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A Baby Changes Everything
By Providing Deliverance
Introduction:
What Do We Do Now?
Judi and I
were married for five and one-half years before we were blessed with a baby. Those
were good years as we settled into being married, she finished college and then
I went to seminary. We were able to pour all our energy into completing
seminary in the three scheduled years. Those couples who had children often
needed two to three extra years to finish.
Once we were
settled into our first ministry position in California, we decided it was time
to have a baby. As one unsuccessful month was added to others, the doctor
started talking to us about the need for fertility testing. Fortunately, even
as the subject was being broached, Judi was pregnant with Andy. While all this
occurred three decades ago, it seems like it was just yesterday.
We expectantly
prepared for the arrival of our baby. We were able to purchase a house during
that time and worked many times into the early hours of the morning to
transform our fixer-upper into a place suitable for the birth of the most
amazing child who would ever be born. We were very normal, very excited, expectant
parents.
Then, on
January 13, 1979 he arrived. The reality didn’t completely hit until we took
him home. The question hit me then, “What do we do now?” We weren’t really
ready for this. Granted, I was 13 when my youngest sister was born so I was
able to demonstrate how you diaper a baby with a cloth diaper—probably the high
point in my parenting career as I was able to show Judi how to care for a baby.
All the rest became a grand experiment involving a liberal dose of trial and
error.
Any couple blessed with a baby knows that the happy day the baby
arrives changes everything. Sleep becomes a precious commodity. Schedules are
arranged around feeding. When the diaper needs to be changed… Well, a baby may
change everything but a baby can’t change itself.
God changed everything through the birth of a baby. We celebrate the
wonder of that miracle every year. It’s the same story, but it never gets old
because this wasn’t just any baby—this was Jesus. Through Jesus God changed the
world of that day. He still changes our world today. During this Christmas
season we will see how a baby really does change everything. We begin this
morning by seeing how God used a baby to provide deliverance.
Moses:
The Example of Deliverance
Moses is an Old Testament example of how God delivered a baby to later
use him as the deliverer of His people, Israel. The account of the life of
Moses is found at the beginning of the book of Exodus. Exodus is the dramatic
account of God delivering Israel from the oppression of Egypt.
Delivered
By God
A short history lesson is necessary to set the context. As you
remember Jacob’s entire family moved to Egypt where Joseph had risen from being
a rejected, sold-into-slavery brother to the second-in-command to Pharaoh. He
was charged with distributing the food that had been collected during
prosperous years to sustain people through the lean years of extreme drought. The
Israelites were “fruitful and multiplied greatly and
became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus
1:7).
Over 200 years passed and a new king who didn’t know Joseph assumed
the throne. He saw Israel as a threat to be feared and controlled. They forced
them into brutal slavery. The king ordered the midwives to kill any boys who
were born. The midwives feared God, refused to obey the order and were blessed
by God with families of their own. Pharaoh then ordered that every boy baby to
be born must be thrown into the Nile.
Such was the situation when Moses was born. His mother was able to
hide him for three months. When he could no longer be hidden, she took a basket
and coated it with tar and pitch to make it waterproof. I would love to know
where she received her inspiration to send Moses on his own, private cruise of
the Nile. It seems to me she obeyed the law. She placed her son in the Nile and
posted his sister to watch and see what happened.
Pharaoh’s daughter went to the River to bathe and saw the basket. She
opened the basket to find a crying baby boy “and she
felt sorry for him” (Exodus 2:6). Moses’ sister offered to get a Hebrew
woman to nurse the baby boy. Moses was returned to his family until he was old
enough for Pharaoh’s daughter to adopt. He became her son and she named him
Moses saying, “I drew him out of the water”
(Exodus 2:10)
Isn’t
this just like God? Pharaoh ordered the deaths of all Hebrew baby
boys. His own daughter finds this one baby boy and is moved to make him her own
son. And then, she named him Moses which sounds like the Hebrew for draw out.
Even his name testifies to his divine deliverance. God used Pharaoh’s daughter
to deliver the one He would later use to deliver His people from Egypt. We
serve an amazing God!
A Deliverer
For God
Moses was 80 years old when God called him from his forced place of
exile as a shepherd hiding from Pharaoh for fear he would be executed for
killing an Egyptian 40 years earlier. Moses becomes an unwilling addition to
the cast used by God to deliver and rescue His people. When God speaks to Moses
from a burning bush Moses does everything he can to refuse the role for which
God has been preparing him since birth. God, however, has His purpose and His
person in mind.
The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my
people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers,
and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them
from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a
good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…
Exodus
3:7-8 NIV
I think Moses was all for God’s plan to this point. Then God says,
So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people
the Israelites out of Egypt.
Exodus
3:10 NIV
How many of you have seen Charlton Heston play the part
of Moses in the movie The Ten Commandments? You know,
then, that Moses eventually accepts the call and through the display of many
miraculous signs culminating in the death of all the first-born in Egypt, God
rescues His people. Pharaoh finally surrenders to God’s command issued through
Moses to, “Let My people go.” You have to love it when a plan comes together.
It all started with a baby boy delivered from his death sentence to become the
deliverer of God’s people. Moses was a baby who changed everything!
Jesus:
The Provider of Deliverance
The rescue God accomplished through Moses in a specific situation He
later did on a much larger scale through Jesus. Jesus is THE Baby who changed
everything. The parallels between Moses and Jesus are actually quite
incredible.
