Rev. David Holwick ZP First Baptist Church Ledgewood, New Jersey December 20, 2015 Luke 2:8-14 THE MESSENGERS OF JOY I. Our angel-maker. A. The ministry of Mary Valenti. 1) At Thursday night's pageant practice, Mary had partially- assembled angel wings available. 2) There were just cardboard, but by tonight they will be covered in chicken feathers, just like real angel wings. B. How many of you have been an angel at a Christmas pageant? 1) It is a standard role in every church around the world. 2) We may play angels, but we rarely experience them. a) For most people, they are the stuff of fairy tales. b) Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life" - when a bell rings, a person gets their angel wings. 1> For some reason I have never seen that in the Bible. C. Are angels more than fairy tales and kids' stuff? 1) Many people don't believe in them, but many do. a) 8 in 10 Americans (77%) believe angels exist. b) 4 out of 10 non-religious people even believe in them. [1] 2) Do we believe in them correctly? a) A lot of the stuff out there is tied to New Age beliefs, not the Bible. b) Since Jesus believed in them, we should seek to understand them. 1> For Christmas alone, angels did the following: A> Told Mary she would be pregnant. B> Told Joseph it was OK to marry her anyway. C> Picked out the name for Jesus. D> Announced his birth to shepherds, and sang the first Christmas carol. E> After birth, warned the family to flee to Egypt. 2> Angels helped Jesus at his temptation, in garden of Gethsemane, and rolled away the stone on Easter. 3> They may be able to help us as well. II. Angels are awesome. A. They can have an amazing appearance. 1) Sometimes they appear as super-bright beings that cause people to swoon. a) A typical reaction is wanting to die, or wanting to fall down and worship them. b) The most common angelic message - "Don't be afraid." c) When a man calls his girl an angel, he is really saying she is terrifying to behold. 2) Sometimes they appear as humans (always male). a) They can walk, and eat, but they can also disappear into the sky. 3) Angels do not have wings (sorry, Mary Valenti). a) My new Christmas tree angel from Walmart has fiber-optic material in the wings that glow different colors. b) Real angels do not. c) There are beings in heaven with wings, such as the seraphim and Living Creatures of the book of Revelation, but they are not called angels. B. Angels are essentially spiritual in nature. Hebrews 1:14 1) They were created by God. 2) They were given free wills, and some turned from God. a) These are called the fallen angels and they seem to be related to demons in the Bible. b) Angels can fall but they cannot turn back - salvation is not available to them. c) Those who didn't fall will exist forever. C. Angels are not dead people. 1) It is a popular idea that people become angels when they die and are given wings. a) It was popular even in Bible days, so that when Peter was miraculously released from prison by God, and he showed up back at the meeting house, they thought it was his angel. Acts 12:15 b) Angels are associated with the journey to heaven, but they are always distinct from humans. 2) As a matter of fact, humans are better than angels. a) Humans are God's greatest creation. Psalm 8 1> We are "a little lower" than the angels for now, but we end up much more glorious later. 2> Our impressiveness is solely due to God's desire. For some unexplained reason, God has chosen to invest the future not in angels but in us. We humans are frail and subject to death, prone to temptation, notoriously wishy-washy, inept at worship. The philosopher Pascal called humans "the scum and glory of the universe." There is no clear indication in the Bible how God feels about angels. Yet we do know how he feels about human beings: for some incomprehensible reason, he loves us. b) Only humans can be redeemed and experience salvation. 1> Angels can just dream about this. 1 Peter 1:12 III. Angels have an important mission. A. They bring messages from God to us. 1) The word "angel" is Greek for messenger. 2) At the first Christmas they had a special message of joy. a) A whole crew of them announced the good news to a bunch of shepherds. b) Little guys get the blessing, not the rulers and shakers of the world. 3) Joy is often in short supply at Christmas. a) A question from writer Diana Davis: "Be brutally honest. Which of these two phrases do you exclaim most often this time of year: "Merry Christmas!" or "I'm so busy!" #65009 b) I admit I tend to fall into the second vein. When a Christian spends the Christmas season in stress mode, that doesn't honor God. That's not what the angels want. 4) Sometimes the angelic message is darker. a) Angels are given the task of announcing God's judgment. b) The darkness, or lightness, of the message depends on how you respond to it. B. Angels can help us. 1) One of their main duties is to minister to believers. Hebrews 1:14 says, "Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?" a) How do they serve us? 1> They offer encouragement in dark situations. 2> They can see that help or food arrives in time. 3> They can deliver us from danger. 4> In some passages, angels are said to fight unseen battles on our behalf. b) Elisha's experience in 2 Kings 6. 1> A foreign king sent an army to kill the prophet. 2> Elisha and his servant were surrounded and the servant began to understandably panic. 3> Elisha reassured him: 2 Kings 6:16-17 -- "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. c) Can this happen for you? It must not be very common, but I have heard of modern accounts. Missionary John Paton evangelized the Pacific island of Vanuatu in the 1860s. It was a very hostile environment. One night armed men surrounded his mission headquarters, intent on setting it on fire with the Paton family inside. He and his wife prayed throughout that terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came, they were amazed to see the attackers gone. They thanked God for delivering them. A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Mr. Paton asked the chief what had kept him and his men from burning down the house and killing them. The chief said, "who were all those men you had with you there?" The missionary answered, "there were no men there; just my wife and I." The chief insisted that they had seen many big guys in bright clothes with drawn swords surrounding the station. Paton and his wife gave the credit to protective angels. #10810 C. Many people believe in guardian angels. 1) This is the concept that we have personal angels who are specifically assigned to protect us. 2) Jesus does say that small children have angels that always behold the face of God on their behalf, but that is not exactly the same thing. Matthew 18:10 3) It would raise interesting theological issues: if two Christians are involved in an accident and one survives and one dies, did a guardian angel fail? a) It may depend on how long our perspective is. b) Even Jesus had angels help him at the end, but he still died on a cross. But then came Easter. IV. Angels are good but Jesus is better. A. It is natural to be fascinated by the supernatural. 1) Having access to unseen power is attractive to us. 2) It is like owning Kryptonite. B. Don't let an interest in angels lead you astray. 1) The Bible warns about the danger of worshipping angels. a) I think some New Age people fall into that. 2) People also like angels because they are cute and non-judgmental. They do nice things for us. a) At least, the way our culture portrays them. b) Read the book of Revelation for a more rounded view. C. Seek what angels cannot have. 1) Jesus got his name because his mission was to save us. 2) Has he saved you? ========================================================================= SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON: [1] “Poll: Nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe in angels ,” Associated Press, December 23, 2011; <link> #10810 “Protected By Angels,” Rev. Robert D. Fetterhoff's, from his sermon "Angels in My Life?", Kerux sermon #22055. #65009 “Be A Joy Whisperer,” Diana Davis, Baptist Press, December 16, 2015; <http://www.baptistpress.org>. These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html ========================================================================= |
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