2 Kings 5:1-19: How a Captive Slave Girl Served God in a Strange Land

INTRODUCTION:

More than 70 years ago, a preacher was speaking to us children in church. I don’t remember anything he said except one line he quoted from an children’s hymn. The line is: “There’s a work for Jesus, none but you can do.”

I looked up the hymn on the internet, and here is the first verse:

“There’s a work for Jesus, ready at your hand.

‘Tis a task the master, just for you has planned.

Haste to do his bidding, yield him service true;

There’s a work for Jesus, none but you can do.”

That line has stuck in my mind ever since.

I’ve often taken encouragement from the thought that there’s a work for Jesus I can do, and if I don’t do it, it won’t get done.

In the book of 2 Kings, in the Old Testament—long before the Jesus taught us that we must love our enemies—we read the story of a young slave girl who learned to love the man who held her in slavery and his wife, and how she won an honored place in the history of her nation.

We read the story in 2 Kings 5:

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria was a great man with his master and in high favor, because the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.

Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little maid from the land of Israel and she waited on Naaman’s wife.

She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy” (vv1-3).

I. Israel’s enemy Syria invaded her land and—as usual in wars of that time (and sometimes nowadays)—the villages were pillaged, the men were killed, and the women and children were taken into slavery.

A. This girl had experienced terror. She was cruelly taken from her home and family and made a slave in the pagan land of Syria.

We don’t know what happened the rest of her family. Probably her father was killed and her mother and brothers and sisters and all her friends had also been taken as slaves.

She never saw her family or friends again.

She became the slave of the wife of the Syrian general.

But evidently her mistress was kind to her, and the Israelite girl learned to love her.

It would have been easy to feel forsaken by God in this foreign country.

No one in her new homeland worshiped the God of Israel.

She had no Bible. She could have felt that her God had let her down.

But even in this pagan land this slave girl kept her faith alive.

B. Her mistress’s husband, the general named Naaman, had a terrible disease—leprosy: the most dreaded disease anyone could have in the ancient world.

Leprosy was worse than any other kind of sickness.

A person who had leprosy was considered “unclean.” Leprosy was thought to be highly contagious. Nobody would willingly touch a leper.

People thought lepers were cursed by God.

This little maid could have delighted in the sorrow of the one who had taken her captive. She could have rejoiced as she saw him suffer.

But she didn’t take that attitude. The slave girl felt sorry for her mistress’s husband and she told her mistress: “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria? He would cure him of his leprosy.”

The name of the girl was forgotten. The person who wrote Second Kings didn’t know her name to put it into the story.

But she is the hero of the story because her mistress told Naaman and Naaman told the king and the king sent Naaman to Israel with many gifts—ten talents of silver, 6000 shekels of gold, and ten festal garments.

(A talent of silver was worth 9 years wages for a workman. A shekel of gold was worth $500 in today’s money. So ten talents of silver and 6000 shekels of gold was worth a huge amount of money—and the festal garments were valuable too. The king must have greatly valued his general Naaman to offer so much money for his cure.)

II. So Naaman set out with his gifts and servants to Israel and eventually he ended up at Elisha’s house.

A. But then he had a surprise.

Here he was a big shot important general, with his servants and horses waiting impatiently outside the prophet’s house. But Elisha didn’t come out to see him. He sent a messenger to him saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan River seven times, and you will be healed."

Naaman was angry. He thought the prophet was mocking him.

He said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the sore place and cure me! We have better rivers in Syria I could wash in!”

And he started for home in a huff.

B. And then his servants did something very brave. Generals are proud people. You don’t give advice to generals. You do what they say.

But Naaman’s servants must have loved their master, so they talked back to him. They said, “My father, if the prophet had commanded you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather than, when he says to you, “Wash, and be clean”?

So Naaman went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the Man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

(Don’t you wish you could have flesh like a little child?)

C. Then Naaman returned to the man of God, and this time Elisha met him.

Naaman said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present your servant.”

But Elisha answered, “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will receive none.”

Naaman urged him, and Elisha refused. He wanted Naaman to know that God’s goodness is free. It’s not something you pay for. That’s why God’s goodness is called “grace.”

Then Naaman had a request.

Naaman wanted to worship the God of Israel, and he supposed that he needed to worship Israel’s God on Israel’s soil.

So he asked if he could take two mules’ load of dirt from Israel back to Syria, so that he could spread it on the courtyard of his house and worship the God of Israel on soil from Israel.

