December 20, 2015 AM Pastor Ken Hepner

“Have a Mary Christmas” Luke 1:26 – 38

Introduction:

This Christmas Sunday morning, I invite you to take some time to reflect with me things that really matter in life. I want to begin by looking at what the shepherds heard the angels say and then sing to them, Luke 2:8 – 14. Their message was a word about Loving people deeply and Peace on Earth, good will toward humankind. What culture has done with its message about loving others and peace in our relationships is really remarkable.

We are all able to sit here this morning completely at ease in this wondrous season of joy, peace, giving, and good will toward humankind. The reason we feel so rested and inwardly refreshed is that we have spent our last number of days in quiet, peaceful, and restful enjoyment of life. We are so grateful for the stress free lifestyle we are living.

The message the angels sang to the shepherds abiding in the fields watching their flocks was “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” What we have done with this spiritual message, of peace on earth in and through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, is quite often a pretty far cry from what the angels had in mind as they sang.

Our culture’s message blares at every one of our senses, with astounding regularity. The message is “Tis the season to be jolly, to express joy through getting, to be festive and indulge ourselves at parties.” Christmas is about shopping so that, on Friday as our children open our presents to them, the message of peace on earth through what Jesus has come to do for us all will be loudly proclaimed by our celebration.

People who have bought into culture’s mirage of Joy through material Attainment have embraced an illusion that material things really bring about deep inner contentment. There are those who have been absolutely wearing themselves out and spending themselves out in order to give people they care about, “a good Christmas.”

Honestly, not many of us will long remember the latest fads of toys and clothing, but we will remember people. We all will cherish memories of things we did for someone that touched our heart or someone’s heart whom we love. We will remember kind and thoughtful words of affirmation and encouragement. Honestly, I don’t remember a single thing my grandma Hepner ever gave me for Christmas. But I do remember how much she loved me!

As Christians our message of what really does bring Inner Contentment is wrapped up in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ our Lord who “Came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.” “God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 This Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as we experience our family celebrations, may I ask you to consider asking yourself and your loved ones a series of personal questions?

 What is the real message I am sending my loved ones if I expect my material gifts of things to speak of my love for me, without any verbal expression of my heart?  What is the real message I am sending my family if they get everything on their wish list?  Will the Spirit of Jesus really show up at our home if our only expressions are giving and receiving material things?

The real message of Christmas is the Son of God came to earth and offered Himself to God as the sacrifice for our sins. Because of the reaching and straining love of God that is made available to us in Christ Jesus, we can both Know and be Known by the Father God. The message of Christmas is that God has broken into human history. He has come to our rescue, when we were helpless to save ourselves:

Hebrews 2:9 – 15 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory it was fitting that God… should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers… Since the children have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is the devil – and free those who all their life were held in slavery to fear of death.”

God sent His one and only Son into the world for one specific purpose. He came to change people’s lives by doing a work of grace and mercy in our hearts. He came to bring us the gift of salvation. The word “to save” comes from the root word sodzo’ in the Greek language, meaning, “to salvage worth from what was lost.”

The profound nature of what God has done for us is seen in what took place that night in the stable at Bethlehem. God Himself took the very nature of humanity in the form of His One and Only Son. Jesus decided to take humanity, to experience human life because the plan of salvation required the sacrifice of a perfect lamb. Jesus laid Himself down for us as that Sacrifice to pay the Ransom Price for us. “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

One thing that really touches me deeply about the Christmas story is the human vehicle God chose to Birth His Son here on earth. Mary was a young virgin girl, approximately 14 – 17 years old, living in Nazareth, betrothed to a poor carpenter named Joseph. She is not nobility by any stretch of the imagination. What touches me about her is that this unschooled and ordinary girl is the chosen one, out of all of the women of human history. She is the one who gets the divine visit and in a relatively short dialogue with God’s messenger her life is changed forever!

What is so special about this teenage girl from Nazareth that she is the one? The text answers the question. Luke writes in verses 28 and 30: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you… Do not be afraid Mary, you have found favor with God.”

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She was chosen to be the one because she had a Heart to Know and Walk with God. She faces the angelic visitor, and the incredible news she has heard about her life’s calling, with Faith. This girl has been in conversations with God before because her natural fears and doubts are met head-on with faith and trust.

Her mind no doubt flashed to the penalty for being found to be pregnant before marriage. It was common knowledge that some of her friends had been brutally treated by the Roman soldiers from just down the road at the garrison at Megiddo.

