Christ Formed in You Message #2 “Fetus” Ed Miller Aug. 17, 2024
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Listen to the audio above while following along in the transcript below which is available for download at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com
WELCOME AND PRAYER
As we come to the study of God’s word, there’s a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable, a principle that we cannot take for granted, and that is total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit. He gave us the Bible, He inspired it in the first place, He breathed it, and He’s near enough to breathe on it again, and to make it Live. He desires to do that, so we can end up with a revelation of the revelation. This is the word of God, and when God breathes on it, we see Him. There’s no process of academics on earth than can press through to the revelation of Christ. We are not glorifying ignorance and saying not to study. We need the human side but, oh, we also need the divine side.
I want to share three verses before we pray together. Ephesians 5:13-14,
“All things become visible when they are exposed by the light. Everything that becomes visible is light; for this reason, awake sleeper and rise from the dead and Christ will dawn on you.”
That’s a wonderful verse; “…awake, sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will dawn on you.” And so, if you are sleeping, the voice of the Son of God that raises the dead, wants to dawn on you. Here’s the other verse. Luke 9:32 (the transfiguration),
“And when they were fully awake, they saw His glory.”
“Awake, sleeper, and Christ will dawn on you.” Rise from the dead, “And when they are fully awake, they will see His glory.” Let’s not only ask the Lord to wake us up, but ask Him to make us fully awake to see His glory.
Father, we know it’s a great thing to ask, but we know Thou art a great God. So, we come now to ask it; make us fully awake so that we might see the glory of the Son of God. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
REVIEW
We are looking at the thirty years of preparation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are looking at those events that took place in the first thirty years, not in an isolated way, but in order that we might see God’s heart, as our Lord Jesus matures from a seed, all the way to a prepared Person who could give redemption to the world and become the perfect Savior and the perfect priest. We’re looking at this section as a whole. We’re not really concerned with all of the different things we can see in those thirty years.
I think the chief revelation of our Lord Jesus during those thirty years is that He came to be the Second Man and He came on earth to be the Last Adam. He came to earth to represent us, to be our substitute and to live in our place, in our stead and in our behalf. He was our representative. The second thing is that our great representative, the Second Man, the Last Adam, lived in our behalf as our substitute, and He completely obeyed and maintained a simplicity and loyalty to His holy Father God, so that at the end of the preparation, the heavens could open and God could say, Matthew 3:17,
“This is My beloved Son; in Him I am well pleased.”
He satisfied God.
The third thing we saw was how God revealed our Lord Jesus in those thirty years. You will not find another segment of scripture, I don’t believe, that gives Christ in the same way. There’s no other block of scripture that presents in a graphic way the progressive revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this section we see Jesus maturing and growing. He begins as a seed and then becomes an infant, and then a child, and then young adult, and so on, all the way to maturity. You can trace it by studying the events in the Bible. God doesn’t tell us everything. This is one of the great illustrations of intentional selection. The Bible is not the record of everything; it’s the record of Jesus, the record of salvation; it’s the story of redemption.
God gives us those things that show us redemption and our Lord Jesus Christ. I tried to find verses that actually said, “This is why I came.” Let me give you a few in machine gun style:
Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”
John 18:37, “For this cause I was born into this world; to testify of the truth.”
Hebrew 10:5, “I come to do Thy will, oh God.”
Hebrews 2:9, “He came to taste death for every man.”
Hebrews 2:19, “…to render powerless him who had the power of death.”
Hebrews 2:17, “He came and was manifest to be a faithful and merciful high priest.”
John 3:16, “…to give Life to those who believe.”
Hebrews 9:26, “He was manifest to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
1 John 4:14, “…to be the Savior of the world.”
Ephesians 5:27. “…to purify unto Himself a holy people.”
John 10:10, “To give life and give it more abundantly.”
1 John 5:20, “He came that we might know Him Who is true.”
Every one of those verses refers to three and a half years – not thirty years. That’s His whole ministry. He came to set us free, to die for us, to be our Redeemer. But before He could start His ministry, He had to grow and grow, and then He finally matured and became a perfect Savior, and then ministry could begin. As He came, He comes. As He matured then, He matures now. We get so excited about being His servants and His ministers. I ministered for Him a long time before He started ministering through me, because sometimes He matures in many different ways.
