Luke 12:5-12 "Sparrows and Angels"

In 1994, I flew to New York to do a “press day” for Atomic Opera’s first album. Basically, I went to the Warner Brothers offices and sat in a conference room and was interviewed by a parade of writers from all the different music magazines. I had been coached on how to give a good interview by a few different people. 

It was strange. I was one-on-one with an interviewer but I had this entire cast of people in my head judging me the whole time. They’d ask a question and I’d remember what my coaches had told me. “Ask them as many questions as they ask you. Never say a current artist is an influence. Don’t let them put you in a box. Be mysterious but don’t take yourself too serious. Make jokes.”

But I wasn’t prepared for the Jesus questions. “So, you guys are a Christian rock band?” That felt like a very peculiar box to be stuffed into. I didn’t want to deny my faith in Jesus but I also didn’t want anyone to lump me in with Swaggert, Falwell, or Stryper. Over and over I said something like, “I believe Jesus is who He says He is but that doesn’t have anything to do with the cartoon cutout version the TV evangelists are selling. So, I’m just going to say “no” we’re not a Christian rock band.”

And I could just feel all the judges in my head squirming and shaking their heads. My youth pastor was ashamed of me. My interview coaches wouldn’t make eye contact. My mom didn’t understand why I was being so defensive. My grandma was supportive but all she really wanted was for me to cut my hair like a nice boy again. 

Last week, Jesus started an intensive discipleship training program. He said, “My friends, you need to check your motives for the things you say, the things you do—who are you trying to  impress? Who are you afraid of? Who’s approval are you going for?” 

All those people we carry around in our heads. Maybe our dad, or mom, or grandma, a teacher or a coach. Maybe some mean kid in school or a boss. For sure, Jesus is talking about all those kinds of people when it comes to who we are going to let motivate us. There’s a thousand little choices we make every day based on who we’re trying to please—and sometimes those voices in our head are telling us to do the opposite of what God wants us to do.

But Jesus raises the stakes. Instead of just being about people’s approval, He makes it about life or death. When it comes to following Jesus and being His disciple—when it comes to whether we’re going to be faithful or not when it really matters—who’s voice are we going to listen to? People? Or God? 

What’s the worst thing people can do? Say they’re disappointed? Shake their head in disgust? Fire you? Imprison you? I mean, the worst they can do is kill you. Jesus says that shouldn’t be your motivation. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not the fear of people.

We should fear God. Fear Jesus. And yes, that means respect but it also means fear.

C.S. Lewis imagines Jesus as a great lion named Aslan. He’s wise and powerful and good and kind—but He’s not safe. He’s frightening—He’s a lion. When it all goes down, we definitely want to be on His side. This life is war and it would be really foolish to be more intimidated by God’s  enemies than we are of Him—no matter how much they threaten us.

Any person who would threaten you, probably doesn’t like you very much anyway—they obviously don’t know you very well, if they don’t even know about your faith. Anyone who wants you to be unfaithful to God is not looking out for you.

On the other hand, God knows all about you and loves you anyway. 

Verse 6… 

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. 
Luke 12:6-7

This is comforting—God knows all about us and cares for us, we’re more valuable to Him than many sparrows. And I believe it. I believe He loves me and knows me—even though I wish He would have kept better track of my hairs. When I read this passage as a teenager, I didn’t realize it was a countdown. Your hairs are numbered just like your days are numbered, boy!

God says He cares for the sparrows—little worthless birds but I mean, they get to fly and be free, they have a pretty amazing life—and He pays attention to all the little details, nothing gets by Him. He cares for them and He cares a lot more for you. 

This is still all about what should motivate us—how we’re going to respond to all the demonic people in this world who are going to try and derail our faith. Fear isn’t our only motivation. He didn’t leave it with “fear God because He can kill you and throw you into Hell.” He added this part about sparrows and hairs on our head. God’s love and care for us should be our biggest motivation. 

But there are other motivations for us to remain faithful…

Verse 8… 

“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. Luke 12:8-9

The word for “acknowledges” is better translated as “confesses.” It means “to say the same thing as.” To say the same thing as Jesus. To stand with Jesus.

We usually only think of “confession” as admitting when we sin. When we confess our sin, we call it what it is—sin. We don’t downplay what we’ve done and call them “accidents,” “mistakes,” “oopsies.” We don’t blame other people. We don’t try to convince people that our sin isn’t really sin. We don’t compare our sin to other people’s sin. We don’t define ourselves by our favorite sins. We call it what it is. We confess our sin.

When we “confess” Jesus before men, we say the same thing He says. What He says to us, we say to others. We stand with Jesus and say, “I’m with Him.” And when we do that, Jesus tells the angels of God that He stands with us. Why does that matter? What do we care what the angels think of us? Ha. Well, the angels are God’s warriors in the spiritual battles of this world—and our lives are one big spiritual battle. So…  Also, it’s really going to matter at the end of time when the Angels of God separate the believers from the unbelievers, the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats—when God instructs His holy angels to rid the world of everything unholy and sinful. You’re going to want Jesus to point at you and say, “That one’s with me.”