Yet Mary faced the social disgrace and ostracism with courage. She faced the fact that Joseph probably would divorce her because he thought she was unfaithful to him. In the face of all of these issues what we hear Mary speak back to the angel is tremendous and touching, Luke 1:38 “I am the Lord’s servant, Mary answered, may it be to me as you have said.”

Mary models something for us that is absolutely awesome regarding the true nature of what it means to be a Christian. When God asked her to permit Him to put something in her life, which He wanted her to bear and birth for Him, her response was “Yes Lord!”

It is my deep longing to live like Mary lived, which means I have to have a heart like Mary’s heart. She desired God’s will and plans for her life. I want to have a Mary-like heart in prayer. I want to go through life as a man who walks with God in fellowship with Him, “to keep in step with the Spirit.”

My heart’s desire for your life and mine is that we will have a Mary Christmas, that God will put something in our hearts He wants very much to do, and wants us to join Him in accomplishing!

I. Mary had a Heart for Private Worship:

Luke 1:46 – 55

The first thing we had better face if we are going to have a heart like Mary’s heart after God is to choose to walk with God daily as Mary did. Please grasp and be gripped by this interaction that took place in the space of a few moments. Her life is absolutely changed by this encounter with God. She was able to make these choices as a teenager because she walked with God, having made similar choices daily. The angel said, “The Lord is with you.”

When one walks with God one is, by definition, a Private Worshipper – one whom the Lord has heard as we have expressed how we feel about Him as our God.

Secondly, she is able to make this choice to follow God’s will for permanent changes in her life – becoming the mother of the Son of God, because she had a Heart of deep and Reverent Love for God. Listen to her celebration of God’s presence and power in her life after the Lord Jesus has been conceived in her body. What a clear indicator of what kind of young person she was before she was Jesus’ mother-to-be.

3 “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” “The mighty one has done great things for me, holy is his Name.” “His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.”

Because she was a private worshipper, who lavished her love on God, she had a heart that was readily available to receive what God wanted to say to her, what He as asking her to do with Him, as a vehicle for His working. There are several words for worship in the Greek language that have the connotation of serving love. Mary had a heart of Submitted Servant Love for the Lord God!

She was prepared to hear His voice because she was Shaped by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in her heart. She didn’t follow her own self-interests, nor did she do what was the popular opinion of the day. When she heard the voice of the Lord’s messenger Gabriel she listened carefully, asked clarifying questions, and submitted herself to the will of God!

II. A Heart with a Ready Yes for God:

Luke 1:28 “The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.’”

Verse 38a “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said.”

The second thing we need to see about Mary’s heart response to the Lord is that because she was a private worshipper of God, who loved and adored Him, the answer to what God wanted her to do was already set in her heart. The answer to God’s will when one is a private worshipper is always, “Yes Lord.” Worship brought her to Know Him and to Hear Him first before she went about living her life as she saw fit.

On the natural plane when a man and woman decide to have a child it is not exactly an equal commitment is it? Yet in love and surrender a wife submits her body, her womb to become a vehicle to receive, nourish, and birth a child. In that same heart attitude a teenage girl named Mary decided to allow herself to become a vehicle for God to birth salvation’s plan. Mary wanted what God wanted. The answer was yes because it was God’s Opinion of her and Desire for her life is what mattered to her most of all.

The words Gabriel spoke to her are very interesting. “Do not be afraid Mary, you have found favor with God.” As we ponder how we can have a heart after God like Mary’s heart, I want to encourage us to an attitude of faith and trust. As it relates to being what God wants us to be and doing what God desires for our lives, we must choose to confront our fears, which we inevitably have, by faith in the provisions and promises of God.

Mary’s words are tremendous faith-filled words that destroyed fear in her heart. The precious words of surrender of a teenage girl: “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said.” These are not the words of a person who is duty-bound. Nor are they the words of a person who believes all of the right doctrines, has a handle on Orthodoxy. These are the words of a simple person who loves God and has experienced His leadership in her life before this day!

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Because she loved God she desired to please God, consequently she Surrendered her Body, her life, and her future to the will of God. Please grasp and be gripped by the sequence of events here. She entertained the voice of the Lord. She obeyed because she loved Him. These are not duty-bound and begrudging words. They are the words of a young woman who loved God.

