Luke 1:39-45

We live in a world that attributes worth on a person based on what that person is able to do.  The Bible attributes worth on a person based on who that person is.  Our world treats personhood as something completely different and separate from your physical body.  In other words, the physical body is expendable because it is only a bundle of nerves and no more than a machine.  The body’s worth is determined by personhood; this is known as personhood theory.  The Bible makes no such distinction. 

Just recently, Planned Parenthood endorsed Raphael Warnock who is challenging Senator Kelly Loeffler for one of the seats in the Senate.  Raphael Warnock also serves as the Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is a mega church located in Atlanta, Georgia.  When asked how he can reconcile abortion with the Bible, he said that his support of abortion is consistent with his beliefs as a minister.  In an interview, the pastor labeled the right for a woman to abort her child as “reproductive justice.” 

This past Wednesday, lawmakers in Massachusetts voted to legalize abortion for any reason up to birth.  Elizabeth Warren, who ran for president earlier this year, said that she was proud of the Massachusetts House and Senate for doing so.  As it stands now, Joe Biden appears to be the president elect; he has pledged that as president he will make the right to abortion the law of the land.  He has gone as far to say that abortion is both a constitutional and moral right of every woman.  

If what is in the womb at conception is only a collection of cells and does not have any worth unless the woman carrying that child deems it to be so, then there is really no moral issue.  This can only be true if the human body forming in the womb is not really a person.  In our secular world, the only person who has the ability and right to make that decision is the mother.  When I read my Bible, there is never a distinction made between the human being and his/her personhood; they are both one and the same.

Jesus was an Unborn Child

Originally, I was going to title this sermon something different, but both the staff and my family advised me to use a different title.  Originally, the working title of this sermon was: “Jesus was a Fetus.”  I understand the wisdom in not titling my sermon “Jesus was a Fetus”, but think about that statement for a second.  Just so you know, I never referred to my unborn children as a fetus although that is the scientific and medical term used to describe an unborn child.  Human beings are separate from the animal kingdom as those who bear the image of our creator; we stand over the animal kingdom and are responsible for managing it (see Gen. 1:27-30). 

However, just as vulnerable and dependent each of us were while in the womb of our mothers, Jesus was equally vulnerable and dependent in the womb of Mary.  In fact, although Jesus was certainly wanted, he was also unplanned by his mother.  For nine months, Mary carried Jesus until his inevitable birth, and while she carried him, her appetites and emotions most likely changed as well.  While Jesus was growing and forming in her womb, Mary could feel him kick, she could see his feet and hands push against the inside of her womb.  Why?  Because everything about him was fully and completely human.  For unto us, a son is given.

Almost every person in Mary’s life did not believe that her unplanned pregnancy was actually planned by God.  Nazareth, the place where Mary and Joseph lived, was about the size of a football field.  It was a small town, and news travels fast in small towns.  Not even Joseph believed that Mary’s pregnancy was supernatural.  The idea that a very poor and very young teenage girl would become the mother of the promised Messiah was unfathomable.  What was written hundreds of years before Mary was born by the prophets was hope for, but probably not taken too seriously: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Exodus 33:12-34:9

I don’t know about you, but a little stability would be nice.  Everything around me seems to be in flux.  Think about what life must have been like for Moses and the Israelites (the Hebrew people); not long before Exodus 32, Israel experienced one of the greatest events in history with their miraculous delivery from the powerful clutches of Pharaoh out of the slavery of Egypt into a freedom promised to Abraham and their forefathers.  Moses and his fellow Hebrews witnessed God inflict all of Egypt with 10 plagues to loosen the clutches of Pharaoh by humbling him.  Every plague that God sent upon Egypt was intentionally designed to mock the gods the Egyptians hoped and trusted in.  When God turned the Nile into blood, he mocked Hapi, the god of the Nile.  When God sent the plague of frogs, he did so to mock the goddess Heket who had the head of a frog; she was not only the goddess of water and renewal, but the goddess of fertility. 