Our Lord came to be a representative then, to show us that He wants to be a representative now in our lives. He lived a life that pleased the Father then, and He lived a holy life to show us that He does it now, and to please the Father, and bring satisfaction to Him, maintaining our simplicity and devotion to Christ, and to honor Him. He was progressively revealed then, and that’s how He is now. As He came, he comes. As He worked then, He works now. As He was progressively revealed then, in exactly the same way, illustrated by those marvelous familiar Bible stories, He will progressively be manifested in our hearts. This is a prayer I’ve been praying for myself and for all of you for this weekend. In Galatians, the sigh of the Apostle Paul writing to Christians, Galatians 4:19,
“I’m in labor, in travail over you, until Christ be formed in you.”
We’ve talked in the past about the importance of growing in Christ Jesus. This weekend it’s Paul’s sigh, “Christ be formed in you.” That’s not you growing in Christ but Christ growing in you. You know in Genesis, when God laid down all the principles illustrated by nature, and talked about the seed that produces seed after its own kind? Genesis 1:11-12,
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
An apple tree will always give apples, and a pear tree will always give pears, and grapes will always bring forth grapes. 1 John 3:9 tells us that His seed abides in us,
“… His seed abides in him; …he is born of God.”
What is my hope for being conformed to Christ one day? My hope is that the seed brings forth after its kind; and I have the seed of Christ in me.
Some of you may have loved ones, and your hearts are broken, and you look at their lives and say, “I know they accepted Christ and things were going right and then they got messed up. They got off the path and off the trail.” You be encouraged because Christ will mature in that one. If that seed is there, it’s going to come. We’re going to look at some of the stages, and we’ll remember how it was when He was a fetus, and when He was an infant, and when He was a young adult in us. This isn’t something that you do, or I do. I speak this boldly but carefully; it’s not even something that you let Him do. He’s going to do it, and He’s going to do it after the pattern of the thirty years. We need to watch that. We need to see that— “…until Christ is formed in you.”
Lillian wanted me to warn you about a problem with this whole approach. The problem is that maybe you’ll try to measure yourself and say, “Is Christ a twelve-year-old in my heart? Is Christ still an infant in my heart?” Don’t go examining that, because at every stage of life, you have every stage. It doesn’t go away. It’s that little stream that flows into the brook that flows into the river and then flows into the sea. Do you remember the last time you recited your ABC’s? I bet you use them every day and in different combinations. We never leave our ABC’s. We don’t recite them anymore, but we still have them. So, you’ll see all of these principles in every stage, but in a special way, you’ll see Jesus as He grows. The way He grows in the gospel record is the way He wants to grow in your life. The way He matured then in His body, is the way He wants to mature again in His body. May God help us as we look at these things!
JESUS’ CONCEPTION
We’ll be starting now with conception; the time when Jesus was in the womb. That’s early; that’s young. We will spend all our time looking at that time, the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy. Have you ever heard a message on Mary’s pregnancy? As you would expect, the principles we share will be closely connected to God’s instrument, Mary. Before we look at this more closely, let me mention this. It’s not an accident that Mary is God’s first picture of the church in the New Testament. There are many pictures of the church: the bride and the groom, the head and the body, the foundation and the superstructure, and the New Jerusalem. There are many pictures of the church in the New Testament, but the first one is this virgin from Nazareth.
What is Mary’s great contribution to the history of redemption? God used her to give Christ to the world. What is the great contribution of the church to the history of redemption? And the answer is to give Christ to the world. How did Mary do it? The answer is that the Holy Spirit formed Christ in her and in the fullness of time she gave Christ to the world. How does the church do it? The answer is, the Holy Spirit forms Christ in her, and in the fullness of time she gives Christ to the world. When the virgin Mary has Christ formed in her, she identified with Jesus in such a way that there was no human explanation. In fact, the opposite was true; and she identified with Him outside the camp. What was true of Mary, a picture of the church, is true of the church. So, in our discussion of Christ as a fetus, Christ in the womb, we can’t leave Mary out because she’s so connected to that picture. And so, we’ll be looking at the principles in terms of that dear instrument of God. There are four stories and each of those stories contains a principle. We aren’t looking at them in an isolated way; we’re trying to see God’s heart in the whole thing. So, I want to show you the big steps, the big principles.
