Date: 26 Sep­tem­ber 2021 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: Luke 4:16–30
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

In faith, we stumb­le over our own ide­as from time to time. In deal­ing with this, we feel the chan­ging hand of God.


«Such a day, as beau­tiful as today…such a day, it should never go away.» The­re was a day in my life when I could have sung that line with all my heart. On the day of my con­ver­si­on! The coun­sell­or explai­ned to me, using Isai­ah 53, that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and that he offers me for­gi­ve­ness. I unders­tood that, cle­ared out my life and accept­ed Jesus into my life. To expe­ri­ence grace like that; to be reli­e­ved of guilt like that, was a huge lift for me. It was an inde­scri­ba­ble fee­ling of joy!

A short time later I was found again with the pas­tor! The blissful fee­ling was gone! The exu­berant joy shrunk, like the foam in a beer glass! «Look», said my coun­ter­part, «faith is like a train: the loco­mo­ti­ve is Jesus Christ, he goes ahead of you; you can compa­re the coal wagon that fol­lows with the Word of God, the Bible. That’s whe­re the power is; tho­se are the encou­ra­ging pro­mi­ses and truths; wit­hout them your faith stops! Of cour­se, fee­lings are also part of faith. But this wagon is more likely to be found at the end of the procession!

Have you had to cor­rect mis­con­cep­ti­ons in your life of faith? The Bible is full of examp­les whe­re peo­p­le had to do this. For exam­p­le, Naa­man, the Ara­maic cen­tu­ri­on who was hea­led of lepro­sy by Eli­sha (2 Kings 5); or Mary and Mar­tha, the sis­ters of the ter­mi­nal­ly ill Laza­rus. To the exam­p­le of Mary, the mother of Jesus, we first give our attention.

Your encounter with God 

She also expe­ri­en­ced such a beau­tiful day… When the angel Gabri­el meets Mary in Naza­reth and announ­ces to her the pregnan­cy and the birth of Jesus, he greets her with the words: «Gree­tings! You are bles­sed with gre­at grace! The Lord is with you!» (Luke 1:28 NLB). Mary is sho­cked, but the angel encou­ra­ges her: «Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God». (Luke 1:30 NLB). At the begin­ning of a life with God, man always encoun­ters the uncon­di­tio­nal grace of God. Even if you have not met an angel, at the begin­ning of your life with Jesus and throug­hout your life this unde­ser­ved grace of God accom­pa­nies you! And from the moment a per­son places his or her life in God’s hands, the fol­lo­wing appli­es: «Do not be afraid, I have rede­e­med you. I have cal­led you by your name; you are mine». (Isai­ah 43:1 NLB)The angel Gabri­el tells Mary about Eliza­beth, her rela­ti­ve, who also expe­ri­en­ced a mira­cle and beca­me pregnant in her old age. It is the­r­e­fo­re not sur­pri­sing that Mary imme­dia­te­ly sets off to visit Eliza­beth. They exch­an­ge their expe­ri­en­ces, rejoice and prai­se their God. Only after three months does Mary go home again – and then things get turbulent!

Turbulent times

The Roman emper­or orders a cen­sus. This means an arduous jour­ney of over 100 km for the hea­vi­ly pregnant Mary and Joseph to Beth­le­hem, Joseph’s home­town. The birth takes place out­doors becau­se the inn is over­c­row­ded. After eight days, Jesus had to be cir­cumcis­ed in the temp­le in Jeru­sa­lem. Tra­vel­ling again! I think Mary ima­gi­ned ever­y­thing a bit nicer. Her hus­band, the car­pen­ter, makes a beau­tiful litt­le bed for the baby. She is sewing the first clo­thes and knit­ting cute socks…! And now this, con­stant­ly being on the road… And their chal­lenges beco­me even grea­ter. They expe­ri­ence incom­pre­hen­si­ble guidance.

