What Did Mary Know?

What Did Mary Know?

CCCAG, Christmas Day 2022

Scripture: Luke 1:26-33

Merry Christmas Everyone, and thank you for coming to church this morning. (Title)

I read a news article on Friday that said over 35% of pastors canceled their Sunday church services this morning because it’s Christmas. The most offered reason was to allow the congregation to spend time with their families.

I found that very odd.

Wouldn’t you want your family to be surrounded by God’s family on a Sunday, celebrating the birth of our savior? So again, I thank you for coming today.

This morning, we are going to continue some of the same thoughts from last week where we considered Mary, the mother of Jesus, and how she would treasure things in her heart about HIM.

We are going to continue this study into Mary and this morning in looking at “What did she know” about what God was calling her to do?

Luke 1:26-33

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Prayer

Premise--

Mary was indeed special. The Holy Spirit decided her story was important enough that we should read about it and study it, and even study her. I know some may feel uncomfortable with that if you came from a certain religious background, but this is not a veneration of her. We are not praying to her, worshipping her, or believing she was forever without sin as Christ was.

What Mary is to us is an example of how God can use a willing vessel, and that is what I want to focus on this morning.

The first thing that we see that Mary knew is

I. She was chosen

Considering the time she was in, and the exact lineage necessary for Mary to be chosen, it was likely that there were only a few dozen females in all of Israel that met the requirements to be the mother of the promised Messiah. You can see her lineage in Luke 3, where the Greek physician Luke records Mary’s lineage versus the lineage seen in Matthew in which the former tax collector follows the traditional means of lineage in following the father’s family.

What they both show is that both Mary and Joseph were descendants of Abraham, descendants of Jacob AKA Israel, descendants of King David.

The family tree splits at that point where Joseph’s line follows down through David’s son Solomon and Mary’s through David’s son Nathan.

The reason this is important is that God made a promise to Abraham, Jacob, and David that their heir would be something special. In David’s case, God promised him that eventually his descendant would sit on the throne in Jerusalem forever.

So God protected the promise. And protecting that promise was not easy.

Because of the many wars, captivities, and scattering of the Jews throughout the world, there probably wasn’t a lot of females of the correct lineage, with the correct character for God to chose from during that time.

So, God protected, nurtured, and made sure that Mary was in a position for his plan to be accomplished!

If you consider for a moment everything that could have gone wrong with God’s plan, you have to be surprised it even worked.

A few considerations-

What if Mary’s family had settled somewhere other than Nazareth.

What if Joseph or Mary didn’t want to get married.

When you look at the genealogies- What if one chain in that ancestral link had been broken? God’s plan completely derails.

By the way- it came down to one boy, hid in a temple for 7 years. Joash was the last of David’s bloodline and escaped the purge of an evil woman who usurped the throne.

There are a hundred other things that could have gone wrong- but they didn’t!

What is our taken away from that this morning?

Just like Mary was chosen, protected, and kept for such a time to bring forth God’s promised-