The difference between conception and birth
Before we begin our look at the first story, Gabriel sent by God to the Virgin Mary, I want to call attention to the difference between conception and birth. There are many months between them, and we all can recite our day of birth. But if I asked you to name the day and the hour and the moment that you were conceived, you might in a general way say, “Nine months before that.” But you couldn’t nail it down or pinpoint the exact moment. Usually when people give their testimony, they say, “I was saved on such and such a day.” For me, I know the day – Feb. 29, 1958. Usually, you are describing the birth and not the conception. Fact is, God began working long before that crisis when you raised your hand or signed the card and came forward.
My wife, Lillian, didn’t have a date for her conversion. She grew up in a Lutheran home, and they were so Bible centered that she just grew up knowing the truth of God. It bothered her. Every time there was an invitation, she would go through it again and again and again, and she got saved over and over. She could get no assurance. Finally, after several years of this, we knelt down together and I started to pray, and I just asked the Lord to give her assurance, and she just kept crying, and there was no assurance. After a long season of prayer, I started singing, “Thank you Lord for saving my soul.” I kept singing it over and over, and she just kept crying, and then she joined in, and when she sang, “Thank you Lord for saving my soul,” a sweet peace came over her heart, and she got assurance because she stopped saying “please” and started saying “thank You”. She then entered into that great assurance.
I tell you that because usually when people give the date, they give the wrong date. When our Lord Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about heavenly things, He gave an illustration of a heavenly thing, and He used the wind as an illustration. And he said, John 3:8,
“The wind blows where it wishes; you’ll hear the sound, but you don’t know from whence it started and where it’s going; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.”
I used to think that was God’s picture of the Holy Spirit. It’s not! Read the text, “So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” It’s not the Holy Spirit; it’s those born of the Holy Spirit. It’s God’s illustration of a Christian. According to that verse, nobody knows when it started and where it’s going. If you don’t have a date, don’t worry. It isn’t when you trusted Christ, it’s are you trusting Him in this moment.
It must be a virgin birth – not by flesh
Luke 1:26,
“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God into a city in Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came into her and said, ‘Hail, thou art highly favored; the Lord is with thee.’ But she was greatly troubled by the saying and kept pondering what manner of salutation this might be. And the angel said unto her, ‘Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thou womb and bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus and He shall be great and called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His Father David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His Kingdom there shall be no end.’ And Mary said unto the angel, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ And the angel answered and said unto her, ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Wherefore, also, the Holy One that has been begotten shall be called the Son of God. Behold, Elizabeth, your kinswoman, she also has conceived a son in her old age. This is the sixth month with her that was called barren; for no word of God shall be void of power.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”
Let me come to the first principle illustrated by this text that sort of implants the life of Christ into the believer. The very beginning of Christ’s life in Mary, and the very beginning of Christ’s life in those pictured by Mary, is connected with the word “virgin”. The first principle has to do with “virgin”. Luke 1:27, He was sent to a virgin. There can be no life of Christ apart from the principle of virginity. And so, we need to understand that principle. The theologians insist that we must believe in the virgin birth. That’s one of the essentials; it’s fundamental. You’ve got to believe in the deity of Christ, and believe in salvation by grace, and in the bodily resurrection, and in the return of the Jesus Christ. And in that list, they list the virgin birth. So, they have the whole list of essentials.
Theologians give two reasons for the virgin birth. The first one is that they say it enabled Jesus to be born without a sin nature; the sin nature comes through the man and by not having a father. Jesus was free from the sin nature. I’ve never been able to make that my own. I know that he was born without a sin nature, I’m just not sure that it’s because Mary was a virgin. I think it might be because the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and did a mighty miracle. It might just be that simple. The other reason is because it enabled Jesus to bypass the curse of Jeconiah. When you come to the genealogy of Jesus in the gospel record, there are two of them. Matthew gives one and Luke gives one. They aren’t the same. Matthew chapter 1:1-16 traces the line through Joseph, the stepfather of our Lord Jesus, and he goes all the way back and shows that Joseph is descended from David. Luke traces Mary’s genealogy and goes all the way back and shows that she’s descended from David. You might ask why the genealogy needs to be traced through both Mary and Joseph and why one wouldn’t do.
