Mary

rather we recognize that at this joyful time of year that many people are suffering difficulties. We pray right now, silently, for someone we know that is enduring difficulty. Rather we remember little Don Flannery as he has surgery on his ears tomorrow that you would protect him and completely heal him. And as we look at your word now, Father, we pray that you would give it eyes to see and ears to hear the things that you gave to us 2,000 years ago in your word. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Occasionally the church words things poorly and as a result great misunderstanding comes forth. Let me give you some examples by reading some actual selections from church boaters you may have heard some of these before. Birth of Belch, a missionary from Africa will be speaking tonight of Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. Come tonight and hear birth of Belch all the way from Africa. Now some of these are little irreverents. Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. If a chance to get rid of those things, not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands. The sermon this morning, Jesus walks in the water. The sermon tonight, searching for Jesus. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests takes of Pastor Jack's sermons. The pastor will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing, break forth and to joy. This is bad timing there. And this won't let me do it. How about this one, Irving Benson and Jesse Carter were married on October 24th in the church. So ends the friendship that began in their school days. My wife didn't want me to include the following one. A bean sufferer will be held tonight. Will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be, what is hell? Come early and listen to our choir practice. Now I have nothing to do with that. Sorry about that mark. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. And for those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want. Sometimes the church states things poorly and great misunderstanding results. I think that is very much the case with the Virgin Mary. Certain traditions of the church have stated things poorly and as a result, great misunderstanding has come about with regard to Mary. Let me just give you one example. The New Testament is written in Greek. The Latin translation of the Bible, the Volgae, translates the words that the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary in Luke 128 as Dratia Plena or full of grace. Now that's really not a very good translation of the original Greek. It's better translated, highly favored. And that just means that the Lord distowed grace upon her in essence declared her as favorable in its sight because she was the one chosen to be the human instrument through which the Son of God would enter into the world. But the Latin translation opened up the door for the view that grace was a substance that Mary was really full of. But if you look to Mary, she could then become a dispenser of grace. That's just one of the areas in which the church, stating things poorly, has led to misunderstanding about the Virgin Mary. Now as human nature has it, many other traditions of the church in reaction of that have swung to the other end of the pendulum and no pun intended to throw the baby out with the bath water. What we really need to be able to do is to look at what the Bible says and go from there. For instance, John the Baptist's mother is recorded in the Bible as saying, of Mary, blessed are you among women. Blessed are you among women? Jesus about John the Baptist would later say, of those born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist. Very similar wording there. And we don't really have any problem in our end of Christendom, honoring John the Baptist, holding him up in God's redemptive history, the place that God chose for him to occupy. But with Mary, we get sort of nervous and leery. And Mary said in her Magnificat that we'll look at in a minute, that all the future generations will call her blessed. Do you? Do you think of Mary as occupying this unique position of blessing and even favor in God's eyes? Now what we don't want to do is get carried away and make Mary an essence, a fourth member of the Trinity. But what I think the Scripture invites us to do is to look at Mary and ask, Lord, what is it that I can learn about you and my relationship with you by looking at this highly favored woman? That's really what we want to do over the next several weeks is we want to take several of the individuals that play a prominent role in the first advent, the first coming of the Lord Christ, hold him up and sort of as a window look through them beyond them to the God who created them and used them as very important instruments in Jesus' first coming. Now from the Gospel of Luke, if you have a Bible you can use it or just listen from Luke chapter 1 verse 26 and follow. Listen to the story, first of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary, then of Mary going to her relative Elizabeth who was expecting John the Baptist and then a song that Mary sang that we know of as the Magnificat. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth and I'll just stop there and say the sixth month is referring to the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary and he came to her and said greetings though favored one the Lord is with you but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to turn what sort of greeting this might be. And 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 call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end Mary said to the angel how will this be since I am a virgin. The angel answered her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called holy the son of God and behold your relative Elizabeth in her old age is also conceived to son and this is the sixth month with her who is called Baron for nothing will be impossible with God and Mary said behold I am the servant of the Lord let it be to me according to your word. And the angels are part of her and those days Mary arose went with haste to a town in Judah and she entered the house of Zachariah and greeted Elizabeth when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb and why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me for behold when the stand of your greeting came to my ears the baby in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord and Mary said my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant for behold from now on all generations will call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is for those who feared him from generation to generation he has shown strength with his arm he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts he has brought down the mighty from their throne and exalted those of humble estate he will be hungry with the good things and the rich he has sent empty away he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever and Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home since God's holy word now we have in here several different figures talking about Mary being blessed the angel says she is favored Elizabeth says she is blessed among women and Mary herself says from now on all generations are going to call me blessed and what I want to do is since this obviously is a very central point of the introduction of Mary in the gospel believes ask the question how can we about God's favor God blessed by holding up Mary and examining what Luke says about her now there is an objective and a subjective side of God's favor God's grace objectively God declares people to have his faith they are in a condition of God's grace he looks upon them what's favored all right that's the objective side of it the subjective side of it is sort of what you get at the beginning of the attitudes blessed are the pure and heart blessed with those who mourn so on and so forth that is the ideal condition for a human to be based on the objective favor of God is internally to delight to enjoy to be happy things at the face the state or the condition that every human being yearns for is the condition of being blessed all right so you might be the most irreligious person in the world and yet this passage a picture it shows us of Mary is absolutely indispensable in you reaching the kind of life that you search for all right so let's look at that first of all the objective condition of blessing what we see in this passage is that blessing or favor or grace any of those words will do comes by God initiative God brings it forward Mary wasn't pursuing God now the Bible doesn't characterize Mary as unusually lost and sinful it also doesn't characterize Mary as one who's out there seeking God what we find is that she's just a young is real light lady she might have been as young as 12 or as old as 16 I mean either way very young and God just erupts into her life through the person of the angel Gabriel she didn't invite him in God she's allowed through the door and came into her life there's a couple of words given in verse 28 the word there means to bestow favor upon and in verse 30 it means a free gracious choice of God you see this is always the way in which God operates and it's such a beautiful picture an advent advent means coming and it's talking about the coming of the Lord this is always the way that God works things are moving from heaven to earth not the other way around we're not reaching up to God seeking him and God is coming out of heaven inhabiting earth inhabiting our very hearts and pursuing us as a hound of heaven this is the way that God always works you see this back with the nation Israel we think of Israel coming out of Egypt God redeeming them out of slavery in Egypt and right off the bat they rebel and so God says I need this rebellious generation to die off the new generation will be the ones to enter into the promise land and so right before they enter into the promise land in Deuteronomy 9 God wants to make it crystal clear through his servant Moses why if they have been chosen he says in Deuteronomy 9 6 know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness which is a word that means goodness moral integrity for you are a stubborn people remember and do not forget how you provoke the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place you have been rebellious against the Lord the pretty tough language but he wanted to make it very clear that this isn't about you being rewarded this isn't about you speaking me it's about me capturing you for my purpose for my glory and using you as my instrument when you move the new testament the story remains very much the same in the book of Romans the apostle Paul quoting from several places in the Old Testament says this in Romans 3 beginning at verse 10 as it is written 9 is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks after God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one I mean this sounds pretty miserable but the theological point is very important in terms of understanding how you enter into a condition of blessing it is not based on our own pursuit of God and our own ability to do that but on God's goodness alone you look at Ephesians chapter 2 and the way Paul communicates that there is really the condition that all human beings including Mary find themselves to be in from day one is a condition of separation from God which he calls death as for you you were dead in your transgressions and sins he goes on to talk about this in painstaking detail until verse 4 and the two greatest words in the Bible which unfortunately the NIV translation doesn't give us the clearest translation the two greatest words in the Bible are but God verses 1 through 3 are simply telling us of our condition as separate from God and then verse 4 God erupts but God because being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions he has to live together with Christ by grace you have been saved even the picture of Mary conceiving and we talk about the virgin birth is probably better stated the virgin conception Mary is utterly passive it's God that uses Mary as an instrument to bring forth the birth of the Son of God and that's an illustration if you will of our own spiritual birth Jesus talked about this with the religious leader Nicodemus in John chapter 3 Nicodemus came to Jesus at night saying Jesus I know you've come from God and why don't we sit down and talk about these things almost as though he's saying you know man-to-man rabbi to rabbi and Jesus interrupts him and hits him between the eyes and says unless you are born from above you cannot even see the kingdom of God it must begin with a divine initiative it must be God intruding into your life erupting into your life in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to give you a new heart to give you eyes to see that you might believe and embrace Christ alone and that is the natural response once God has bestowed that favor upon us we embrace that's what Mary did look at verse 38 for instance Mary's response to this after she has clarity as to what's going on she says behold I am the servants of the Lord let it be to me according to your word and then Elizabeth sort of commentating for us on one of the reasons why we should indeed regard Mary as an example it says in verse 45 and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord what do you have to do to find God's favor let me put it a little bit more directly what can you do to be saved well the uniform message of the Bible as you can't do anything I can't do anything it must be God saving us God entering into our life but the natural response when he does is to receive his gift of grace in Christ to believe which is what Mary does to believe and so she becomes an example of it let me give you just another picture of what I'm talking about instead of thinking of human beings as naturally seeking after God think of human beings sort of as the way you might think of the relationship between