They
couldn’t go to the temple or synagogue. For one thing, shepherds were
constantly walking around the droppings of the sheep so they were
considered unclean. Secondly shepherds ranged their sheep throughout
the country side without paying attention to property lines; in other
words, they were constantly trespassing. And what’s more they were in
the right place to pick up things along the way. They were considered
thieves. They ran the local black market. Nobody loved a shepherd.
Shepherds were liars. You couldn’t trust their word in court.
Shepherds were thieves; they would steal you blind. Shepherds were
dirty and disgusting. They were despised. They had one foot in hell.
And the Willie Nelson’s of that day used to sing, “Mommas don’t let your
babies grow up to be shepherds.”
It
doesn’t say that the angels appeared to righteous shepherds. The angels
appeared to the shepherds and all of what they were. You know, so often
we say to ourselves when asked to do something or be something, “Oh I’m
not worthy.” Well that’s right! Join the club. But if there are
things in your life that you know need forgiving, just look at the
potpourri of people in the bible and all the things which they were
forgiven for and God goes to these people. He goes to the shepherds of
the world and announces good news and essentially says “Come to Jesus.
Come to the manger. Go and see.”
And
that’s my message to you today. It takes courage to go. It takes
courage to go. David Livingstone was once asked, he was a famous
missionary, he said, “I will go anywhere as long as it is forward.” It
takes courage to go forward and not stay in the comfortable present or
retreat to the nostalgic past. It takes courage to get up and go. And
that’s what they did. They went and saw Jesus and then they told the
good news. My question to you today is “Where are you with the Lord?
You’re being invited to meet Jesus this Christmas. I know there are
some of you here who probably have never made a commitment to Jesus
Christ as you Lord and Savior. Come and meet Jesus this Christmas.
Now. There are some of you who know the Lord but maybe you are
wandering about and need to make a recommitment. Wherever you are, meet
Jesus this Christmas.
I am
going to pray a prayer and if that prayer applies to you I want to
encourage you to say it. And if you do, you don’t have to raise your
hand or anything like that; but, let me know, or let Pastor Buck know,
or let somebody know that you have committed yourself, or recommitted
yourself to Jesus Christ. Don’t let fear stand in your way.
Let us
pray.
Oh Father, we come before you and
confess that we have all sinned and fall short of your glory. Some of
us here Lord don’t know you yet, but I pray for them that they would
confess their need and their sins and reach out to you and go to you to
meet you. That they will in faith embrace you as their Lord and
Savior. For others of us who need to come back, we pray for them as
well, that they would come and meet you knowing that you come to them
and in your grace you welcome us back. I pray for all of us Lord
wherever we may be; that we would take that good news and share it, that
like those shepherds that we would go and tell others about this thing
that we all know about, this Jesus, this good news. We pray in His
name. Amen.
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