David had two lines; one of his descendants went this way through Nathan, and one went another way; it’s this other line that was the royal line. Kings couldn’t come through Nathan. So, when you trace the kingly line, you end up with Joseph. The problem is, just before you get to Joseph, you get to a guy named Jeconiah or Jehoiachin. The point is in Matthew 1:11 is he messed up. Jeremiah 22:30 writes this curse,
“Write this man down childless; a man who will not prosper in his day. No descendant of his will ever sit upon the throne of David.”
So, they’ve got a problem. A king has got to come through this line but here’s a man that’s cursed; so after him, there’s never to be a king. I bet Satan was rejoicing when Jeconiah got cursed, “I did it; I stopped the Messianic line!”
Could Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, inherit David’s throne? The answer is no; he’s in the right line but he’s cursed. He had a legal right but that’s all he had. Could the natural sons of Joseph, the brothers of Jesus, have become king? No. Why? It’s because of the curse of Jeconiah. The theologians point out that there was one answer to that; God virgin-birthed on the devil and got around the curse. Christ coming through that line had a legal right to the throne, but because He was not naturally through that line, He by-passed the curse. There was no other answer in the universe for Messiah to come except through the virgin birth. But that misses God’s heart. That’s not why God told us about the virgin birth. Technically that’s true, but there’s a principle, and that’s what I’m after. So, let’s look at the principle of the virgin birth.
I think if you asked the average Christian what the principle is of virginity of the virgin birth, I think nine times out of ten they would say, “purity, holiness, cleanness, piety”. I really don’t think that’s the principle here. Was Mary chosen because she was holy? She was a virgin. There are places that teach the “immaculate conception” and what they mean by that is, not that Jesus was immaculately conceived, but his mother was; Mary was. We’re not talking about holiness here; that misses God’s point. I think the principle of the virgin birth is grace. Mary’s answer to Gabriel was this, Luke 1:34,
“How can this be since I know no man?”
That’s the point. God is going to do something, and man is left out. This has to be done without flesh. Man can’t have any part in it. She asked how that could happen if man is left out of it. Luke 1:35,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you; the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.”
The Holy Spirit will do it; He’ll form Christ in you. As I understand it, that’s the first principle of conception. You look back in your mind when Christ was first formed in you, and somewhere along the way somebody told you or God dawned it on you or you read that man has no part in this; it’s only God’s work. That’s how it begins with the virgin birth; the discovery that it’s not by man but it’s by the Lord. When Isaiah said in a prophecy of a child born and a son given, he adds, Isaiah 9:7,
“The zeal of the Lord will perform this.”
See, it’s got to be a miracle. With Elizabeth it was too late for man because she was old. With Mary it’s too early for man because she’s young.
Mary responds, Luke 1:38,
“Behold the bond slave of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Notice what she didn’t say. She didn’t say, “Alright, Lord, I’ve understood what the angel said and now I’m ready to do something.” She didn’t say, “What shall I do?” She said, “Be it done unto me.” All our doing is done and that’s why Isaiah, when he saw the Lord, he said, “I’m undone.” So, this is the very beginning of the life of Christ in us. Somewhere along the way we hear that it’s not by flesh; it’s by Spirit; it’s not by works, lest any man should boast; it’s by the Lord. It’s the principle of the virgin birth. In that precious hour, the Holy Spirit forms Christ in us.
Filled with emotional joy
At this stage, when we understand that it’s God, and man has no part in it, and it’s not by works, if you read the record, the only change that takes place in Mary (the Lord is so tiny and can’t yet be seen) is that she is filled with the exuberance of emotional joy. She has a new song in her heart; that’s the “Magnificat” and she begins to sing this song of praise to the Lord because God has written a new song in her heart. It’s at this point that she begins to sing, Luke 1:46-47,
“My soul doth magnify the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.”
