Responding Rightly to God's Call

If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, I want you to turn this
morning to Luke Chapter 1. We are pausing in our study, our ongoing study through
the book of Ephesians. We're going to do that this morning and for the next couple
of weeks as we begin a new year. But there's a connection in the passage we're
going to look at this morning, and the verse we looked at last Sunday. Last Sunday,
we looked at Ephesians 210, which says that we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And
the question comes up, what happens when the works that God has prepared for you
that he's called you to, what happens when those good works take you in a hard or
a difficult direction? You know, when God calls you to a difficult path or a tough
assignment. What do you do with that? How do you make sense of the idea that God
might be calling you to honor and glorify him in a way that would be hard and
painful for you, a way that involves sorrow and suffering? I want us to look this
morning at lessons we can learn about all of this from the life of Mary,
the mother of Jesus, about the right way to respond when God's plan for us leaves
us confused or when it disrupts the plans we had for our lives when it doesn't
make sense to us. How do we respond when this is the direction God takes us?
Because it will happen. It has happened or it is happening or it's going to happen.
There will be times when God will put you on a path that is not the path you
would have chosen for yourself. So we're going to look this morning at two scenes
from Luke chapter one that involved Mary. In fact, it's where Mary is introduced to
us in the text of Scripture. And let me just make this clear. The main point of
Luke 1 and 2, the reason that Luke writes to us is to let us know that those who
were most intimately involved in the birth of Jesus. Those who were around at that
time, they understood the significance. God was demonstrating to them and speaking to
them and revealing to them the significance of his son coming into the world. Most
of the world was oblivious to his birth. They didn't know anything had happened, but
there were select people, including Mary and Joseph, including the shepherds, including
the magi. There were a handful of select people who understood something incredibly
significant is happening here. This is no ordinary child and this is no ordinary
birth. And while the big idea of Luke 1 and 2 is to say it was clear from the
beginning who Jesus is, I think we can also see in this story how Mary responded
when she got the news that God was going to be involving her in the birth of His.
speak to us by your spirit we pray Lord be our teacher and reveal yourself to us
through your word help us not just to be hearers of your word but doers as well
we pray in your name amen Luke 1 beginning of verse 26 this is the word of God
for the people of God the Bible says in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent
from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose
name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
When he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you,
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. He will be called the
Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father,
David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom,
there will be no end.
and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah. 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. 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 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 down 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 his offspring
forever. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower
fades. The word of our God will stand forever. I just have to say, reading through
that last passage, Mary's hymn of praise. She's a teenager.
She's maybe 13 or 15. I don't know how old she is.
She's praying better than I am. I mean, just hit me anyway. When we look at Mary
and how she received.
was she developed the five stages of grief and said it's common for folks who are
experiencing grief to go through these five stages. You start with denial and then
anger and then bargaining and then depression and then finally acceptance. Well,
I see in this passage five stages that Mary went through as she processed God's
assignment for her. And let me just be clear at the outset. God was calling Mary,
this young woman, this teenager, to something that was going to be very hard for
her. It was a path that would ultimately lead to blessing, but it would be a hard
path to get there. And the blessing that Mary would experience, as far as we can
tell, was not something she experienced in this life. Now, she had moments of
blessing. Any mom raised in her kids has moments of blessing, moments of joy, but
the blessing of God that she ultimately experienced, comes after she has faithfully
obeyed.
is confused or perplexed. Third, she comes to accept and to obey that this is God's
plan for her. Next, she walks by faith in obedience to that plan.
And then finally, she worships and rejoices the God who has this plan for her.
But you see it's a progression that starts with fear and anxiety before it ever
gets to praise and worship. I want to say a way.
that Mary would have been as she was getting this news. And because throughout
history the Roman Catholic Church has come to give Mary a position of respect and
significance that goes beyond what the Bible teaches about her, there has been a
tendency among those who are not Roman Catholics, among Protestants like us, to
overreact and to fail to exalt the role that Mary plays according to the scriptures.
Some of the things that the Roman Catholic Church teaches about Mary that are not
found in the scripture, they say she was immaculately conceived, that she had no sin
in her. This was first put forth by the church as official dogma back in the
1800s. They say she led a sinless life. They say that she remained a virgin
throughout her life. That was presented to the church in the 600s. They say that
she is the mother of the church, and they say that at the end of her life, she
was raised like Christ was. She was assumed into heaven.
