In last week’s sermon, Pastor Mark Driscoll looked at four different worldviews and contrasted them with Christianity. These first two clips look at atheism and the old lies of the New Spirituality.

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These historical facts are very important but they aren’t most beneficial unless we proceed from the historical to the theological. What do they mean? What is God doing? What is God accomplishing and achieving through the birth of Jesus? Why did Jesus come? Those are the theological questions that interpret the historical facts. For that I’ll give you a word: incarnation. It’s a Latin word that means, “in flesh.” So we’ll do a little bit of seminary now. Incarnation, in flesh.

Now, Larry King was once asked, “If you could interview anyone in the history of the world, who would it be?” He said, “Jesus Christ.” Good answer. When they asked Larry, “If you could ask him one question, what would that be?” Larry said, quote, “I would like to ask him if he was indeed virgin born. The answer to that question would define history for me.” Larry King is right, not often, but in this occasion. [Laughter] And Larry King says, “I want to talk to Jesus and I want to know if his mom really was a virgin, that would define history.” Larry’s right. That’s the issue. If so, he is unlike anyone and everyone who has or will ever live.

And we mean by that, incarnation, in flesh. It is the Christian doctrine that God, who is spirit, took upon himself human flesh and came as the human being, the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from John 1:1 and 1:14. “In the beginning was the Word,” that’s the second member of the Trinity, one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. “In the beginning was the Word. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” if you jump down to John 1:14. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He was with God in the beginning, John 1:1. Jump down to verse 14, the Word, the one who was eternally face to face with God the Father, he was with God the Father and he was God and he was Creator God. He was there in the beginning where Genesis says all was made. The one who is the second member of the Trinity, face to face with the Father, eternally existing as God, became a man, the man Jesus Christ. That’s what incarnation means.

The second member of the Trinity entered into history. The Creator entered creation. God who is spiritual took upon himself human flesh, became a human being, entered into life on the earth among us. That’s what it means to call him Immanuel, God with us.

Now, in saying this, I know that it raises a number of questions and I want to answer I think the seven most common questions. I wrote a book, Vintage Jesus, that answers all of these and more, but I’ll give you a short summary of the common questions about Jesus’ incarnation and incarnation in general.

To read the read the rest of the sermon, go to the sermon page.

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You can watch the sermon in it’s entirety or get the transcript in the Mars Hill Church Media Library.

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3. God Is Omniscient
Number three. She says that God is what we’ll call omniscient, which means all knowing. She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” What she says is, “My God knows everything. My God knows that I’m young. My God knows that I’m poor. My God knows that I’m pregnant. My God knows that I don’t have a lot of resources at my disposal. My God knows that my reputation is going to be destroyed. My God knows that my life is going to be difficult and complicated. My God knows.”

Friends, this is where your view of God is so incredibly important. So incredibly important. Some say, “Oh all religions teach basically the same thing.” No they don’t. No they don’t. See, pantheism, panentheism, vague spirituality—God’s not a person, he’s a force; he doesn’t pay attention to you, it’s just an energy that endows you. See, our God is personal. He’s alive. He’s living. He’s personal. He thinks, he feels, he speaks, he loves, he knows. God knows every hair on your head, the Bible says. God knows every longing of your heart. He knows every day of your life. God knows it all. And do you know what, he pays attention. There are a lot of people, but God knows everyone by name. And he pays attention to the exact circumstances of their life. And he’s a Father who is attentive in detail to all of his sons and daughters. That’s what she says.

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The Scripture reading of Mary’s Song as recorded in Luke 1:46–55 that accompanies the sermon this week comes with a great God story.

The audio and video crew was with me in Nazareth at the only known well in town, the place where, it is believed, Jesus and Mary often would have drawn water. Today, a large Christian church has been built over the site, but the well remains open for viewing in a cavernous area of the church.

My plan was to film the Scripture reading from this week at that location. But, as we were shooting, we were disrupted by some podcasters visiting from other nations. The brief minutes that interaction took cost us the few precious minutes we had to film, as the body of a deceased elderly woman in an open casket was carried in front of us for a funeral. Out of respect we quickly exited as the mourners entered.

Then, down the hill a bit from the church, we found a well called Mary’s Well. It was an outdoor fountain that had apparently been used to pipe water from the well Mary used to the locals in a more public and accessible location.

I got the idea to find a local young woman who would be willing to stand in front of Mary’s Well and read Luke 1:46–55 for us in Hebrew. So, we needed a bilingual young woman old enough not to need her parents’ permission to film with us and a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew, all while standing in the Muslim quarters of Nazareth. To make matters worse, the streets were empty, as everyone had gone to the mosque for Ramadan prayers.

We could not find a young woman or a copy of a Hebrew Bible.

