The Story - Chapter 22

This week the focus in the story that you've been reading is about the birth of Christ. And I guess Tim was talking about how the suddenness of things come on you and you don't necessarily know exactly what's taking place all the time. I don't know if you've ever reflected on this, but Mary was a 15-year-old girl, and before the angel appeared to her, she was a 15-year-old girl. What do you think her big problems were? What do you think she thought of her life in the future? And then one day, suddenly everything changed. Her whole life changed. She realized not even then all that this meant. The Bible said she pondered all these things in her heart. She lived her life really watching her son grow up and never understanding exactly what was going on. I guess we think, you know, sometimes that the people in the Bible are really a lot different than us. But the Bible is a story about people like you, like myself, living in the world, oftentimes unconscious of the great and powerful things that God is doing all around them until it's over. This story, like all the others, starts back in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, in this garden where God had placed them, rebelled against God, were kicked out. In the beginning, God started His plan as to what was to take place. Many people think that in the third chapter of Genesis that already God is beginning to think of His plan about how things were to be changed in the future. What He was going to do. What was going to take place. In this passage in Genesis 3.15, And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Adam and Eve thought they were simply deciding on a meal, but they changed the whole course of human history. A simple thing like that. In this story, some people look at that passage and say, already God is beginning to plan for the Messiah to come. He says to the woman, this is what I'm going to do. The snake will crawl around in the dust and dirt and the snake will bite the heel of the people and then someone will come who will crush the head of the snake. Some think this is a prophecy of Jesus coming. Well, you know, it's true. Jesus did stomp Satan's head. He let Satan take everything he wanted to do and kill him, buried him in the ground, and by the power of God, His strength, the power of God brought him back to life and He conquered death and sin. All the way through the Old Testament, this story has been building. God has been talking about what He's going to do and He picked people like Abram, a man of great faith, and He said, the Messiah who comes will have that kind of faith and when Jesus came, He said, I only do the things the Father tells me to do. He was more obedient than Abraham. Then Moses came, the Moses who had the message from God and gave them the message that God had given to them. And Jesus said in His own ministry, I only tell you the things that the Father says for me to tell you. He was even greater than Moses. The prophets came saying, here is the word that God has given to me to speak to you. Jesus said to the people, I tell you the things that are the very words of God Himself. All the way through the Old Testament, they've been preparing. God has been preparing for the Messiah to come. He wanted to tell the people when He comes, this is what He will be like. You know, there's a lot of people who claim to be the Messiah. All the way through the Old Testament, even today, people say they're the second coming of Jesus. How do you tell the real from the false? And so God carefully prepared to let us know exactly what the Messiah would be like. He told us His nature and His character. He told us what He would do. He told us how He would act. And whenever Jesus finally came, there were many people who didn't recognize Him. Even though they knew the Old Testament, they didn't recognize Jesus. But some did. They listened to Him for a little while and were open to God and they knew that this was the one that God had sent. The Messiah had arrived. The story for Mary was a very simple one. She heard the message of God for herself. That message was strange to her, I'm sure, weird to her, I'm sure. All this took place, all this stuff in the Old Testament, everything that was going on took place. To fulfill what the Lord had said to the prophet, a virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call Him Emmanuel, which means God with us. What is this virgin birth that he's talking about? One of the difficulties that comes with you with buying material that's printed for all kinds of churches is that not necessarily all kinds of churches believe the same things. In the video that you saw today, Mr. Frazee, or however you pronounce his name, said that from the very beginning, the sin of mankind was passed on from one generation to another through the male. Now that idea is certainly believed by a lot of different Christian groups. The idea that every human being born in this world is guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve because it's passed down through the male. There are a couple of theories about it. One of them is that it's in the genes. He says in one of his books that this is passed down through the DNA, like the color of your hair or the color of your eyes, and there's not anything you can do about it. As a baby born into this world, you're born with a condemnation to hell. This comes because there's a passage of scripture in Romans, chapter 5, where Paul is talking about the impact that Adam and Eve had on us and had on all mankind. In chapter 5, verse 21 of the book of Romans, chapter 5, verse 12, therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men because all sinned, for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but sin was not taken into account when there was no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a commandment as Adam, who was a pattern for the one to come. And I want to skip to verse 18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was the justification that brings life to all