Ernest Hemingway was one of the great American writers that changed the way writers wrote and readers read. According to him, the value of a book was in proportion to how much good material you are willing to cut from the manuscript. If, for example, in the last draft of the manuscript one sentence seemed to pop out from all the rest, he immediately cut that sentence from the manuscript.
The reason was that the book was not one sentence but rather the entire book. Surrender the good for the overall best.
We have been enchanted by “the good” and consequently have missed “the best” God has to offer.
The good always looks good at the time but given enough time when you look back you discover it really was not good enough. Most people, however, are willing to sacrifice the best for a bunch of good.
If we are ever going to do our best for the Master we must learn how to weed out “the good” from our life. This is rather difficult. We need to understand what God is doing. This is an ongoing process.
We cannot understand everything about God but we can appreciate those things He has revealed. How God has worked is how He is working and how He will work. To understand this is to begin to weed out of our life the merely good and concentrate on what God has for us.
I want to use the events in these first two chapters of Luke and put together a little parable. We are all familiar with the events recorded here because every Christmas time we go over and over them.
I want to look at it from a different angle today. I want us to see that this is a parable of how God works in our world.
The parable is simply a story or series of stories that have some moral or spiritual teachings or implications. If you keep this in mind as we look at these two chapters there begins to float to the surface the very wonderful truth of how God invades our world and works in our world and through our lives.
Not everything in a parable has significance, so I just want to lift out of this passage those things that flow together on this topic of how God works in our world.
The events surrounding the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ reveal to us in a very wonderful way how God works in our world. Many people have a variety of ideas of how God works and most of it is speculation. We need to come to grips with all of this from God’s perspective.
In this parable as I envision it, are two primary sections. There is the supernatural element and then there is the ordinary, human element. These two must go together or we simply end up with a caricature of how God is working in our world today.
Let me repeat, if I know how God is working in our world I will begin to understand and appreciate how He is working in my life individually. This is crucial for my spiritual growth and development and to be used of God in the world that I am in right now.
I. The Supernatural Element
In the first two chapters, we cannot help but notice the proliferation of angel activity. (1:11-20; 1:26-38; 2:8-14).
People have tried explaining Angels and angelic activity and have come up with many off-the-wall ideas. I am not sure we can really explain what an Angel is or what an Angel does. It would be a very fascinating study to go through the Scriptures and note the angel activity.
Suffice it for us today to say that the angel activity in these two chapters represents the supernatural element. It is God working above and beyond human ability and even contrary to it.
It is very hard for us to understand that God really does not need us. There is an entire world above and beyond our world, which one day we shall enter.
The beginning of God’s work is always supernatural. Many have misused and abused the word supernatural. They have called things supernatural, which really are not supernatural.
Supernatural means that there is a work that is above and contrary to nature. This is always where God begins. He never begins on our level but he comes down to our level.
God always initiates this work. Never man.
Look at these angelic movements in these two chapters.
1. Zechariah… The Angel invades, supernaturally, his world with a message from God. This message originated with God and could only be fulfill by God. In Zechariah’s case, his wife Elizabeth was beyond the age of bearing children. For the angel to tell Zachariah that his wife is going to have a baby was beyond the realm of human possibility.
Isn’t this where God begins? He works through a work that we cannot do in our own strength. That is the supernatural element. “When we have exhausted our reported resources.”
2. The Virgin Mary… Again, the Angel invaded Mary’s world with a message from God. Mary was not beyond the age of childbearing, but her situation was very inconvenient for pregnancy. To be pregnant at her stage in life, being engaged to Joseph, would bring great ridicule from the community. Things like this did not happen to decent, good people.
The supernatural aspect of it was that God was asking Mary to do something contrary to normal human behavior. I am sure she did not understand all of the ramifications of this, but she was willing to submit to God’s message. “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be according to your word.”
The virgin birth was a miracle.
3. The Shepherds… The Angels invaded their world, people who were really the outcast of society. The supernatural element here is that God bypassed people we would think would deserve to hear the message. We would have gone to the religious leaders or the political leaders or the celebrities of the day.
