Promises, Promises. Every time someone breaks a promise, they just blame it on the old saying "Promises were meant to be broken." It is very hard not to believe that and accept that as a way of life.
The world's three most famous promises are promises that are never kept. Do you know what they are?
- The check is in the mail
- I'll love you in the morning
- I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
Let's face it. Politicians are famous for making promises they don't keep. In the 20th century these are just a few promises that were made that weren't kept.
- The Income Tax will only apply to the wealthiest individuals and will never go above six-percent.
- Social Security will always be there for you and the tax will only be two-percent.
- Federal aid to Education will never mean Federal control of Education.
- The Medicare program will never allow bureaucrats to interfere with your doctor's medical decisions.
Unfortunately, we have just simply come to expect people to break their promises. Five out of ten people that make a sacred promise to God when they get married that they will stay married for life, break that promise. People who borrow money and promise to repay it (only later to declare bankruptcy) break their promise. We are basically numb to promise breaking, because it happens all the time. In fact, we have almost come to expect it.
We are in the middle of the time of year that ought to be a reminder to us of just how important promise making and promise keeping is. The only reason we like trees, hang ornaments, sing carols, exchange gifts and enjoy what one song has called, "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" is because God keeps His promise. You can spend a thousand lifetimes searching every word that has ever been written from the beginning of time and never find a story as beautiful as the story of Christmas. The beauty of it is not just the fact that it is true and that it actually happened. The real beauty of it is how it reminds us that God always keeps His promise.
Remember we shared last week how God made a promise at the very beginning of time in the Garden of Eden that He would one day send the Messiah of the Jews and the Savior of the world to planet earth. From the time He made that promise in the 3rd chapter of Genesis, He had one item on His to do list. He had one main concern on His agenda and that was to keep - The Promise.
The time has come for The Promise not just to be believed as we saw last week with Joseph. Now the time has come for The Promise to be conceived, as we see with Mary. The story has an amazing beginning. "Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth." (Luke 1:26, NASB)
Jewish readers would have been amazed at the beginning of this story, because Gabriel ignored Judea (which was the very heart of God's work through the centuries) and he comes to Galilee, a region that was basically filled with half-breeds, and what we would call today rednecks. Even more, not only did the angel by-pass Judea for Galilee, but he by-passed the city of Jerusalem, the capitol, the royal city for a hick town called, Nazareth. Then the angel announces that God is going to keep this promise of sending this Savior and this Messiah through a nobody, peasant girl, named Mary.
The God of the Universe descends from heaven and is born as a baby to live among the people He created Himself. God had a whole world of women to choose from and He chooses a poor, peasant, young teenage Jewish girl, named Mary. When we understand why He chose Mary, it gives all of us hope and understanding of why God could and would choose us to use for His Glory if we will just let Him.
Mary was the only person who was present, both at the birth of Christ and at His crucifixion. Mary was the woman who saw Jesus come into the world as her son and leave the world as her Savior. Today, more little girls are named after Mary than any other woman who has ever lived.
Without question, Mary is the best known woman in the history of the world. She is the most famous mother in history. Her name occurs over 51 times in the New Testament.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say where to worship Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to pray to Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say she was perfect or sinless. Nowhere does it say that she was God or even co-equal with God. What is so special about Mary is, she was so un-special. God took an ordinary, run of the mill, teenage, peasant girl and used her in an unbelievably extraordinary way.
You are going to see in a moment that God chose Mary strictly because of His grace. What you also is going to see is that the reasons God was able to use Mary are also reasons that God can use you if you will allow Him to, because Mary did three things that allowed God to use her and bless her in a way she could have never dreamed. If you will do these three things on a daily basis, God can use you too.
I. Decide To Believe God's Word
Put yourself in the place of a little fourteen year old peasant girl, who is illiterate, uneducated, in no sense a spiritual power-house, just a humble Jewish girl, who loves God, wants to get married and raise a family.
