Mary - A Picture Of Grace And Faith (Luke 1:26-38)

Introduction

It’s a real privilege to be able to preach on this very special day - Mother’s day. Looking at my own mum, I know all too well how strong and amazing mums are. This may be surprising to hear for some, but not surprising to others, but I think I was quite a challenging child for my mum to raise. I was quite a sensitive child, but above all I was very very stubborn. I wanted to be fiercly independent. I hated anything that felt like my parents were trying to control me. I didn’t want to depend on my parents at all, so as soon as I finished high school, all I wanted was to get out of the house, so I moved to Australia from New Zealand. And I lived life during university, pretending I was this very mature adult, self-sufficient, not needing help from anyone at all. But the great irony was, my parents were paying for everything - my school fees, my rent, my living expenses, my flights, even my holidays. I tricked myself into believing that I was an independent adult, when in reality, I was still a complete child. But my mum, in her great wisdom and graciousness, never really brought up this fact, and she patiently waited, and continued to fund everything for me, knowing that in the future I would look back and realise how foolish and immature I was. And just like any other parent-child relationship, we had many other challenges and conflicts, but the way my mum overcame these challenges was not through force, not through clever words, not through threats, but through faith in God. She realised that there were things that were beyond her power and her control, so she prayed daily and entrusted everything to God, knowing that God is all powerful, gracious and loving, and in his wisdom, and in his timing, he would bring healing and restoration.

And I think this picture of faith in my mum, shows us a glimpse of the wonderful faith demonstrated by many women in the Bible. Many people think the Bible is outdated, backwards in its cultural norms, and misogynistic towards women. But this couldn’t be further from the truth - if you read it carefully, in its right context, the Bible dignifies and elevates women. And perhaps the best example of this is Mary. We can see this especially in the book of Luke in the birth story of Jesus. Whereas Matthew looks at the story of Jesus’ birth from the husband’s perspective, Joseph, if you read Luke, it tells the story from Mary’s perspective. And through the story, Luke gives us a beautiful picture of a woman who has not only been chosen and blessed by God, but has a faith that truly trusts in Him, choosing to believe and hope in the promises of God, rather than despairing and losing hope in the face of the difficulties and challenges of life. Through the story of this brave mother, Luke shows us what the grace of God, and true saving faith, looks like in the life of the believer. So let’s come together and see what God teaches us through this precious story of the mother of Jesus, Mary.

Mary - A Story of Unexpected Grace

The first thing that Luke shows us through Mary is a story of unexpected grace. Mary is someone who receives God’s grace - God’s unconditional love and election, that we didn’t do anything to deserve. But what Luke particularly highlights here, is the unexpected nature of God’s grace. Mary is a recipient of unexpected grace. Why?

In so many places throughout this passage, Luke makes a point of highlighting how undeserving Mary is.

Right from the beginning in verse 26, we see that Mary is from a city called Nazareth. To us, Nazareth is full of meaning because we know that that is where Jesus grew up. But at the time when this book was written, Nazareth was an obscure unknown city. It was a small tiny rural town, with an estimated population of around 500 people. It was completely unimportant. And Mary most likely would have been a poor, uneducated, peasant. And Nazareth is actually never mentioned in the Old Testament, so not even the Jews were that familiar with it, which is why in the book of John, Nathaniel says ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1:46).

And then in verse 27, we see that she is a ‘virgin bethrothed’ - she is engaged, but not yet married. And most likely she would have been very young, because people got married very early in those days. So not only is she poor, and uneducated, but she is a young unmarried woman, which in those times made her incredibly vulnerable and disadvantaged in that ancient Jewish society. In the words of one pastor, she was ‘a nobody, in a nothing town, in the middle of nowhere.’

But what happens to this ‘nobody’? Let’s read Luke 1:28 “28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!””. The angel Gabriel comes to her specifically, and says ‘Greetings, O favoured one, the LORD is with you!’. This is a remarkable thing to say, don’t miss the gravity of this. To this unknown, seemingly random, vulnerable young woman, an angel says ‘God has chosen you’, and not only has God chosen Mary, but God has favoured her, and not only favoured her, but God is with her personally. And when the Bible says God has ‘favoured’ Mary, that word ‘favoured’ actually comes from the word ‘grace’. In another words, God has chosen Mary to receive his amazing grace, unending kindness, God’s personal love and care; and this act of pouring out His grace on Mary is not one that Mary deserved or did something to earn, but is purely out of God’s election and choice. So God’s grace is unexpected, because He freely chooses to give it to the undeserving.