Incomprehensible ways

This includes the flight to Egypt. King Herod the Gre­at sees hims­elf threa­ten­ed by the new­born king and wants to extin­gu­ish the life of this child. Joseph recei­ves ins­truc­tions from God in a dream to flee to Egypt with his fami­ly. That is what they do. Ano­ther arduous jour­ney! For­eign sur­roun­dings, for­eign lan­guage… After a few months, they move again, back to Naza­reth! Herod the Gre­at is dead. «Why go to such trou­ble?! That would have been a small thing for God to pro­tect Jesus from the mur­de­rous Herod for tho­se months! What is this? Dear God, is the­re real­ly no other way? Was it real­ly neces­sa­ry?» Have you ever spo­ken to God like that? May­be when you were laid off? After an acci­dent? With an ill­ness? Or per­haps God over­loo­ked the fact that your home was bro­ken into or that many things were sto­len from you?

Family problems

Back in Naza­reth, the­re are soon fami­ly pro­blems. As every year, the «Joseph and Mary» fami­ly goes to Jeru­sa­lem for the Pas­so­ver. Teen Jesus is also the­re. On the way home after the holi­day, Mary and Joseph sud­den­ly rea­li­se that Jesus is not in the teen click. Whe­re is Jesus? The par­ents go straight back to Jeru­sa­lem to look for him. Final­ly they find him in the temp­le in the midst of the tea­chers in ani­ma­ted con­ver­sa­ti­on! Mary can brea­the a sigh of reli­ef, but she lets out her frus­tra­ti­on: «Child!» she said, «How could you do this to us? Your father and I were in ter­ri­ble worry. We’­ve been loo­king for you ever­y­whe­re.» But Jesus repli­es in true tee­nie-wee­nie fashion, «Why were you loo­king for me? You should have known I was in my Father’s house.» But they don’t under­stand what he means. Maria can’t just put this expe­ri­ence away. She had to think about it for a long time. Mary had to learn to stand back. And Joseph had to rea­li­se that Jesus» true father is God in hea­ven. Stan­ding back, rethin­king, let­ting go… On the other hand, it was encou­ra­ging for Mary and Joseph at that time to know that the­re is still a Father in hea­ven who is kee­ping an eye on them! Being par­ents with the Father in hea­ven as a three­so­me, or for sin­gle par­ents as a two­so­me, is a gre­at help and reli­ef! It brings about a com­mit­ted sere­ni­ty! Stan­ding back, rethin­king, let­ting go – we all expe­ri­ence this, also sin­gles, young and old! That is why we all need the hea­ven­ly Father to car­ry us through with His strong hand!

Jesus grew, the teen­ager beca­me an adult and at about 30 years of age his minis­try in public beg­ins. After his bap­tism by John the Bap­tist, here we go! What do you think was Jesus» first con­cern? a) Choo­sing his 12 disci­ples. b) Being tempt­ed by Satan in the desert. Or c) Tur­ning water into wine at a wed­ding. Accor­ding to the three Gos­pels Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus was first tempt­ed! Satan wan­ted to awa­ken fal­se ide­as in Jesus: «You have a huge hole in your sto­mach, why don’t you make bread out of the­se stones? Now look at the world from abo­ve! So much beau­ty and glo­ry – it’s all under your rule when you wor­ship me! Today you will do a bun­gee jump wit­hout a rope from the temp­le pin­na­cle abo­ve; it is writ­ten that the angels will car­ry you on their hands». Satan is inge­nious in how he can awa­ken fal­se ide­as in us humans! It is good to be awa­re of this!

But back to the pro­blems of the Jesus fami­ly. One day when Jesus was prea­ching, sur­roun­ded by many peo­p­le, his fami­ly wan­ted to talk to him. He was told: «Your mother and your brot­hers and sis­ters are stan­ding out­side asking for you. Then Jesus ans­we­red, Who is my mother? Who are my brot­hers? Then he loo­ked at tho­se sit­ting all around him and said, «The­se peo­p­le here are my mother and my brot­hers. Whoe­ver does the will of God is my brot­her and sis­ter and mother». (Mark 3:32–35 NLB). Again: stan­ding back, rethin­king, let­ting go – it remain­ed dif­fi­cult for Mary! 

