The Amazing Plan

There are few things that capture our attention and cause our hearts to soar like a successful rescue. If you’ve ever been a part of one or been the recipient of being rescued, you know what I’m talking about. The stories that are real and true usually start with a crisis.

A young teenage girl is kidnapped and evidence points that it’s by a serial killer. Miners are trapped hundreds of feet below the surface and time is running out. Missionaries are held hostage by militants and they’re demanding millions of dollars in ransom. They’ll be killed within days if it’s not paid.

A U.S. embassy is under siege in a foreign country, seventeen employees can’t hold out much longer. A little boy is in Yosemite and he’s lost. It’s starting to get dark and the temperatures will dip below freezing.

Eight Americans are held hostage and one will be killed every six hours unless the demands are met. Somali pirates capture a commercial vessel and they’re holding the captain a prisoner.

In each case, when the person or persons are dramatically rescued, in our spirit something soars. And it’s more than just relief. It’s more than a tragedy averted. There’s something about hope. There’s hope and it always creates heroes. In fact, this is the stuff that movies are made of and books are written because even though we may see it on the news, we want to know what really happened and what were the obstacles. And we want to know about the pilot or we want to know about the special ops team or we want to know about the bystander who became the hero.

Something in our soul when we see people rescued out of a horrendous situation, that looked like there was no hope, and then there’s hope, it really captures our attention.

So I was thinking about rescues and so I Googled “rescues,” “great rescues,” “miraculous rescues.” There’s lots of information. There are the five most amazing rescues. There are the best rescues of the last hundred years. There are the rescues of World War II. There are the five rescues that you’ve never heard of before. There are rescues, rescues, rescues.

So I started reading about these rescues and they’re fascinating. And some of them, the probability of them doing what they did, you’re just thinking, There’s no way. But what makes them the great rescue is it was seemingly impossible.

But there were five characteristics as I begin to read these stories. I put them on the front of your notes. Great rescues seem to have five things in common. Number one, they have a great plan. Number two, they have the right people to execute the plan. Number three, almost always there are innovative methods. It’s impossible and these people think of something that no one has ever thought about or would likely be impossible and then they do it.

One of the great World War II ones was that we had prisoners. And the enemy was, it was in a large, large prison and there were hundreds of prisoners and they were all going to be killed, and they wanted to deliver them, and there was absolutely no hope. And these planes flew in so low and they actually dropped bombs hoping to knock out just one wall that would cause it to cave in to where the people who held the prisoners, and where the wall would fall down and the prisoners would go free. It was like a needle in a haystack, and it was accomplished. It was called one of the greatest rescues of all the Second World War.

And then you have to have not just innovation, but perfect timing, and even when all that is aligned, flawless execution.

As you open your notes, I would say that as amazing as all those rescues were that I read about, there is the most amazing, the most powerful, the most stunning rescue not just in all time, but all history. And we usually call it by something like the Christmas story. And what happens with the Christmas story is we’ve heard it a lot and we’re Western and we live in America, and there’s a lot of commercialism all around it.

And so what I want to do is I want to take the Christmas story and I want to talk about the rescue that happened. And I’m going to suggest that there is a great plan, that there were just the right people, that there was innovative methods that literally will blow your mind. The timing was perfect and there was flawless execution. So you ready to dig in a little bit? Pull out a pen if you will, keep your Bible handy and let’s look at the Great Rescue.

The Great Rescue starts like this. Notice Ephesians chapter 1, there’s a great plan. It’s God’s plan. “For consider what He has done – before the foundation of the world He,” God, “chose us to become, in Christ, His holy and blameless children, living within His constant care.” That’s Phillips translation of Ephesians 1:3.

Notice the timing of God’s rescue before the foundations of the earth. Before there was even creation, this plan, this rescue was in the mind and in the heart of the Triune God. In verse 11, he tells us how he pulled it off and what’s going to happen. It says, “For God has allowed us to know the secret of His plan, and it is this: He purposes in His sovereign will that humanity shall be consummated in Christ, and that everything that exists in heaven and on earth shall find its perfection and fulfillment in Him,” namely Christ.

Here’s the plan. It’s really simple. Jesus, God the Son, will rescue humanity. From the foundations of the earth, before anything ever happened, in the heart of God, Jesus is going to rescue mankind. We’ll learn later whosoever will. Well, who are the right people? What I want to tell you about the right people is they’re unlikely people.

Now, God is all knowing. He’s all wise. He started from the foundations of the earth, but He had centuries to see all this play out.