In those days people believed that each country had its own gods. Naaman wanted to worship the God of Israel, and he wanted to worship him on Israelite soil.

He said, “From now on I will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Lord” (v17).

D. Something greater happened to Naaman even than getting cured from a terrible disease. He had met the living God. He had experienced God’s love and he determined to worship the Lord for the rest of his life.

I think he invited his slave girl to worship with him.

But I don’t think she was a slave any longer. I am sure she became one of the family now—much loved by her master and mistress, who had now become as father and mother to her.

APPLICATION

We hear of the needs of the world-- hunger… sickness… homelessness… the terror of war…and especially the need for people to know about Jesus.

We grieve because we feel so helpless.

We read about the great men and women of God who had great gifts to do his work and great success, and we get discouraged…

But God says, “My son, my daughter, I only expect you to do what you can.”

“Little things are little things, but faithfulness in little things is something great.”

How useful we are depends on our attitude and our love for God. The little maid may have thought that there was little she could do, but she did what she could, and it made a big difference.

Whatever we do for Jesus lasts for ever—whether anyone else remembers it or not.

Think about it; everything that is good about you has come from God…but it has come through someone else…from kind words… generous actions… good examples…

Everything good in my life came from someone else—from a friend… a teacher… maybe from the example of someone I admired, maybe from the author of a book

The same is true of you.

When we serve Jesus, our actions bless others…who bless others…who bless others…And so the good deed goes on and on—forever. That is why whatever we do for Jesus lasts forever.

Every Sunday morning I used to listen to Dr. Oswald Hoffman, on the Lutheran Hour, on the radio.

In one of his messages he told this true story.

A girl in the seventh grade went to a school party. But nobody greeted her or talked to her. She sat by herself in a corner wishing she hadn’t come. A wise teacher noticed and came over to her and pointed out to her that there were other lonely people at the party just like her. She suggested that the girl talk to them.

She spent the rest of the evening seeking out the wallflowers and offering them her friendship. By the time the party was over she had had a wonderful time.

Dr. Hoffman said, “That girl was serving Christ. She had begun to come to Sunday school all by herself, but in the end she won her entire family to Christ.”

This story appeared in The Cedar Rapids Gazette on January 31, 1992. I saved it because I was so impressed with it. It illustrates my point that it is sometimes the little things that are the most important.

It was in the early 1980s. Jay Raemont was a high school student in McHenry, Illinois. Jay recalled that he didn’t belong to any groups. He was a dork. He wore his older brothers’ clothes. He was tall and skinny and had bad skin. He was the kind of person the bullies of the school picked on.

Jay recalls that one sunny afternoon as he was leaving school he decided to cut through the smoking lounge. (Incredible as it seems now, in those days some schools designated a room for students to smoke in, in order to discourage surreptitious smoking elsewhere.)

Anyway, as Jay walked into the lounge, he was surrounded by thuggish students he calls “burnouts.” He says, “I was all by myself; I thought I was a dead dork.”

“Suddenly,” he says, “out of nowhere a girl named Cindy MacDonald walked up to me. She was one of the most popular girls in the school. Pretty, cheerleader—everything. Right in front of those guys she put her arm around me and said, ‘What took you so long? I’ve been here since 2:30.’ And with that she took my hand and we began to walk toward the parking lot.

“Halfway there she let go and walked the opposite direction. She said she had to go to cheerleading practice. She didn’t even know me, really—she did what she did because she didn’t want me to get pushed around. I never really thanked her.”

About ten years later (at the time the article was written), Jay was 27 and working in the electrical contracting business. Cindy MacDonald had become an emergency room nurse. Jay saw her name in the newspaper over an article she had written about a need for her nephew who had a rare disease. He needed a small bowel transplant, which would cost the family $800,000, which they didn’t have and insurance wouldn’t pay. Cindy was pleading for help from the community for donations.

When Jay saw the name of the girl who had befriended him, he decided to help get the word out. He doubted that she remembered him, but he remembered her. He had found out long ago what kind of a person she was and he wanted to help.

Cindy MacDonald was overwhelmed when she learned of Raimont’s involvement in the effort to help her nephew.

She recalled, “I did go to high school with Jay, but I don’t recall helping him out on that day, but it sounds like something I might have done…I’m so grateful that he’s taken it upon himself to get the word out.”

