MARY - THE TERRIFIC TEENAGER
Luke 1:26-38
A remarkable thing about God is that he trusts us with His work. He trusted men and women in Bible times to receive and record His revelations of Himself. He entrusted His church with His supreme revelation, Jesus, and with the great commission (Mt. 28:18-20) to preach the gospel.
This trust often costs God. Sometimes the work does NOT GET DONE. In the first nine chapters of Acts we find the church failing to reach out to the world and witnessing mainly in southern Palestine. Worse than this, many times GOD’S NAME is dishonored by the way we do it or the attitude we have in doing it.
Like it or not we represent Christ to the world, and it judges him by us. When we sin, we bring reproach on the church and upon Christianity and even upon Christ. That’s why Paul told the people of his day, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you!” (Rom. 2:24).
In our text we find the greatest example of divine trust in the word of God. God trusts a young Jewish girl, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties, with the birth, care, feeding, nurturing and teaching of His son.
And Mary was trustworthy. She was faithful. The work of God was done and the name of God has been honored because of her. This beautiful person has been mistreated by the church.
The Roman church has DEIFIED her and made her the Queen of heaven and almost co-equal with Christ.
But Protestants are guilty of over reacting to this and have DEMOTED her by downplaying her character and contribution. Think first, then, of. . .
MARY AND THE CHURCH
The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Mary. We see her first, submissive to the will of God in the BIRTH NARRITIVES, as she accepts God’s assignment, visits Elizabeth to share the good news, give birth in a manger, dedicates her baby to God and then runs for her life with Joseph to escape Herod’s murder of Jewish babies.
Since Jesus had four brothers and some sisters (Mt. 13:55-56), we see Mary BEING A NORMAL MOTHER
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1) We see her distraught over Jesus being left behind when He was twelve (Lk. 2:41-50).
2) Eighteen years later we see her ask for Jesus’ help at the wedding in Cana (Jn. 2).
3) At the height of Jesus’ ministry, we see her and her other sons trying to get Jesus to quit working so hard and come home to a rest (Mt. 12:46).
4) Then we see her weeping her heart out at the cross and hearing Jesus tenderly giving her to John’s care (Jn. 19:25-27).5)
5) The last time we see her is in the upper room worshiping Jesus and waiting for the Holy Spirit with the other believers 9Acts 1).
Where the New Testament ends the imagination of man begins and Mary, through legend and dogma, is exalted to a blasphemous position, separate from and superior to all other human beings.
The perversion began almost immediately. In a second century work the Protevangelium of James, she is said to have been born to a rich but childless couple Joachim and Anna as a result of fervent prayer. In gratitude, they dedicated her to a life of service in the temple. There, from the time she was three, she lived and was fed by an angel. At age twelve she was betrothed to a widower, Joseph, who was pointed out to her by a sign from heaven.
Other legends appeared and Roman catholic leaders built upon them their absurd teachings that make her almost a female god. Titles bestowed on her include: “Most Holy Mary,” “Virgin Mother of God,” “Queen of Heaven,” “Advocate of Sinners,” “Dispenser of Divine grace,” “Door of Heaven and Intercessor,” and even “Mary of America.”
A study of the catholic chapels and churches in Rome showed 121 dedicated to Mary, but only 15 to Christ.
One searches the New Testament in vain for all this exaltation. In fact, almost every mention of her outside the birth narratives gives her a SUBORDINATE role.
1) When she expressed concern over losing Jesus at age twelve and finding Him in the temple, he said, “Didn’t you know I had to be doing My Father’s business?” (Lk. 2:49).
2) When she asked him for help when the wine gave out in Cana, He said, “Dear woman, who do you involve me? My time has not yet come” (Jn. 2:4). This was a mild rebuke, not in the use of the word “woman” but in His gentle reminder that God called the shots in His life, not her.
3) Later, when she and His brothers came to see Him at the height of His ministry, He said, “Who are my brother and sister and mother.” (Mk. 3:33, 35).
4) As He was on the way to the cross, a woman shouted, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you” (Lk. 11:27). Jesus answered, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Lk. 11:28).
5) We do not read of any special appearance by Jesus to Mary after His resurrection. Our final glimpse of her is in the Book of Acts (1:14), where she and her other sons were in the upper room with the disciples, praying and waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Having given Jesus to the world, she joined with all God’s people to worship and praise Him as another sinner saved by His grace.
We learn from this that once we leave the New Testament, anything goes and it is open season on truth. The “revelations” to Catholic leaders produced the absurdities of Catholicism, like the “revelations” to Joseph Smith produced the absurd teachings of Mormonism such as that Jesus had many wives and wishes us to Do the same.