So, Jesse (our director) and I walked into a nearby coffee shop and sat down. We bowed our heads and asked Jesus to send us what we needed, quickly listing the specific needs.

Just then, in God’s providence, a young woman approached us to take our order. Christine just so happened to be eighteen, was born in Nazareth and had lived there all her life like Mary, was from a Christian family, was a sister in Christ, and was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Furthermore, she had just acted in her first play and looked fully Mars Hill, dressed in black and wearing Vans.

We asked her if she would be willing to read for us and she was nervous but agreed. Her boss agreed to let her take a bit of time off work for the project and we gave her a really, really good tip to say thanks. While we finished our coffee, John (our I-can-do-anything handyman, including rewiring the power on our bus in Israel to recharge the RED cameras) somehow accessed a local wireless network with his iPhone and found a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew. The next thing you know, we got the Scripture reading for this week. So, thank you, Christine!

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4.4 million. That’s the number of sermon downloads from Mars Hill Church’s website last year.

12,000. That’s how many downloads per day that 4.4 million breaks down to.

Each of those numbers is a person. A man in Sydney who watches the sermons with his wife. A young woman in Iowa who listens to the podcasts on her bus ride to work because the churches in her town don’t preach Christ. A man in Los Angeles who holds a Bible study in his home and uses the sermon videos for the teaching.

We are humbled and thank God that He has taken our resources so far. We continue to provide all of our content for free so that as many people in as many cities in as many countries as possible can meet Jesus or be strengthened and equipped for every good work (Eph 4). We strive to preach the Word, train men and leaders, plant churches, strengthen marriages and families – and to do all of those in a way that is Gospel-centered and glorifies Jesus.

Our Media & Communications team has been busy the last few months to add some new features we wanted to be sure you knew about.

• English transcriptions of sermons. Just go to the download tab on a sermon’s page to download the entire text of a sermon. We’re hoping to add other languages very soon.
• DVD iso files for download. If you use the sermon videos for small or large groups, these are a great way to go. They enable you keep the HD quality that we capture the footage in. They’re also available in the downloads tab on a sermon page.
• Community discussion questions. The same questions we give to our community groups are available for download each week for use if you’re watching or listening to the sermons with a group.
• Family discussion questions. In addition to the community questions the Mars Hill pastors created family discussion questions that you can use over dinner.
• Desktop artwork. Two large scale versions of the artwork we’re using for the Luke series.
• Luke’s Gospel: Investigating the Man Who Was God booklet. Pastor Mark wrote a 40 page booklet for the Mars Hill congregations discussing the historical background, author information, theological themes, and other extremely useful information.

We hope they serve you well.

Giving at Mars Hill

For more information about giving to the church–why and how–visit our secure giving page and check out Pastor Mark’s Generous series.

“As the number of birth control options has increased and continues increasing, so has the need for discernment. Therefore, we will examine various options on the continuum. I will differentiate between no birth control, contraception, which literally means “against (contra) conception” (such methods prevent conception, whereby a sperm fertilizes an egg), and abortion, which terminates the life of a fertilized egg…

…
Level 1 – No Birth Control

At the very least, every Christian married couple should cover their entire marriage with prayer, including the children God may bless them with. In prayer the Christian couple is demonstrating faith in the goodness and sovereignty of God over all of life, including the womb.

Some Christian couples determine to only use prayer in their family planning. As a result, they simply enjoy normal marital sexual relations and trust that if God desires for them to have a child, he will provide according to his timing. When this is chosen as the course of action by a Christian couple, family planning by simply praying and trusting that whatever happens is God’s good will is acceptable.

However, when this form of family planning is dogmatically pushed as the only faithful Christian option, such foolish legalism can lead to both self-righteousness and harm.

Level 2 – Natural Birth Control

Natural methods include any method of contraception where pregnancy is prevented by abstaining from vaginal sexual intercourse on days when the wife is likely to be fertile. The most popular natural method is the calendar-rhythm method, which has been replaced by more effective methods such as the symptothermal method and the standard days method. Fertility computers are a new development in contraceptive technology that makes these natural methods easier to use by telling a couple when sex will or won’t result in pregnancy. The Roman Catholic Church approves the use of natural methods. One common myth is that a mother cannot become pregnant while nursing, which, while true for some women, is not true for all women.

Level 3 – Non-Abortive Birth Control

Like the natural methods, non-abortive birth control methods also seek to influence the timing of conception but do so by taking either temporary or permanent additional measures. This method of birth control has quite a long history.

Temporary non-abortive temporary birth control methods are generally barrier methods. Barrier methods of contraception include all methods that permit intercourse but prevent the sperm and egg from coming together as their primary mechanism…

…To summarize, levels 1–3 are options for Christian couples to consider without concern that they may terminate a fertilized egg and thereby take a human life. At the next level we tread into more murky waters that are more difficult to discern for Christian couples.