She did not die. Now, these are all ideas that are not taught in Scripture. They're
established by church tradition throughout the years. And some of what the Catholics
teach come from a reading of the verse we just read that says, greetings, oh,
favored one, the Lord is with you.
They read a lot into that verse. It carries a lot of weight. The Latin translation
of the Bible, the angel says, Ave Maria, gratia plena,
doministicum. Any former Catholics here. You recognize Ave Maria, Graziea Plana.
That is Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with you. That's the Hail Mary prayer
that a lot of Catholics pray. The point Luke is making about Mary in verse 28 is
that she was a recipient of divine grace, not that she was a dispenser of divine
grace. And we believe that Catholics have invested too much in that phrase in verse
28 more than what God intended for that verse to mean. They make it,
if you'll pardon the expression, a pregnant phrase that has more there than it
should. So as a result, some Protestants have said, we don't want to fall into the
trap that we think the Catholics have fallen into. We don't want to exalt Mary to
a position. She is called by the church the co -redemptrix that she and Jesus
together redeem us. We don't want to get anywhere near that. And so we go to the
other extreme and say, she was just
She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough.
Still, honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither
Christ nor the Scriptures. So he says, honor her, just don't go where the
Scriptures, beyond what the Scriptures would take you. John Calvin says it cannot be
denied that God in choosing and destiny Mary to be the mother of God granted her
highest honor. To this day, we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ
without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honor to
marry and be willing her to be the mother of his only begotten son.
So we should assign to Mary a position of honor and nobility that the scriptures
afford to her, but we should not go any farther than what the scriptures say. She's
not to be worshipped, but in the same way that we see God at work in the Bible
through the lives of Peter and Paul and John the Baptist and Stephen when he was
stoned and all the other people in the New Testament, we should see Mary as
deserving of honor chosen by God for special service to him. And her example of
faithful, sacrificial obedience to God should be an example for each one of us.
So let's see, by the way, when Marianne and I were traveling this fall, we were in
a church in Spain, in Cadiz, Spain, an old Catholic church,
and when we walked in, there up behind the altar was a glorified Mary with a halo
around her. She was big and exalted, and at her feet there was a tiny baby Jesus.
And I thought, okay, that's a little out of whack, right? That's not how it's,
that should not be the image that comes to mind for you. So let's see how Mary
responds when she gets the news from God about his plan for her life, how she goes
from where she first hears about it to where she ultimately arrives. And it begins
with Mary being greatly troubled and fearful. That's what the Bible says.
Verse 29 says, Gabriel came to her and said, greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord
is with you. She was greatly troubled at this saying and tried to discern what sort
of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, don't be afraid, Mary, you
found favor with God. We don't know what Gabriel looked like when he showed up.
By the way, that's true for most angelic encounters in the Bible. The writers of
the Bible do not describe to us most of the time what the angels look like. We do
know that sometimes when angels showed up, they look like men. Genesis 18, when
Abraham meets angels, they just look like normal men. Sometimes they're wearing white
robes. Sometimes there may be a glow about them. Sometimes they look like they're
ready for battle. But most of the time, when there's an angelic appearance, we don't
know what the angel looked like. The writer of Hebrews says it's possible that
you've met an angel and entertain them without being aware of it. So angels who are
messengers can appear however they appear. And we don't know what Gabriel looked like
when he appeared to Mary, but it seems that Mary was more troubled or perplexed by
the announcement that the angel made than she was by his appearance. And the
announcement, the angel comes to her and says, she's a highly favored one of God
and that trouble
Right? Like if the only other time in the Bible that that phrase,
the Lord is with you, is spoken to anyone, is in the story of Gideon.
When the angel comes to Gideon and says, the Lord is with you, you're about to go
with only 300 of you up against the Midianites in battle. You're about to face
something that's going to look impossible to you. Just know, the Lord is with you.
So if an angel came to you and said, the Lord is with you, you might say, what's
about to happen to me that I'm going to need the Lord to be with me and I'm
going to have to be told not to worry? I mean, if somebody calls you and says,
listen,
don't worry about this. Your car is fine. Okay? Or if they say,
don't be afraid, you're not going to get sick. Or, don't be afraid,
nothing bad is going to happen to you. You're waiting for the next shoe to drop.