Bob Greene ended his article with the address to which readers could send money for the fund to help save the child’s life.

That compassionate, impulsive action by the pretty, popular girl resulted in a generous action years later by the recipient of her kindness and the saving of the life of a little boy.

Cindy MacDonald had done something incredibly kind and thoughtful—and it made a real difference in the life of a classmate she didn’t know. And she had forgotten all about it.

Just so, some of the most important things you have ever done—things that have made a difference in the lives of people you’ve forgotten—are things that you forgot about long ago.

But God remembers. And some of those people remember too.

We are not able to do any great things for God, but we can do little things with great love.

There’s a work, ready at your hand.

‘Tis a task the master, just for you has planned.

Haste to do his bidding, yield him service true’

There’s a work for Jesus, none but you can do.

Luke 2:41-52: When Young Jesus Astonished His Parents

INTRODUCTION

When I was a child our family belonged to an unusual sort of church.

Our belief was the same as other Bible-believing churches, but we had some unusual customs.

One of our unusual customs was that every Christmas, we all went to a Bible conference in Kansas City. People from meetings like ours from maybe 150 miles around came together for this annual Christmas conference.

They really looked forward to this time.

We lived in Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City was about 50 miles away.

The conference lasted for three days and included Christmas.

So we got our Christmas presents early because on Christmas Day we would be at the conference.

The program of the Kansas City conference was very simple. We listened to sermons all day long—one preacher after another—and occasionally sang hymns. And we ate together.

I suppose children nowadays would find this boring, but we didn’t mind it. We could see friends who we saw only once a year.

And we had a special responsibility—waiting at tables during the meals.

We children sat in the balcony. We were supposed to listen, and we did listen to some of the speakers—especially when they told stories. But mostly we just sat with our friends, whispered to each other, and drew pictures to while away the time.

Jesus’ family also had a yearly event, something like the Bible conference of my youth.

Every year, at Passover time, Mary and Joseph took their family to Jerusalem.

They would go to the Temple and listen to the prayers, sing psalms together, and watch the priests offer the sacrifices.

They then would gather in small family groups and eat the Passover meal.

It appears that they also took time to gather in small groups under the colonnades and as the rabbis taught them from the Bible.

But Jesus took this Passover trip more seriously than we did the Bible conferences of my youth.

The only story we know about the boy Jesus from the Bible is the account about the time when his family went to Jerusalem to the Passover when he was 12 years old.

It is an interesting story and it not only embodies a truth about who Jesus is, but it also contains some valuable lessons for us.

Here is the story (Luke 2:41-52):

Now Jesus’s parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom; and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the company, they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

And when they saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so. Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

I. Twelve years old was an important time in the life of a Jewish boy.

A. Since his first years Joseph would have been teaching his son the Law as written in the first books of the Old Testament.

We can be sure Mary also had a part in teaching Jesus about love and obedience and the knowledge of God.

Twelve years old: this was the final year of his preparation for assuming the responsibilities of a man in the religious life of the synagogue.

At his 13th birthday he would become a Bar Mitzvah; that means “a son of the law.”

B. I have taught 12-year-olds, and we have had 12-year-old children in our own family. I know about 12-year-olds.

This is an important age, an age when children begin to make decisions for themselves about what kind of people they will grow up to be.

Sometimes it is a time when children begin to behave in ways that leave parents scratching their heads.

Jesus was no different. Even though Joseph and Mary remembered the remarkable events that surrounded the birth of Jesus—the angels and the shepherds and the wise men and the prophecies pronounced over the child by old Simeon and Anna in the Temple, they weren’t prepared for the streak of independence that Jesus showed at this time.

II. Let’s look again at the story.

A. After the festivities at of the Passover the family started home.

In those days the family would have gone up to the Passover in a group with their friends and relatives from Nazareth.

Walking 15 miles a day from Nazareth to Jerusalem—would have taken 4 or 5 days.

It was important to go with a group for relatives and neighbors because traveling was dangerous in those days. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan.

That Joseph and Mary set off for home without checking where Jesus was tells us that Jesus had always been a responsible child. They assumed that he was with his cousins and the other children in the company.

We who are parents can understand how upset Mary and Joseph were. After they had walked for a day, they discovered that their son wasn’t in the company.

So they started back to Jerusalem. That would have taken them a day.