Mary’s yes to God meant a painful experience for Joseph’s husband heart. Often when we say yes to God it means we will have to say no to something or someone else. To be what He wants me to be and to birth what He wants me to birth means I want His will no matter what it costs. As we live out the will of God there will be lots of opportunities for us to turn away from obedience. We will have to make the choice to embrace a higher love!

III. Confirming Team Members:

In this incredible calling to her heart and out of her ready heart of obedience to God Mary got two powerful confirmations from people who mattered to her very much. She got confirming team members who validated her choice to birth what God wanted to do:

Her betrothed husband Joseph, who had already decided to divorce her privately, to annul their betrothal. Imagine how deserted she felt when Joseph left her presence the day she told him she was pregnant but not by a human being. “Mary I can’t marry you. I can’t believe this preposterous story. It makes no sense!” Then he got a visit from the angel too, Matthew 1:20, 21, and he readily obeyed and took her home as his wife.

Can you imagine the joy at Mary’s house the next morning after the dream, when Joseph burst into the room asking her to marry him and confirming the voice of the Lord to her?

Her aunt Elizabeth, in whose womb the Lord God put the baby boy John, was also moved by God the Spirit to prophesy. Elizabeth broke into song and prophesied to Mary about the wonderful thing she had done in surrendering her body to be the vehicle to birth Jesus, the Savior of the world. Listen to the words in Luke 1:42 – 45.

This third truth from Mary’s life is in keeping with the moving of God in the lives of His sons and daughters today. What God puts in our hearts, which He wants us to join Him in doing here on the earth, He confirms through the lives of others. When He is moving us to do something with Him He confirms His Private Whispers with other Listeners.

He does this on His timetable not ours! I personally have often felt like the Lord needed to speed up the process of confirming His words to me. I tend to get a bit antsy when I think I have clearly heard something from heaven and then things get silent. But if it is really the Lord doing the work in me I can expect this principle to be fulfilled in His timetable. Others will hear the exact same leading and whispers and will tell us so without our solicitation.

If it is God’s leading there are always others who are hearing the same thing, they just have to be found!

5 IV. Mary Committed her Body to be God’s Instrument:

The fourth truth I want us to see together from Mary’s wonderful response to God is that she chose to be a vehicle through whom God could do His work. God committed His work to a teenage girl from the obscure Judean town of Nazareth in Galilee. This is not the place that most people of that day would have gone to look for a woman to carry out a sacred task. The city would have been Jerusalem and the family would have been Levitical, not Nazareth and a virgin girl betrothed to a carpenter!

God Almighty, the Holy One, Awesome in power and majesty, King of all that is, had chosen to limit His mighty and powerful works of holy redeeming love, the salvation of the human heart, soul, and mind to a teenage girl named Mary. The salvation of every human being on planet earth is at the mercy of the receptivity of a teenage girl named Mary, who would become His vehicle for the birth of His One and Only Son Jesus. When God sets out to redeem humankind He goes to find a girl no one else would have chosen.

By becoming a vehicle through whom God worked, Mary joined a long succession of people whom the Lord God had touched and used before her and whom He has used since her. The Biblical record is full of references about this Historical Search the Lord God does, when He sets about to do something new on the earth.

The first thing He does is look for a person or a people whom He could live with and work through to accomplish His will on the earth. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul are but a few of the people who were God’s private worshippers and who said yes to being a vehicle through whom He could flow.

God is still looking for vehicles today. He searches for a person or a people who will be wholly His, in whom He can do marvelous works of grace and through whom He will change the world! II Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”

There are redeeming acts of love and kindness the Lord God desires to do in Juniata County in 2016. He is looking for people who will spend time in His presence and deal with our own sins and insidious self-interest by faith in Jesus, so that we can be prepared to be a blessing to someone else. The Lord isn’t looking for what the world system of values esteems. He is looking for simple and ordinary people who want to be used by God to make a difference for someone else!

I leave you with four principles for developing a Mary-like heart as God’s sons and daughters:

#1) The choice to be a private worshipper every day making my heart soft and fertile soil for His Word to be planted in my heart that I may bear a harvest of the fruit Jesus produces in my life.

6 #2) In worship and reverence for God I choose to offer myself to God in humble surrender. I choose to open myself to the Spirit’s voice to me. He wants me to know what He wants to do in my life.

#3) When I hear His voice I need to listen carefully and ask clarifying questions.

#4) When His voice is confirmed to me and I understand His will for my life there is only one right response . . . Yes Lord I am at your service!