At that point when Christ is first formed in you, you don’t know a lot, but you know that it’s not by works; it’s by the Holy Spirit. And all you say is, “Be it done.” All of a sudden, your heart is filled with joy and you have a song in your heart, a Magnificat, a praise that comes out of your heart. That’s how it is at the beginning. Elizabeth said to Mary in her greeting, which can be said to every virgin who has ever come to God apart from flesh, Luke 1:45,
“Blessed is the one that believed; that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken by the Lord.”
Desire to meet with others with the same experience
Luke 1:36-37,
“And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.For with God nothing shall be impossible.”
Luke 1:39,
“And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.”
What principle is illustrated by the mutual exchange of greetings between Mary and Elizabeth? I’ll tell the story in light of this wonderful principle. At this point Christ has been conceived in Mary. I don’t know if she knows it yet or not. There’s no manifestation of it outwardly. Christ is in her so small, just a seed and there’s no outward manifestation except if you look at her emotional joy and her excitement. We see from reading the record that she does have this wonderful song. The next thing we see is that she has this gravitational pull, this desire to go see someone who has been prepared by the Lord and has had a similar experience. She is inclined to go immediately to Elizabeth.
Do you know how God tells us that John the Baptizer is the forerunner of Christ and how he is the voice in advance and how he got people ready to meet the Lord? Well, here’s the first record of it. God used John the Baptist to prepare Elizabeth and Zacharias. Even though at that time there was a little bit of a work to be done on Zacharias—His mouth and His were ears shut because of unbelief—yet God had begun to do a work, and Mary sensed it. Mary begins to gravitate now to her relative’s house. Has it dawned on you that it’s not by works but by the Holy Spirit? You bow before the Lord, and don’t even know what to pray. “Be it done. You do it.” Remember, He did it!
You came as a virgin, and He met you. In that holy moment you were filled with excitement and joy, and your heart was bubbling over on all sides, and you found yourself strangely attracted to others who had been prepared by God in a similar way, and you began to run to them. It must have been a wonderful time of fellowship that Mary had with Elizabeth and Zacharias. I would have loved to have been there. They were prepared by God. Christ is a fetus in the womb, and someone is about to bring Christ to their door. As Mary brings Christ to Zacharias and Elizabeth, a Christ so small you can’t even begin to see Him, Mary came to the door (I’m not even sure that she knew she was pregnant till she got to the door and Elizabeth addressed her as “mother”, not “mother to be”), “How can the mother of my Lord come here?” She already has Christ in her. What fellowship they must have had for those two months!
There’s an unhealthy attachment to the instruments
Are you ever uncomfortable reading Luke 1:42-43,
“She lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said, ‘Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb; whence is this to me that the mother of the Lord should come to me.”?
I’ll be honest with you, that passage has bothered me. It’s too Mary centered. I speak as a fool, you know that! It’s too instrument centered. Mary seems to be bigger than Christ. Do you know why? Because Mary is bigger than Christ at this stage. The one who brings Christ to your door is sometimes bigger than the Christ they carry as they bring Christ to your door. I read this and can understand how some people venerate Mary.
Elizabeth did not say, “How is it that the Lord should come to me?” She said, “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is describing a very early stage of the development of Christ. When He is young in those early stages, when you can hardly see Him, there’s a tendency to look to the instrument that brings Him to your door, rather than to the Christ that they bring.
My firstborn son David sits back there; he was named after the man that brought me to the Lord. He wasn’t named after the David of the Bible. I have nothing against the David of the Bible. The man who brought me to the Lord was David Kraft. I was in high school at the time, and he was the captain of the football team. I was a nerd! He was the valedictorian of our class, the most popular kid in the school. He tutored me in chemistry and took me to church every week. He took me to a Youth for Christ rally in 1958 where I first met the Lord. You better believe that I named my son after him! Was I instrument centered? Sure, I was! How could it be that the captain of the football team would come to my door? That’s how it was! He picked me up in his car; I was somebody in his eyes and he brought me to Christ.
