The One who Overshadows us!

Advent in 3-D
Part 4 Sunday December 18, 2005

Intro

Many if not most of us have heard the story of the angelic visitation to Mary. And many, if not most of us, have written off this story because it seems so far removed from anything we’ve ever experienced, or hope to experience.

If we come from a Catholic or sacramental background where the virgin Mary has been revered, she has often been placed so high on a pedestal that her experience is just beyond us…irrelevant because it is so divine and unique…On the other hand if we come from a Protestant background where we reject many of the traditions about Mary as being myths and “un-Biblical”, we simply write off the whole story as an exaggeration…

And yet there it is in the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke, in the Bible that we trust! So this morning I want us to just take this story-- in fact, I’d like us to dwell on just one word in this story—and consider the startling, the revolutionary truth it contains for you and me:

Point: supernatural happenings don’t just happen in superb settings:

• Was Mary at prayer when the annunciation occurred, or perhaps washing dishes—or scrubbing the floor?

• Was there a shaft of light on her face, or a streak of perspiration?

• Was she at a quiet, convenient, meditative time in her day, or was this encounter an interruption?

• Was she poised, as if she’d read a script in advance—or was she just plain frightened by the angel’s sudden appearance?

• Had her parents taught her to believe “you could be the one”—or had such a thought never entered her wildest imaginations??

• Was she beautiful, socially adept and personally desirable—Or was Mary possibly a plain girl with a simple faith, raised in an ordinary home, scheduled for an arranged marriage and a predictably uneventful future with the town carpenter?

Questions not meant to be an assault on tradition—but rather to confront us with the truth and the Good News in the Bible!....

Our loving God is as interested in impregnating you and me with the life of Jesus Christ as he was 2000 years ago! Our loving God is as passionate about incarnating his hope and his promise where you live-- RIGHT NOW—as he was when he sent the fountainhead promise to Nazareth 2000 years ago!

But most of us choke on the same question Mary asked 2000 years ago:

AND The Question: “’How will this be…,’ Mary asked the angel”

You know, that’s the “Post-Modern” question isn’t it?! We now live in an age where people are quite willing to admit the existence of supernatural things, of spiritualities and powers and even angels. We’ve got TV series on every night about “the supernatural” and “miracles” and “Angels”… But the real question is HOW—how could such a thing ever happen TO ME…

Mary might have put it this way-- Pardon me, Mr. Angel. I hope I don’t seem ignorant or irrelevant for asking, but how in the world—in this one where I live—How can these things be? Especially since as you may know, I’ve never been with a man. So exactly HOW do I have this baby???!!!

Almost every day I hear from people talk about and relate to spiritual things and God-sized possibilities in the same way that Mary might have spoken and related to the angel:

• That’s a worthwhile project Phil, but I don’t know that I have what it takes to get it done

• Yes, I know that’s the way I should handle my anger at my husband or my wife or my children when he or she or they do that…But I don’t have the patience, I don’t have the willpower, I don’t have the heart…I just can’t do it

• Yes, I know that’s the way I should look at this problem..I know that’s what the Bible says about it, and I do believe God’s word, honestly! But I just don’t think I have the faith…I just don’t thin k it applies to me and my situation

• This problem,… this sickness,… this addiction,… this crushing habit has been with me so long, I’m just ready to give up….I haven’t seen nay change so far, and I think I’m just going to have to live with it

The Answer: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” Luke 1:34-35 NIV

What pattern of life does that remind you of?

Isn’t that the pattern of life of every person who chooses to connect with God’s grace by following Jesus, receiving His word, and letting his life grow in ours?!! You see , Mary’s experience is the same pattern of life, the same pattern of changing our hearts from the inside out, and the same encounter with Jesus Christ and following him that Mary experienced

• It’s a visit from God with a promise of possibilities—that Christ’s life in me and you, and his power to make those promises come true, will change our world

• It’s an impregnating moment in which the creator gives notice of his desire to open my life and yours to his purposes… for his promises to flow through us

• And it starts with a living God ready to work something of his releasing grace through us… connecting with someone like you or me who is willing to become an instrument of that grace!

And the angel sums it up in one word, one phrase of promise: “The power of the Most High will overshadow you.”… What does that mean?