Conclusion:

7 December 20, 2015

“Have a Mary Christmas” Luke 1:26–55 (selected)

Introduction:

This Christmas Sunday we are thinking about the message the angels sang and what our culture has done with the spiritual message of deeply L______others and P______on E______through the coming of Jesus.

Culture blares its message at us: the philosophy of J_____ through A______. As Christians, our message is wrapped up in the P______and W______of Jesus our Lord for you and me.

The real issue of Christmas is Jesus the Son of God coming into the world to P____ the P______we faced, to be the once-and-for-all S______for S______.

The message of Christmas is that the holy, self-emptying, other-oriented love of God has broken into human history in Jesus, Hebrews 2:9–15 selected.

God sent His Son Jesus into the world to C______people’s L______by doing a work of G______and M______in our hearts!

One of the things that touches me about the Christmas story is the human vehicle God chose to G______B______to His Son Jesus, Mary.

What is so special about this girl? Luke 1:28, 30. She met the angel’s words with F______, Luke 1:38.

Mary models for us what it means to be a Christian. When God wanted to put something in her for her to B______and B______for Him, the answer was yes!

I. Mary had a Heart for Private Worship: Luke 1:46–55 (selected)

If we are to have a heart like Mary’s heart, we will have to choose to W____ with God by F______daily as she did!

When we walk with God we are by definition a P______W______. She had a heart of deep R______L______for God.

Several New Testament words for worship mean: an act of deeply S______S______L______.

8 A key to hearing the Word of God alive in us is to C______a C______that is P______and C______. Mary was prepared to hear His Word because she was S______from W______by His grace!

II. A Heart with a Ready Yes for God: Luke 1:28

Deeply personal worship brought her to K______Him and H______Him first before she lived as she saw fit.

Her answer was “Yes Lord” because God’s O______of her and D______for her was what mattered to her most of all.

If we are to have a heart like Mary’s heart we will have to make the choice to have an A______of F______and T______.

Because she loved God, she desired to please God, so she S______her entire being to be the V ______to birth the Son of God. Her yes to God meant pain for her betrothed husband Joseph.

III. Confirming Team Members:

As she opened up her heart to receive God’s calling He gave to her two confirming team members, people who mattered very much:  First, her husband-to-be J______, Matthew 1:20–21.  Second, her aunt E______, Luke 1:42–45.

When the Lord is moving us to something with Him, that defies conventional wisdom, He C______His private whispers with other L______.

IV. Mary Committed Her Body to be God’s Instrument:

Mary chose to be the vehicle through whom God could do His work. God Almighty chose to limit His works to the receptivity of a teenaged girl.

The Bible is full of references to the H______S______of God for a P______or P______through whom He can accomplish His work on earth! His search continues today: II Chronicles 16:9.

Four principles to develop a Mary-like heart before God:  Be a private worshipper every day, becoming soft and pliable  Open our hearts to hear the Spirit’s voice to us  When we hear Him well, ask clarifying questions  When His voice is confirmed to us, the ready answer is “Yes Lord!”

9 Discussion Starter Questions for Home Groups

1. What ways can you think of that culture has worked to obscure the message God desires for people to receive at Christmas?

2. What are some ways we can work to insure our family gatherings really do honor the Lord Jesus and what He came to earth to do for us?

3. As the story of Christmas unfolds in Scripture, God’s chosen vehicle for the birth of His Son Jesus is the teenaged girl Mary. What is it about her life that God saw in her that moved Him to choose her?

4. The Lord God put something in her life and asked her to bear it and birth it for Him. How does her response to God’s calling on her life speak to you and me?

5. Luke records for us the song Mary sang. How do you think Luke came to know her song of praise and worship to God? How do you think her song was preserved?

6. Why is it important for the followers of Jesus to create a pure and clean container for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, lead us, and empower us to serve Him?

7. What reasons can you think of for the importance of God confirming His leading and direction for our lives? Read Joseph’s confirmation in Matthew 1:18–25, and discuss insights you have about God’s leadership in his life.

8. The message ended with four ways for us to cultivate a “Mary-like” heart in our lives. Which one(s) touched you the most? Why?

9. Read together aloud God’s calling to Moses, Exodus 3:1–15, and discuss insights you have about his call, how God spoke to him about what he would be asked to do.

10. Why is it important for us to know and walk in an awareness of His Holy Spirit’s transforming presence living in us? What has the Holy Spirit been working on in your own heart and life lately?

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