See, at that time I had a very unhealthy attachment. In the Yearbook it said that David was going to be a medical missionary in Africa. Listen to mine: medical missionary in Korea! That’s my high school yearbook! Why did I write something like that? It was because a very precious instrument brought Christ to my door and at that time I couldn’t see Christ; I only saw the instrument. It’s not bad. I’m not condemning it. It’s just the way it is in those early stages. You become man-centered, instrument-centered and from there I began to look at many instruments, and I began to follow instruments in books. I began to follow Spurgeon and Watchman Nee and George Mueller.
The real mentor who God used to turn me around was Frank Sells at Columbia Bible College. I was married when I asked that man if I could move in with him! I was serious! I just wanted to follow him around. I wanted to see what he was made of! You might say that it’s unhealthy, but that’s how it is when Christ is a fetus in your life. You don’t know a lot. You know it’s not by works, that it’s by the Spirit of God. You know you’re happy and you like to be around people that have had a similar experience, and you look in an unhealthy way to that precious instrument that God uses to bring Christ to your door. That’s how it is in the beginning.
There’s a problem trying to explain it, but God begins to deal in our loved ones lives
Matthew 1:18,
“Now the birth of Jesus was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child with the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. When he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, ‘Joseph, thou Son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’”
Matthew 1:23,
“Joseph rose from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took unto him his wife and knew her not until she had brought forth a son and called his name Jesus.”
We saw Mary in relation to God and she’s undone. We saw Mary in relation to those who have been prepared by the Lord, and she gravitates toward them to talk to them; she wants to be with them and spend time with those that have had a similar experience. Now we see her illustrated by Joseph in terms of her loved ones—her family and her fiancé. That’s her husband-to-be. That’s her future. That’s what girls dream about. That’s everything. He represents the closest of all relationships. When Christ was conceived in Mary she was put in a real spot. On the level of earth, there’s no explanation for this. You aren’t going to go home to your fiancé and say, “I’m pregnant; now let me explain.” That’s not going to work. Now, with her identification with the Lord Jesus Christ and by her union with Him, there was a tremendous possibility that she would have to go in another direction, away from her loved ones and her family, and that marriage might never take place.
I call attention to this to illustrate another wonderful principle when Christ is a fetus. When He’s a fetus, you don’t know a lot, but you know that it’s not by works; it’s by the Spirit of God. You know you’re happy and you know you have a Magnificat to sing. You don’t know a lot but you find yourself gravitating toward those who have been prepared by God who understand you and who you can talk to. You don’t know a lot, but you are thankful for the instrument who brings Christ to your door. You don’t know a lot but you know you’ve got a problem and you’ve got to try to explain.
I remember so well after I got saved trying to explain it to my Lutheran mother and my German grandmother, also a Lutheran, and my older sister. I did a lot of damage, really, as I was trying to ramrod the gospel down their throats. They didn’t understand. My mother was angry at me because she said that I was leaving the Lutheran church; that’s all. She didn’t have a clue. A lot of tears were shed at that time.
The Bible doesn’t tell us about Mary. I’m sure she and Joseph talked and had conversations. How do I know that? It’s because the Bible says that she was found to be with child, and he was ready to put her away. Can you hear her trying to explain? I bet she shed a lot of tears. I bet she tried again and again, trying to convince him over and over and over again. In Matthew 1:18-25, what do we learn? The answer is this, that God Himself will deal with our loved ones to show them what has happened in our lives. What a precious thing that happens when Christ is a fetus in our lives! We ramrodded the gospel down my mother (she used to have her little Bible, you know, under the sink). I would take it out and try to put it out in public, and I’d embarrass her, and tell her that she needed to get saved.
My sister was the first one after me to come to the Lord, but before that, I was going crazy because she was engaged to be married to someone she should not be married to. I was beating my head against the wall; I prayed, I cried, and I fasted. She didn’t want to hear it. As her marriage got closer and closer, she got upset one day and said that she was going to do something that she had never done. She didn’t know what that was. We were worried about her. She said, “I think I’ll go horseback riding.” So, she looked up this person who gave horseback riding lessons, and on her first horseback riding lesson, her teacher was a Christian and he led her to Christ. She ran into my arms and now both of us were together to “get” mom. We went after her. Then one day at a meeting at church, the pastor stood up and took his Bible and said, “We don’t need this. We need more money. We’ve got to build a bigger church so people will come.” And my shy mother stood up in that Lutheran church and said, “You need to be born again.” She came home and realized that she had never done with herself that which she had said to do in church. She got by herself and when we came home, she told us how she had accepted the Lord. That’s what happened to Joseph. That’s what happens when Christ is just a fetus in your life.
