Sunday, December 5, 2021: Luke 1:68-79, "Rescued"

There is an old story of a man who loved to tell others, “God will always take care of me, no matter what!”

One day on the weather report, the man saw that the river near his home was rising and their was a chance he would have to leave. The local fire rescue starting knocking on every door, including his, and encouraged everyone to take only what they could load in their cars and to evacuate immediately. The man told the fireman emphatically, “God will take care of me!” The waters from the river rose until the man had to go up to the second story of his home. A rescue boat came by and yelled for the man to get in. From his window he yelled, “God will take care of me!” A short time later, the man was on his roof. A rescue helicopter came by and prepared to pick him up. Again waved them off and yelled, “God will take care of me.” A short time later he the flood waters overtook him. When he came face to face with God he said, “God I thought you would take care of me no matter what?!” God said, “I sent a firetruck, a boat, and a helicopter. What more could I have done?!”

You and I are a lot like the man, aren’t we? We all need to be rescued, but a lot of times the only thing standing in the way of our being rescued is ourselves! We wave God off when He is ready to help us.

I invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to Luke 1: 68-79 (NIV). Please stand as you are able as we hear the Word together this morning:

68“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a horn[a] of salvation for us in the house of his servant David 70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), 71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us— 72 to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, 73  the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear 75  in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

And may glory be to God for the reading and the hearing of His Word this morning, “Thanks be to God.” You may be seated.

v. 73 says that we are the same part of the oath or promise or covenant that God gave to Abraham. As a part of that covenant, God stands ready to rescue us from our enemies. Who are our enemies on this earth? The dictionary defines an enemy as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something” and also “one who is antagonistic of another.” While we know what the noun means as it relates to a person, how about other items in our lives that might be our enemies from which we need to be rescued?

In the movie Taken, 17 year old Kim Mills is the pride and joy of her father Bryan’s heart.

If you don’t know the story she tricks him into allowing her to go on a trip to Paris with a young friend. When she arrives she is kidnapped by an Albanian gang of human traffickers. It’s a story of rescue. Taken is the story of a father who will stop at nothing to rescue his child.

That’s how it is with God. Jesus is God in the flesh. He came to this earth two thousand years ago to rescue us, not just forgive you but heal, redeem, and restore us too. God has already done impossible by Jesus being a ransom for our lives. He rescued us from the hell and damnation that we deserve.

Audrey Tilton shared a story about her dog in our staff meeting the other day. She told the story about how the dog was a rescue, but now they were running up a pretty hefty vet bill in order to bring their beloved pet back to life. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard the story. When I heard people say that before I having our Sadie, I could not understand it. Why would so much money and effort be invested in helped a dog? But then, after having Sadie in our lives for the last 14 years, I get it. Sadie has had her moments, but I love that dog dearly and would do a bunch in order to insure that she is able to live out her days as healthy and a happily as possible. The difference between us and God is that most of us would stop short of dying in order to rescue someone else. Yes, we may die for our kids if push came to shove, but other than that, I believe that we would think twice.

As a verb, to be rescued means that someone is saved from a dangerous or distressing situation, like if a fireman were called to rescue someone out in the middle of a raging river. As a noun, to rescue means the act of saving or being saved from distress as in someone coming to our rescue.

In the Old Testament, God rescued the Hebrew people from certain death as Moses raised his arms and God parted the Red Sea. Again and again the people were rescued from their enemies.

God speaks of being the rescuer as he says, ““For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

God sent Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to rescue His sheep and bring them back home. God’s rescue plan was starting to take place!

On January 13 1982 Kelly Moore began her day just as she always had, never suspecting what the day had in store for her. Two minutes after take off Air Florida flight 90 began losing altitude and crashed into a Bridge spanning the Potomac River. When Kelly came to she was in the frigid waters of the Potomac clinging to a piece of wreckage with five other survivors. One of the survivors clinging to that raft helped Kelly and the other four into the rescue harness of a hovering helicopter one by one before succumbing to hypothermia and slipping beneath the surface. And so that was how she was rescued the first time, by a stranger she had never met, who was later identified as Arland Williams.

Two days later Kelly was rescued again. When she was moved from intensive care to a regular room, she woke to see a nurse standing over her. The nurse smiled, covering Kelly’s fingers with her warm, gentle hand, and said, “Little girl, I could get in big trouble for telling you this, but God loves you and he saved you from that plane crash for a reason.” In response to Kelly’s eager interest, the nurse shared Jesus with Kelly. As the nurse spoke of how Jesus died for Kelly, Kelly responded by turning her life over to him. For the first time she felt real peace.

When she prayed to accept Christ, she asked God to show her how she could know more about him. She knew he would answer.

Two separate strangers in a course of two days risked their own life and comfort to rescue Kelly. Why? Maybe we should ask that of all people who risk life and limb to save babies from burning buildings, rescue motorists in mangled cars, and plunge into freezing water to save struggling swimmers. They are all ordinary people who came to a critical turning point and made an extraordinary decision to rescue someone whose life was in danger. And more often then not they put themselves in peril doing it. Listen again to what Kelly Moore said:

I don’t know why God saved me from the Potomac that day when others died, or why he answered my desperate prayers for contact with him. But I do know God used compassionate, ordinary people to bring his love to me when I desperately needed it. In his infinite mercy, he rescued me not once, but twice.

By the same token we need to realize that there is a literal life and death battle being waged all around us, everyday. There are people in our neighbourhood, in our families, in our place of work and perhaps other venues who are in jeopardy of facing eternal death, and they probably don’t even realize that they need rescuing.

Today, God is calling us all to be rescued by a relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. But we must not stop there. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who would stop at nothing to rescue us wants us to rescue others… not of our own power and strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit and we share the path to a relationship with Jesus with them as well.

Our rescue starts with inviting Jesus in.

I invite you at this time to pray the salvation poem, either to recommit your life to Christ or to allow Jesus to save you for the very first time. He loves you. Now, let him rescue you.

Salvation Poem