Then they spent at least two days in Jerusalem searching everywhere, wondering and worrying about what might have happened to their precious child. As they searched all the places where they could imagine he might be, they may have wondered if he was even still alive. Maybe he had fallen into a well or been abducted by slave traders!

Can you imagine the anxious thoughts that must have gone through their heads?

We can imagine their relief and their annoyance when they found him in the Temple, oblivious to their anxiety.

B. When his parents found him in the Temple, the boy was sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking questions.

I picture him sitting under one of the colonnades, in the midst of a group of old men, who were both startled and pleased by the interest and insight of the child.

Jesus wasn’t showing off his knowledge or his wit; he was asking questions.

These old rabbis were delighted with this bright, young student. There is nothing that pleases a teacher more than a student who asks intelligent questions.

Jesus knew that we learn by asking questions and by listening.

When I read the Bible my mind is full of questions. Jesus also must have wondered about many things. I can imagine some of he questions he must have asked.

A famous philosopher (Francis Bacon) said, “A wise question is already half the answer.”

That is why, that, though that Jesus was asking questions, the rabbis were surprised by his answers.

C. The distressed parents let Jesus know how put out they were with him:

Mary says, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

And the boy says, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

Or it may be just as well translated: “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” That’s the way it is in the King James Bible.

The Greek simply says, “Did you not know that I must be about the things of my Father?”

I don’t think Jesus was being insensitive or rude. He was genuinely surprised. Jesus was becoming very much aware that he had an uncommon destiny. God called himself the “Father” of his people in the Old Testament, and the boy had taken to heart this truth that he had two fathers, and his heavenly Father was the one who held the greatest claim on his life.

These are the first words Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, and they are especially important because they tell us that even at 12-years-old Jesus realized that he had a special relationship with God, his Father, and that God was calling him to a special destiny.

It is a mistake to suppose that God just poured into Jesus’ brain everything he needed to know.

Jesus was a human child. He grew, he learned, he made choices, he learned to love God, he learned to live by faith.

Jesus learned from his teachers, even though soon he would surpass all of them in his insight into the ways of God.

D. Notice how considerate Jesus was with his parents.

Even though the boy recognized his higher loyalty to God, he didn’t presume on that relationship.

I think he took to heart the grief he had caused his parents because, we read, “he went down with his parents and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

We can be sure that on the many future trips the family took to Jerusalem for Passover, Mary and Joseph were more attentive to where their son was.

And Jesus also would not again have become so absorbed in his opportunities to learn that he was oblivious to the consternation he might cause his parents.

E. And lastly, notice that “his mother kept all these things in her heart.”

When our children were little we kept a notebook in which we recorded the funny or interesting things our children said.

Mary kept her notebook in her heart. We read that after the shepherds returned “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2.19) And here we read (v51): “…and his mother kept all these things in her heart.”

And that is how we have the story. Mary either told the stories to Luke, who wrote them down, or she told them to someone who told them to Luke, and so they were preserved for us.

III. So what does this story tell us that is so important? I see two things:

A. Jesus loved scripture, and, even as a child, he was hungry to learn more and more.

It is astonishing that so many faithful church-goers have little interest in knowing more of the Bible than they have learned as children in Sunday school.

They think: I know all I need to know; now all I need now is to do the right thing.

They don’t realize that God’s Word is the food for their souls.

But it’s not enough to know what we should do; we need motivation to make us want to do it.

We need God’s Word in our hearts stir our emotions and our wills to love and obey.

Do you remember that when Jesus was tempted by the devil, he resisted each temptation with a saying from scripture?

If Jesus needed a mind stored full of scripture, we do too.

And here we see Jesus—even as a boy—storing away God’s Word in his heart.

B. The second lesson we can take away from this story is the priority Jesus placed on being in the house of his Father: the Temple represented above all the presence of God.

When we pray, when we meditate on scripture, when we worship and give thanks, we are, in a sense, in the Temple of God.

God has left us on this earth to live in his presence and to make it our business to do his will.

We are intended to live in the presence of God, whether we are reading our Bibles, or worshiping in church, or praying, or lying quietly in bed, or sitting in our chair reading a book.

God intends that we are to feel ourselves to be in his presence in our everyday activities—with our friends—in our pleasures—or in our solitude—always in the heavenly temple—always in the presence of God.

The Curé d’Ars was a French saint of the 18th century. Often, when he went into the church he would see an old peasant sitting in the church quietly, seemingly not praying. One day he asked the old peasant what he was doing there.