What's the bad thing you're not telling me? And I think that's what, when an angel
shows up and says, you are highly favored of God, Mary's going, what are you not
telling me? That's why she is afraid. Somebody calls and says, I need to come over
and talk to you. Don't worry, it's nothing big. Before they get there, all you can
think about is what's the bad thing I'm about to hear.
Gabriel recognizes that what he's about to tell Mary is naturally going to be a
source of fear and anxiety for her. And that's why he says to her, you are highly
favored of God. You don't need to be afraid. And again, keep in mind her age.
You know, she's 13, 14, 15, thereabouts. She's preparing for her wedding.
She's betrothed to Joseph. She's got the next few years mapped out in her head and
the angel comes and says, there's a detour coming your way. Get ready.
I point this out to remind that we should not be surprised when God takes us on a
detour. When we find ourselves with news that the path that God has for us is not
the path we had planned for ourselves, that things are not going to go the
direction we thought they were going to go or we want them to go or we'd like for
them to go. You may step into that path and go, I don't like this, I don't get
it. It doesn't make sense to me. I had a friend of mine in radio who this week
posted on Facebook. It was the anniversary of the day that the radio station that
he was working for back in 2014 sold to another station, and he and everybody else
was out of work. They loved this station, they'd been working there for years, and
now all of a sudden he wrote, today marks the anniversary of an extremely
significant and difficult day in my life. So he said, it seems we have lived
through a couple of lifetimes since that day in 2014 when we all lost the jobs we
love so much. But then he said this, God is faithful would be
happened in 2014, he was fearful, he was anxious, he was troubled, he could not see
the path ahead, he didn't know what God had for him,
and yet he can look back from this perspective and say God was taking me to a
place where I would be blessed. And Mary is not there yet.
She's at the beginning of this journey where she's looking and saying, what's ahead
for me. She is fearful. Her journey of faith with God,
calling her to be the mother of Jesus, begins with perplexity and with fear. She's
troubled and anxious. And if you're here this morning and you're at a season in
life where you are troubled or anxious, perplexed, or fearful about the path that
God has you on right now, Mary and my radio friend would say to you, you can
trust the Lord. His ways are right. They can be hard and disruptive.
But what he does is good and right. Hang on, trust him.
It's going to be okay.
Keep in mind that Gabriel tells Mary that she has been selected by God.
She has found favor with God. What is it that she's done to find favor with God?
The answer is nothing. God freely pours out his favor on whom he chooses.
It's a picture of all who received God's grace on the basis of his kind initiative.
God has found favor with you, if you're a believer, not because of something special
about you, but because of something special about him. He is a God who shows favor
to whom he chooses. So Mary begins with fear and anxiety.
Her next step is the step of confusion and with good reason, because Gabriel tells
her, you will conceive in your womb, verse 31, bear a son, you'll call him Jesus.
He'll be great, and he goes on to describe how he will fulfill the messianic
prophecies. And Mary in verse 34 says to the angel, how can this be? Since I'm a
virgin. Doesn't make any sense that I'm going to be a mother. I've never been with
a man. What you're saying, Angel, makes absolutely no sense to me.
I'm going to have a baby boy. He'll be the Messiah. He'll reign forever. How can
this be? She is really confused. What's about to happen to her has never happened
to anybody in human history before or since. There is only one virgin conception in
all of human history. And by the way, that's the right term. We talk about the
virgin birth. It was actually the virgin conception. She was conceived, or Jesus was
conceived in the womb of a virgin.
and gave birth to a child. I want to suggest to you this morning quickly five
reasons why I think you can count on what the Bible teaches, what it says about
the virgin conception of Jesus in Mary's womb. First of all,
the very first announcement of the gospel back in Genesis tells us that it would be
an unusual conception. If you know the story in Genesis 3, when God comes to the
first.
the seed of a woman. And everybody knew, when Moses knew,
something unusual about that, the seed of a woman. He was at the very least
indicating that the coming one birth would be, or conception, would be unusual and
significant. That's the first reason. Second reason is that God is clearly seen as
responsible for other supernatural births in the Bible.
So Sarah was well past the age of conceiving and she became a mother.
