God Is Exciting

 Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Is Exciting!” (Luke 1:26-58). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel:

A few days ago, I was in a clinic where I’m on good terms with the nurse there. She’s very talkative, and we’ve known each other for several years – we always have something to talk about. This time – I don’t remember how we got onto the topic – I mentioned that our church helps homeless people financially over Christmas. The nurse suddenly seemed extremely interested, and asked what kind of a church we are. She loved the idea that we’re truly international and multi-denominational, and was really amazed when I told her I was the pastor – after all those years! All of a sudden, there was a passionate look on her face; and she started telling me everything that she thought was wrong with her own church, and how she wished she could speak English to attend our services! She was really excited to have this conversation!

 

Another example, also very recently: one of our worshippers informed me of how, firstly, his mother-in-law, and now his brother-in-law, have become greatly interested in what the Bible teaches – and it is changing their lives! The mother-in-law started reading Romans, and was horrified to discover that it teaches something completely different  from what she had been led to believe all her life! She’s had to undergo a radical change in her thinking. And now the same thing is happening to the brother-in-law – he’s finding out about God’s grace instead of our good works as the way to be saved. He’s learning what the Bible really says about Mary (I’ll return to Mary later); and so on. Religion has suddenly become exciting for these two folks!

 

But now, compare this with people who turn up in church and are bored! Teenagers in particular seem to be bored in church. They – and also many adults – find singing, praying, reading the Bible and listening to the message unbelievably boring! And we say: “Yes, it’s always been like that – the younger ones are just naturally rebellious”. But actually, that’s not true. How many times have I been surprised to read about some spiritual movement where the kids and teenagers triggered a revival! They were the first to be passionately affected by God – and they then prayed together fervently, in groups, for the conversion of adults, including their own parents. No one told them to do that – the Lord just touched their hearts, and gave them the gift of repentance of their sins.

 

So my message today is that God fills us with excitement – and if we can’t see that, it means we’ve never been touched by Him, and will be bored. Today’s readings from Luke tell of the exciting events leading up to the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Supernatural elements are at work: the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in a vision, and tells her exactly what will happen to her and her cousin Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist). Mary doesn’t understand how she can become pregnant by the Holy Spirit – but she accepts it with her characteristic servant girl’s humility and submission. Elizabeth too accepts that she is pregnant, even though everyone was saying she was too old to have a baby. And both Mary and Elizabeth have the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. It all happens by God’s grace: He is the author of our excitement!

 

Notice the theme of joy being developed in our passage from Luke. Mary travels to Elizabeth’s house to tell her the good news that she’ll have a baby. And already as she enters the house, the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps with joy, supernaturally knowing that Jesus has been conceived in Mary’s womb, and sensing His presence! And Mary herself is filled with joy and praise. She is incredibly excited, and overwhelmed with the knowledge that, of all people, God has chosen her – a simple, humble servant girl – to bring the Saviour into the world!

 

This, dear Friends, is the true Mary – not the Mary portrayed as a queen, who is free of original sin, who was taken up into heaven like Jesus, who is an intermediary between God and man, or who is even called a joint redeemer! Instead, we see a humble young woman who herself praises God her Lord, and who recognizes that she herself is in need of salvation, in need of a Saviour: Mary, who is simply one of us, a sinner like everybody else, though favoured by God – a woman who went on to have other children apart from Jesus: for example His brother James, who became one of the top leaders of the church in Jerusalem, and who wrote the letter of James in the New Testament. He too was Mary’s son.

 

What’s my conclusion today? It’s that God is not boring! God is incredibly exciting! So we have to examine why it is that we ourselves do not have more joy and spiritual excitement in our lives. I know what I said before: we have to be personally touched by God. But apart from that, we don’t seem to fully realize the incredible, amazing thing that Christ has done for us. We don’t appreciate Christ’s atoning work: the fact that He – perfect God and perfect man – died for you and me to take all our sins upon Himself and make us clean in God’s eyes. If we fully appreciated that, and realized how much we owe to Jesus, we would be like Mary: humble vessels, for the Holy Spirit to make His home in.

 

This Christmas, let’s be excited by God, as we remember why Jesus came into the world. Jesus came to die for us – and His death is our salvation. 

Amen.