Level 4 – Potentially Abortive Birth Control

“The pill” is a categorical term for more than forty types of oral contraceptives, which are also referred to as birth control pills and sometimes combination pills because they contain a mixture of estrogen and progestin. These hormonal contraceptives are designed to override the female body’s normal cycle and “trick” the brain into believing she’s already pregnant, thus preventing the release of an egg from the ovaries…

…In summary, Alcorn points out that there is not one but rather three purposes for birth control pills. First, the pill exists to inhibit ovulation, which is its primary means of birth control. Second, the pill thickens the cervical mucus with the effect that it becomes more difficult for sperm to travel to the egg. Third, the pill thins and shrivels the lining of the uterus so that it is unable or less able to facilitate the implantation of the newly fertilized egg. On this last point, Alcorn says, “Reproductive endocrinologists have demonstrated that Pill-induced changes cause the endometrium to appear ‘hostile’ or ‘poorly receptive’ to implantation.” Furthermore, “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reveals that the endometrial lining of Pill users is consistently thinner than that of nonusers—up to 58 percent thinner.”

The bottom line is this: the first two purposes of birth control pills are contraceptive in nature and therefore acceptable for use by a Christian couple. However, the third function of birth control pills is potentially abortive in that it seeks to disrupt the ongoing life of a fertilized egg. That potentiality is incredibly controversial; thus, faithful Christians who are staunchly prolife and believe that life begins at conception are divided over the issue.

Level 5 – Abortive Murder

Abortion is taking a human life by killing a fertilized egg. Biblically, it is also known as the sin of murder. Abortions include medical procedures of various kinds as well as RU-486 or the morning-after pill. Other items that cause abortion are the intrauterine device (IUD) and Norplant, which do not prevent conception but prevent implantation of an already fertilized ovum. The result is an abortion, the killing of a conceived person…

…It may seem odd for me, as a pastor writing primarily for Christian readers, to include this level as a form of birth control. Yet, tragically, many people, including Christians, use abortion as a form of birth control. Undoubtedly, there are very rare cases where even the most devoutly Bible-believing, pro-life Christians are caught on the horns of an ethical dilemma involving abortion (e.g., when the mother’s life is at stake), but for the purposes of this chapter I am speaking of abortion in its majority sense as a murderous form of birth control. Regarding abortion, a division of Focus on the Family says,

The Alan Guttmacher Institute is a nonprofit corporation for reproductive health research and policy analysis. The Institute is also a public education arm of Planned Parenthood. It reports that one in six women who have had abortions are evangelical Christians. Based on these statistics, 5.6 million women in our churches have chosen abortion as a way out of an unwanted pregnancy. Each year, 1.5 million American women have an abortion. This means 250,000 evangelical Christian women could choose to abort a child this year.”

The Bible is All About Jesus

The Doctrine series explains the centrality of Jesus throughout Scripture and the life of Mars Hill. Full-length sermons & 15-minute episodes.

Pastor Mark’s sermon from this last week was about Mary and Elizabeth’s miraculous conceptions and how the Bible views the gift of life. He covered the contentious and heartbreaking topic of abortion from a Biblical and pastoral angle. That is one of the reasons we preach expositionally through the Scriptures; you can’t avoid the difficult passages but instead have to tackle them.

In a congregation as young as ours, in a city as un-churched as ours, it was sure to lay heavily on us. And yet, in the midst of such a painful topic, we saw repentance, reconciliation, and redemption in the form of both men and women being baptized. We also got to see how our community loves each other as the women in our Redemption Groups stepped up to counsel younger women.

In one of the most powerful moments, Pastor Bubba Jennings interviewed Pastor AJ Hamilton. Pastor AJ shared his testimony and gave a strong encouragement for men and women considering abortion that God can redeem any situation.

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Pastors Dave Bruskas from the Albuquerque campus and Adam Sinnet from the West Seattle campus are using their bilingual gifts in Ecuador to train church leaders at an Acts 29 bootcamp.

Pastor Matt Jensen from the U-District is letting his college audience ask questions via video on their Facebook page that he will answer on Sundays.

Pastor Tim Gaydos from the Downtown campus did a cool video with commentary on the David Letterman situation and how it points to Jesus on the cross.

Pastor Bubba Jennings from the Ballard campus has been doing a series called Evidences of God’s Grace after Sunday services. They’re great tools for capturing how God is moving and transforming lives, and as reminders of how only He gets all the glory.

Lastly, Pastor James Noriega from the West Seattle campus recently helped explain the differences between a Redemption Group and a Community Group; two of our core ministries here at Mars Hill Church.