Delivered
By God
The visit of the Magi is one of the favorite scenes highlighted during
the celebration of Christmas. Their arrival in Jerusalem caused quite a stir as
they inquired about the recent birth of the King of the Jews. As the present
ruler, King Herod was disturbed. After consulting with the chief priests and
the teachers of the law he pointed the wise men toward Bethlehem with the
request that they return to tell him exactly where this new king could be
found.
God intervenes to protect Jesus against Herod.
And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod,
they returned to their country by another route. Matthew
2:12 NIV
Having warned the Magi, God next warns Joseph.
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph
in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother
and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search
for the child to kill him." Matthew 2:13 NIV
They left; Herod’s wrath raged; baby boys were killed; parents
mourned. The beauty of the Magi’s visit disintegrates into gruesome ugliness.
It is against this backdrop that we can truly appreciate that Jesus was sent to
be
The
Deliverer For God
Jesus came to earth to deliver people from sin. He came to rescue us
from Satan’s tyrannical rule. Anything that falls short of this robs Christmas
of its meaning. In a prior dream God’s purpose had been explained to Joseph to
help him deal with his fiancée’s unexpected—and unexplainable—pregnancy.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be
afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from
the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name
Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Matthew
1:21-23 NIV
Charles Colson captures the wonder of Christmas.
When
God wanted to defeat sin, his ultimate weapon was the sacrifice of his own Son.
On Christmas Day two thousand years ago, the birth of a tiny baby in an obscure
village in the Middle East was God’s supreme triumph of good over evil. The Glory of Christmas, p. 12
Don’t miss this as you look into the manger for a glimpse of the baby.
Jesus was more than a baby; Jesus was the baby who changed everything.
Christians:
The Messengers of Deliverance
Delivered
By God
The main story line of the Bible is God moving to redeem people. He
longs to win your heart, but it requires a price to atone for—to make amends
for—the sin that separates you from God. The story line is developed throughout
the Old Testament as God’s people offer the required sacrifice, particularly on
the Day of Atonement. The story has some glorious moments and others that are
marked as shameful reminders of the dangers of forgetting God. All of it points
to the birth of the baby Messiah to be the redeemer of the world.
He was born
to be your Redeemer. He was born to deliver you from sin. He was born to rescue
you from Satan. In celebrating God’s deliverance Paul wrote,
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and
brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14
NIV
Christmas is God’s ultimate move to deliver you. After Jesus, nothing was
left in reserve. There was no back-up plan. Paul uses the picture of someone
who has been taken captive being rescued by a superior, stronger deliverer.
Through Jesus you have been:
Rescued From The Dominion Of Darkness
This is one of Paul’s favorite themes. Without Jesus we were
spiritually dead. We lived in spiritual darkness. We were ruled by the Prince
of Darkness.
Brought Into The Kingdom Of The Son He Loves
In this kingdom we have redemption. The required price for exchange
has been paid. The ransom is the life of Jesus and provides for the forgiveness
of our sins.
See if these words from Max Lucado
provide increased meaning.
Untethered
by time, God sees us all. From the backwoods of Virginia to the business
district of London; from the Vikings to the astronauts, from the cave-dwellers
to the kings, from the hut-builders to the finger-pointers to the
rock-stackers, he sees us. Vagabonds and ragamuffins all, he saw us before we
were born.
And
he loves what he sees. Flooded by emotion; overcome by pride, the Starmaker
turns to us, one by one, and says, “You are my child. I love you dearly. I’m
aware that someday you’ll turn from me and walk away. But I want you to know,
I’ve already provided a way back.
And
to prove it, he did something extraordinary.
Stepping
from the throne, he removed his robe of light and wrapped himself in skin:
pigmented, human skin. The light of the universe entered a dark, wet womb. He
whom angels worship nestled himself in the placenta of a peasant, was birthed
into the cold night, and then slept on cow’s hay.
Mary
didn’t know whether to give him milk or give him praise, but she gave him both
since he was, as near as she could figure, hungry and holy.
Joseph
didn’t know whether to call him Junior or Father. But in the end he called him
Jesus, since that’s what the angel had said and since he didn’t have the
faintest idea what to name a God he could cradle in his arms.
Don’t
you think… their heads tilted and their minds wondered, “What in the world are
you doing, God?” Or better phrased, “God, what are you doing in the world?”
“Can
anything make me stop loving you?” God asks. “Watch me speak your language,
sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the maker of sight and sound
as he sneezes, coughs and blows his nose. You wonder if I understand how you
feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth; that’s God walking to
school. Ponder the toddler at Mary’s table; that’s God spilling his milk.
“You
wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a
craggy hill. That’s me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and
bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked.
“That’s
your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying. That’s your resurrection I’m
living. That’s how much I love you.” The
Glory of Christmas, pp. 13-14
We need to
unwrap three gifts given to us by God at Christmas.
The Gift of Salvation
This is the beginning point. God wants a personal relationship with
you. It begins by letting Him know you want to become a follower of Jesus.
The Gift of Freedom
When God forgives you, He sets you free. There isn’t a single sin in
your life where He says, “I’m sorry, you have to pay for that one yourself.”
When Jesus sets you free, you are free in every way for every day.
The Gift of Testimony
Knowing how much God loves us and how much He does for us and how
great a cost He sacrificed for us, I can hardly believe God decided to use us
to tell others about this incredible news.
This brings me to this astounding point. You are…
A Deliverer
For God
You are able to show others the way to God. You are able to lead them
away from darkness and point them to the light. Just as Moses led Israel out of
slavery in Egypt you are able to lead people out of slavery to sin.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who
called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a
people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but
now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV
God used a baby to change everything for you so you can now declare
His praises! I wonder, “What have you found to celebrate that you could share
with someone else?”
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