Hannah was barren. She became a mother. Samson was born to a woman who was barren
after the angel appeared to her and told her she would have a son. Before Mary is
found to be pregnant, her own cousin, Elizabeth, who has had no children and is in
advanced years,
Emmanuel. That's Isaiah 714. It's one of those Christmas prophecies that points ahead
long before there's any news about the virgin birth of Jesus. This is what Isaiah
says is going to happen. Fourth, I think the virgin conception of Jesus is true
because both Matthew and Luke state very clearly that this is what's happening.
There's no ambiguity. There's no stuttering here. And if we deny that what we find
in Matthew and Luke are
We live in an anti -supernatural age. In fact, Al Moller has said we need to be on
guard against the anti -supernaturalism of our age. Anti -supernaturalism is rooted,
he says, in embarrassment. Our desire to be considered smart by other smart people
or the cultural elites leads us to not want to affirm supernatural things.
But we must, I think, affirm that this is what the Bible teaches, and it matters.
Mary is confused when the angel says this is going to happen to you. There's no
trouble being confused. I mean, if somebody says, Mary was a virgin and she had a
baby, you go, that's confusing to me.
It's understandable. But when Gabriel explains to her how it's going to happen in
verse 35, And then he points to the pregnancy of Elizabeth to say, look, nothing's
impossible with God. He's helping her understand that God is capable of causing this
to happen. So at that point, Mary moves to her third response. She moves from
confusion to acceptance and obedience. Look at what she says in verse 38.
Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your
word. Now, what is absent from that response as I read it is not,
how is this going to affect me? Does this news make me happy? I'm not pleased with
this. Her focus is not on her. Her focus is on God.
Think about what she's about to experience. She's about to experience cultural shame.
She's an unmarried 13 -year -old who's about to become pregnant. She's likely to
experience a broken engagement to an honorable young man. She's possibly facing a
stoning because when you are unmarried and pregnant, what does that tell us?
You've broken the law. But she doesn't respond with that in her focus,
how this might impact me. She responds with acceptance and obedience. I am the
servant a blo.
Sometimes you have to just accept what God has for you without embracing it with
enthusiasm. She's still dealing with confusion and anxiety and fear and she's
responding to the angel with a willingness to obey more than with excitement over
what God's plan for her is. Let me just note. Again, this is going to be difficult
for her. No one's going to believe her story. Joseph doesn't believe it at first
until the angel comes to him. Relatives aren't going to believe it. The rest of the
town's going to be talking about it. For Mary to say, I am the servant of the
Lord, let it be done to me according to your word. That is no small step of
obedience because it means I will step in and obey even though there could be
danger and death ahead for me.
This was not how she planned to start her life as Joseph's wife. Some of you know
the name Elizabeth Elliot. One of the real privileges and highlights of my time
working at Family Life and Radio was getting to meet Elizabeth Elliott, getting to
interview her, and ultimately getting to spend an afternoon in her home with her
husband in New England. And for those of you who don't know her or know her name,
she was an author, a radio host, she was a no -nonsense speaker. When I went to
visit her at her home,
She became prominent back in 1956 when her first husband, Jim, and four other men
were murdered in Ecuador by the people they were seeking to evangelize. And she
wrote a book about it called Through Gates of Splendor that became widely read. And
Elizabeth throughout her life loved to quote a poem written by one of her heroes
named Amy Carmichael. And the poem was simply entitled, in acceptance,
lieth peace.
Those are four important words for all of us. In acceptance,
lieth peace. And here's what Elizabeth Elliott went on to say about that. She said,
a willing acceptance of all that God assigns and a glad surrender of all that I am
and have constitute the key to receiving the gift of a quiet heart.
Whenever I have balked, the quietness goes. It is restored and life immeasurably
simplified when I have trusted and obeyed.
Mary, in Luke 1, may still be confused and anxious and is facing pain and hardship.
She has no idea At this point that the son she will give birth to will be nailed
to a cross and she'll be there to watch it happen.
But in Luke 1, she's modeling acceptance, surrender, obedience,
and trust. I am your servant, let it be done to me according to your word. Can
you say that to God?
Your will be done in my life, whatever may come, wherever it leads?
In acceptance, lieth peace?
