By Faith, Mary...

[00:00:00] Let's look to God in prayer. [00:00:08] Father, you certainly know us. [00:00:12] Just as the psalm that we sang tells us that even before we were born, you knew all about us. [00:00:24] But Father, you have not left us to ourselves, but you have given us your word. [00:00:35] Your word in creation which leaves all men without excuse. [00:00:42] But in particular, Father, we pray this morning concerning your word in Scripture, that which is perfect and holy and given by the Holy Spirit. [00:00:59] And we pray that that very same spirit, that he would enlighten our eyes, that we might see, that we might hear that which you would communicate to us. [00:01:18] We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:28] I guess I didn't announce when I asked people to stand, that if you're able, I should always qualify it with that. And we come to the reading of the Word. And I would like to emphasize if someone feels the necessity to sit down, please do. Do not feel that you must stand. But we do stand to honor God's word. [00:02:04] Luke 1:26:56. [00:02:15] In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to 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, O favored one. The Lord is with you. [00:02:33] But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern 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 he 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. [00:03:11] And Mary said to the angel, how will this be, since I'm a virgin? And 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. [00:03:29] And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age has also conceived a son, and is this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. [00:03:44] And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be according to your word. And the angel departed from her. [00:03:56] In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And 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 sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. [00:04:33] And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. [00:04:42] 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 fear 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 low the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. 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. [00:05:39] Thus ends the reading of God's word. [00:05:49] Please be seated. [00:06:09] The basis of my sermon this morning is found there in the 45th verse, an observation that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this wasn't just Elizabeth's notion. [00:06:36] That is spoken by Elizabeth, where she says of Mary, the mother of Jesus, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord, she who believed. [00:07:03] I titled my sermon this morning by faith Mary. And some of you who remember from last year. [00:07:11] Pastor Chopka started a series on Hebrews, chapter 11, did the first three, I believe, and then I finished out the 11th chapter. And I really enjoyed that. That was a great joy to go through that. And I hope that I made the point clear. If not, I'll make it now that the whole point of that 11th chapter was to make it clear that the faith of the Old Testament saint was the same as the faith that we have. [00:07:49] Don't let anyone ever sell you on the idea that people under the old covenant were saved in some different way or they were required to believe something different than we. [00:08:02] And that that refrain by faith. By faith. Now, I realize you won't find in the New Testament the statement by faith, Mary, but what we have here is the clear Teaching that Mary was a woman of faith. [00:08:28] A lot of people don't see that a lot of false things are taught about Mary. [00:08:42] And so first I'd like to brush away those false teachings before I get down to what it means that Mary was a woman of faith. If you'll turn with me to Jeremiah, chapter 7 and beginning with verse 16, Jeremiah 7, 16, the Lord tells Jeremiah here, as for you, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. [00:09:26] Do you not see what they are doing? In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the children gather wood and the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven. [00:09:41] And they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me in anger. [00:09:47] It is I whom they provoke, declares the Lord. It is not themselves to their own shame. [00:09:55] Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and. And the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched. Have you ever heard Mary called the queen of Heaven? Yes, that's a blasphemous title. [00:10:18] That's a horrible thing to associate her. This queen of heaven was a false God. [00:10:25] We have no female gods. [00:10:30] You see these signs out in front of churches advertising various things. [00:10:36] We don't have one quite like that in Sterling, but I thought if we did. What I'd like to put on the sign is the patriarchy is good and well here in this church, alive. [00:10:51] And it is here as well. There's nothing wrong with patriarchy. God is he his personal pronoun preference? [00:11:02] Jesus, he, the spirit. He and the elders of the church are all men. [00:11:16] We dare not treat Mary as some demagogue, some God sort of person. [00:11:27] Well, one of the other false things that is taught about her is that she was born sinless. [00:11:35] You may have heard this. It's called the Immaculate Conception. A lot of Protestants, when they hear that, if they're not familiar with the term, think that it refers to Jesus being immaculately conceived. [00:11:48] But no, no, that's a reference to Mary, that Mary was born without sin. Well, there's a little problem here, because if Mary was born without sin, right here in our passage, we have Mary lying to us. [00:12:05] Listen to verse 47 in Luke, chapter one. And my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. [00:12:19] Mary recognizes her need for a savior. Did you know that holy angels do not have A savior. [00:12:28] And that if Mary had been born sinless, she would be similar to holy angels. [00:12:38] And the way that Christ, who is born sinless, has that standing with God. [00:12:49] Mary recognized her need for a savior, and so she was not of the opinion that she