We are told in Exodus 8:1-15 that the frogs came out of the Nile and swarmed into their houses, bedrooms, their beds, their ovens, their kneading bowls.  Everywhere the Egyptians stepped was a frog.  Every time an Egyptian crushed a frog under their feet, they were reminded of the goddess of fertility.  However, it wasn’t until the final plague, the death of the firstborn, that resulted in the death of Pharaoh’s own son, that he released the Hebrew people.  Pharaoh was worshiped as a son of Ra, the most worshiped powerful god in Egypt; the death of Pharaoh’s son proved that Pharaoh had no real power at all.  I could preach a whole sermon on the Plagues, but my point is to illustrate to you that Moses and the Hebrews saw first hand the power of their God over all other gods.  The greatest display of God’s power was not the plagues, but the parting of the red sea that resulted in the death of Pharaoh’s army; they even wrote and sang a song to celebrate the way God delivered them in Exodus 15 that begins: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”  The song also includes the lyrics: “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them” (see Exodus 15:1-2, 11–12).

When you read the chapters that come after Exodus 15, what you discover is a kind of spiritual waltz where the Israelites seem to take two steps forward spiritually and one step back spiritually.  Sometimes it seems that they take two steps back and only one step forward spiritually.  On one such occasion, where the Israelites seem to take two steps backwards spiritually is in Exodus 32.  Way back in Exodus 24:15, Moses went up to Mount Sinai and met with God for 40 days and 40 nights, but before he did that he delivered the Ten Commandments to the people and their responsibility to keep the Law and only worship Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The people responded: “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient” (Exod. 24:7).  All that it took for the people to forget God was 40 days, for we are told in Exodus 32:1, “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1).  After Aaron helped the people make a golden calf out of the gold that God had blessed them with, the people said: “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (v. 4).   The next day the people, “…rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down

Isaiah 48:9-11

Albert Einstein once said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” 

John Calvin spent a lifetime working to help others see the beauty of the glory of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures.  He was born in Noyon, France on July 10, 1509. This was the same time that God was stirring in the heart of Martin Luther while lecturing on Romans, Galatians, and the Psalms at the age of 25.  Of all the reformers we have looked at through this series, John Calvin is the youngest.  When he was 14 years old, Calvin’s father sent him to study theology at the University of Paris when France was still untouched by the Reformation and Martin Luther was in hiding while translating the Bible into German. 

When Calvin was 23 years old, he began to be introduced to the main tenants of the Reformation. Sometime in November 1533 when Calvin was only 24 years old, his close friend, Nicholas Cop, preached a sermon at the University of Paris that Calvin most likely helped write. Parliament accused Nicholas Cop of “Lutheren-like doctrines” of which King Francis called “the cursed Lutheran sect.”  Calvin and Cop were forced to escape France, and eventually ended up in Switzerland where he wrote his most influential book: The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Although the Reformation made its way into Calvin’s life and world, it was Calvin’s exposure to the majesty and glory of God, as it is revealed in and throughout the Bible that profoundly affected him. While in Switzerland, Calvin met Idelette and married her shortly after her husband died on September 13, 1541. Idelette had a son and a daughter that she brought into her marriage with Calvin; nearly a year after their marriage, they had their first son who died two weeks after his birth. Calvin said of the death of his son: “The Lord has certainly inflicted a severe and bitter wound in the death of our baby son.”[1]  They had two more children who also died shortly after their birth. 

Then, on March 29, 1549, John Calvin suffered the greatest of loss in his life when Idelette died of tuberculosis; he wrote of his wife’s death: “I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordained, would have willingly shared not only my poverty but even my death”[2]  (they were only married for 9 years; Calvin never remarried).

What Calvin did with the years he had left was serve the people of the church he pastored; and by doing so, he served the universal Church. During his 23 year tenure as a pastor is Basil, Switzerland, Calvin filled his days by preaching just about every day, lectured three times a week on theology, and authored numerous books that included commentaries on almost the entire Bible.