The peasant answered, “I look at God and he looks at me and we are happy together.”

But whether we are in a cathedral, or in our living room, or in the public dining room, we can always be in “God’s house,” always in the presence of God.

Our Lord has told us, “I will never leave you of forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

So “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

Matthew 2.1-13: Wise Men Meet Jesus

INTRODUCTION

Do you remember when you were a child how fascinating the night sky was?

We slept on a sleeping porch, and I can remember night after night looking out the window above my cot at the Milky Way and the thousands of stars spangling the sky.

I had a book of the constellations and would sometimes go out at night, throw a blanket on the grass, and identify the Big and Little Dippers; Cassiopeia’s Chair; Orion; Leo, the Lion; and Draco, the Serpent.

Ancient people spent a lot of time outdoors, and when it got dark, it got dark.

If there was no moon. the sky was spectacular on a clear night.

So they looked up into the sky a lot and saw the pictures in the sky and made stories about them.

Some of the ancients had the idea the stars were angels shining in the sky. They called the stars “The Host of Heaven.”

In the Book of Job (38:7), God asks Job,

“Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?...

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

The “sons of God” was one of the ways they spoke of the stars.

To the ancient people the stars and planets had meanings.

They were sure that whatever important happened on earth, it would be reflected in some way in the heavens.

And if something strange appeared in the sky—a comet, an eclipse, two planets coming together—they were sure it meant that something special was happening—or about to happen—on earth.

Wise men studied the stars. These were the earliest scientists. They studied the stars to try to find out their movements and to trace the movements of the planets among them. They tried to predict the future from the movements of the stars and planets.

They were wrong, of course, about the stars influencing events on earth, but in their studies they learned a great deal about the stars and the planets and the seasons. Babylonians and Chinese astronomers successfully predicted solar eclipses 2500 years before Christ.

We read about some of these men in the second chapter of Matthew. They are called in the Bible “wise men” or more accurately, “magi.”

These magi were members of a priestly caste in the religion of Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion of Persia. There are still Zoroastrians today. Most of them live in India. I don’t know whether modern Zoroastrians study the stars or not.

Near the time when Jesus was born, some of these magi were studying the night sky when they saw something new in the constellation that represented the royal house of Judah.

They saw something that told them that a long-awaited king was coming to that land.

So they set off with their gifts to visit that king.

Through the years story has been embellished with many details not found in the Bible.

The idea that they were kings comes from Psalm 72:

“May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!

May all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service.”

We don’t know actually how many magi came to Bethlehem.

The Bible tells us that they brought three gifts, so it is commonly supposed that there were three wise men.

We don’t know how they traveled. It’s picturesque to suppose they rode on camels. That makes an impressive picture. But they may have ridden on donkeys. Or maybe they walked.

So now I’ll read the story as it is recorded in Matthew’s gospel:

 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him”

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

They told him, “In Bethlehem in Judea; for so it is written by the prophet:

‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will govern my people Israel.’”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”

When they had heard the king, they went their way; and lo, the star which they and seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

I think it is remarkable that when God brought the news to humble Jewish shepherds, he sent an angel.

But when God brought the news to sophisticated Gentile scholars, he set a star in the heavens.

God speaks to each in a language he can understand.

I. So the magi traveled, we don’t know how long, and finally they reached Jerusalem

A. They were looking for a newborn king, so they went directly to the capital city of Judah.

We are not to believe that the star guided them the hundreds of miles from Persia to the Holy Land.

They saw the star when they were in the east, and its position in the sky indicated that they were to go to Judah, and so they set out.

Naturally they considered their destination to be Jerusalem, the capital and important city in the country.

No one there had heard about any new king.

But there were scholars who studied their Bible, and they found the prophecy from Micah 5 that told them that a Great Leader would come from Bethlehem, the city of David.

Herod was very interested in this situation.

Herod was the king who ruled Judah under the Romans.

He is called “Herod the Great” because he promoted great building projects, including the magnificent Jerusalem Temple.

Herod was not a Jew but an Idumean, that is a man of Edom, a nation descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother.

The Jews regarded him as a foreigner and resented his rule.

Herod was suspicious and cruel. He had a habit of killing his wives and sons when he got the idea that they were conspiring against him.

So he didn’t welcome the news of a new king and planned to kill him.