This is so fundamental to Christianity - all believers need to understand this not only in their minds, but also at the experiential level. We are doing Galatians recently, and the key message of Galatians is that you can’t do anything to deserve the grace and love of God. We are undeserving, and yet, God chooses to love us and pour out his grace upon us, just like He did with Mary. In most other religions, believers are required to go from low to high - somehow they need to work their way up to be deserving of favour and blessing. In Christianity, it’s the complete opposite - God sees the desperate need and undeservedness of mankind, and despite that, He initiates the relationship. The transcendent and high God, comes down to the lowly, and blesses us, and favours us. It is precisely when you feel like you are not good enough, when you feel like you haven’t done enough, that you’ve understood the true nature and true essence of what Christianity is. The Christian God, is the God who comes to, and chooses the lowly, the needy, the undeserving. This is the unexpected grace of our faith.

And see how remarkable this grace is - in verse 28, Gabriel says, ‘The LORD is with you’. Gabriel draws attention, not to any specific blessing, or practical outcome in Mary’s life. Gabriel draws attention to the fact that God is with her personally. Gabriel doesn’t draw attention to the ‘what’, but to the ‘who’. God’s grace is first and foremost not a set of outcomes in our lives, like becoming happier, or wealthier. God’s grace is first and foremost, relational. There is a deep joy and satisfaction and wonder of merely just being next to God, being beside him, knowing him. In the wonderful Psalm by David, this is what he says in Psalm 27:4 “4 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” David is purely seeking the very presence of God. He is saying ‘all I want is to just be with you’. There is nothing more satisfying or more desirable to David than God himself. It is not the material or specific blessings of God, or even going to heaven that David chases after, but God himself is what David deeply and genuinely desires.

What is it that you are seeking from God? What does God’s grace mean to you? Is it a certain benefit? Is it an escape from a difficult situation in your life? Is it to fill in some void in your life? Are you seeking a community? The story of Mary, teaches us that God giving us His very self, is the ultimate grace and blessing. Don’t miss this, because we so often just take this for granted. We are often so focused on how to extract practical applications from the Bible, asking ‘what does the Bible practically mean for my life?’ And I’m not saying that’s not important. But don’t miss the fact that even before the practical application of God’s grace in your life, it is God himself before you, with you. The very God who created the heavens and the earth has come down and revealed himself to you and says that He is with you, and says that you are highly favoured. And we should pause and stop right there - don’t even think about asking the question ‘So what? So what does that practically mean for me?’. Take a moment to take in those breathtaking words. God is with you - be amazed, be in awe, be in shock, be in utter humility that the great God can be with someone like me. Marvel and be in wonder of the graciousness and love of our God - this is the practical application, if you really need one. Through Mary, we see God is a gracious and loving God, giving the unexpected gift of himself to the undeserving like us. And we should never take that for granted, and we should always be full of thanks and praise.

Mary - A Story of Inconceivable Grace

And the grace that Mary receives, is not just unexpected, but it is a story of inconceivable grace. It is so great in magnitude, that we can’t even begin to fathom the heights and depths of what God has given us.

And this is so clearly shown in verses 31-33. I’ll read the verses: Luke 1:31–33 “31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”” This just sounds like God promising Mary that she will conceive the baby Jesus Christ. But there is so much more than that. We don’t have the time today to go through it in detail, but if you read these 3 verses carefully, there are so many connections with the Old Testament - it is drenched with Old Testament prophecies. There are connections with Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9, 2 Sam 7, Psalm 2, Psalm 89, Daniel 7, and even more.

And it is not just simple fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. All of history was hinging on this moment. If you look at the opening of Luke chapter 1, just before this story of Mary, what you see is Israel desperately waiting for its Messiah, its saviour, finally waiting for a turning point in their history. Zechariah the priest gets selected to go up to the temple for the annual ritual, but the heartbreaking reality was, the ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence, was no longer in the temple. Not only that, Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth was barren, which in those days symbolised God’s curse. Beyond Zechariah and Elizabeth, Israel was in a state of being ruled and oppressed by Rome. And it wasn’t just Rome they were oppressed by, before Rome it was Greece, and before Greece it was Persia, and before Persia, it was Babylon. Israel was nation that for a long time was yearning and was desperate for relief, for freedom, for a Messiah to finally come and save them. To finally change the tides of the unfortunate history of Israel.

