NOTE:
This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.
ENGAGE
A dilemma is defined as “a difficult situation or problem”. And most of us encounter a number of dilemmas almost every day. Some of those dilemmas are rather inconsequential, like whether to choose paper or plastic bags when we go to the grocery store or the one our family faces every week when we have to decide where to go to lunch after church.
Others are much more serious, like the one that some of my relatives were faced with this week when the doctor told them that there is nothing they can do to prevent ongoing infections in a family member because of scarring from previous cancer treatments.
TENSION
In your life the dilemmas you face might include things like choosing which school to attend or what job to take or whether to fix your car or buy a new one. For me as a pastor one of the dilemmas I face each year about this time is how to take the familiar accounts of the birth of Jesus and create a series of messages that bring some new perspective to the stories that we all know so well.
As I was thinking about that this year, one of the thoughts that came to mind is that our familiarity with those accounts threatens to undermine our sense of awe and wonder at the miraculous birth of Jesus. And I think it also causes us to lose sight of the fact that most of the people who are part of those stories are just common people like us who experience the same kind of emotions that we do – things like wonder, joy, confusion, doubt and fear.
And those emotions certainly contributed to the dilemmas that each of those people faced as a result of their connection to the birth of Jesus. So over the next several weeks leading up to Christmas, I’m going to try and help us all understand those dilemmas, which by the way are some of the same ones we face as disciples of Jesus, and also see what we can learn about how to handle those dilemmas in our own lives.
TRUTH
We find the accounts of the birth of Jesus primarily in the gospel accounts written by Matthew and Luke. John approaches the birth of Jesus more from a spiritual perspective rather than giving us details about the physical birth itself and Mark begins his gospel account with Jesus as an adult man.
Matthew and Luke’s accounts are quite different because they approach the birth of Jesus from different perspectives.
Matthew, who is writing primarily to Jews, approaches the birth of Jesus primarily from Joseph’s perspective and, as we would expect, incudes a number of references to the Old Testament Scriptures that predicted the coming of the Messiah, who would come from the line of David. So he includes the genealogy of Jesus on Joseph’s side of the family because it was through Joseph that Jesus had a legal right to the throne of David. Even though Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, once he married Mary he became his father for legal purposes.
Luke, who is writing primarily to Gentiles, approaches the birth of Jesus primarily through Mary’s perspective. So in chapter 3, he includes the genealogy of Jesus on Mary’s side to show that Jesus also was entitled to the throne of David because he could physically trace his lineage back to David and that he therefore had David’s blood in him. This morning, we’ll begin our series with that account.
[Read Luke 1:26-38]
In order for us to fully appreciate what Mary was facing here, we need to take a few minutes to discuss the Jewish wedding customs in the first century.
Typically, marriages were arranged by the families of the bride and groom, often while the children were still very young. When the girls reached puberty, usually around the age of 12 or 13, they were betrothed to the prospective groom, who was typically several years older, during a formal ceremony. Either before or during that ceremony the father of the bride received the bride price from the father of the groom. This is almost exactly the opposite of what occurs to day when the parents of the bride traditionally pay for the wedding. At that point, the couple was considered to be legally bound even though they did not live together or consummate the marriage.
Then the groom would return to his father’s house to construct an addition to that house where he and his wife would eventually live. That process typically lasted for roughly a year. When the father of the groom determined that the addition was ready, the groom would return for his bride and there was a wedding feast which typically lasted up to seven days. It was only after that feast that the marriage was consummated.
Interestingly, Roman law reinforced those practices by setting the minimum age for girls to be betrothed and married at twelve years old and the minimum age for boys, who we all know take longer to mature, at the ripe old age of fourteen.
Before we look at this passage in a bit more detail, I want to ask to consider what this encounter must have been like for Mary. There are a number of girls and young ladies here this morning that are right around the same age that Mary was when this event took place. I want you to think about how you would react if an angel came to visit you. Some of you have daughters and granddaughters that are about that age. So I want you to think about what kind of impact such an event might have on them.
Every time we see a visit by an angel in the Bible, even when that happens to mature adults, it is always a pretty scary thing. So it’s no wonder that one of the first things the angel usually says is “do not be afraid.” And understandably, Gabriel’s visit to Mary also raised a lot of questions since Mary was stepping into uncharted territory here.
But I think that is also true for most of us, too. When God calls us to obey Him, that often raises a lot of questions in our minds. So the dilemma that Mary faced and the one we often face is the dilemma of mystery. It’s the dilemma that we face when we’re called to take the next step without knowing the final destination, or even the intermediate stops along the way.
And what we learn from Mary is that the key to answering that dilemma is to understand that…
We’ve all heard the phrase “a leap of faith”. And I know that I’ve even used it myself. But what we find here, and in the rest of the Bible, is that that idea is just not Scriptural. When God calls someone to follow Him, He rarely gives that person the entire picture. He just asks them to take the next step.
• When God called Abraham, He merely told him to go to a land that He would show him. And Abraham took the next step of leaving Haran without having any idea where God was sending him.