men. Now in Christian history, many have taken this idea that consequently as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men as this one act of sin. They take this to mean that Adam and Eve's sin has been passed down to all of us. Some say by the genetic DNA. Some say it's like Adam and Eve made a contract with God, that they would live in obedience to Him in this garden, and they broke the contract, and they were representatives for all of us. And because they, representing us, broke the contract, we are all guilty of the same thing they did. It's like sort of you would buy a house, and there's a family of seven children and a house and a mother and father. The dad signs a contract, he begins to make the payments, and then he quits making the payments, and whoever he has the loan with comes and kicks everybody out of the house. The child can't say, you can't kick me out, I didn't sign the contract. The guy who has the loan says, it doesn't matter, you're a part of this family, all of you go. So they say, Adam and Eve broke that law, and now God says to all of us, you're all going to be sent to hell because you're a part of this family of humanity. Neither of those are things that Baptists have believed. In this passage, as Paul is talking about what it means for sin to be passed to all of us, I don't think it means at all that we are born destined for hell. Now, the remedy for that, and churches that believe it, is when a baby is born, and the baby is receiving the sins of Adam in its life, it's baptized. The Bible then talks about the need for faith, so the arrangement is, you have a godfather or mother at the baptism, and they say, who has faith for baby Doyle? And the godmother or father say, we do. So they exercise their faith for that child, and then the baptism is done to remove this burden of sin given to them by their forefathers. Baptists don't baptize babies, because we believe that they're all born innocent. As Adam and Eve started in the Garden of Eden innocent, and made their own choices in their life, so we think that's exactly what it means. When it says through one person, sin entered the world, it doesn't mean that it entered without our choice. Just as when it says, in righteousness, entered into the world by one man Christ, it doesn't mean that we're all automatically made righteous because of Christ. There is, in this act of salvation, a decision you have to make. You have to say to God, I am ready now to give you my life, and to place my trust in you. Without that act of trust, the righteousness of God does not come into your life. So it is with sin. We're born into this world, surrounded by sin. It's a powerful influence on us. When you're born into a family, and your family fixes a meal, you learn to eat and like the things they fix. They don't make you, but you just learn that certain kinds of foods are things that you like to eat because you learn to eat them. Other people born in other families and other cultures learn other things. So when you grow up around people in the family, maybe of people who are thieves, and they steal from anybody and everybody, and everybody in the family does it, it causes you to see this as normal behavior. Then when you read the Bible, Thou shalt not steal, you suddenly discover that what your family has been doing is contrary to the will of God, and you have a choice to make. Am I going to continue to do what my family does, or am I going to listen to what God says, Thou shalt not steal? That is the moment at which you realize that the behavior of your family is suddenly contrary to the will of God. Paul described this in Romans when he was talking about his own condition. He said, I was living in a world, and I had these things, I learned all the things I'd learned from my Jewish teachings, and only when I heard the law did I know those things were wrong. In other words, when I learned I shouldn't steal, then I realized that stealing was wrong. And when that happened to me, I became aware that God had a standard for me above and beyond what everyone else in the world had. I became conscious of the will of God and rejected that. For Baptists, we say that's what happens to all of us. You're born in the world, and it doesn't make any difference if your mom and dad were righteous or unrighteous. You're born innocent. In that innocence, you begin to grow up and watch the world around you. You may do things that you don't understand where it's right or wrong, but when you get to the place and you understand what God wants for you, you have a choice to make. Am I going to live the way God tells me I should, or am I going to do what I want to do? You exercise the power and authority of your will. God doesn't put us in this world, our belief as Baptists. He doesn't put us in this world condemned to hell. He puts us in this world free to choose our future. That choice is given to us. So we have a message, a proclamation to the world. It is that all people have sinned, because we live in a world where people disobey God all around us. But we also understand that the sin we commit are sins of choice. We've decided to do it. We can't blame our parents for what we've become, because when we get to the place where we're old enough to make our choices, we are very conscious of the fact we can do what our parents don't want us to do. And every one of us in this room grew up in a home where you knew what your parents wanted and you did something different. You exercised your own choice. Now when you come to the place where you know this is what God wants, you have a choice to make. Am I going to live the way all the people around me are living? Am I going to do the things that seem fun to me, that seem like they're good for me, that I enjoy doing? Or am I going to live by the standards that God has set for all people to live with? Paul describes his own experience in discovering this. It's a very difficult thing. I learned what God wanted for me and it was difficult for me, because then I realized my sinfulness, and it had