Message from God
CCCAG December 10th, 2017
Scripture- Luke 1:26-38
Edward Kimball, Sunday school teacher, was not one of the ordinary type.
• Got involved in the lives of his boys
• Got to know them on a personal level
One day a new teenage boy started to attend his class, and as was his custom, he visited him at his place of employment- a shoe store downtown.
Mr. Kimball wrote about the encounter- When I was nearly there, I began to wonder whether I ought to go just then, during business hours. And I thought maybe my mission might embarrass the boy, that when I went away the other clerks might ask who I was, and when they learned might make fun of him and ask if I was trying to make a good boy out of him.
Then when I found the store, I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found him in the back part of the store wrapping up shoes in paper and putting them on shelves. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder. Then I made my plea that he accept Christ, and I feel that it was really a very weak one. I don’t know just what words I used, nor could he tell. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was of it.
It seemed that the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, for there at once in the back of that shoe store in Boston the young man gave his life to Christ."
Edward Kimball had just witnessed to Dwight L. Moody.
But that is not all the only person he witnessed to.
Follow the progression that now takes place.
John W. Chapman attended a revival of Moody’s and accepted Christ. John Chapman’s became a pastor and evangelist. During one of his revivals Billy Sunday came forward after accepting Christ.
Billy Sunday preached a revival at which Mordecai Ham was present. He came forward during the invitation to profess his faith in Christ
Mordecai Ham preached a revival at which Billy Graham was present and he too professed Christ publicly.
Before today, most of us never heard the name Edward Kimball.
But many of us knew who Dwight Moody was.
Many knew of Billy Sunday’s ministry.
Some of heard of Mordecai Ham
All of us have heard the name Billy Graham.
One person believing and obeying the Word of God that was spoken to them changed the course of 10’s of millions of lives in the 20th century and even today.
The bible describes another person believing the Word of God spoken to her. This teenager from Nazareth had a visitation by God’s messaging angel Gabriel.
This girl had every reason to doubt the angels message-
She was a poor girl living in the bible’s version of the sticks. Nazareth was considered to be so back water that even to refer to a person as being from there was to say they were poor, uneducated, uncouth in manners and behavior, and generally the person you wouldn’t want to move in next to you. Even Jesus’ own disciple asked the question-“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
This girl wasn’t even a citizen of the country that she lived in- Nazareth was part of conquered Israel. She was a subject of a foreign emperor who cared little about her wellbeing.
She lived during a time when woman were second class citizens even in her own community.
Even her religion had been twisted into a series of do’s and don’ts instead of a pursuit of a transcendent God that loved His creation.
Lastly, it’s been over 400 years since God seemingly took notice of her people. 10 Generations ago, the last Prophet, Malachi spoke of a messiah that was to come, preceded by a man who carried the spirit of Elijah.
That man carrying the Elijah spirit is in the womb of Elizabeth
That’s the backdrop of our scripture reading this morning.
Luke 1:26-38 (note reading from NIV)
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He 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, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
PRAYER
Big idea-
I want to focus on vs 37 this morning.
Many of you read the King James Version of that verse as reading
“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” That’s very different from the NIV’s reading.
Brief word on limited texts available to King James translators
-don’t want to get bogged down here, but the KJV translators had very limited original language texts available to them compared to today. The newest and most reliable texts quote those verse differently.
Honestly, that’s not what the original languages said. The most reliable and oldest texts that we have found translate it as the NIV did-
“For no Word from God will ever fail”
The reason I’m making this point is because as I did the word study for this message, I found a nugget that I want to share with us this morning as I preach from a verse largely used around Christmas.
This nugget is found in the Greek word for the word, word.
W.O.R.D has a few ways of expressing itself in the Greek Language-
Lexi- which we get the word Lexicon which is a book containing the meaning of a word
Logos- which is the written word or history. Logos is the bible
Rhema- which is the spoken word. This is a spiritual experience in which God speaks to us.
