Embracing Awe: Bold Faith and Transformative Moments

"By publicly professing and affirming what Jesus has done and is continuing to do in your hearts, by making this profession of faith, you are not only believing what God says in his word, but you are putting that into action. By doing so, you agree with Paul that Jesus will not let you be put to shame, but you are also agreeing with Jesus' brother James when he wrote, What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but you do not show it by your actions?" [00:27:33] (31 seconds)


"This public profession is publicly acknowledging the saving work of God in you through the Holy Spirit. And by doing so, you, so putting yourself in a place where you are saying, I want to be a witness with my words and deeds for Jesus Christ. So today, ladies, we ask you these questions publicly. And if you agree, please respond with, I do." [00:28:39] (24 seconds)

"The act of salvation is from God. Like I said, by grace through faith. And this act of profession is to confirm what was started years ago by their parents. Today, we joyously welcome Morgan Randall, Madison Randall, and Reagan Dykstra into the family of Christ fully as they take this public step of professing their faith after being baptized as baby by their parents." [00:26:08] (27 seconds)


"As scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That is what we just sang about. Your name, Jesus, is a strong and mighty tower. All who call on him will be saved. And these ladies did just that." [00:27:02] (31 seconds)


"We believe that it is God who does the work of regeneration in each person, but yet we are also to respond to that work that he does in us because of what Paul's words and Jesus's words say. In our tradition, that sign and seal that we believe that Jesus calls his followers to do is done in baptism, and it's done by God through a parent which is brought to joyous completion on days like today." [00:24:03] (30 seconds)


"The shepherds that we are looking at today. We're looking at Luke 2 8 through 20. So if you would open up your scriptures to Luke 2 and again as we get ready to read from the scriptures a reminder that not all the gospels have the whole christmas story mark and john are pretty absent of it to some extent but luke and matthew between the two they document fairly well and we're in the second chapter of luke and we are moving over to a time where it's about ready for his birth to happen and an angel again a third angel appears to another group of people after god being silent for over 400 years he starts speaking speaking and starting in chapter 8 we're just going to verse 8 we're just going to read through here and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night an angel of the lord appeared to them and the glory of the lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them do not be afraid i bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people today in the town of david a savior has been born to you he is christ the lord this will be a sign to you you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising god and saying glory to god in the highest and on earth peace to men whom on whom his favor rests when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another let's go to bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the lord has told us about so they hurried off and found mary and joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger when they had seen him they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them but mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart the shepherds returned glorifying and praising god for all the things that they had heard and seen which were just as had been told as we begin to take a look at the shepherds bold response we need to see where their bold response started from and it started with awe it started with this sense of oh my goodness this i gotta do and you think about it in a moment it says that when they were in luke 2 9 it says that an angel of the lord appeared to them and the glory of the lord shone around them and they were terrified now this terrified in my mind when i read the word terrified that that word to me says scared out of your mind maybe a little p coming out right i mean that's kind of it right it's like you're just so scared i remember being a child in my mom and dad's house sleeping in the middle of the night and all of a sudden you hear this you're like what was that and you're still kind of sleeping and you think it's like dreaming and then you hear this again and then the realization happens it's a bat" [00:45:11] (0 seconds)


"All this to say that as we begin to be bold for Jesus, we need to first have that awe, that phobeo, the terrified, in a good way, of the Lord. Not scared that we're going to be struck down and punished, but because we're in the presence of someone so great that we just can't be normalized. There's a little bit of nervousness. Have you experienced that with God? We should." [00:54:53] (43 seconds)


"Because if we're going to be bold for Jesus, that is where we need to start. All of us need to be there. And I remember, and I've shared this story before, reading Scripture when God was drawing me to Him, reading Paul's letters to the churches in Corinth, in Rome, Galatia, and he's bringing these accounts against them, saying, this is what's wrong within you. You're not following God this way. You're not doing these things right. You are not doing this. You're not doing this. But all the while, calling them to repentance and reverence to God. And I remember sitting in my parents' basement, reading this when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, and having this realization going, uh -oh. It's me." [00:55:25] (55 seconds)


"That's where the beginning of the wisdom happens is the fear of the lord see our awe it inspires our boldness when we recognize of the greatness of the one who calls you and me that god that we worship that we've sung about that the girls profess their faith in that is this god who came to the shepherds and before we can be bold in our accounting for christ we need to have that fear of the lord fear reverence and awe of him but in that same vein once we have that when the holy spirit speaks to you and me what the shepherds did they didn't sit and talk about it well should we go i don't know the traffic's terrible this time of night i mean there's camels everywhere well they didn't say any of that they just went and that's our next point is that bold response it requires immediate action now i'll get to it one day if the timing's right but go now" [00:58:59] (83 seconds)


"if you hear his voice stop do go do it don't do it whatever like don't harden our hearts be attentive to the holy spirit see boldness it doesn't wait for the perfect conditions it moves at god's prompting that's what the shepherds did again i'm sure they could have had a million excuses not to go what about our sheep what's going to happen someone's got to stay here but they went they were bold they listened and they did so they were in awe and then they followed that up with a bold reaction of that awe but then it didn't stop there they just didn't go and here's the next thing that happened is that bold responsing or responses they lead to a bold witness" [01:05:11] (65 seconds)


"show you where i get that from in luke 2 17 through 18 it says when they had seen him jesus they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them they were in awe they moved they shared and all were amazed at what god did that's what happens when we have a bold response for jesus i was going to ask ken smiths if i could share this story but sorry ken i didn't ask you i'm just going to share this story that you told me the other day about the gentleman you ran into in madison um ken was sitting and i'm not sure exactly where you were sitting waiting and um i saw a gentleman with a cross around his neck and he asked you go to church he said well no and he started sharing a little bit about jesus and you need to get into a church so ken being bold sure feeling prompted by the spirit churches that were close by and it was a satellite church of my old church at door creek he says he pulled up on his phone he pulled the pastor he says this is the pastor of that church you should go" [01:08:16] (92 seconds)