What do we know about angels? The word for “angel” means messenger. Sometimes the message is delivered with words, and sometimes with action. Violence even. They’re God’s soldiers, they do His dirty work. All the angels mentioned in the Bible are male. They’re glorious and beautiful but they’re also terrifying—every time one shows up they have to remind people of two things: To not be afraid and to not worship them. They can also disguise themselves as people and we’d never know it. Or, they can be very strange looking with multiple faces of different kinds of creatures, eyes all over, and massive wings. A lot of things that happen in the world that we consider to be nature or natural are actually done by angels—as well as a lot of supernatural things. Believers actually do have guardian angels assigned to them in this life and it’s angels that escort our souls to heaven when we die. And contrary to the Gospel according to Precious Moments, people do not turn into angels and grow wings in the afterlife.

There are also fallen angels. Satan and demons who used to be holy angels before the great rebellion—they’re hard at work doing terrible things in the world—natural and supernatural. They’re your enemy and want to destroy your life and your faith—but greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. So, once again, you don’t have to be afraid.

Kemper’s mom tells an interesting story about an angel. His dad, a missionary to India and Africa, always said he could see angels and demons as clear as day. One day Kemper’s mom asked if she could see an angel, thought it would be nice—so her husband asked for an angel to show himself to her. And he did. And it scared her half to death. She said, “Okay, thank you, but I never want to see anything like that again.” 

Getting back to Jesus’ discipleship conference… 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Don’t fear people.

Acknowledge Jesus in front of people and Jesus will acknowledge you before the angels of God. Deny Jesus and lose their protection.

But what if we do lose our nerve and deny Jesus?

Verse 10…

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Luke 12:10

Let’s look at that first part before we get to the scary bit about blasphemy.

Everyone who speaks a word against Jesus will be forgiven. There’s always grace for repentance sinners. Always mercy for those who come back to Jesus and confess their failure.

Today is Reformation Sunday. The day we remember Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. Theses number one says, “Faith lives in repentance.” God Himself sends the Holy Spirit to shine light on our dark minds with the knowledge of salvation in Christ. We hear the Gospel, that Jesus forgives sins, and our hearts are moved to repentance—we confess our sin, turn away from our sin and turn toward God in faith. Faith lives in repentance. And God never backs down from His promise to forgive us for Jesus’ sake. Even when our sin is against Jesus—which, at the root, they all are. Even when we say terrible things about Jesus or deny Him in front of people—if we repent, if we come back—He will suffer our denial, our abuse and forgive us. “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” The life of faith is to repent and believe. You will deny Jesus. Over and over. You need to return to Him over and over. He will always take you back. Faith lives in repentance.

When Jesus was arrested, all the disciples ran away. Peter bravely followed Jesus to the High Priest’s house to see what they were going to do with Him but when a slave girl recognized Peter as a disciple—you remember—he denied Jesus. Did it three times. But he came back. He repented. He was restored. It will be the same for you every time you reject Jesus. Every time you deny Him. He will always take you back.

Repentance is the only difference between Peter and Judas. 

So, what is this other thing? “But the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven”?

Remember in chapter 11 when the Pharisees said Jesus casts out demons by the prince of demons? They heard Jesus teach. They saw Him perform miracles. But they refused to believe. And they went further than that—they said He was demonic. 

To say that the work of the Holy Spirit (which is how Jesus did everything He did—He was The Christ, the anointed One, the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him—everything Jesus did in His ministry was by the power of the Holy Spirit, just like everything His followers were going to do after Pentecost) to say the work of the Holy Spirit is evil, that it’s unholy—that’s what this is talking about. That’s blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And it’s unforgivable.

Salvation and forgiveness only happen by the work of the Spirit. To not only refuse to repent when the Spirit prompts you, but to think the work of the Spirit—which always points to Jesus—is the work of the devil, or evil, or unholy— that it’s not good—it won’t be forgiven.

But isn’t that what Paul did? He went around killing Christians because he thought they were doing the devil’s work, right? But Paul was definitely given a chance to hear the Gospel, repent and believe after all that. He was definitely not unforgiven.

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit isn’t a trap door. It’s not something a person accidentally does for whatever reason and then that’s it, they’re doomed. They have to see the work of the Holy Spirit pointing to the Gospel of Jesus and then reject it as evil. Why is that unforgivable?

Because if a person demonizes the Holy Spirit, that person will not repent. They will not believe. Paul had a false view of Jesus but he was still able to listen to the Spirit. He had to get knocked on his butt and blinded before God got his attention, but then Paul heard the Spirit, repented and believed.

I think this is a powerful warning for Christians to be very careful not to switch sides. Once we’re in the church, believers in Jesus—it will be very bad for us if we not only start denying our faith in Jesus but actually start fighting against the Spirit’s work in the world (which is also known as the church).