say a thief and a police officer now human beings are not seeking after God natural any more than a thief is seeking after a police officer for the same reason right and yet when the police officer catches up to the thief if the police officer takes the thief to the judge and the judge pardons the the declares the thief innocent the thief has to do what are they out to do to embrace that declaration to believe in it to trust in it to welcome it into their life and that's the natural response that we see Mary exemplify and all of them look the Bible is not trying to show that Mary is a sinless individual much less a co-savier she declares her need for a savior several times she understands in verse 47 of her great song she says my spirit rejoices in God my savior even when she told her the name that she was commanded to give to her son Jesus Jesus means the Lord saves or maybe more literally the Lord is salvation and she knew that she needed not only to welcome a son into the world but to welcome a savior into the world that's the objective side of it what about the subjective side the marvelous condition internally of trusting in these things so that you're joyful so that you enjoy life to the fullest that comes from an attitude where you look at what God has done and you say I don't deserve this I'm a humble service of the Lord and that's what Mary did know she had a hierarchy as to what God was doing it said in verse 38 behold I am the servant of the Lord and she reiterates that again her song in verse 48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant that's the posture of anyone that really understands grace it's sort of a cappernican revolution where we go from thinking that we're the center of the universe we call the shots to recognizing that there is another the God of all creation that is the center of all things my life revolves around him and not the other way around think of what Mary had to deal with she was the trove which is a little bit more strict than are engaged that is it's almost like you're married but you have not entered into you have not consummated the relationship with your spouse and it usually goes on for about a year it takes a three-course to break up a trove and so Mary here she finds herself to be with child it's going to be a disgrace a disgrace to her husband to be to her whole family and yet just after a little clarification she's able to bow the knee and embrace the word of the Lord as a servant of the Lord think about whatever circumstance of difficulty you might be going through right now whatever trial in your life whatever stress or pressure point or relationship that's strained maybe a career that is strained God is sovereign over all of that he is with you and he says come to me as my servant embrace my word trust in me and find the blessed and happy condition of peace in the midst of your difficulty now the other aspect of Mary enjoying this condition of blessing is what we see in the last third of this passage the Magnificat it's called that that's the Latin word that you find at the very beginning of Mary's song we have the translation magnify or years might say exalt the Lord it's a very emotional word it's a powerful word and Mary is essentially saying that she is overcome by declaring the greatness of the Lord did you notice how when Mary entered into Elizabeth's house it says that the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaped that's John the Baptist who we find out earlier in chapter 1 from conception is filled with the Holy Spirit so he leaps in Elizabeth's womb at Jesus's entrance into her presence his presence that's the idea that's what you get the feel you have in Mary's song of adoration that as she contemplates God's grace God's decision to use her as an instrument for his purposes when she thinks about that it just blows her mind and she exalts God she declares God's goodness is raising up the poor and the needy and those who are proud and hearty bringing them down so that God might be Lord over all and receive the glory to put it differently it's worship the way in human being comes to enjoy life as God designed it is to at a heart level begin to adore the God of all creation and Mary is a beautiful example of this you do that by recognizing his grace and favor in your life and also by meditating upon his past his goodness his power his majesty you see all of this in her song this past week I was at a meeting in Maryland at a conference center right on the Chesapeake Bay I was stuck in this room all day and all night and the one advantage was I was sitting on the side of the room where you know it's conference styles and you're facing half of the room where I was looking out behind the people was a giant window and so I'm looking at these people but beyond in this window well as the sun began to set it became very expensive the sun was right in our eyes those of us that were looking out so they closed the blinds and probably 30-45 minutes later you could tell even with the blinds closed the the offensive sun had passed and there was it was a magnificent display behind the blind of all sorts of close orange and red and yellow and several of us started getting ants you like why don't they open the blinds now and finally we motioned to one of the individuals and so they they raised the blinds and and our breath was taken away most spectacular sunset I've ever seen the Chesapeake Bay turned gold all different colors over the sky the funny thing is the person that was speaking with their back to the beauty thought that we were marveling over what they were saying we get it wrong when we hold up Mary and marvel at Mary for Mary's sake or think that we need to worship God through the Bible never encourages that the Bible does encourage us to hold up Mary and say look look through her better look beyond her at the splendor the beauty that frankly your soul cannot contain but you need to try because as you fill your life with how good the Lord has been to you in the Lord Jesus Christ and how magnificent God is to you in all of his power and sovereignty will contain the fulfillment that any human being would first pour and even more as you do that and as you are blessed you become a blessing to others this is just one of the nicknames that we'll see as we look at one of the faces of Advent as we go to the Lord's table now I want you to remember that the very first miracle that Jesus performed is one that his mother encouraged him to perform turning water into wine it's as though Mary was beginning the celebration that will be fully realized when we enter into God's glory fully and have our breath absolutely taken away at the sun beaming before our eyes and he says sit drink eat and live let's pray Father thank you thank you that the son of glory has come into this world thank you for using Mary humble servant of the Lord and O Lord might we learn from her example that we too need a Savior would you bless us Father and use us to bless others in Jesus name Amen