The minute we “mend” the Bible by adding to it or subtracting from it, we produce a man-made religion that isn’t worth a dime. You ask, “How could such absurd things be taught and believed about Mary?” The answer is simple, just leave the Bible and get your truth somewhere else.
MARY AND THE CHRISTIAN
Mary is truly one of the great people of scripture, one of God’s choice servants. She was usable. She was someone God could count on. A child has no greater influence in life than that of its mother and God trusted the nurture of His Son to Mary. This was an honor and a blessing but it was also an act of sacred trust on God’s part. Today I want to look at those things about Mary that made her trustworthy and usable.
1. Selected by God.
There were two things about Mary that she had nothing to do with. First, she was Jewish, and God’s salvation was to come through the Jews. Second, she was probably from the line of David, the line from which the Messiah was to come (Isa. 9:7, 11:1).
A.T. Robertson, in his Harmony of the Gospels says Matthew’s genealogy traces Jesus’ legal ancestry through Joseph and Luke his physical ancestry, of which Mary was a part. Mary was fitted and prepared by God to be the mother of His Son.
Every Christian here this morning has been prepared by God for something special. There is a work just for you and your task is to find it. You can refuse it and miss the blessing of being used. Mary could have said “no” to the Angel and God would have had to go elsewhere. I’m afraid that’s what He’s doing right now with some work He wants you and me to do.
2. Sexually Pure
Mary was old fashioned. She was out of date. She was behind the times. Why? Because she WAS CHASTE. She saved herself for her husband. Many Jewish girls didn’t.
Nazareth was on a trade route and many wealthy, exciting men came by and found willing women and girls. But Mary was not one of them. She believed the bible when it called sex outside of marriage a horrible sin (Lev. 19:29). She knew God took it seriously by giving it the death penalty in ancient Israel (Lev. 20:10).
We live in a day when chastity and virginity are not only rare but ridiculed. The movies and television know nothing anymore of love and marriage, only of love and becoming lovers. The Christian virtue of chastity, by men and women, is abnormal in the eyes of society. And the price we pay is astounding.
Ann Landers lists the sad results - guilt and shame, a ruined reputation, becoming cheap in the eyes of one you love, pregnancy, breaking your parents’ hearts, and unwanted marriages.
Christianity is a religion of forgiveness. Thank God, Jesus sweeps our past away never to be remembered. The immoral woman of Samaria, with five ex-husbands and a live-in boy friend (Jn. 4), became a home missionary.
But I want to remind you young people that forgiveness does not erase the CONSEQUENCES and you can RUIN your life up and miss the will of God for your life by your sin here.
Mary could have given in to her boy friend and found forgiveness and become a beautiful Christian, but she could never have been the mother of Jesus. And you, by your carelessness, can so easily miss God’s best blessings.
3. A Student of Scripture.
In response to Elizabeth’s high greeting (Lk. 1:39-45) she burst forth in a song of praise called “The Magnificat” (Lk. 1:46-55). The interesting thing is that it was filled with quotes and allusions to the old Testament scriptures.
Mary knew her Bible, loved her Bible, quoted her Bible, memorized her Bible and lived by her Bible. And you and I will not do much for God unless we do the same. The Bible is a light to show us God’s will (Ps. 119:10) and it is food that gives us the strength to do God’s will (1 Pet. 2:1-2).
The Bibles in Mary’s day were not neatly printed books but cumbersome, handwritten scrolls. William LaSor tells of having to get down on his knees and using weights to unroll one of these and read it.
How many times had Mary
This was a STRONG, godly Jewish woman. Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters (Mt. 13:55-56). That makes her the home-maker in a household with at least nine mouths to feed. The true Mary has little resemblance to the pale, weak Mary of Christian art.
4. A Suffering Servant of God
Immediately Mary knew she would have to endure the shame and gossip that comes from having a baby too soon. When she dedicated her baby, Simeon, God’s prophet, told her “sorrow will pierce your heart like a sword” (Lk. 2:35). That sorrow came on Calvary as she watched her beautiful Son bleed to death. God’s will is done only through those who are willing to pay some prices.
Three young men founded the African missionary organization, the Sudan Interior Mission. Two of them died soon in that land far away. Roland Bingham, the lone survivor, took one boy’s belongings back to his mother. Sadly, he gave her his sympathy . She said to him, “Mr. Bingham, I would rather have had Walter. . .die there all alone than have him home today, disobeying the Lord.” Mary was that kind of mother.
5. A Sinner Saved by Her Son
I believe that if Mary could step down from heaven this day she would do the work of an evangelist. She would say, “Come to God as I came - through faith in Jesus Christ.” She would sing,
To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son
And give HIM the glory, great things He hath done.