And just ask yourself. If you had centuries to come up with a plan, to break into human history and to rescue it and save it, and deliver it, would you use a teenage girl; a probably young twenty-something guy; your lowest class citizens that have no respect: shepherds; some foreigners who spend their time gazing at stars; a very, very old man who apparently was very sensitive and heard the prompting of the Holy Spirit that he would see the Savior before he died; and one really, really old lady who’s been a widow for years and spends decades fasting and praying in the temple? That’s the cast who’s going to pull this thing off.

A great plan, the right people, this is fascinating to me. Innovative methods. Listen to the prophecy. Seven hundred years before Christ was born, Isaiah would write in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel,” literally God with us.

So the innovation will not be a prophet, will not be just a message. Actually, God is going to come and the innovation is that there’s going to be a woman that has a baby, who’s a virgin. Little oxymoron here.

If you have your Bibles real handy, open it up if you would to Matthew chapter 1, and we see the fulfillment of this prophecy. Most scholars think Mary was probably at youngest, a fifteen-year-old, maybe a seventeen-year-old young woman who was very godly. And as you read her prayers, somewhere along the line, her mom and dad helped her learn the Scriptures because she quotes multiple passages in her classic prayer.

Verse 26, we hear the fulfillment of a prophecy seven hundred years earlier of chapter 1 of Luke. “Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was very perplexed at the statement and kept pondering what kind of situation this was. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.’”

Now can you imagine this? You’re like a little sixteen-year-old girl, you love God with all your heart, you’ve got this picture of the right guy, at the right time, and you think you’ve found him, and in fact you did find him, and he’s stunning, and godly, and your parents have worked all these things out, and it’s just a normal day, and an angel shows up in your bedroom. “Mary! Oh, favored one.” “Whoa.” You’re going to have a baby.” “Woo!” “Not with Joseph.” “Whoa, whoa.” Like are you – see, we’ve sung this for so long, we’ve lost the awe. We’ve lost the awe of the innovation of God’s rescue.

We’ll talk a little bit later about why it’s so important and why she had to be a virgin. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

So you’re going to have this baby, but you’re going to not have any relationship with a man, and it’s going to be the Son of the Most High – and this girl knows her Bible – and it’s going to be a kingdom that’s going to be eternal that will never end.

“Mary said to the angel,” I like this, “‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’”

It’s an amazing, amazing innovative method of rescue, where God Himself, after sending prophets and revelation and judgments, and extending kindness, would come and determine, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus the Messiah would be fully man because He’s born of a woman, but fully God born of the Holy Spirit. And the God man, fully man, fully God without confusion – the theologians call it the hypostatic union – would then reveal and explain what God is like, usher in a kingdom to let people know how things work in heaven and how they’re supposed to work here, and then to make disciples and cause this rescue to be a viral movement and chain reaction that would change the course of history.

I was thinking about this rescue and I thought you know, we live in such a psychological day. This was like the first intervention. A real intervention. That came to my mind, so I thought, An intervention is the act of inserting one thing between others like a person trying to help.

Interventions come from the Latin word meaning to come between or to interrupt. Jesus comes in between and interrupts human history and is going to come between God the Father and His holiness and a people that are far from Him with really big problems that end in death, and He’s going to intervene. And He does this classic intervention. I love the last line. An intervention is a deliberate process by which change is introduced into people’s lives, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

And so I did a little thinking and a little research and I thought, What have we learned about interventions in our day? Some of you, I’ve been involved in, one, with my father many years ago. It wasn’t very professional, but it worked.

I’ve been with people that have been in interventions, done interventions, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, a sexual addiction, codependency. What we know is that some people get addicted, begin to live in such a way that is destroying their lives and the people around them and then something happens where people realize, We can’t allow this to continue, and they do what we call an intervention.

Let me give you the characteristics of a successful intervention of drug, alcohol, or sexual addictions. First, there’s denial by the one you’re seeking to help. In other words, “Yes, I have a little problem, but it’s not that bad.” Second, there’s a deep concern by loved ones. There are people that really care enough. Third, trusted friends and family are willing to risk rejection because these interventions don’t always go well. And they’re willing to risk rejection because they realize, If we don’t, this person is going to destroy themselves and everyone around them.

Fourth, there’s an element of surprise. You don’t say to someone, “We know you have a sexual addiction. And why don’t we meet on this and talk about it next week and we’ll bring some trusted friends and family and we’ll all tell you how we really feel about you?” It doesn’t work that way. It’s a surprise in a safe, and neutral place.