The best way to understand what a word or a phrase or a promise means in the Bible is to see how it is used throughout the Bible…so let’s take a walk through the NT and see how this word is used…and when we do, we’ll see that it’s used in three ways:

1. Overshadowing us…

“But the angel said to her, ‘do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God…The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Luke 1:30, 35 NIV

• Many of us, like Mary, are afraid of God…what he will do to us…

• Many of us, like Mary, feel ourselves “out of favor” with God…Yes, God could do that in somebody else’s life, but not in mine…I’m too aware of the times when I have failed and messed up, and I’m sure I’ve already used up whatever favor I might have had with him…

• And what God did to Mary he wants to do to you and me through the overshadowing favor and love of Jesus Christ!

…to lift us out of fear and into faith

2. Overshadowing us…

“While Peter was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’” Luke 9:34 NRSV

• Context: Mt. of Transfiguration, what Peter was seeing and saying…

• Conventional thinking: let’s hold on to this experience and stay here!

• What happens: The AWESOME presence and power of God comes upon them and overshadows them and says… why?

…to jolt us out of worldly thinking, to listen to Jesus!

Illutrn: Worldly thinking in re our need for land to build. “Don’t rock the boat…just do your thing here and build on the land and you’ll get a lovely building out of it…and you’d better do it quick because land is running out… and the Lord jolted us out of that worldly thinking with his overshadowing voice that said “NO, you listen to Jesus and trust in him for your provision

Illustrn #2 : Like Peter, the temptation to “build a tent” here in the gym and in our small groups and in our potlucks and just enjoy the fellowship we have! Never grow beyond this cozy group… But we keep listening to Jesus and he tells us we can’t do that! So what do we do? LN—costly, time consuming, but what happened last night: People coming in off the street because they saw the animals…the number of kids up front…the tent packed with people who were not just grandparents and family…friends and neighbors and some unchurched… comment of the woman who shook my hand…

3. Overshadowing us…

“They brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.” Acts 5:15 KJV

Context: The early church; miracles and healings… Jesus had said in John 14 “You will do even greater things…” and What Jesus had said was coming true! People around Jesus found healing power by touching his clothes…But now, all it took was Peter’s shadow to fall on people and they were being healed!

• I can’t tell you the number of times I have met with people who are dealing with impossible situations—sickness that the doctors said was impossible to heal; marriages that seemed impossible to restore, a crushing load of financial debt and chaos that seemed impossible to overcome, relationships so full of betrayal and bitterness that reconciliation seemed beyond any realm of possibility…until Jesus Christ came in to the picture with his overshadowing love, and healing, and restoration… and the picture changed.

• The sickness went away with healing prayer in Jesus’ name, and the doctors couldn’t explain it…A couple separated and on their way to divorce invite Christ into the picture—and turning away from bitterness and hardened hearts they turn toward each other in genuine humility, and remorse for what they have done to each other, and make the changes to restore that relationship so that it is stronger than it was before… In the midst of the weariness of justifiable bitterness and self-pity because of a betrayal of trust by a friend, that person invites Jesus into the picture to overshadow their bitterness with his healing grace…and they find the grace to release that person to the Lord and move on, emotionally free and lighter than they were before

• AND in hundreds of ways something supernatural happens in setting that are not superb because someone like you or me or Mary allows Jesus Christ to enter the picture and overshadow the size of the problem with the size of his grace

• And in the same way, Christ wants to come into your life and mine, to overshadow us

…to make what is impossible, possible, through the power of God!

He will overshadow you and me..

…With His presence

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you…” Lk. 1:35a NIV

• For Mary, the Angel was startling, but the overshadowing presence of the Lord was almost imperceptible

• And that’s the way it will be with us too! Sometimes the presence of the Lord will be almost imperceptible… a gentle whisper, and warmth in our hearts as we worship…a realization that God is speaking to YOU in the middle of the message

• Other times his overshadowing presence will be like the glory cloud that enveloped Peter and the disciples on the Mt of Transfiguration… It will be overwhelming…like it was for me at a conference in 1997 when in prayer I was bent over double b y the weight of his overshadowing presence, as I was being prayed over…and I left almost dizzy and off balance for the next hour because the power of God was still overshadowing me with waves of grace and love even as I walked away!