such a grip on me that I could hardly turn loose of it, the power to control me. And even though I know the right thing to do, sometimes I'm unable to do that because of the grip that it has on my life. How can I escape this, he said, thanks be to God who gives me the victory over sin. That was his statement. Victory over sin doesn't come by baptism. It comes by a profession of your trust in Christ. I now realize that I violated the laws that you've given me. I can see that the things you wanted me to do, I've ignored. I can see the things that you've told me to do, I've refused. I can see the things that you said I shouldn't do, and I've done them anyway. And I know that I violated everything that you wanted for me. And now I come to acknowledge that and to say, you alone are righteous and holy. And I give myself to you. Jesus was born a sinless person, not because he was virgin born, but because all people are born sinless. The difference between Jesus and us was when he got to the place where he knew what was right and wrong, from his earliest days of making the choices, he made every single choice right by God's standards. No one can say that but him. Why was that important to us? Because when he came to the place where he was ready to die for us, he was the perfect sinless sacrifice to die in our place. That's why it's important. Jesus' sinless life was not the result of him being virgin born. It was a result of the choices that he made. If Jesus is born as a virgin, sinless, then he started out different than all the other people in the world if that's the way it happened. But the Bible makes it clear that Jesus' birth into this world was an ordinary human birth. He grew up as an ordinary child. He lived as an ordinary child. He learned as an ordinary child. And yet he became something quite different because he lived a life never in rebellion against God. And when the time came, he placed his life in God's hands. The Father said, now is the time for you to die. Die for the sins of the people who refused to obey me. Die in their place. Offer yourself as a sacrifice so that your blood is shed for their sins. It wasn't an easy thing for Jesus. All of his life he lived this sinless life. He came to that point in the garden where the Father said, now is the time for you to give yourself to me and for the world. He knew the pain. He knew the anguish. He knew the cost. He asked that it might be relieved from him, but he said, nevertheless, not what I desire. This is a key word. Not what I want or desire, but what you will. Jesus' sinless life, even in that moment, brought him to the place of death because he knew what the will of the Father was, and he knew what his own will was. And in that garden, he agonized about the right choice, and he made again the choice to say, your will be done. Jesus' life and his sinless life offered for us, we owe great debt to, for it provides the opportunity for us to receive forgiveness. So that Christ has taken our place and paid for the sin of our own lives. What is the virgin birth then really all about? I think it's simply a way by which God says to the world, I told you I was sending a person who was going to come to be my messenger. I told you what he would be like. I told you the characteristics of his life. Now I want you to know that this person born was not born by human will or desire. It wasn't that Mary and some young man decided to have a baby. It was that God Almighty decided this baby would be born. He was selected and placed in this family. We don't know how God did this. The scriptures at the end of Malachi to the beginning of Matthew sort of leave us in Protestants at least looking and saying nothing was going on, but all that time God was preparing for this event. We don't know how many couples he looked at and said, who can bear my child? He needed a woman who was a reliable and trustworthy woman, a godly person. He needed a man who would listen to what the Spirit of God said to him through the angel and say, this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, but if that's what you asked me to do I'll do this. I'd say those are pretty rare. He found them. He was looking for a place in the world where the world and the message he'd have would be carried around the world. The Roman government spread all over that part of the world, had highways, travel could be done, missionaries could be sent. There was one language that everybody spoke. It was Greek. It was ideal, perfect for exactly what God was trying to do in that moment. God wanted to say, in this world that I've prepared, this is my son, given to you that you might have life everlasting. And so Jesus was born just like you were born, like I was born, pain and agony of birth the same, growing up as a child learning what was right and wrong the same, except one thing was different. He never said no to God. And he never did say, I know what you want, but I'm not going to do it. He never said, I know what you tell me not to do, but I'm going to do it anyway. And all of this prepared from the very beginning of the world that we might have life everlasting. The great story of Jesus was not that he was born of a virgin so that he would be sinless. That would give him the advantage that all of us doesn't have. The great story was he was born in a family and he chose to live as no human being has ever lived before. And it was for you he did this and for me. Now let me ask you a question. How important is your life? Think of yourself as a pretty ordinary person. You don't know what God is going to do in your life tomorrow or the next day or the next day. God touches the lives of ordinary people like Mary and Joseph in such powerful ways that the whole world will be changed. Remember this, you are a part of this story. You are. It's not over yet. It's still going on. And God is working in the lives of ordinary people to lead them to be faithful and obedient to him and to fulfill the mission that he has. He has for your life the same purpose he has for all the people in