• When Jesus called the disciples, He merely said “follow me” without giving any details at all about all that would encompass. And those disciples followed Jesus one day and one step at a time.
• And here, Mary isn’t given the entire story either. She isn’t told that this baby that is going to be born to her is going to do great miracles and teach with authority. She doesn’t learn that He will be ridiculed and persecuted and executed by the Roman authorities on a cross when He is still a young man. She is merely asked to take the next step and to bear the child that will be conceived in her by the Holy Spirit.
In each case, those who were called by God obeyed by just taking the next step, not by taking a leap of faith. So that’s the part of this account that I want us to focus on this morning. Let’s see what we can learn from Mary about handling the dilemma of mystery by taking the next step.
HOW TO HANDLE THE DILEMMA OF MYSTERY
1. Be available
We don’t really know anything about Mary other than the fact that she was from Nazareth, a small town of a few hundred people located in a region known as Galilee of the Gentiles because it had been largely populated by Gentiles after being conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC. So this had to be the least likely place that God would choose to send an angel with the announcement of the birth of the Messiah. When God had sent Gabriel to a priest named Zechariah in the Temple in Jerusalem six months earlier, that made sense. But sending an angel to a teenage girl out in the sticks of Nazareth – not so much.
Gabriel greets her with the words “Greetings, o favored one, the Lord is with you!” Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church has completely misinterpreted this passage and has made Mary out to be the dispenser of grace rather than the recipient of God’s grace.
But it is clear here that Mary had found favor in God’s sight. And just like we have seen in our study of Romans that favor was not based on anything that Mary had done to deserve it. Luke doesn’t even go so far as he had done earlier in the chapter where he had described Zechariah and Elizabeth as “righteous” and blameless”. The emphasis here is completely on God’s sovereign choice.
But the one thing that Mary did have to offer God was the fact that she was available. She wasn’t so busy with her wedding plans that she didn’t have time to listen to God.
I wonder how many times in our lives that God wants to call us to join in with the work He is already doing and be a part of that work, but we’re just too busy to hear Him calling. And ironically, one of the times we are most likely to do that is during this season of the year when we celebrate His birth.
2. Be humble
In verse 29, we read that Mary was “greatly troubled”. This is the only time that particular word is used in the Bible. It is a compound word that indicates that she was perplexed and confused. Given the entire context, I think that the reason Mary is greatly troubled is because she can’t understand why a powerful and holy God would choose to extend grace to her. To be told that God chosen her, a lowly teenager betrothed to a common carpenter in a town with the bad reputation like Nazareth was unimaginable for her.
Throughout history, God rarely works through those who think they have God all figured out and who have made big plans about what they are going to do for God. Instead He has chosen to work through lowly shepherds and prostitutes and fishermen and IRS agents and even unwed teenage mothers. And I believe today that God still primarily works through those who are humble enough to admit that they don’t have God all figured out and who are willing to just join God where He is already at work rather than to think they can do something great for God.
3. When necessary, seek clarification
In verse 29 we see that Mary tried to discern what Gabriel’s greeting was all about. And then after he revealed that Mary was going to conceive a child who would be called Son of the Most High and who would reign over a kingdom that would never end, she sought some clarification.
Unlike Zechariah, who had questioned God’s ability to carry out what He had promised and was struck unable to speak until his son John was born, Mary was simply seeking some further clarification about the process.
As far as Mary knew, the only way to conceive was to have a relationship with a man. And she had never done that since, as she confirms in verse 34, she had never “known” a man. Mary didn’t doubt that God could do what Gabriel had told her. She just wanted to know more about how that was going to occur. Did God mean that she would get pregnant after the wedding? Or did God have something else in mind?
I’m pretty sure that she did not expect the answer she received from Gabriel. The idea that she could get pregnant without the involvement of a man was incomprehensible. And undoubtedly, Mary still didn’t completely understand what was going to happen even after Gabriel’s answer. I mean we still don’t completely understand it today, right? But Mary was OK with that. She was willing to submit to God even though there was still a great deal of mystery about what He was going to do in her life.
Today, we obviously don’t seek clarification about God’s plan for our lives by waiting for an angel to bring us the answers. Obviously this is a topic that deserves its own message, so I can’t speak to this in detail, but let me quickly give you three practical ways we can get clarification from God when needed:
• The Bible. This is God’s primary tool for revealing Himself and His purposes, plans and ways. Many of the things that we need clarification on are clearly spelled out for us in the Bible. For instance, if I’m considering marrying a non-Christian, the Bible is clear that I am not to be yoked together with an unbeliever. If I want to know whether God wants me to give of my material resources to further His kingdom, the Bible is clear that I am to lay up treasure in heaven.
• Prayer. When I pray and take time to listen to God, God’s Holy Spirit can communicate with my human spirit and help me to understand what God wants for my life.
• Wise counsel. The Proverbs are filled with verses that stress the importance of seeking wise counsel when making decisions. God often uses other godly people to help us see the blind spots in our lives and to consider things that we many have missed.
