Characters of Christmas – A Profile of Courage – 12/02/07
Date: 12/02/07
Sermon Series: Characters of Christmas
Sermon Title: Profile of Courage
Text: Luke 1:34-38
“And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” (Luke 1:34-38, ESV)
Theme: Mary’s story is an incredible insight into a teenage girl who God chose to be the mother of His redemptive presence on earth. A look at her story reveals a woman who faced an incredibly dangerous and difficult circumstance with a calm and courageous demeanor. We can learn a lot from Mary’s story about facing our difficult circumstances with complete trust in our Lord.
Introduction: (A scene from the Nativity Story)
I love the way God works.
Over the course of the next four weeks we are going to take a look at the most important event that ever happened in history.
Our Bibles are incredible pieces of literature. Even academics who don’t believe that God exists, much less is concerned about a personal relationship with man, understand that as far as literature goes there is nothing in mans history that even comes close to the Bible. It is a book that is a library of 66 separate books. It was written over a time frame of 1500 years by about forty different human authors and yet it still retains one big narrative, a clear theme runs through the book from the first page till the last. It is the story of God’s unimaginable care for His most precious creation – humankind.
This love is in spite of the willful disobedience of man for their Creator.
In the light of this disobedience God does something that almost defies description, He takes our willful disobedience and places the guilt and consequences on His own shoulders. This story of substitutionary atonement, of radical redemptive relationship is the big story of the Bible.
In many ways the Christmas story is the centerpiece of this larger narrative.
On this night 20 centuries ago God forever changed mankind.
Only God could conceive of a plan whereby He would display Himself to the world in such a humble manner, particularly at this time in history when only the wealthy and powerful are seen as being important and blessed. God changed everything. In this story of a Jewish couple listening to and obeying God in difficult and dangerous circumstances we see God’s overwhelming grace displayed in the humblest of circumstances. I love the way God works.
Transition: As we enter this Nativity season we are going to spend some time looking at the Christmas story as it is displayed through some of the characters of the drama that God called onto the stage of the event so long ago.
I have called this series, Characters of Christmas and over the next few weeks we are going to look at some profiles, profiles of courage and character of commitment and consistency.
As we look at these people one of the things that I would like you to see is that these people are not superhuman or supernatural, they are simply people who listened to God and believed and then acted on that belief. They are people who were available to God: aside from culture and time people not much different from us.
Today we are going to look at the story of a young Jewish woman named Mary. I have entitled today’s sermon A Profile in Courage.
1. Who Mary is – While there is a lot about Mary that we just don’t know I want to draw you a little bit of a picture of this woman of faith.
a. Young – chances are that Mary was more than likely quite young. It was not uncommon for girls as young as twelve years old to become betrothed and unless the circumstances were extraordinary she certainly would have been in her teens.
b. Disadvantaged –
i. She married Joseph who was a carpenter. Even though there was nothing particularly wrong with being a carpenter it certainly wasn’t a position that held any real status or monetary reward.
ii. When the time for her purification was up she submitted the sacrifice set aside for the poorest of citizens.
c. She is devout – at a time when women were not given the educational opportunities that men had, she was keenly aware of God’s interaction with her people and obviously had committed large sections of His word to memory.
d. Hopeless situation
i. Being pregnant while betrothed, especially when the man who she was promised to knew that he was not the father.
ii. There was no protection for somebody in her position and this time and in this culture. Her father had no obligation to keep her in his house and if he decided to do that his standing in the community would suffer. It would have been bad enough to have a pregnant unwed daughter to keep her he would have been showing that he condoned her sinfulness.
e. So Mary – young, poor finds herself in a situation where she gets the news that she is gong to be pregnant. I cannot imagine how this could have been worse news to her. Can you imagine the next conversations that she is going to have to face – mother and father then Joseph?
2. Mary’s incredible attitude
a. Acceptance
i. I am a servant – let it be to me as you have said.
ii. This acceptance is incredible it is the kind of acceptance that is not like most of us are willing to accept.
1. She is saying to God: Ok I will gladly bear whatever it is that you have in store for me. I understand that the difficulties are present and powerful but I simply trust that you are in charge.
b. Acclamation
i. Starting in Luke 1:46 there is a beautiful expression of Mary’s proclamation of God’s mercy and strength.
1. This magnificat, as it came to e called because of the Latin word that starts the phrase, is very similar to the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2 when God opened up Hannah’s womb and she got pregnant with Samuel.
2. I don’t want to exegete this piece of scripture but I do want to make a couple of general observations about it.
a. Mary had been giving a lot of thought about God’s work in her life, she didn’t come up with this on the spur of the moment.
b. She spoke publicly and reverently about the power of God in her life.
3. How can I be like that?
a. Confidence that God is who He says He is and that you are who He says you are.
i. Romans 8:31-39
1. God is our righteous savior through a relationship with Jesus as Lord.
a. He is redeemer, justifier, protector and commander.
2. And because of Him we are…
a. Conquerors, connected, and convinced of our eternal place with Him.
A story of great Christian Courage
The Prussian king Frederick the Great was widely known as an agnostic. By contrast, General Von Zealand, one of his most trusted officers, was a devout Christian. Thus it was that during a festive gathering the king began making crude jokes about Christ until everyone was rocking with laughter–all but Von Zealand, that is. Finally, he arose and addressed the king: “Sire, you know I have not feared death. I have fought and won 38 battles for you. I am an old man; I shall soon have to go into the presence of One greater than you, the mighty God who saved me from my sin, the Lord Jesus Christ whom you are blaspheming. I salute you, sire, as an old man who loves his Savior, on the edge of eternity.” The place went silent, and with a trembling voice the king replied, “General Von Zealand–I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!” And with that the party quietly ended.