Above anything else, Calvin was an expositor of the word of God, especially in his preaching; which he believed was the best way he could serve the Church. During his years as a pastor he spent five years preaching in the book of Acts.  He preached 46 sermons on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 186 sermons on 1 and 2 Corinthians, 43 sermons on Galatians, 159 sermons on Job, 200 sermons on Deuteronomy, 353 sermons on Isaiah, 123 sermons on Genesis, and started a series of sermons on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John but got sick and died before he could finish in May 1564. 

There are two universal truths that run through the pages of scripture that serve as a universal theme that I want to turn your attention to with the time we have left:

God is the center of the universeYou are not the center of God’s universe.

God is the Center of the Universe

Before we can even begin, it is important to understand what God’s glory really means, so here is a definition for you: “It is, among other things, His incomprehensible love, His in

Matthew 16:13-20

Thomas Cranmer was born on July 2, 1489.  He died nearly five months after he watched his friends Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley burn to death at the stake for his role as a protestant against the Roman Catholic Church and as the archbishop of the Church of England (Anglican Church).  Like his friends, it is believed that Cranmer also attended the White Horse Bible study that shaped his thinking that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. 

Cranmer received his bachelor and master’s degrees from Cambridge and then went on to complete a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1526.  King Henry the VIII wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon because she failed to produce a male heir for the throne.  The only heir he did have was Mary, but because he wanted a male heir, sought to annul his marriage to Catherine.  When the Pope refused to grant King Henry’s request to divorce his wife, he broke away from the Catholic Church and declared himself the head of the Church of England.  After his marriage to his second wife, Henry appointed Thomas Cranmer to be the archbishop of the Church of England.  It wasn’t until his marriage to his third wife that Henry fathered Edward VII, who eventually became king when he was only 10 years old and reigned for only six years until he became sick and died. 

During Cranmer’s role as the Archbishop of Canterbury, he produced his most important contributions to the Protestant Reformation.  Understand, that before the Protestant Reformation, everything was in Latin. There were two things that the Protestant Church did not officially have and desperately needed: 1. A statement of faith to hold every church accountable to the fundamentals of the faith, and 2. A liturgy that structured their worship services.  The two important pieces of literature that Cranmer helped create were the Thirty-Nine Articles of faith that were eventually finished in 1571 and The Book of Common Prayer that Cranmer edited and co-authored.  The Thirty-Nine Articles served to ground the Church in sound doctrine and the Book of Common Prayer served to put Jesus at the center of worship.  This is an oversimplification, but Cranmer’s work on the Thirty-Nine Articles and The Book of Common Prayer served to make the worship of the common people something they could participate in rather then something they would watch. 

I believe that what William Tyndale did for the Bible by translating it into a language people could read and understand, Cranmer did for the worship of the Church where people could participate in and contribute to.  One example of this is seen in one of the prayers written to be prayed before communion: “Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy did give your only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who presented himself as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world…”

The Catholic Church has, and continues to believe, that that the Pope is placed in authority over Christ’s Church.  They believe that like the authority given to the original apostles like Paul, John, James, Mathew, and Peter, the teachings of the Pope can decide what are accepted and formal beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.  This is part of the Roman Catholic Church’s dogma that they believe is supported in passages like Matthew 16:13-20, for they believe that the rock Jesus said he would build his church on was Peter as the first pope.  Reformers like Thomas Cranmer believed the rock Jesus was referring to was not Peter himself, but the confession and truth that Jesus is the Christ just as Peter confessed.   

In Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was.  The disciples answered Jesus’ question: “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  Jesus then asked the disciples: “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter responded by answering:

Galatians 2:15-21

After the death of William Tyndale, God began to stir in the hearts of those in power. Even though King Henry was partly responsible for the execution of William Tyndale, he approved an English translation of the Bible. While the Spirit of God was moving throughout all of Europe through the Reformation, he was doing the same in France through men like John Calvin and monarchs like Queen Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1548). The reformation was birthed in Germany, but it spread like a wildfire through Europe, France, and Switzerland.