4. Remember God’s faithfulness
Mary does not ask for a sign, but Gabriel gives her one anyway. He reveals that her relative Elizabeth has conceived a son even though she was well beyond child bearing age and was now six months pregnant. Even though that seemed impossible, nothing is impossible with God.
Even as young as Mary was, that was an important reminder to her that she could trust that God would be faithful in the future because He had been faithful in the past – both in her life and in the life of her family.
This is the reason that the song “Do It Again” has struck such a chord with our worship team, and hopefully with you as well. It’s a song that reminds us that we can trust God today because of the fact that He has consistently demonstrated His faithfulness in the past.
5. Take the next step
I love what Martin Luther King, Jr. had to say about this:
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Mary certainly didn’t see the whole staircase here. And that is probably a good thing. What if God had shown her what was going to happen to her son? What if He had revealed that she and the rest of the family would one day consider him to be crazy? What if He told her that her son would be ridiculed and persecuted and executed on a Roman cross? I know it’s only speculation, but I have to believe that Mary would have told Gabriel to find another girl.
But instead, Mary, not knowing the whole story, commits to just take the first step with these words: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.; let it be to me according to your word.” While we don’t know all the details, when we piece together the accounts in Matthew and Luke, it appears that Mary and Joseph do end up living together after Mary become pregnant and that they end up traveling together to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus.
With her commitment to take that first step, Mary opened herself up to many trials. When Joseph learns of her pregnancy, he decides to divorce her until his encounter with an angel that we’ll look at next week. Her friends would have shunned her and her family probably disowned her as evidenced by the fact that Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem alone. But in spite of the fact that Mary knew what was ahead of her, she still took that first step.
This morning we’ve learned that the key to handling the dilemma of mystery is to understand that…
APPLICATION
Here at Thornydale Family Church, we’ve incorporated that idea into our Discipleship Path, which was designed to help people to identify and take the next step in their relationship with Jesus.
TFC DISCIPLESHIP PATH
Our relationship with Jesus, like any relationship, is a journey, not a destination. It is a process that consists of a series of steps, not a leap of faith. So this morning, let me suggest a number of possible “next steps” for us to consider. As I go through this list I’ve left a place on your sermon outline for you to write down any of these that God places on your heart, so that you can follow Mary’s example and take that next step in your life.
I’m going to skip the COME step, since if you’re here this morning, you’ve already taken that step.
COMMIT
There are three Biblically mandated commitments for you to consider this morning:
• To become a disciple of Jesus by placing your faith in Jesus alone. This is the first and most crucial step in a relationship with Jesus. It means that you admit that you are a sinner and therefore incapable of approaching a holy God based on anything that you have to offer. It means trusting that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for you sins in order to make you right with God. And it means giving control of your life to Jesus. If you’ve never done that, we would love to talk to you more about that before you leave this morning.
• To be baptized by immersion as a public proclamation of your faith in Jesus.
• To become a member of Thornydale Family Church.
GROW
There are many next steps that you could take to grow, but let me just mention three:
• Read your Bible consistently and systematically. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the importance of doing that this year, so I won’t belabor the point. Find a reading plan that works for you and stick to it.
• Study the Bible with others. That could mean being a part of our Bible Roundtable each Sunday after this worship gathering or being part of a group that meets during the week to study the Bible. For you men, we have a study that meets on Monday mornings at 6:30 here at the church.
• Give generously and regularly. One of the marks of a growing disciple is the recognition that all we have belongs to God and that we are merely to be good stewards of those resources that He has entrusted to us. And that stewardship includes investing in His kingdom by giving to the local church.
SERVE
Much of our service occurs outside the walls of this church. Many of you serve others in your jobs and in your neighborhoods. But it is also important that all of us find a place of service here at TFC. If you’re not already plugged in somewhere, would you consider serving in our children’s ministry, or as a greeter, or in our prayer ministry, or by leading a Bible study? If you’re not already serving, we’d love to help you find a place to serve here at TFC
SHARE
Last week, Ryan talked about the importance of getting the gospel into our lives so that we can share it with others who have not yet placed their faith in Jesus. The best way to begin that process if by praying for those you know who are not yet disciples of Jesus. And all of us need to look for ways to intentionally develop relationships with unbelievers in order to have opportunities to share the gospel with them.
ACTION
As I’ve been sharing some possible next steps, it is quite possible that God has put something completely different on your heart. But I’m confident in saying that everyone of us here this morning can take that next step in our relationship with God. I’ve given you a place to write down that next step on your sermon outline, so would you take a minute to do that right now?
INSPIRATION
This morning, you don’t need to take a big leap for God, you just need to take the next step. That is the best way all of us can address the dilemma of mystery.
My next step:
Discussion Questions for Bible Roundtable
1. Some people say that believing in the virgin birth is not necessary or important. How would you respond?
2. The KJV translates verse 28 like this:
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Even with that translation, how do we know that Mary is the recipient, and not the dispenser, of God’s grace?
3. How do we know that Mary considered herself to be a sinner in need of God’s salvation?
4. What are some things that can keep us from being available to be used by God? How do we prevent that from happening?
5. Why do you think God often shows us only the next step and not the entire picture?