And all the expectations and hope of this desperate enslaved nation; all the vast prophecies of the Old Testament that had been prophesied over thousands of years; and all of human history that has been groaning and yearning since beginning of creation, was collapsing and converging onto the singular point of this humble insignificant woman, Mary. Because she was chosen by God, to be the instrument to bring about the incarnation of God himself, in Jesus Christ. This is not just Mary receiving grace and having the blessing of a child - this is Mary receiving the grace of God, God using her to bring about the very pinnacle and the very fulfillment of all human history. Everything past, present, and future, even today, is pointing to this very moment in history, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who will not only finally and fully complete the salvation and redemption of Israel, but all of mankind, for all of us.

It is a mindblowing magnitude of grace. There is no way we can ever wrap our heads around it. It is inconceivable, unfathomable. Encompassing and transcending all of human history. And yes, it is true that in a sense, Mary’s experience is unique. She is the only person who was chosen by God to give birth to the Son of God. And although we will never be used in the same way as Mary, Mary’s story does teach us about the nature of God’s grace: it is always greater than we can ever imagine. It is inconceivable. And there are so many other Bible verses that attest to this. Just as one example, Ephesians 3:17–19 “17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” The extent of God’s love and grace ‘surpasses knowledge’ that we need Christ to dwell in our hearts to even be able to comprehend it.

So the next time you feel like you are not good enough for God, or have sinned too much, or have not done enough - remember how vast God’s grace is for you that overcomes all your weaknesses.

The next time you feel fear or anxiety in life - remember how God’s boundless grace is with you personally, which is greater than any threat in this world.

The next time you struggle to forgive or be gracious to someone else - remember the heights and depths of God’s grace and love that has been shown to you, despite your flaws.

And the next time God feels absent in your life, or God doesn’t feel real, or God feels distant - remember the infinite grace that has come you personally, to be with you, a grace that surpasses our knowledge and understanding.

So much of the problems and distress of our lives come from underestimating, or becoming numb, to the infinite magnitude of the grace of our God. There is no way we can ever meditate enough about the wonder and magnitude of God’s grace in our lives. God showed his amazing grace to Mary by choosing her for the incarnation of the Son; and God shows to us also an inconceivable grace, that radically changes us from enemies of God, to children of God. No wonder John Newton wrote the lyrics: ‘Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch, like me.’

Mary - A Story of True Faith

And lastly, Mary is a story of true faith. In response to this wondrous grace of God, Mary’s shows us a real and genuine example of faith.

After receiving this mindblowing pronouncement from Gabriel, Mary very naturally asks this question in verse Luke 1:34 “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”. Now, this question is not a question of doubt - Mary is not saying, ‘it’s impossible to have a baby while remaining a virgin’. And we know this because later on in verse 45, it clearly states that Mary believed in what was spoken to her. So this question in verse 34 is not a question of doubt, but it is a question of pure wonder: Mary believes its going to happen, but she doesn’t know how and she is asking a genuine question of how it will happen.

And in response to Mary’s question, Luke records something very fascinating but also very mysterious. Read Luke 1:35–37 “35 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. 36 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. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.””

The angel doesn’t really give a clear answer about how Mary can remain a virgin while conceving a child. All the angel says is that the power of the Holy Spirit will ‘overshadow’ Mary. This word ‘overshadow’ is the same word that is used in the OT, when the building of the tabernacle was completed, and the glory of God’s presence filled the tabernacle in a cloud. The divine cloud that established God’s presence, previously in a physical building, was now present in the person of Mary, completing the story of salvation of the human race, by infusing Mary’s womb with Jesus, the divine Son of God. We will never know the mechanism, but what is clear is that the conception of Jesus was a divine intervention, not a biological process.

And to back up his claims, in verses 36-37 Gabriel reassures Mary by saying that God allowed Elizabeth to conceive a child in her barrenness, so of course God can do the impossible with Mary as well.