was sinless. [00:13:11] And then further, I'm trying to maintain this, I try to maintain it throughout this season to refer to Mary as the mother of Jesus. [00:13:26] That's the way she was referred to in the early church. [00:13:30] There in Acts. [00:13:32] Turn with me in Acts 2, 1, 19. Excuse me. [00:13:46] And it's speaking there about, well, let me begin my reading with verse 12, Acts, chapter 1. Beginning with verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were saying, saying, excuse me, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew. James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James. All these with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. [00:14:40] It is right and proper to say that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. It is not right and proper to refer to her now as the Virgin Mary. [00:14:57] There was a man in the a church that I was a part of in Kansas City. One of the men in the church is a friend of mine, and he's married. They had a daughter. [00:15:09] And whenever he would introduce his wife to anyone who was a guest in the church, he always introduced her as his. His bride. [00:15:22] And that was really sweet, you know, not a bad idea to think of your wife as your bride. [00:15:34] But how ridiculous would it be if he had introduced his wife as a virgin when there stands their daughter? [00:15:44] And to call Mary now the virgin is to go along with that idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary that has been maintained in parts of the church, even with the ridiculous notion that Jesus was not born by natural childbirth. [00:16:14] And then here in our passage, we have that in Acts that his brothers were there. And that term brothers sometimes in the Bible. Nothing wrong with this. That includes sisters as well. It's brethren. [00:16:36] Don't refer to her in the present tense as the Virgin Mary. [00:16:44] But at the time that this promise comes to her, she is a virgin. [00:16:55] And the angel comes to her and tells her this. [00:16:59] Who is this Mary to whom the angel speaks? [00:17:06] She's a descendant of Abraham, She's a descendant of David. [00:17:13] She is the fiance of Joseph. [00:17:29] Turn with me to Matthew where it the angel speaks to Joseph concerning his bride to be. [00:17:46] Matthew 1, and beginning with verse 18. [00:17:50] Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. [00:17:59] Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. [00:18:06] And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. [00:18:15] But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. [00:18:40] All this took place to fulfill that which the prophet had spoken. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus. [00:19:13] Not until after Jesus birth did they consummate their marriage. [00:19:24] Let's look a little closer, though, at the question of who is this Mary? [00:19:34] In that era, girls got married rather young. [00:19:43] I married my wife when she was just 18 years old. [00:19:48] I remember sharing that with some friends that I had gone to college with a couple, they were married, they had gone through college, so they were of a certain age. [00:20:03] The man's wife turned to me when she found out how young Karen was, and Karen was expecting at that point, and she slapped me. And I will never forget that slap. She said, how dare you, such a young girl. [00:20:21] Our culture, marriage tends to be delayed more. [00:20:26] But in that culture, realistically, we're talking about a young woman who is somewhere between the ages of 14 and 17. [00:20:38] By the time you hit 18, you were an old maid in that culture, believe it or not, in their thinking. [00:20:47] And so when we picture this angel appearing to her, picture a teenager, a teenage girl. [00:20:55] Some of you are in that state right now. Some of you have been. Some of you are the father of teenage girls, or you grew up with a bunch of teenage girls like I did, five of them. [00:21:10] Yes, I was my mother's favorite son, uncontested. [00:21:16] But we need to picture her that way, not as a mature woman who's had a lot of experience in life. [00:21:25] She is aware of where babies come from. [00:21:29] Because her first objection. The objection, I mean, the first thing that she says in response to the angel, what the angel tells her is that how can this be since I'm a virgin. [00:21:48] And then the angel goes on to explain to her how it can be. [00:21:57] Ask you a question. Do you understand that explanation? [00:22:06] I mean, we understand it on a surface level. In other words, Joseph is not going to be the father of this child. [00:22:16] This child's conception is going to be the work of the Holy Spirit. [00:22:26] The facts I can see, but I still would be questioning a lot. How did that come about? [00:22:34] What exactly happened there? We're not told all those things and neither is Mary. That's all the information she has. She has got a message that she knows is from the Lord. [00:22:54] And she's also told about Elizabeth, who has had a miraculous conception. [00:23:06] Not an immaculate one, but a miraculous one. An elderly couple are expecting a baby. [00:23:24] She's in her sixth month. [00:23:28] She who was called barren. [00:23:32] For nothing will be impossible with God. That's the word that Mary receives. Nothing will be impossible with God. Mary knew the Old Testament. [00:23:47] She didn't have a hard time believing the angel when he said that this elderly woman was expecting a baby because she knew that that had happened before Abraham and Sarah. [00:24:03] And there are other instances as well. That was the most elderly couple, I believe, to have a child in the Old Testament. But there are other instances where someone was childless and God miraculously enabled that woman to give birth. But here he's not talking about someone who is childless because she's barren. [00:24:34] And yet listen to what Mary says. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. [00:24:47] And then Elizabeth goes on to say about Mary, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Mary had been given the gift of faith. [00:25:11] And the gift of faith enables us to believe things that seem otherwise outrageous. [00:25:18] We all know, some of us who are older, some of the younger crowd may not be as aware of it, but all the struggles that the church went through about a hundred years ago over the question of the virgin birth, whether you had to believe that to be a Christian. [00:25:37] Today, I dare say there are a lot of people who seem to think that one doesn't need to believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, nor of his physical return. [00:25:52] And all of this is equally ridiculous. [00:25:57] But the world sees those things as ridiculous, don't they? [00:26:02] But if you are a true believer in Jesus Christ, you believe those things, why do you believe them? Because you're smarter than the rest of the crowd. [00:26:13] It's not always the case, is it? [00:26:17] There's some very brilliant people who reject the gospel. [00:26:22] If you believe these things, it's because God has given that to you, granted that to you. And Mary has been granted that. [00:26:36] When we think of her as that young teenage girl taking on the calling that God gave to her, she knew it would not be easy, just as Joseph, I'm sure, knew that it would not be easy to be betrothed to a woman who was expecting a child, because the people in the community would assume it's his and that they had engaged in something that was improper before the proper time of their marriage. [00:27:18] But it was not easy for Mary to take on this and the whispering that would go on and the accusations that probably started after this passage that I read. Because you notice that she stayed with Elizabeth for three months. [00:27:41] Now, if my math is correct, six plus three is nine, and that's when the baby arrives. [00:27:48] So Mary stayed around until John the Baptist was born, and then she left. [00:27:54] But she was three months pregnant and would begin to be showing as she returned to her community. [00:28:12] That is amazing. [00:28:15] And we should honor her for that. But we should also look to her as our example. [00:28:22] God has not called upon any of you to take on that responsibility. [00:28:30] But he does call upon us to do things, doesn't he? [00:28:35] Things that we are called upon in the rearing of our own children. [00:28:42] I have three of them. They've all reached adulthood, which is a wonderful experience if you haven't had that yet. [00:28:50] It does happen eventually. [00:29:02] I'd like to deal with one more passage before I close. [00:29:10] It's in Revelation 12. [00:29:22] I have never met Stephen Lauer. You're pastor elect at this point, right? [00:29:30] Correct. You haven't heard a response yet from him, Yea or nay or. The presbytery hasn't passed on that yet. Okay. There's a process yet to come about. But I went and listened to his sermon that he preached to you some a couple of weeks back, or so called the Bread of Heaven. [00:29:53] And do you remember that he turned to this passage? I thought that was fascinating. [00:30:02] The first part of Revelation, chapter 12, beginning with verse one, through verse six. [00:30:11] And a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and agony and giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. And on his heads were seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished. For 1,260 days, I preached through the Book of Revelation more than once. I'm not going to explain this passage fully to you this morning because I do not understand it fully, everything that's going on here. But one of the things that Pastor Lauer pointed out to you was that this woman here is the church, both Old and New Testament. [00:31:43] And this passage, though it does not refer to Mary directly, that Mary is a type of the church, and she's really a perfect type for the church, because do you realize that she was a believer under the Old Covenant as well as under the New. [00:32:15] Now, this could be said of other disciples of Jesus, certainly, and the apostles. [00:32:22] Do you realize that Mary held no office in the church? [00:32:27] You can't find that in the Scriptures. [00:32:31] She held no office in the church. [00:32:34] She was simply a member under the Old Covenant, and then under the New, she was a very privileged member in the sense that she was one of the few that actually witnessed the death of Jesus, that she stood there with the Apostle John at her side and watched her son die. [00:33:20] There's a woman that I know back in Kansas that I pray for. Marie is her name. [00:33:26] She's lost two sons. One is a teenager in an automobile accident, died suddenly, 17 years old. [00:33:36] And recently a son who was 40 who died of liver failure and kidney failure due to alcoholism. [00:33:49] And I spoke at his graveside service, and I have thought about what comfort I can offer her. [00:34:04] Like I said, I have three children. They're all still living. [00:34:10] But it dawned on me that Jesus, mother Mary, witnessed his death. [00:34:22] Not a death due to his own sins, but a death paying for our sins, that we might know forgiveness. [00:34:40] And I am seriously considering writing her and pointing that out to her, though I cannot say those words, the proper words of comfort, that Mary experienced that. [00:34:58] And also Jesus Father witnessed that. [00:35:09] But Mary was also in that upper room, knowing of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope that was hers, and that when she died, and I don't believe she was assumed into heaven, nothing in scripture indicates that when she died, she went to be with her Lord and her son, for she is still the mother of Jesus. [00:35:52] Let's look to God in prayer. [00:36:01] Father, how amazing to us is that young Virgin Mary, whom you chose to bear your son, to give him his physical existence in this life, but a son who is yours from all eternity. [00:36:37] Father, may we be good and faithful members of the body of Jesus Christ, just as Mary was and the other early believers and the apostles. [00:37:03] And that as we come this morning, Father, to the Lord's table and are reminded once again to remember his death. [00:37:18] Until he comes, may our hearts and minds be focused upon him and what he has done for us. [00:37:32] And recognize that it is all of grace and that we come with empty hands to receive the grace that you alone can give to us. [00:37:50] In Jesus name we pray. Amen.