Mary professes her faith in God by saying, let it be done to me according to your
will. And then, verses 39 and 40, she takes a step of faith. She goes to see her
pregnant cousin. The angel has just told her. Elizabeth is expecting a child. Mary
goes to see her. Here are two women, one young, one old, one a virgin,
the other is beyond
journey for a young girl to go on? And why does she go? Well,
she goes because when you are aware that God is up to something in your life, the
right place to go is to be with others who can understand the power of God working
in your life and in their lives, to go have fellowship with other people who have
experienced the work of God in their lives or are going through what you're going
through. J. C. Ryle, reflecting on this passage, says communion with other believers
is an eminent means of
Mary's time with Elizabeth served to confirm what the angel had said to her. It
served to build her faith in all that the angel had promised her. And the truth
is, we're all nurtured by fellowship with other believers who can share with us what
we're going through. Years ago when we were raising our teenagers, Marianne and I
would often go to our small group meetings on Sunday nights, and we would head over
thinking, you know, our kids are going to be in jail someday. I mean, we just
might as well be ready for that fact. They're going to grow up and be delinquents.
and we were discussed.
the Holy Spirit, the baby in her leaps in her womb, and she starts jump,
the baby starts jumping as Mary arrives, and Elizabeth cries out loud enough for
others around her to hear, and she says, blessed are you among women? Blessed is
the fruit of your womb. And she says significantly, why is this granted to me that
the mother of my Lord should come to me? She understands, by revelation,
from the Holy Spirit, what's going on here. She's confirming for Mary what the angel
says. Sometimes fellowship does that. It's a confirming of what God has said to you
in his word. Others can confirm, yes, this is the Lord's purpose and plan for your
life. This was a step of faith on Mary's part to go see and spend fellowship with
Elizabeth. She went to where she had been told that God was already at work.
and the fellowship with her cousin
joy. And keep in mind, what prompts this hymn of praise in Mary is the gracious
supernatural confirmation of what the angel has said that has come from Elizabeth.
She's probably thinking, I mean, imagine Mary walking down from Nazareth down to see
her cousin, and on the way, she says, so I'm going to tell her that an angel came
to me and told me that I'm going to be pregnant, even though I've never been with
a man. She's going to think I'm cuckoo for cocoa puff.
Something good is happening here. Even though it's going to be hard, it's good. And
she says, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
Her understanding of God and His greatness has become much bigger in her soul in
this moment. When she says, my soul magnifies the Lord, I'm seeing God bigger here
than I've seen Him before.
And Notice, she rejoices in God her Savior. I just point that out.
Mary was a sinner. She needed saving. She needed a savior just like us.
She knew she was a sinner. And she may not have understood exactly what was going
on yet, but as the song says, she was about to see that the child she would
deliver would one day deliver her from her sin. She's rejoicing in God, her Savior.
She has moved from acceptance to worship and joy. Doesn't mean there won't be hard
days ahead, but as she keeps her eyes fixed on what God is doing in and through
her, she will experience joy that comes from walking in obedience. By the way,
the hymn that she prays here, I marveled at it as I read through it, just
thinking, how does this young woman know these words to pray? She understands God's
work throughout Old Testament.
She'd been taught the Bible. She'd learned these things so that when she faced the
circumstances she faced, what came out of her was the scripture that had been hidden
in her heart. That's why it's so important not just for children, but for all of
us.
To be in God's word, to have God's word in us. John Piper says, what an admonition
to all of us, both men and women, young and old, to steep our minds and hearts in
the scriptures day and night so that the words and thoughts of Scripture can fill
our mouths.
and ultimately coming to a place of worshiping and rejoicing in what God was doing.
I'm just wondering where you are in your spiritual journey this morning. So you
think about the path that God has you on. So you think about the hardships you're
experiencing. Are you fearful or anxious? Are you confused? Have you recognized that
in acceptance lieeth peace? Have you come to the place where in spite of your
circumstances you can see God's hand and begin to worship him and rejoice in what
he's doing because it's for his glory and you're good even if it's hard.
I think there's a lot we can learn from watching how Mary went on this path.
I wish we had time to go through the Magnificat line by line. Maybe we'll do that
next Christmas, but it's my hope and joy in this season, that God will help all of
us move to a place of worship in our journey with him. Pray with me,
if you will. Father, thank you for Mary's example. Thank you for how your spirit
was at work in her life.
Thank you for the example that she is to us. Lord, help us to learn from her.
Help us to be like her with whatever experience you have for us.
When the path is hard, Lord, help us to move to acceptance and find the peace and
ultimately come to a place of heartfelt worship and joy. Lord,
I pray this morning for those who are here who have not begun their journey with
you. any here who