One of the other men who attended the White Horse Inn bible study was a guy by the name of Hugh Latimer. Not much is known about how he became a Christian… but he joined the ranks of Luther and Tyndale as a protestant who believed that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

He began mentioning the need for the translation of the Bible in English in his sermons while serving as the university preacher and chaplain at Clare College, when it was still illegal to print the Bible into English. King Henry VIII grew friendly of the reformation, but it was his son Edward VI who grew to believe many of the tenets of the protestant reformation under the preaching of Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and John Knox, and the tutelage of Thomas Cranmer (who is the author of Book of Common Prayer). When Henry VIII died in 1547, Edward VI was only 10 years old; he was coronated that same year as king over Europe. 

In a letter to Thomas Cranmer, Edward wrote, “I believe that I must desire and practice godliness above all things, since St. Paul has said, ‘Godliness is profitable to all things.’”[1] Before he died, Kind Edward had the English Bible circulated and printed throughout Europe; it is said that thirty-six editions of the Bible were printed and sold during his reign. King Edward VI only reigned six years, for in 1552, he contracted measles and smallpox.  On July 6, 1553, Edward died when he was only sixteen. 

Edward’s sister, Mary, did not share the same passion that her brother did for the Bible and the tenets of the reformation, for she was vehemently opposed to the protestant reformation and dedicated her reign as queen to cleanse all of Europe of the reformers and restore it to the Roman Catholic Church, which earned her the nick name: “Bloody Mary.” She insisted that the best way to deal with the heresy of the reformers was to burn as many “heretics” as possible; it is estimated that nearly 300 protestants were burned to death under her orders. 

Together with his friends Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer, the three men who met at Cambridge and studied the bible together at the White Horse Inn were arrested for suspicion of heresy. Because the men believed that salvation was by faith in Christ alone apart from any merit of their own, they were found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death. The reason why these men were sentenced to death was not because of who they were, but because of who and what they represented. It is an insult to the pride of every human who is still dead in their sins that we are helpless when it comes to state of our soul and our spiritual deadness.

I am sure you have heard the poem, titled Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.  Consider what he wrote in that little poem:

Out of the night that covers me,      Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may be      For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance      I have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeoning of chance      My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears      Looms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the years      Finds and shall find me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,      How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate,      I am the captain of my soul.

What we learn from the Bible and through an honest assessment of our lives is that we are not t

1 Timothy 3:16-17

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1 Timothy 3:16-17; Isaiah 66:1-2

There was a time when the Church forgot the Christianity of Jesus and the Apostles in the name of religion. Eventually this led to rampant immorality, abuses of power, and the fleecing of entire communities of people who wanted to be good Christians, by those in positions of authority in the Roman Catholic Church.  The authority of the Pope and the Church in those days replaced the authority of the Bible.  For the first 500 years of the Church’s existence, portions of the Bible had been translated into more than 500 languages, but by 600 AD Latin was the only language allowed for the Bible to be read in.  Over time, the only people who were able to read and understand Latin were the highly educated.  It was actually taught by the Popes and the clergy of the Church that to translate and read the Bible in any language other than Latin and the original languages was considered heretical, and to be found guilty of aiding in any translation of the Bible other than Latin was punishable by death. 

The first person that attempted to produce a translation of the Bible into English, which was the language of the street, was John Wycliffe.  Wycliffe believed that the poor, who made up the majority of England, should be able to read the Bible for themselves instead of depending on the priests during the church services to learn the Bible.  Wycliffe tried to persuade the Church that a copy of the Bible should find its place on the shelves of every home.  The Pope (Pope Gregory VII) accused Wycliffe of “vomiting out the filthy dungeon of his heart most wicked and damnable heresies.”  Wycliffe died in 1384 before his translation of the Bible was complete; the Pope who succeeded Gregory VII charged Wycliffe posthumously as a “disciple of antichrist.  In 1427, Wycliffe’s bones were exhumed under the orders of the Pope to be burned, and the ashes were dumped in a river.   