The Greek word used in this passage is “Rhema”. Rhema is the same word used by Jesus when HE stated that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Rhema word spoken by the mouth of God.
I want to explore that principle today
I. The Principle of Vs 37
The principle I want to talk about this morning is the condition of a soul without a fresh word from God.
As we previously said- The people living in Galilee and in Judea during the time of Jesus’ birth had gone for 10 generations without a fresh word from God. They kept a form of their religion-
The observed the holidays
the sacrificed at the right times
they gathered once a week to worship and read the Law and the Prophets, and tried to live in a way that they thought was pleasing to God.
But there was no fresh revelation.
The last words of the Old Testament spoke of Elijah returning and ushering in the Messiah. But it had been 400 years. They had been conquered and lived through the passing of 4 major world powers in that time, and now were subjects of Rome. They longed for the return of a King David figure that would lead them back to the good old days- when Israel was a world power and they all lived in peace and prosperity.
They longed for that like we long for the rapture- an escape from a world that has gone insane, and seems to be going crazier by the minute.
We in 21st Century Christianity are very similar to them. Like them, we go to church, when it’s convenient. We observe holidays like Christmas and Easter. We try to live good lives.
But if someone were to ask us about our relationship with God, we would invariably tie it into our church attendance, and not into a moment by moment, vital relationship with our Father.
But that is only symptoms of the greater spiritual problem.
Like Israel during Jesus’ time, we as the people of God are suffering from a spiritual famine in our day.
The Prophet Amos in the Old Testament described this famine like this-
Amos 8:11-13
11 “The days are coming,”c declares the Sovereign LORD,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famined of hearing the words of the LORD.e
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.f
13 “In that day
“the lovely young women and strong young meng
will faint because of thirst.h
Francis Chan is an incredible teacher of the Word of God. He had one of the fastest growing church’s in the United State in 2010. He had started with 30 people, and in 7 years grew to almost 2000. Suddenly he resigned as pastor.
Everyone was dumbfounded at why at the pinnacle of his ministry he would step aside and let others take it over
Francis Chan said that he was in prayer, and realized that thousands of people where coming to bask in his gift, and not discovering God for themselves.
When I read that it shook me. In other words, he felt that the people were drawn to His gift, receiving their nourishment and strength from his abilities, but not growing in relationship with God.
They came to listen to someone speak about Logos- the bible and it’s applications, but had no living relationship with God in the receiving of spiritual truth directly from God.
This describes the church in general, many Christians in particular, and tragically many of our pastors.
We treat our spiritual lives like our cell phones. We keep the power at a minimal, trying to get through the week with enough left to get us to Sunday, and then plug in for a recharge.
And that is the problem.
Jesus quoted the Old Testament when he laid down this truth- so it’s a truth that has existed throughout biblical history and is not just particular to the church age, so please listen to our savior’s words this morning-
Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”
Jesus is not talking about Logos- Logos is there to refresh you, teach you, train you, but really it is not there to give you a constant source of power.
The bible is like this recharging pack- this can recharge my cell phone 4-6 times when I’m at work if I have a day when I’m constantly on the ambulance. This pack is like the bible- it’s there to give you a boost of strength, an assurance of the promises of God, and the truth of His love and care for you.
But logos word found in the bible is meant to grow you and sustain you, but Rhema is meant to empower you and fill you with the passion for serving the Kingdom.
Rhema does that. God speaking to you a fresh revelation.
II. Application
I was working on the ambulance and got a call to a large converted warehouse that had been converted into apartments for the old and the poor. After about 30 seconds of entering into this maze of hallways, the lights went out.
Keep in mind, this was an inner city establishment whose adherence to building codes was non-existent, so The emergency lights didn’t come on, so we were in pitch darkness.
I figured, no problem- we have our Maglite with us and it was nice and bright that morning when we did our checkout of the squad, so we are ok. I turned on the Maglite and sure enough it was nice and bright.