When I grew up, I hated my grandmother. I wanted her to die. One time she had a stroke, and I went up into the woods. I didn’t tell anybody. I let her lie on the kitchen floor. I wanted her to die. When I came back, she was still alive, and I was upset. After God began to work in my heart, I wanted to tell her about Christ. How could I? Then she had another stroke, and she was in a coma. I prayed that the Lord would give me one more chance. I went to see my grandmother as she was on her dying bed under an oxygen tent. I said, “Nanny, can you hear me?” She just laid there. “Nanny, can you hear me?” I saw a tear come down her face and I saw her blink. I said, “If you hear me blink twice.” And she blinked twice. I went through the gospel, and she accepted Christ with her eyes. She blinked herself into the kingdom.
That’s how it is when Christ is a fetus. You don’t know a lot, but you know it’s not by works. You know you’re happy in Christ and you want to be with other Christians. You have a very unhealthy relationship with the instruments God has brought because that’s how it is. You can’t explain anything, but God begins to work in your loved ones. That’s how it is when He’s a fetus.
The Lord is guiding the way through circumstances
One more story and we’ll close. Luke 2:1-7,
“It came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to enroll themselves, everyone to their own city. And Joseph also went out from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth and into Judea into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to enroll himself with Mary with whom she was betrothed to him, being great with child. It came to pass that while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered.”
As soon as Christ is conceived in a person, that person automatically lines up with the will of God and the purposes of God and the word of God. But remember, they don’t even know what the word is. At that stage they don’t know anything. When I came to Christ, I didn’t even know there were two testaments in the Bible! I didn’t know anything. Do you think that Mary knew that she had to go to Bethlehem? I doubt that she knew that. When you don’t know the word of God, God uses circumstances. I don’t know why he made that law to tax them at that time. They’re just living and doing their thing; and God is guiding them in His word. That’s how it is when you are a fetus. I don’t worry about new Christians. Some people get all upset, thinking they have to ground them thoroughly so that they don’t go astray. You don’t have to worry about the young Christians; they aren’t going astray, because when Christ is a fetus at that time, He is guiding them in His way. It’s amazing. Look back in your life. How many times has the Lord guided you? You don’t know anything and yet, when you look back you can see what God did to fulfill His work.
When I got saved, the next week at a Youth for Christ rally, they called on me to pray before a thousand people. That was stupid. I didn’t know anything. I asked God at that rally to save Satan! I did! What’s wrong with that? We could save a lot of time! You don’t know anything when Christ comes as a fetus, but you know that it’s not by works. You don’t know much, but you know that there’s a song in your heart. You don’t know much, but you know that if someone else had a similar experience, you’ve got to go talk to them. You don’t know much, but you begin to look to people. You don’t know much, but you begin to see God working in your loved ones and changing them. You can’t explain it. You don’t even know the word of God. The world is controlling things, and you are walking in the path of God. I was a “walking track-rack” within a week. I was the servant of the Lord, and He was a fetus in my heart. Was I prepared for ministry? Not yet. He wasn’t even born yet. I was doing what I thought was a great thing, but He still needs to grow.
Now the fetus needs to become an infant. When we look at Christ as an infant, what does it look like? We’ll look at that together in the next message. Then He matures and becomes a young adult. What does that look like? We’ll see the exact same principle. That’s how it is. And finally, He becomes a mature adult, and now He can begin to minister. That’s what He wants to do in our hearts. May God help us! Let’s pray…
Father, how we praise You that you are going to be formed in us, and that You are going to conform us to Christ, and You are going to come to maturity and minister to Your people. Lord, we don’t want to resist. We don’t want these nine months to take nine years. Help us, Lord, as we see how You develop and mature and we pray again, Lord, to form Christ in us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