Fifth, there is the extraction from the current environment. People never get out of addictions unless you take them from where they are into some new environment.

Sixth, the addict commits to get help right then. A bag has already been prepared. A rehab center has already been contacted. Options are on the table. And the person then goes, “I am willing to get help.” That still doesn’t make it successful.

Finally, the treatment begins and they have a completely new start in which they admit their need, they confront the lies that they believe, and they have a genuine desire to change. In the twelve-step world, it’s they hit bottom. No more cons, no more lies, no more manipulating. “I need help.”

As I was doing my research, I think of the spiritual parallels. I went online and found a number of places that if you were thinking, Gosh, my son or my husband, my wife, my best friend, someone I really love, they’re just killing themselves with alcohol or drugs or something like this, where would you go? How would you actually start an intervention?

And so I looked at a number of them, but this is five tips for a successful intervention. And as I read it, do the spiritual math to yourself and think, Hmm, boy, God sure knew a lot more about this than them.

Tip number one. Don’t wing it. Okay? God had a very long, careful plan, but you don’t wing it. Research and planning are critical. Two, stay positive. It’s interesting. Interventions are not people beating up on someone. It’s about love and commitment and we care and you are valued. And think of Jesus’ ministry and how He didn’t come with shame, and how He came with love and healing people and raising them from the dead and delivering people that no one cared about.

Third, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Lots of interventions don’t work. See, just because someone comes to rescue, doesn’t mean people get rescued.

Someone can come to rescue us, but we have to be willing to accept the help. And I think of how God planned for the best, but allowed for the worst. Those who didn’t want help, He’s made provision.

Four, opt for a professional interventionist. In other words, don’t try this at home. Get outside help. And finally, secure your drug or rehab center before you do this. It’s not like you have this event and think, Oh, boy, now what do we do?

And I was thinking of Jesus, the very last thing He said to His disciples, do you remember? He said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He prepared what was going to happen to all the people that He was going to rescue. It’s just a fascinating way for me to begin to take the trees and the songs and the sweet baby Jesus and all the ways that we get familiar and realize Christmas is about the greatest rescue that has ever occurred.
What have we learned about interventions in our day? Some of you, I’ve been involved in, one, with my father many years ago. It wasn’t very professional, but it worked.

I’ve been with people that have been in interventions, done interventions, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, a sexual addiction, codependency. What we know is that some people get addicted, begin to live in such a way that is destroying their lives and the people around them and then something happens where people realize, We can’t allow this to continue, and they do what we call an intervention.

As I was doing my research, I think of the spiritual parallels. I went online and found a number of places that if you were thinking, Gosh, my son or my husband, my wife, my best friend, someone I really love, they’re just killing themselves with alcohol or drugs or something like this, where would you go? How would you actually start an intervention?

And so I looked at a number of them, but this is five tips for a successful intervention. And as I read it, do the spiritual math to yourself and think, Hmm, boy, God sure knew a lot more about this than them.

Tip number one. Don’t wing it. Okay? God had a very long, careful plan, but you don’t wing it. Research and planning are critical. Two, stay positive. It’s interesting. Interventions are not people beating up on someone. It’s about love and commitment and we care and you are valued. And think of Jesus’ ministry and how He didn’t come with shame, and how He came with love and healing people and raising them from the dead and delivering people that no one cared about.

Third, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Lots of interventions don’t work. See, just because someone comes to rescue, doesn’t mean people get rescued.

Someone can come to rescue us, but we have to be willing to accept the help. And I think of how God planned for the best, but allowed for the worst. Those who didn’t want help, He’s made provision.

Four, opt for a professional interventionist. In other words, don’t try this at home. Get outside help. And finally, secure your drug or rehab center before you do this. It’s not like you have this event and think, Oh, boy, now what do we do?

There is a plan from eternity past. There are unlikely people for a reason. There is an innovative method that’s beyond imagination actually.

And then [fifth], there is perfect timing. Galatians 4:4 says, “When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.”

And the perfect timing had four or five characteristics. Number one, the Roman Empire was in one control and there were roads that went everywhere. So transportation for the gospel to move was free.

Two, there was the internet of the day, Koine Greek. Everyone – it was the trade language. All over the Roman Empire when you did business, Koine Greek. So the Bible, New Testament written Koine Greek, it exploded.

Third, there was a diaspora of the Jewish synagogues. They were persecuted and so there were these synagogues all over the Roman Empire. So when the gospel went forth, they always started there.

And last, there was corruption and absolute bankruptcy – note – religiously, philosophically, morally, and in terms of a lifestyle.