Without any prior warning, an angel appears to you with these words. "Behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him, Jesus." Now stop right there. Mary is a virgin. She has never had relations with anyone and an angel is now telling her she is going to have a baby. You can expect Mary responded just exactly like you would have. "Mary asked the angel, 'But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.' The angel replied, 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of God shall overshadow you. For every promise from God shall surely come true.'" (Luke 1:34-35, 37, LB)
Once again we run into that word "promise." This angel speaking for God, had given God's word and God's promise that Mary would conceive this child as a virgin and bear this child as a virgin.
It is going to be a virgin-conception and it is going to be a virgin-birth. Mary knew enough about biology to ask the key question - "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34, NASB)
This is a legitimate question. Sometimes we get the idea that it is wrong to question God. It is wrong to question, what God does. It is never wrong to question how God does it. The simple answer is verse 37, "For nothing will be impossible with God." (Luke 1:37, NASB)
Mary is not left to wonder how God will keep His promise. He gives again this amazing answer as we read in verse 35. "The angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" (Luke 1:35, NASB)
There were two reasons that there had to be a virgin birth. In order for Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world and to die for the sins of the world, He had to be sinless. Had He been born of an earthly father and an earthly mother, He would have been born in sin, just like everyone else and He could not have lived a perfect life and could not have died a perfect death had He not been virgin born.
When God by-passed the father and became Himself the father and touched the womb of Mary with supernatural power so that the baby born in that womb was supernaturally conceived, that baby was never tainted with human sin.
There is an even greater reason of why He had to be born of a virgin and that is - because God promised it. "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14, NASB)
We learned last week from Joseph - For every problem there is a promise. Now we learn this from Mary - For every promise there is a provision. When God makes a promise that a baby will be born of a virgin, mark it down. God will provide the virgin and God will provide the birth, because for every problem there is a promise and for every promise there is a provision.
The reason why God was able to use Mary in such a great and a mighty way is because she decided to believe God's Word. Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, understood that. She said, "You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what He said." (Luke 1:45, NLT)
I want to tell every one of you here this morning if you are not experiencing the blessings of God in your life like you would expect to be if God is who He is, there can only be one reason - because in certain areas of your live you are doubting God's Word rather than deciding to believe God's Word. I'll give you one quick illustration.
God made this promise and nothing has ever changed about it. "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. 'If you do', says the Lord Almighty, 'I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it. Let me prove it to you!'" (Malachi 3: 9-10, NLT)
Here is what God says. There is a blessing just waiting on anyone who will believe what I just said and I am a satisfied customer. I am here to tell you when you decide to believe God's Word in the area of tithing, God does open up the windows of heaven to bless, but you've got to decide to believe God's Word.
II. Determine To Do God's Will
Talk is cheap. It is one thing to say you believe God's Word, but the acid test of whether you really do believe God's Word is this - are you then determined to do God's Will? May I tell you that one of the most frustrating things to a pastor is to watch people who talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk?
God's promises are not just to be believed, they are to be acted on. They are to be obeyed. You are to live as if you know that promise is true and that God will keep it. Otherwise, what good is it that God makes The Promise and what good is it if God keeps The Promise?
You will never achieve God's best for your life, God's greatness for your life, and you will never ever fulfill God's purpose for your life, until you come to a point where you want to do His Will in your life more than anything else. God has a custom built plan for you. He has a purpose He wants you to fulfill, a plan He wants you to follow, but you could miss that purpose. You could mess up that plan. You can waste your life. You can squander it. God's job is to reveal His will to you. Your job is to do it. That is another reason why God used Mary. She was determined to do His will. I promise you God was thrilled to hear Mary's response. "Mary responded, 'I am the Lord's servant, and I am willing to accept whatever He wants. May everything you have said come true." (Luke 1:38, NLT)
Don't miss that little word, "whatever" because that word includes everything and everything includes some unpleasant things, some difficult things, and some hard things.
It wasn't easy for Mary to say, "Yes" to God's Will. I've already told you about the gossip that went on in those days. Nobody believed her story. She gave up her reputation in the community basically for the rest of her life and to do what God asked her to do was to risk everything. She was risking her parents, her friends, even her fiancée, because she had no idea how he would respond.