So in a sense, Gabriel didn’t really answer Mary’s question of ‘how will it happen?’. He leaves it as a mystery, simply saying, it will happen as the Holy Spirit ‘overshadows’ Mary. And despite the uncertainty, this is how Mary responds. Read Luke 1:38 “38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” What a wonderful statement of faith. Now we need to realise, what Mary is accepting here, was not something straightforward or easy. Mary was engaged to Joseph, so even the fact of this unknown person, Gabriel, approaching and talking to her, was risky, socially taboo and unacceptable, possibly even jeopardising her marriage. But even worse, now she was promised to be pregnant before being married to Joseph. This would have been considered as adultery, and back in those times, adultery was punishable by death. And if we read Matthew, we know that when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, he was planning to actually cancel the engagement. And that would have left Mary as a completely disgraceful person in society, someone who had cheated on her future husband, someone who now would have been ostracised, removed from mainstream society. This entire situation was fraught was risk and danger for Mary.

But despite all this, Mary trusts in God and in faith says ‘I am a servant of the LORD, let it be to me according to your word.’ The word ‘servant’ here, can actually be translated as a ‘female slave’. What Mary was acknowleding was not simply agreeing with and believing God’s promises - Mary was confessing total belonging and submission of her entire life to God. She was willing to comply with God’s grace and God’s will, trust her entire life into His hands, no matter what the consequences would have been, even if it meant her death. And this trust was based on the promises that God had made to her - promises which were just words at this stage, and hadn’t come to realisation. Mary doesn’t demand any evidence or proof that the impossible should become possible. She receives God’s words exactly as they are - God’s words and promises were enough for her. They were the sole sustaining sufficiency for her life. And this is the very nature of what faith is - read Hebrews 11:1 “1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This is the kind of faith that Mary shows us in her response.

Faith doesn’t operate at the level of sight, of tangible things that can be seen, or evidence that can be observed. Faith is assured, convicted, and completely trusts in things that haven’t happened yet - it operates at the level of words and promises.

And it believes in the words and promises of God so much, that faith is able to completely surrender one’s life to God, even if it means adversity and disadvantage. Faith is able to wholeheartedly and unreservedly trust in God and dedicate itself to God.

Faith doesn’t look - it doesn’t look to the difficulties and problems that we may face in believing; it also doesn’t look for tangible or logical reasons to believe. As the writer to the Hebrews tells us, ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’, which is demonstrated in Mary completely submitting herself to God based on words and promises alone, despite the potential consequences she will face.

And years later, Mary’s son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, says something similar in the face of adversity and deep distress at the Garden of Gethsemene, where he says ‘Not my will, but yours be done.’

Conclusion

As believers, our walk with God must be characterised by faith, completely entrusting our lives to Him. It should never be a calculated risk based on what we can see in our lives, but should be an assurance and conviction of all the wonderful promises of God, even if it means it comes at a cost or a risk to our current lives. Faith is beautiful and wonderful, but it’s not always comfortable. It’s not always convenient. It can be deeply challenging at times. It can challenge your finances, your relationships, your committments, your daily comforts and conveniences. But faith is willing to make those sacrifices, as God’s words and promises assures us and sustains us much more than anything we may lose because of faith. And we can still have assurance and conviction, despite the costs and challenges that faith may bring, because we know God’s character. We saw that God is a God of unexpected, and inconceivable grace, who pours out his grace and love lavishly upon us, the undeserving. And if God gave us the greatest gift of Himself, in his Son Jesus Christ, what other assurance do we need? If the divine God is willing to take on human flesh in all its weakness for us, what is there in this life that He will not sustain us through?

Through this beautiful story of the mother Mary, God once again reminds us of who He is. A God of grace - and don’t let that word ‘grace’ just become another familiar church term that goes in one ear and out the other. It is an unexpected grace that we do not deserve; it is an astounding inconceivable grace that should always inspire awe, wonder, gratitude, and praise. And based on our gracious God and all his promises, we also are called to respond like Mary - saying ‘Behold, I am a servant of the LORD; let it be to me according to your word.’ On this Mother’s day, I hope and pray that everyone increase in their wonder and awe of our great God, and be strengthened in their faith through this wonderful story of Mary.

Invite pastor JK for Lords supper

Team 3 to leave