For about 15 seconds, and then faded to black. We are now in pitch dark, inside a building whose emergency lights were not working at all, surrounded by people who might want to rob us for our narcotics.
We trusted in batteries, and they let us down.
Failing light isn’t just a problem for emergency responders.
The problem is that most Christians today want an extended spiritual life battery, but humanity doesn’t come with that model.
It reminds me of our current transfer ventilator at the hospital is a pretty old model that we are replacing this week. If it loses electrical power, you have less than 5 minutes to find a power source before it stops providing life giving breath to your patient.
Just like that ventilator, we were created so that our spiritual batteries don’t have a very long lifespan. That’s because we are expected to be connected to a power source at all times.
In reality God prefers us never to run on batteries but to be constantly plugged into HIM.
I was in prayer a lot this week asking God what direction He wants us to go in as a church family.
If I have a fault or failing as your pastor, it’s that I’m too much of a teacher. I want to impart truth and hope that you will make the connection and use that truth to change your lives.
Unfortunately, in the 21st Century that doesn’t always work. We are too bombarded with information to remember 1 hr on a Sunday and apply it to our lives.
I read an article awhile back about a phone survey that was done to church members of various denominations. They called them Sunday night and Monday night questioning them about what was taught that Sunday at church, and the results were very telling.
90% of the people who had attended church that morning couldn’t answer that question less than 4 hrs after leaving church. That number will by 99% by Monday afternoon.
WE need a different practice.
In emergency medicine there is an adage about teaching new skills- see one, do one, teach one.
If you are learning a new skill, you will watch the first time.
After you watch it being done, you then do the skill under supervision. If you pass, you then teach that skill the next time it comes up. You then are confident, and are a subject matter expert.
The problem is, this is where most discipleship in the church ends- people continually watch and never do.
We need to change that in order to grow in our walk with God, and be affective for HIS kingdom on earth.
You need to see God speaking during services. Then we need to understand how to hear God Speaking in our lives, and then finally you need to teach others how to hear his voice.
That’s our application- putting into practice vs 37- “that no Word from God will ever fail”
III. Practice- Be filled with the Holy Spirit (not by might, nor by power)
The LORD wants to do incredible things in our lives, in our families, in our communities, and in our church’s.
But we have to be willing to unplug from the things the world has to offer and hand our Father our power cord. Trust HIM to find the right socket to plug into.
The first practice we have is developing a pursuit of God. We do that through learning to pray.
Next spring we will again have Ron Auch hear for a prayer conference and he will teach us and lead us in prayer to “see one, do one, teach one” to all of us.
Before that happens, we will be incorporating more prayer into our services in the new year.
I am also contacting a man named Mitch Clay. Mitch moves in the prophetic realm. That doesn’t mean he is way out there like some who claim prophetic gifting, but is very deliberate and biblical in his approach to spiritual issues. We will be trying to have him next year also for a series of meetings.
But, we will also be opening up in the service a bit more for the spirit to move.
If we learn to do this as a church family, it is my hope that we learn to do it in our own relationships with God.
For now, I encourage us in this- No word of God has ever failed.
If God has spoken words into your life, they will come to pass. If you have never heard the voice of God speaking to you, take heart- we will discover that over the course of the next year.
The bible contains a few promises I want to leave you with this morning as encouragement.
#1- God’s gifts and his calling are irrevocable. You may think you have fallen so far from Grace that he can’t use you anymore. Mary probably thought that about the Jewish nation around the time Gabriel showed up, but our Father uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, so you aren’t out of the game yet- seek him again, and you might be surprised how HE has used whatever situation you got yourself into for HIS glory.
The second promise matches the first promise in saying
#2- 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,k neither the present nor the future,j nor any powers,k 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of Godl that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.m
(repeat)
Communion up front- Me serving you for our last communion of this year.