If you get serious about God's Will for your life, not only are you not going to always understand what God is doing, but there are going to be people who will misunderstand, misjudge and criticize you.
When I left a church of 18 years to start this church, I had to receive and endure some of the meanest, most vicious criticism I've ever received in my ministry. My motives were questioned and today are still being questioned by some, but when you do God's Will that goes with the territory. You have to come to a point in your life where you are determined that you care more about what God thinks than what anybody else thinks or you will never get to where you need to be with God's Will in your life.
The point I am making is this - God's Will for your life is not always going to be easy. God's plan for your life is sometimes going to be harder than your plan for your life. That is why so many people cut out on God. We want to take the easy way out. We want to slide through life. We want to take the course of least resistance. Do you know why God sometimes does it the harder way? Because God is more interested in your character than He is your comfort. God wants to mature you. He wants to grow you. He wants to teach you to trust His promise to the point - that you decide to believe His Word and you determine to do His Will. That is the only place where God can bless you far beyond any other way you can bring blessing upon yourself. In a moment you are going to see this in Mary's life, because she made one other choice that we also must make if God is going to use us.
III. Desire To Prioritize God's Worship
I want you to learn something about worship, because a lot of you come to church every Sunday and you sing the same songs and you hear the same message and you go through the same motions, but you never come within a country mile of true worship. Only those who have decided to believe God's Word and who have determined to do God's Will truly desire to prioritize God's Worship. I am going to prove this to you. Jesus said in John 24 - "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." (John 4:24, NASB )
Do you know what that means? Until you decide to believe the truth of God's Word and determine to do God's Will in your spirit, you cannot prioritize God's Worship. When you do decide to believe God's Word and determine to do God's Will, you can not help but prioritize God's Worship which is why we read in verse 46 and 47, "And Mary said: 'My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.'" (Luke 1:46-47, NASB)
The rest of what you read down through verse 55 is the first Christmas song ever written. This is amazing. Mary is going to have a baby although she has never known a man. Her reputation is going to be ruined. She may lose family. She may lose friends. She may lose her fiancée. She may lose everything. She's got every reason to be worried sick, but instead of worry, she worshipped. Instead of panicking, she praised. When you get into a situation where you think you are in over your head when you are following God's Will, but it is getting more dangerous and difficult by the minute, don't worry - worship. Don't panic - praise. When you get afraid you forget our two basic principles. Remember?
- For every problem there is promise
- For every promise there is a provision.
There is one other thing about Mary that you will surely miss if I don't point it out to you. It really is the secret to Mary's greatness and the secret to her relationship with God. In verse 47 we are told that she was in God, but the angel had just told her that God was in her. Do you know what? That is the real definition of "Christian." It is someone who lives in God and someone who has God living in them. Of all the billions of women who have ever inhabited our planet, only Mary carried and nursed the Son of God. She was the only human who had a face that resembled the face of the Son of God. No wonder she said in verse 48, "For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed." (Luke 1:48 NASB) She was, but it wasn't because of anything she did.
The reason we know about Mary is because of what the angel first said to her in verse 28, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." (Luke 1:28, NASB) The word, "favored" literally means, "pursued with grace." The real reason why Mary was chosen by God was simply grace. Because of grace, she found favor with God and because of grace you can find favor with God as well.
Some people think Mary was saved because she had the Son of God. She wasn't saved because she had the Son of God. She had the Son of God, because she was saved. We see in this passage how she was saved, by God's grace and her faith. The angel said to Mary, "You are favored", that is "You have received God's grace." Elizabeth said to Mary, "You are blessed because you believed". That is what we see in Mary - God's grace and her faith.
The question I have to ask you today is this. Are you ready to do what Mary did so God can save you and God can use you? It is easy to separate the tire-kickers and the spiritual window shoppers from those who really want a relationship with God. All I have to do is ask you one question. Do you want Jesus Christ to come into your life, change your life, take total control of your life, so that you will believe His Word, do His Will, and prioritize His Worship? Only then will The Promise of Christmas be conceived in your heart.