Like maybe someone had faith but started listening to the enemy’s lies, started fearing people—worried about what people of the world might think of all this crazy Jesus stuff. They don’t want to speak up and say the same thing as Jesus—they don’t want to talk about Jesus forgiving sins. They don’t want to call what God calls sin “sin.” So they stop praying, stop reading God’s Word, stop going to church, stop doing anything that looks like Christian faithfulness. They start thinking the church and organized religion is actually what’s wrong with the world. They don’t want to have anything to do with it. They start believing the work of the Holy Spirit, convicting people of sin and leading them to repentance is a joke.

They stop repenting. They stop believing. So, the Holy Spirit leaves them alone in their sin. That’s a bad place to be. If a person is left alone in their sin, they will not be forgiven.

So, have you committed the unpardonable sin? Have you blasphemed the Holy Spirit?

Well, let’s see…

You’re here, listening to God’s Word, responding to His mercy—so, I’m pretty sure you’re okay. Unless you’re a spy. Only here to try and trick people into losing their faith, like the Pharisees when they came to trap Jesus. Unless you’re just here to figure out how to destroy the church and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.

If you’re worried about committing the unpardonable sin—you haven’t done it.

I definitely know people who have. It’s like once they flip that switch, there’s nothing you can say to make the light come alive in them again. They mock everything about God’s people, they encourage people to deconstruct their faith, they see the church as nothing but a force of evil in the world. Not only optional and meaningless but harmful. It’s like they’re immune to the Holy Spirit and when they hear God’s Word it only hardens them more.

We’re going to see more and more of this as our culture moves away from the Gospel.

But even then, when the world goes to Hell, Jesus has words of encouragement for His followers.

Verse 11…

And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
Luke 12:11-12

This is talking about when the culture goes completely nuts and people in power start arresting Christians and charging them with crimes related to their faith. We see this in the Book of Acts. It happens throughout history in different countries depending on who’s in power. It looks like we’re not too far away from this kind of thing happening here unless something drastically changes real soon.

After the resurrection, the Pharisees started calling out followers of Jesus in the local synagogues and threatening them with public beatings if they didn’t renounce their faith. 

The Roman government was going to start attacking members of the church throughout the empire. Christians were brought up on charges for everything from atheism (because they didn’t worship the Roman gods), to cannibalism (because of the language of the Lord’s Supper), treason (because they declared that Jesus is Lord rather than Caesar) and disrupting commerce (because people stopped buying statues of the gods and books of magic). 

Our culture is in a landslide toward this same kind of thing. If things keep going the way they’re going, how long do you think it’ll be before publicly declaring that Jesus forgives sins will be considered hate speech? For God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to forgive sins. Hate speech. I mean, if we mention specifically what the Bible says some of those sins are?

Again, since this is Reformation Day, Luther was brought before the authorities and commanded to renounce his 95 Theses against the abuses of the corrupt church leaders. He stood his ground. He famously said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” He was excommunicated from the church and had a price on his head after that.

Being a disciple of Jesus wasn’t going to be easy. It still isn’t.

Faith lives in repentance.

Keep your faith by turning away from sin and turning toward Jesus—don’t be afraid of people and what they can do to you. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Don’t deny Jesus and you’ll have the army of heavens angels behind you, protecting you. Not necessarily to save you in this life—although they will over and over until the one day when they don’t. But then they’ll certainly spare you in the life to come—which is a lot more important.

Then there’s the second part of this verse: When you’re asked to give a defense for your faith before the local authorities—don’t worry about it—the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. We see this in the Book of Acts and throughout church history, too.

By the way, this is not about preaching and teaching in the church. This is absolutely not an excuse to neglect studying and writing a sermon or a lesson when it’s our job to teach other believers. I’ve known of many preachers and teachers who use this verse to walk up in front of a church or a classroom unprepared and just “go with the ghost.” That’s laziness. It’s the reason why so much of what happens in the church is mediocre and boring. 

This verse is a promise that if you ever do find yourself being persecuted for your faith, God has put you there for a reason, and He’ll give you the right words at the right time. Look at Stephen’s speech in Acts chapter 7 if you want to see an example.

In all those interviews I did back in the day, I don’t think I did anything wrong by not letting them lump me in with Christian rock or TV evangelists. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was disappointing my Bible college friends and my youth pastor—they weren’t going to understand. I just tried to say what I thought God wanted me to say. Hopefully, the Spirit was helping me to not sound like an idiot.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Don’t fear people.

You are very valuable to God.

He knows all about you and cares for you.

Acknowledge Jesus, confess Him before people and He will send His angels to watch over you.

Call your sin what it is and you’ll be forgiven.

Jesus was faithful for you—trust that. Believe that.
When you mess up—and all those judges in your head point their fingers at you and make you feel like a failure—stop trying to please them. Stop looking at them. Look at Jesus instead. Turn to Him. Confess your sin. Repent. Faith lives in repentance. AMEN