We read that “all Jerusalem was troubled with him.” I don’t suppose the people of Jerusalem were afraid of a new baby king. They were afraid of what a murderous Herod might do if he felt threatened.

B. So, after they left Jerusalem, the wise men continued on the six miles to Bethlehem. We read that “the star that they had seen in the east went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.”

I take it that this star that guided them to the house where Jesus was, was a miraculous star. A star several light years away, high in the sky, couldn’t have guided them to a single spot on earth.

We don’t know when they arrived. Tradition has it that it was January 6, which is called The Feast of the Epiphany. Children in some countries open their presents January 6 in honor of the wise men’s visit.

We read, “Going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.” The word now is “child,” not “baby,” as before. And by this time the Holy Family were living in a house. It could have been months or years later.

When Herod sent his troops to kill the babies, he had them kill all the boys two years old and under.

II. Notice that before they presented their gifts, they gave themselves to Jesus. “They fell down and worshiped him.”

A. The wise men are an example to us. All who belong to Jesus must humble themselves before him and worship.

That is one reason why we go to church. But worship should not only be in church. Worship should be in all we do.

Then they presented their gifts.

There is a lesson here for us.

True worship requires more than words and intentions of the heart. True worship requires that we give ourselves to our Christ.

True worship costs—I won’t tell you what it will cost you, but only that it will cost.

It will cost time, possessions, and the effort of honoring God in all we do.

In the letter to the Colossians, Paul writes, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Their gifts were the most precious things they had, gifts suitable to honor a king.

We can guess that they also were practical too, because when Joseph, Mary and the child had to flee to Egypt and live as refugees there, the gold, frankincense, and myrrh could be used to pay some of the expenses.

B. I picture these magi as men of great dignity and wisdom. But they were also humble.

When they didn’t find Jesus among the great and powerful, they followed the star to the little town of Bethlehem, and then to the humble house of a carpenter and his family. And they recognized a most unlikely king lying in his crib—and they worshiped.

Learned as they were, they had simple hearts.

Jesus came for everyone—great and small—but when the great come to him, they come just like everyone else—with faith and love.

C. Then, warned of Herod’s murderous intentions, “they departed to their own country by another way.”

Some see in these words another lesson from the story of the wise men and Jesus.

When we have met Jesus and responded with faith, obedience, and love, we’re never the same again.

Just as the wise men came by one way and went home by another way.

Our life without God takes us on one road, but when we meet Jesus we are directed to another road—God’s road, which ends with Glory.

CONCLUSION

The magi didn’t have any scriptures, but they followed the light they had, and God called them to his Son.

Jesus’s own people had the scriptures and they studied them, but they didn’t come—even the six miles to Bethlehem.

The Magi have a lesson for us. They didn’t just study the star—or admire it—they followed it.

They responded to God’s initiative.

We may not be theologians or scholars of the Bible, but God will nudge us in the right direction. It is up to us to obey those nudgings—to seek God as he calls us to himself.

I heard a preacher say once, “A seeking Savior and a seeking sinner will not long be apart.”

At the end of Matthew’s gospel we read these words of Jesus: “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

So at the beginning of the story and again at the end we have the teaching that Jesus is for the whole world. He came for Jews; he came for Gentiles. He came for the poor. He came for the rich.

He came for you; he came for me.

O come let us adore him;

O come let us adore him;

O come let us adore him,

Christ the Lord.

Luke 1:35-38: Mary, Our Lord’s Mother

INTRODUCTION

Mary’s assignment came like a bolt out of the blue.

The time had come for God to become incarnate and begin life on earth.

But God needed a woman to bring his precious gift into the earth.

So God looked around and he looked around and he chose the perfect girl.

She was very young, only a teen-ager, and she was engaged to a good man named Joseph.

This girl had the most common girl’s name in the land of Israel: “Maryam” in the Aramaic language of the Jews, or in English, “Mary.”

In the New Testament we read of 7 different women named “Mary.” All of them were important in the story of the gospel.

But this Mary is the one God chose to be Jesus’s mother, and she’s the one we see pictured on the Christmas cards and kneeling by the manger in the nativity sets.

The Bible says not one word about Mary’s appearance—whether she was tall or short or pretty or plain—but we always imagine her as a radiant young woman, her face lit up with a sort of holy glow. She certainly had a beautiful soul.

Let’s read the familiar story from the beginning, as recorded in the first chapter of Luke’s gospel.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

And he came to her and said, “Rejoice, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

“He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;

and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,

and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever;

and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?”