In fact, I have a quote here. A contemporary Roman orator and political theorist, Marcus Tullius Cicero, gives a brutal picture of what city life was like during this period of history when he described it as miserable, starving rabble. Ninety percent of the population in the Roman Empire lived a hand to mouth existence and rarely lived beyond the age of forty. On top of this, dismal living conditions. There were social and political injustices, oppression, abuse, and of course unreasonable taxes that plagued the people. The relentless daily challenge of most people was simply trying to survive. It was into this God’s perfect timing, He sent forth His Son.

And finally, what God does, He always does with flawless and perfect execution. Job 42:2 says, “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”

So as we begin to think about Christmas this season, what I’ve given you is sort of through my rescue lens is a little bit of an oversimplified synthesis of the Christmas story and of rescue.

And the reason I wanted to do that because we have two-fold things we do around this amazing rescue story that destroy its power. This is reality and we destroy it two ways.

Number one, we destroy it because we romanticize it.

We have this picture of this glowing Mary instead of a teenage girl having a baby in a very difficult situation, whose family has rejected her, who people think if you’re Joseph that you’re marrying a whore because she’s already pregnant, who are poor people who can’t find a place to have the baby. This is a reality. This was harsh. This was difficult. Some of you have been pregnant and know what it’s like to try and go on a little trip. Well, forget a car. Can you imagine being that pregnant and taking a trip on a donkey?

See, we romanticize it. And I like the lights and I like the candles and we have the beautiful songs and there are special songs that make our hearts soar, and we are in the West and we’re comfortable, and we have presents and we have wonderful times and we eat great food, and isn’t it a wonderful time of the year? Yes, it is.

But it’s about a rescue. It’s not about religious ritual. It’s not about a wonderful season. It’s not about the spirit of Christmas. It’s not, “Let’s be a little bit nicer to one another.” It’s about God doing an intervention because He loves us so much that He would humble Himself to take on human flesh and be born of a teenage girl, and live a perfect life in one of the most horrendous difficult times in human history because He loves you and because He loves me and He loves your family and my family, and your friends and my friends, and the people at your work and the people where I go.

The second thing that we do that minimizes what Christmas is all about, is we so focus on what we’re delivered out of, we don’t remember what we’re delivered into. When you’re rescued, you’re rescued out of darkness into light. Out of a burning building into safety.

So, in my remaining time what I want to do is I want to talk about the deliverance, the rescue into. And I want to go back to Ephesians because Ephesians is the book that tells us what God has given us. So you ready?

God rescues us out of darkness into light. And I just want to give you not all, but just three specific clear things that those of you like me, who came out of your denial and at some point in time in your life recognized that you are an addict and our addiction was ourselves and being in control and our arrogance and wanting life to be our way. And at some point in time, we said, “You know what? I’m not in control. I fall short. I do have problems. I have sinned.”

And we said, God, would You forgive me? And you trusted in Christ. And when you trusted in Christ as your Savior and invited Him into your life, you turned from your old way, you received the Holy Spirit, and you were taken from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and a number of things happened. But I want to remind you of three things you were delivered out of, but you’re delivered into.

Number one. Jesus will put your past behind you – why? Because you’re redeemed. In Him, notice how in each of these passages, it’s “in Him”, “in Him”, or “in Christ”. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.”

Notice it’s present tense. We have. It’s a picture. This word is used of a deliverance of a slave, of emancipation of a prisoner. Notice it’s by His blood. It’s literally a picture in the New Testament times of someone going into the Agora. And that’s where the marketplace was. And they would take slaves and put the slave up on a box and then people would bid, or ransom, or buy them.

And Paul takes that picture in the first world century and says, “You were a slave and you were chained in the addiction of your own sin and your own self-interest, like you and me, that violated a holy God, and you were destroying your own life.

And Jesus said, “I want that one. I want that one. I want that one… Whosoever.” And He bought us from slavery to freedom. He broke the chains of what we were a prisoner to, to make us new. We’ve been redeemed. And here’s the new hope. You’re free. You’re free. You don’t have to live that old way. You don’t have to be self-focused. You don’t have to be...we’re addicted to a lot of “acceptable” things along with drugs and alcohol and all the rest that we struggle with. You are free. You are free to be – what? A child of God dearly loved, blameless and holy, but it gets better.

Not only has He put our past behind us, but Jesus has a purpose for your life today. He goes on in this passage who says, “In all wisdom and insight has made known to us the mystery of His will.” Right above the word “mystery”, just put “secret”. It’s not mysterious.

