A Word in Season: Precious to God (Luke 12:6–7)

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In Luke chapter 12, the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to his disciples in light of the warnings that he's issued against the

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Pharisees, those men who are quite happy for a gap to develop between their inner lives and their outer lives, men who are given to religious performance without much in the way of true religious reality in their hearts.

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And the disciples are not to be like that, and they're not to become pressured by the attitude of men like the

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Pharisees into compromising on their testimony to God, their

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Savior, to their following of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we need to take to heart these exhortations that the

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Lord Jesus gives to his disciples in days when we may be tempted to privatize our faith, when we might be tempted to hope that we can just fly under the radar.

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The Lord Jesus reminds his disciples that they are not to be characterized by the fear of men, that they're not to be governed and conditioned by a fear of what men think or say or might do to us if we go against their notions of what it means to follow

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God. Rather, we are to live in the light of the coming judgment. Our lives are to be opened before the

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God of heaven and earth. We are to remember that though men might be able to kill the body, that it is

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God alone who has authority to cast into hell. They cannot put us there.

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They cannot cast us out eternally. And in the light of that, the

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Lord Christ speaks to these men, these disciples of his, and he says that they are his friends.

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It is beautiful language. And to his friends, he asks, are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?

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And not one of them is forgotten before God, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

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Do not fear. Therefore you are of more value than many sparrows.

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Now, what comforts are there in these words for God's people? Christ carries us into the marketplace of the day.

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And here are these insignificant birds, and they're sold for two for a coin.

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And it seems that if you buy four, you get one free. So you get five sparrows for two copper coins.

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They are really negligible in the scheme of things. They're the kind of stuff that gets given away virtually for free, but not one of them is forgotten before God.

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Now, the point of saying it like that is to to point out that God sees and knows and takes account of everything that happens in the lives of these most insignificant creatures.

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They are fed by him. He knows where they are and what they're about.

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Not one of them falls to the ground, but God knows it all together. Even the minute details of the individual existence of these most insignificant of creatures is well known to God.

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But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

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And again, it's a way of emphasizing the minute, the intimate, the affectionate regard that God has for these friends of Christ, these followers of the

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Lord Jesus. And with that in mind, if God who sees what happens with the sparrows, their life isn't forgotten.

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But for the disciples, the very hairs of our heads are numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.

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Christ's disciples are those whom he calls his friends. They are men and women who are made in the image of God, and he has esteemed them precious.

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God values them for his glory's sake. God has his son lay down his life for them.

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Christ redeems them with his own precious blood. That is the value that God sets upon his beloved people.

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And so we do not need to be afraid. We do not need to be afraid of those who can only kill the body.

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We don't need to be afraid of those who have no power whatsoever to accomplish anything after the death of our bodies, who can do nothing to keep us out of heaven or to bring us into hell.

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We can live without fear because we know that God rules on high and that God has this regard.

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He accounts us precious. He values us truly, and he knows us intimately and affectionately, and he will take care of us in all things.