And the angel said to her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;

therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (vv26-35).

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her (v38).

I. We are so charmed by the beauty of the story and the way it’s represented in the Christmas paintings and the Christmas pageants and in the Christmas music that we may forget what a huge thing God asked of Mary.

A. Mary was engaged, but not married. Right away, she had a tremendous problem. To be found pregnant before marriage would be to bear the heavy burden of shame. Who was going to believe her story about the angel?

In fact, all through the ages, doubters have questioned Jesus’s miraculous birth.

Even poor Joseph, much as he loved his dear fiancée, had decided, according to Matthew’s Gospel, to break off the engagement quietly.

So God sent the angel to Joseph too, and said, “Do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1.20-21).

When the child was only a few weeks old the Holy Family took the child to the Temple and there an old prophet named Simeon held the baby and predicted his future. Then he told Mary: “A sword will pierce through your own soul!”

Sometimes Mary is called “Our Lady of Sorrows.”

Mary would live to see her Son hang upon the cross. She would experience great grief.

B. But Mary was also granted a huge privilege. That is why the angel said, “Rejoice, O favored one, the Lord is with you.”

Mary rejoiced in God’s grace to her. She said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name” (Luke 1:46-49).

Mary was Jesus’s first teacher. Mary taught little Jesus what love means.

Jesus’s mother taught him right and wrong, how to share his toys, and how to care about others.

Mary was Jesus’s example of purity, and truthfulness, and courage, and generosity, and kindness.

Mary taught Jesus his first prayers.

Joseph was there too. When God chose Mary to be Jesus’s mother, he chose Joseph to be the earthly Father for Jesus. Together Mary and Joseph taught Jesus his Bible stories. They taught him to fear and love and obey God.

They took him to synagogue worship.

II. But what I love most about Mary—and the way she is an example for us—is in her response to the angel’s announcement: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

A. We can see in Mary’s response, why God chose her to be the mother of the Savior.

Mary was a young woman whose heart was open to God.

Her greatest desire was to please God.

The word translated “handmaid” could as be well translated “slave girl.”

The guiding principle of Mary’s life was obedience to God’s will.

God asked of her a hard assignment.

She would often be perplexed. Her life would be full of surprises. Over and over we read: “And Mary pondered these things in her heart” or “Mary treasured up these things in her heart.”

B. So Mary is our example of what it means to belong to God.

Only one person in all the earth could have the privilege Mary had—to be the mother of our Lord.

But God also calls us. He calls us to be his servants.

He calls us to bear Christ in our lives before the world.

I want to read you the story of a little incident that happened in the life of Jesus.

In Mark 3 we read an account of a time when Jesus was with a crowd sitting about him when someone came and said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.”

And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

It doesn’t take anything away from the honor due our Lord’s mother to hear Jesus telling us that those who do the will of God are in the closest relationship possible to him.

The blessing of our Lord’s mother can be ours as well if we take our place before him as his handmaids—his servants.

Notice, he doesn’t say, “Whoever has faith in me is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

He doesn’t say, “Whoever loves me is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

Faith and love are wonderful—and they are essential—but it is obedience that proves both our faith and our love: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

CONCLUSION

Some people think that the strongest Christians are the people who have the strongest opinions and are always ready to argue for their faith.

Some people think they are strong believers because they feel their hearts to be full of love. They say, “If only Jesus were here I would throw my arms around him and hug him. I would wash his feet. Nothing would be too good for my Jesus.”

But the strong believer is the one who acts on her faith—who puts her faith to work in practical ways—who serves God by serving others.

If you want to know Jesus better and love him more—then set about to determine what he wants you to do and do it!

The best Christian isn’t the best talker—or even the best Bible reader.

The one who really loves Jesus is the one who knows how spend time in prayer … the one who confesses sins… who knows how to forgive…who has a kind word for everyone… who is willing to help—even if it costs something.

The one who really loves Jesus, who is close to him—the one Jesus calls his “mother,” his “sister,” his “brother”—is the one who is always looking for ways to please Jesus by doing his Word.

At Christmas time, people get all carried away by the music, and the lights, and the trees, and the food, and the cards coming in the mail, and the shopping and gift-giving—and sometimes Jesus gets left behind the tree somewhere.

Here’s the importance of Christmas—Jesus is Christ, the Lord!

Is he your Lord?