• But however his overshadowing presence comes to you, it will be for the same reason he overshadowed Mary: To let you and me know, like Mary, that we are NOT ALONE, that He has NOT FORSAKEN US, and that he has FAVOR UPON FAVOR, AND HOPE UPON HOPE that he wants to pour into your life and mine!

He will overshadow you and me …With His promise

“For nothing is impossible with God…” Lk. 1:37 NIV

• A more accurate translation of the Angel’s promise would be “No word of God is without the inherent power to fulfill its intent…Within every promise of God are the life-giving, light-bearing seeds of mightiness needed to accomplish what God has said!”

• You see, God has quickened Mary’s emotions with his overshadowing presence, and now he is quickening her reason with his overshadowing promise… a promise to her, and to you and to me that whatever he says to us, HE HAS THE POWER TO DO IN OUR LIVES

• So the only question is what has he promised to you?? Have you searched the words of HIS WORD, the scriptures, the Bible and let them overshadow you with a promise for whatever circumstance you find yourself in today…and what might that look like?

• You know, the mind is like the womb—it can be barren of hope, or full of it. We can conceive in both the mind and the womb, and we can deliver from both the mind and the womb… but it takes something to impregnate both in order for that to happen… And in the case of our minds, we need to be impregnated with God’s promises to change our thinking so that we can move beyond whatever THINKING limits our capacity to partner with God and his purposes

• Have you let him overshadow your thinking with a picture of what your life could be like shaped by his promises and hopes for you??

He will overshadow you and me …With His power

“The power of the Most High will overshadow you…” Lk. 1:35b NIV

• Love how Pastor Jack Hayford puts it in The Mary Miracle: “There is a life power that God’s word explains to us, and there is a love power His Spirit is ready to expand in us” (p. 130)

• You know, the word for power here is dunamis, the same word root from which we get the word “dynamite”. What that means is that God’s life power and love power has the explosive power to blast us free from places of bondage and sub-standard living

• Illustration: A friend who shared with me this week about His prodigal daughter…he had put two and two together and realized one night that she had wandered too far into a relationship that was destroying her, and too caught up in it to admit how wrong it was…up and agonizing…she walks in… a cold and defensive encounter…she says she knows it was wrong, but cold and without remorse and without any intent to change… Dad says “You have no relationship with the Lord because you’re in this relationship and you know its wrong…and I can’t do anything about it for you…you need to read I john 1;8-9 and do business with the Lord… ands she did, but it was cold…and she did again…and then something happened… the Love Power of Jesus Christ overshadowed her and in that moment it exploded her hardened heart as she burst into tears and cried “O Lord, I’m so sorry…” She turned back to the Lord..she ended that destructive relationship… but that’s not the end of the story

• My friend so convicted that he began to spend his QT going to Oswald Chambers devotional of the day and e-mailing it to her, with editorial words of encouragement, every day…no response from her at all…one day he forgets… she comes up to him end of the day and says “Dad I’m REALLY disappointed in you…” WHY? What did I do?? “You forgot to send me my devotional for the day…” and when the other kids heard about it, they wanted the same thing from their dad—all six of them!

• And you see how in the midst of a setting that was not superb, that was full of heartache and relational destruction and the seeds for destroying a whole family, God’s overshadowing love power came in through Jesus Christ, exploding the sin and turning and multiplying each fragment into a point of blessing and release of God’s purposes!

Q: How can I experience His overshadowing in my life?

A: Absolute surrender!

“’I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered, ‘May it be to me as you have said.’” Luke 1:38 NIV

Of all the possible responses she could have given!

• She doesn’t say “let me go check with Joseph first—I’ll get right back to you

• She doesn’t even try to negotiate with the angel—“couldn’t we wait at least un til the wedding day”—even though it involves Joseph and them as a couple…

• It’s just an astonishing act of surrender that says.. “I don’t understand it, even after I’ve asked as many questions as I can… I won’t check it out first… God said it… so I’ll do it!”

Mary heard the word of God, she sought to understand it as best she could, and in the end she put her whole trust in God and she believed! In our baptismal service, we put it this way: “Will you put your WHOLE TRUST in the grace and the love of Jesus Christ?”

Will you? You can…here’s how:…

And when you do

• His overshadowing presence will lift you out of fear and into faith

• His overshadowing promise will jolt you out of worldly thinking that limits your capacity to listen and partner with Jesus and his promises

• And His overshadowing power will make what is impossible, possible in your life and mine…