Twelve years before Wycliffe’s ashes were dumped in a river, a Czech priest and scholar by the name of Jan Hus, who looked up to Wycliffe as a hero of the Christian faith, also believed that a Bible should be on the shelf in every home and that the clergy of the Church must live lives in line with the holy Scriptures.  Hus once said of the clergy who lived lives of luxury above the majority of people who lived in poverty: “These priests deserve hanging in hell for they are fornicators, parasites, money misers, and fat swine.”  On another occasion he said, “They [priests] are gluttons whose stomachs are overfilled until their double chins hang down.”  Hus said this out of anger over the church’s selling of what was known as indulgences, which were documents a person could purchase to receive heavenly favor to escape hell and purgatory.  The Church condemned Jan Hus to death on July 6, 1415; he was tied to a stake and then burned alive. While the flames consumed his body, Hus could be heard singing: “Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on me.”  

Without the Bible in a language people could understand, many of the clergy continued to get away with fleecing the people they were supposed to serve, preaching that was anemic at best due to the clergy’s lack of knowledge of the Bible, and rampant immorality within the Church, the spiritual climate in the West worsened.  One of the ways the Church kept the money coming in was scaring people into believing that only the Church could save them.  Sixty-eight years after Hus was burned at the stake, a German boy was born by the name of Martin Luther to Hans and Margarthe Luther (formerly Luder) on November 10, 1483.  It was his parent’s dream that Martin become a Lawyer, but on his way back from the university where he was studying in 1505, he was almost struck by lightening and because the god of his religious upbringing seemed to be an angry and a vengeful god, out of fear, Martin cried out: “Help me St. Anna, I will become a Monk!” and so he did.   

During his early years as a monk,

1 Corinthians 13

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Jeremiah 9:23-26

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Zephaniah 4:14-21

How do you think God thinks about you?  How does the holy, all-powerful, all-knowing God feel about you?  My goal is to give you something to hold onto as we experience another divisive election season, continued civil unrest, and any anxiety you may be experiencing about an uncertain tomorrow.  What I want to say in this sermon is like the epilogue of a great story; Romans was the great story we concluded last week; however, my sermon today is about the details of the “happily ever after” the gospel promises all whose faith rests in Jesus Christ. 

The prophet Zephaniah warns of God’s coming judgment that will come upon both Israel, as well as the nations that surround her.  The prophet also shares a promise from God that a day is coming when Israel will experience restoration that the King of Israel will bring one day.  This promise is mentioned in the last seven verses of Zephaniah; the apex of the promise if found in verse 17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

There are four things that are promised to a restored Israel that is true of all of God’s people whose faith and trust rest in the King of Israel:

Yahweh will live among his people.Yahweh is a mighty warrior who fights for his people.Yahweh will restore his people.Yahweh will delight in his people.Yahweh will sing over his people. 

The only people who will experience Yahweh on this level will be those who sought refuge in him for the salvation of their souls (vv. 11-13).  Jesus is the King of Israel that Zephaniah refers to in 3:17 (see Matt. 27:42; Mark 15:32; John 1:49).  The NIV translates verse 17 a little differently: “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV).  Which is it?  Will God, “quiet you by his love” or “in his love… no longer rebuke you”?  The Hebrew word for “quiet” can also translated “hold”; I think the point being made is that God will forgive and restore his people through his love.

What Zephaniah states that when the King comes, “…you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me…. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly.  They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD…” (3:11, 12).  Micah 7:8-9 is a helpful passage that captures the tone of what Zephaniah is promising: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness” (Micah 7:8–9, NIV). 

In fact, I will even go as far to say that Zephaniah 3:15 is the equivalent to the promise of no condemnation in Romans 8:1, “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil” (Zephaniah 3:15).  What is being promised is the kingdom of God on earth for his people.  On that day when the kingdom of God is fully realized and experienced by his people, his people will know what it means in a very tangible way to have Yahweh rejoice and sing over his people.  What I would like to do with the remainder of our time together is to explore what that kingdom will be like.

God will Sing Over His People Through the Giving of His Kingdom

When Jesus comes back, God will rejoice over us through the peace only Jesus can bring on earth.  During this time, the earthly reign of Jesus on earth will bring the type of peace where, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened ca