Jesus later pre­a­ched once in Naza­reth, his home­town. For the lis­ten­ers, he was sim­ply the son of Mary and Joseph. They were impres­sed by his prea­ching, but they could not accept the mes­sa­ge from a Naza­re­ne. Jesus says to this: «A pro­phet is wor­ship­ped ever­y­whe­re except in his own home­town, by his rela­ti­ves and by his own fami­ly. Becau­se they did not belie­ve in him, he could not per­form mira­cles on them and he only laid his hands on some sick peo­p­le and hea­led them. And he was ama­zed at their unbe­lief». (Mark 6:4–6 NLB). The peo­p­le of Naza­reth were so angry with Jesus that they would have lik­ed to push him down a slo­pe to his death, but they did not suc­ceed (Luke 4:29–30 NLB). An embar­ras­sing expe­ri­ence for his fami­ly. Such a thing in our vil­la­ge! Mary and Jesus» brot­hers and sis­ters have more and more trou­ble with his appearance. Con­stant­ly the­se argu­ments with the most respec­ted of the peo­p­le. It can’t be! After a while, it got on their ner­ves so much that one day they wan­ted to take Jesus home by force. They were con­vin­ced that Jesus had lost his mind (Luther: «He is out of his mind.…»). In the Gos­pel of John we read: «For even his brot­hers did not belie­ve in him» (John 7:5 NLB). In anger they with­drew. Yet they would have had so much reason to be proud of Jesus.

We noti­ce: Fal­se ide­as are poi­son for faith! Fal­se expec­ta­ti­ons that are not ful­fil­led fuel anger or even hat­red. When was the last time you were angry with Jesus? May­be becau­se you don’t get on with him with your col­le­agues? Or becau­se you can’t do any­thing with what Jesus said? Becau­se you would like to expe­ri­ence more mira­cles from him? Or becau­se you expect more atten­ti­on from him? The same is true for us: we have so much reason to be proud of kno­wing Jesus. We have so much reason to be proud of being a child of God. He is our hea­ven­ly Father whom we may address as «Father».

Then it is noti­ceable that for a long time we hear not­hing more eit­her from Mary or from his brot­hers and sis­ters! We only meet Mary again at the cross, whe­re Jesus gives John, his favou­ri­te disci­ple, the task of caring for Mary, his mother. This is when Jesus» love for his mother real­ly fla­res up again! God is the reason for us to be able to radia­te sere­ni­ty and con­fi­dence in our pre­sent tur­bu­lent and «covi­dent» times. Our God is still Lord; Lord in every situation! 

And final­ly, the high­light, for me the high­light! After the ascen­si­on of Jesus, the disci­ples meet regu­lar­ly for pray­er in an upper room and it says: «They all came tog­e­ther regu­lar­ly for pray­er, tog­e­ther with Mary, the mother of Jesus, some other women and the brot­hers of Jesus». (Acts 1:14 NLB).

You can find the ques­ti­ons for the small groups on the back ;)

 

Possible questions for the small groups

Read tog­e­ther about Jesus» ser­mon in Nazareth

Luke 4:16–30

  1. Tell each other about your expe­ri­en­ced «mis­con­cep­ti­ons»!
  2. What is the bree­ding ground for misconceptions?
  3. Is a Chris­ti­an allo­wed to be angry about Jesus?
  4. What are the steps to get rid of misconceptions?
  5. What car­ri­ed Mary and Joseph through their dif­fi­cult time? (Cen­sus, no room in the inn, flight to Egypt?)
  6. What is a gre­at help to you in your dif­fi­cult times?
  7. How do you think this inge­nious hap­py ending with Jesus» rela­ti­ves came about?