this story. I have brought you into this world that you might fulfill what I want you to do. Do not fail me. Do what I tell you to do. Don't do what I tell you you shouldn't do. And be obedient to what I've asked. And your life will fill a page in my story. You don't have to be virgin born to have a place in this story. You only have to be faithful and obedient as Jesus was. You're not going to be perfect like that. No one else has since or before. But in your obedience to him, you fulfill the place that he has for you. What is it that God wants of you? Are you familiar with the scriptures? You need to read and study them. Do you ask him day by day what is it that he wants you to do that day? Or do you let the agenda of the day be written for you by the people around you? Do you know in the back of your mind that there are some things that you just ought not to keep on doing? But they're so much a part of your life that you don't want to give them up? Do you know that there are some things that God has been telling you over and over and over again that you should do, but you just don't want to or you don't think you can? All of these are roadblocks for God doing his story in this world. You have no idea the impact your life can make in this world, no more than Mary did before the angel came to her. But God has brought you to this place. He has a plan for your life. He has people for you to touch because you are a part of God's story. What is your page going to look like? Blank, half-written, garbled, or will it be the story that God planned for you? Don't look back on Jesus' life and say, well, if I'd been virgin-born, I could make it, too. No, that's not the source of his life. It was his will to devote himself to live in obedience to the Father. Could you bow your head, please, for a moment? We're painfully aware, Father, that all of us have sinned and fallen short of your glory. We are hopefully aware that you can forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness and present us to yourself spotless, without blame. But you need one thing from us. It is complete trust in you, enough trust to devote our lives to live according to what you've told us is the right thing to do, to avoid the things you've said that are wrong. I want to ask if there's anyone in this room hearing me today who cannot look back in their life and say, I know that there's a time in my life when I said to God, I devote my life to live in obedience to you. Is anybody here like that? I want to ask, please, today, let them know that this is an urgent issue for you. That right now they might say, I'm ready now to say, God, take my life. Father, if there's some of us who've made that promise to you, but it's been half-hearted, haven't been willing to give up the things that we enjoy doing, we haven't been willing to do the things that are painful, if you'd remind us that there is no salvation apart from complete surrender to you. It's not words, it's not baptism, but it's a lifestyle that you want. Remind us of that. And Father, in this moment, speak to us. Tell us clearly and plainly, each one of us, what it is you want for us in the next step of our lives. So I want you to listen to God. I ask the pianist to come and play a little bit as you reflect on what it is God wants from you. Now, you have a choice. You can say yes to God or no to him. Yes is the way of life, and no is the way of death, suffering, and pain. If God has spoken to you, and you know what he wants from you, and you suddenly feel that I should come and say openly and publicly to someone the promise I'm making to God, this is your opportunity. We want to pray for you, encourage you, help you to know the next step you need to take. So you listen to God. He's trying to give you life in all of its fullness. Let him. Gordon, you can come and stand up here with me if you would, please. I can always tell when people come and they're struggling, their hands are usually, you have to wipe your hands off after you take their hand, there's so much sweat there, you know. What is it that you've come to promise God today? I just promised that I accepted Christ when I was nine. This is the worst part. I accepted Christ when I was nine in this church, and I've just never come forward because I'm so terrified of this part of it. So I just know that I've struggled with that, and he finally told me every day to come forward. I've just given all of my life. And so you're wanting to publicly declare through baptism your surrender of your life to Christ. Well, I know that you've tried to live the way God's wanted you to live since you were nine years old, but this next step of public declaration you feel God has asked you to do. Yes. I never even realized that you'd never been baptized, so we're happy to be able to celebrate that with you. Would you stand, please, for a moment of prayer together? This afternoon at Hoisington in that church is a planning meeting immediately after a service, and I'd like you to be in prayer for that. We have a business meeting this afternoon at 6 o'clock. We're talking about the future of our church and the direction God wants us to go and to hear sort of what's taking place in our church's life. So I encourage you as a member of our church for you to be there. Father, we're thankful that you guide us. You give us plenty of freedom to make the choices that we need to make. You let us know what you want us to do, and you're patient with us, far more patient than we are with you. We're thankful for Courtney's willingness to do what she knows you want her to do, as difficult as it is. It probably would have been a lot easier if she was nine. Baptism looks a lot more fun. As an adult, it looks even more frightening. But she's done this, even though it's difficult. I ask that you would use her witness to many others who know choices they need to make but are afraid. Give them the courage and let her be an example for all of us to be obedient and faithful to you. In the name of Christ we pray, amen. We have all your... ♪♪