Do you realize how much God ignores these kinds of people and chooses the simple common people of life? The supernatural element here is that God does not depend upon and His work does not depend upon the class of the people that He is speaking to.
Today, if we want to get a message out we search for a celebrity to endorse our message. This is the genius of the advertising world. Brand your product and then get a celebrity to endorse that product and bingo, you will get your message out to the most people.
God is not interested in getting the message out to the most people at any cost, rather to people who have an inner hunger for the things of God. God will bypass everybody until he finds the man or woman he can use.
“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none” (Ezekiel 22:30).
God is looking for a man or a woman that is amenable to be invaded supernaturally by God.
We need to have a right appreciation of the supernatural work of God in our world and our life. God wants to invade our world from above.
II. The Human Element
This part focuses on the kind of people God uses for his work. Many people are interested in doing “their work” for God, but God is not interested in them. God wants people who will be vessels of His glory and power in the world around them.
Look at the people God used in these first two chapters of Luke.
1. Zechariah… There was nothing special about Zachariah. He was just one of the priests with no distinction. In fact, he was coming to the end of his career as a priest. This was probably his last cycle in serving in the Temple.
The thing that I like about Zachariah is that he was not easily talked into anything.
“How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (1:18).
To the casual observer there was nothing special about Zachariah and Elizabeth that they should be entrusted to give birth and raise a son as an important as John the Baptist. They were just ordinary folk who were deeply committed to God.
2. The Virgin Mary… She was too young to have any clout at all in her world. It was a world where women were almost second-class citizens. God singled this young woman out, not because of who or what she was, simply because she had a heart for God. Frankly, I do not think she brought much to the table, especially when we think of the baby that was to be born.
God is not looking for our rank in life in order to use us. In fact, sometimes God chooses people with no rank in life in order to showcase his grace and glory.
I think of Samson in the Old Testament. Looking at him people wondered where in the world his strength came from. He was no muscle bound athlete, or people would not have asked where his strength came from. His strength came from the Lord.
God found in Mary a heart that was willing to sacrifice and suffer for the cause of God. For the rest of her life she was to bear the shame of an illegitimate birth.
3. The Shepherds… It is hard to imagine a lower class of people than the shepherds. In the Gentile world, they certainly were outcasts.
Remember what Joseph said to his brothers?
“And it shall come to past when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? That ye shall say, Thy servants’ trade has been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians” (Genesis 46:33-34).
Shepherds were not part of polite society, as we might say today. They were lower class and had no clout whatsoever in the community.
Why did God choose the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus Christ?
The answer is simple; God does not use the power of man to get his message across. It is the supernatural work of God through a man or a woman who is humble enough to be nothing in the sight of this world.
In looking at this “Human Element,” we need to see that God is very particular in the people that he uses. He will not use just anyone, but he will use anyone.
James says in his epistle, “Therewith bless we God, even the father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceeded blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” (James 3:9-11). The tongue is a good thermometer for testing spirituality.
Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
And Joshua said, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve…”
Conclusion…
To appreciate how God works is to appreciate what God is doing in my life now. Many people have erroneous ideas of God’s work in their life.
God’s work always begins supernaturally and then he works through people he can work through. God’s basic expectation from the man or woman He uses is obedience.
This brings us to the matter of our talents. Many people look at a person who has great talents and assume God can really use that person. However, God does not use our talents.
Our talents are tools for us to get into our world.
Before God can use our talents, they need to be surrendered to Him.
This is the center of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Are we willing to surrender everything and allow Him to be Lord in our life? Let me repeat, if Jesus is not the priority in your life He is not in your life. He will not take second chair to anybody.
Our problem is that the proliferation of “good” obscures the “best.” It all boils down to this. How much good are you willing to weed out for God.
How much of your “good” are you willing to give up to give God room for His “best” to flow through you? God wants to so insert Himself into my life so that He can insert me into the world around me.