This word means, in other words it wasn’t known before but now, “In Him,” in Christ, “He’s let us know the secret of His will according to His kind intention, which He purposed,” notice, “in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of time, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth.”

A couple of key words here. It says, “in all wisdom”. That word has the idea of knowledge which sees into the heart of a thing. God sees into the heart in all wisdom, what’s best for you. It says that “it’s insight”. It’s insight that leads to proper action. And before people didn’t know, but in Christ, God reveals this plan of deliverance, this rescue for whosoever would turn to Him. And that’s what Christmas is all about.

I love this little phrase: “As an administration suitable.” I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t really ring with me. Literally, it was the idea of a stewardship – this word here – is like a household economy. In other words, there was one economy where God dealt with people that He loved in the Old Testament pointing toward the cross, and there were animals, and there were sacrifices, but now we’re in this new economy.

And this new economy is Christ and a purpose and the mystery of His will. He has revealed to you what life is all about. And you know what that means? That means that you are needed. This new purpose, this new household, it’s His agent of blessing was Israel, now there’s not Jew and Gentile. They’re going to come together in this brand-new thing called the Church. That’s what He’s talking about.

And this Church is going to be this supernatural agent to do exactly what Jesus did: explain God to everyone by how we live and what we say, to bring the kingdom. And we talked about that earlier. To bring the kingdom where what’s up there – love and kindness and humility and generosity – we take it down here.

So we dig wells where people don’t have water, and we deliver people out of the sex trade, and we provide counseling for people, and we share the good news and we develop and help build churches and care for people that care for people. That’s what this is about.

And so God says that every single one of us because of this rescue by Jesus we call Christmas, He says that you are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto a work, that from the foundations of the earth, you are now part of a family, part of the team to take this rescue message by what you say and by how you live to every single person on the earth.

You know, a lot of people, if you talk with them when they’re in addictions or when they’re very, very depressed, or when they’re struggling, what’s one thing you hear? “I don’t want to live anymore. There’s no purpose in my life.”

See, Jesus set us free, but then He said, “This is what I want you to do. And until the job is done, every day I get up, if you want to rearrange your life as you get older, “retire”, do it. But retirement’s not even a possibility for a Christian. You might do something different for your vocation, but until you take your last breath, and I take my last breath, we bring the kingdom. We explain the love of God. And you know what? That means you’re needed.

The third thing that happens is that Jesus promises you and me a positive future. He says, “In Him,” Christ, “we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be the praise of His glory.” You have an inheritance.

I don’t know a lot about inheritances, my parents were schoolteachers and my expectations of getting any kind of inheritance was slim and none.

But my dad lived to be about eighty-four, eighty-five and he re-married and he was wise with his money, and then he remarried and then Evelyn lived a few years afterwards. And they did the things that wise, good people do. They didn’t hope or think. They had a will and they knew what they were going to do.

And so my sisters and Evelyn’s kids, they provided – it wasn’t big, but I got money from my father. And I didn’t do anything for it. I didn’t do anything for it. I didn’t earn it. You know why I got it? It was because of my last name. If your name was Ingram, you were in.

My name’s Ingram. My dad’s name is Ralph Ingram. And when Ralph Ingram died, years and years and years earlier, he had set aside that this goes to Punky, this goes to Jeannie, this goes to Chip. And I got a – they took the house and liquidated that and some other things. And each one of us along with Evelyn’s kids, we got an inheritance.

Well, it was awesome just to be part of it. But here’s the deal. You have an inheritance and its lavish. You have a heaven coming. You have a new life. You have spiritual gifts. God has given you an inheritance. There is a heaven waiting that is real.

And here’s the truth. Here’s the new hope. You’re worthy. When people lose hope, down deep a lot of it is, “I don’t measure up. I don’t bring anything to the table. I’m getting old. No one cares about me. I’m not as gifted. I had these dreams and now I feel like I’ve failed. That marriage didn’t work. One of my kids didn’t turn out very well. My parents, they really messed stuff up. I’m down on me. I flunked out of school.

Yeah, I’m a big time on the dollar signs, but I’m in the minus category when it comes to relationships and family.”

See, no one has it together. And God came to rescue you and me out of all that stuff. And He wants you to know you’re free. Take off the chains. Accept that. You’re needed. Get off your posterior and get off your pity party and align with other believers because as you give your life away, you will find it. And finally, you’re more than just needed. You are worthy and you are valuable, solely because of your last name. And your last name is Christ-one. And then they started slurring it together and calling you Christians.