Holy Disruption
Notes
Transcript
Luke 1:26–38 (ESV)
Birth of Jesus Foretold
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 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.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
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.” 38 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.
Have you ever had your plans change quickly?
well I saw a video on Facebook and you have probably seen some variation of it
but in this video it has two kids sitting in the car and they are usually on the way to somewhere fun.
It might be sky-zone, their grandparents, a friends house and they are getting ready to head out,
But before they pull out of the drive way the parents look at them and say we actually can’t go to the place we told you.
And you look at the kids and they just look really sad, because they were excited about the plans they have made
But whats so cool is everything changes really quickly because all of the sudden the parents say instead of going their we are actually going to Disney World
And you see these kids start going crazy, in some videos they are crying, in some they are cheering, other videos they are speechless.
But it is so cool because the kids in their heads are really disappointed because of the plan change, but what is so cool is when they are told the new plan it is 100 times better and really it is something that they thought was completely impossible
But you know as I was watching that I could not help but think how in our walk with God this happens,
Because we have our plans, but then God changes our ordinary plans into something extra ordinary.
And really in the story we just read there is a girl named Mary who just had her plans changed drastically.
You see Mary was living a pretty typically life back then.
You see Mary was a young woman (actually somewhere between 13-17 years old)
And in Biblical times around this time in a young teenagers life they would get married
And so the passage we just read says Mary is getting ready to get married and she is actually betrothed to a man named Joseph.
Which is similar to being engaged
And so you can really picture this young women who has begun to plan out her life
She is planning her wedding
She has probably begun to plan out where they will live
She has probably has thought about how many kids they will have down the road.
but all of the sudden her plans are drastically changed because of this angel that comes to her telling her some news that change her plans.
And before we talk about those plans can I just point out that in our life their are times where we recieve a Holy disruption.
Where we plan something and God has something else in mind
I mean in this story Marys plans go out the window and are replaced with something so much better.
Some of you have may have heard the name Saint Francis before. For those who do not know St. Francis was a man in the 1100s who grew up extreamly wealthy.
And not only that but he had this plan to become a knight (which lets be honest is pretty cool)
and for those of you who know your history this time period was also a time where the crusades took place which are a really dark period in Christian history.
But what is amazing is this man one day found a destoryed church and was sitting in it (keep in mind he was not religous)
And He felt like God told him he needs to fix the church because what was happening was wrong.
And from that moment He gave up his dream of becoming a knight, He gave up His wealth and power and devoted His life to serving serving God.
He had huge a Holy disruption and because of it He was able to completely reform the church.
But you know the thing about Holy disruption is while at the moment we might say this is really inconvenient it makes room for God to work the impossible.
And I do not know about you but I want to have a God that is working the impossible in my life.
And I believe He does when we say yes to the Holy disruptions.
But here is the thing because look how Mary responds (and if you are following along this is in verses 28-34)
Because this Angel comes to Mary and says greetings, o favored one, the Lord is with you!
And you think Mary would be excited but it says she is actually troubled and is trying to figure out what in the world this angel is talking about.
And so this angel says do not be afraid and he calls her the favored one again
And the angel begins to explain that she is going to have a son named Jesus and that He would deliver this dark world from sin, and brokenness.
And so you can almost picture Mary thinking me? You are calling me to do this amazing thing? Why? I am just a teen? I am just a girl from Nazareth.
I mean Nazareth made Buchanan look like New York. It only had 400 people
Why would you choose this small town teenage girl to deliver a king?
But what I find so true is when we have a Holy disruption in our life our responce is similar to Mary’s
God do you know who I am?
I am just a student, I am to old, I can’t publically speak,
But here is the thing God told Mary you are favored
And that word favored in the Bibles original languange is actually somewhat simaler for the word Grace.
So God did not choose Mary because she was perfect, but God choose Mary because He saw what Mary could live into.
Its almost like how a few years ago when I first got a job as an admission’s counselor I was terrible, I did not know any the programs and I was not the best sales person.
But I remember one day my boss was talking to me and He goes Brendan you were the clear choice for this job.
We choose you for a reason, we knew you were not perfect but we knew you would do great.
And you know I really believe God does not choose the perfect, in fact if you look through the Bible they are usually far from it, but God uses the people who are willing to say yes.
And God wants to use us.
Well look at this next part of this passage in verses 34-37
because this angel tells Mary how she is able to fulfill this call God has given her.
And really these are so important for us when God calls us to do something big.
Because in verse 34 Mary ask the angel how can this be?! I am a virgin! That is impossible.
And the angle says this look Mary the Holy Spirit is the one that will take care of this.
And just to be clear Mary’s story is unique because she was giving birth to the savior of the world,
But so often our first reaction to God’s call is that is impossible, but so often we forget to account for what God can do.
Its almost like how in Elementry School I remember they had a contest once where we had to make our own kite.
And I mean we were in elementy school these things were flying junk.
Some kids tried to make some things that looked like a kite
I think I just tied a plastic bag to a string
I mean they were bad
But the funny thing is while they were all probably junk, we must of gotten luckly because the day we went to fly them it was an insanely windy day and because of that they actually flew.
So even though they were all flawed they flew because of the wind.
But you know that is what God does with us. Because we have weaknesses and flaws that make it impossible to accomplish His will, but its not our weaknesses that matter but it is our God.
Our God is bigger then our weakness.
Well look at the next thing this angel tells Mary in verse 36 because He says Marry your relative Elizabeth has actually had a miracle pregnancy as well, because she is to old to have a child and she is pregnant
But you know I think there is a reason the angel tells Mary this, because I believe the angel wanted Mary to know that she was not alone.
But God has given Mary people in her life who she can lean on to accomplish God’s will.
So much so that Elizabeth is actually the first person Mary goes to after talking with this angel.
But you know it is so important for us to realize God has given us people in our life to walk through life with us
Especially the difficult seasons.
I can think of a time period I went through in my life a few years ago where it was just a really difficult season of life for me
Where things were a little stressful.
But whats so cool looking back is there were people who I can look back and go God gave me that person.
When I needed a friend
When I needed advice
When I needed just to scream
I mean God has given you people in your life to walk with you through what your going through.
it is so important to find those people.
Well look at the very last verse (verse 38) because like we talked about what this angel has told Mary has completely changed her life.
And not just that but since she is pregnant, before marriage in this culture she could be killed
And so you can picture Mary scared and wondering what will happen, but despite all of this this is her response:
“Behold, I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Basically God how to I have any other choice, because I have decided I am your servant and you are my God.
You know my question for us today is has God called you to do the impossible?
What has God asked you to do and has there been this hesitancy to say yes or even trust that God could work.
If so can I just encourage you with the very last thing the angel tells Mary in verse 37 and this would be an amazing verse to memorize or write down and put it in your house somewhere.
And this verse will be up on the screen all it says is
37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Can you read that with me again?
“For nothing will be impossible with God”
I do not know where you are this morning but whether your impossible is just getting out of the bed because you are stressed, whether it is that person you know who needs Jesus, or there is somthing big God has asked you to do.
What if this Christmas season we held on to that promise
“Nothing is impossible with God”
Will you pray with me?
You know what I love about that is Mary knew she was going to give birth to the Messiah, but I wonder if she knew everything He would do and the lives He would change
And this morning you saying yes might mean you are saying yes, but there is no telling how How God will use you
And we are going to close on a song called Mary did you know, because Mary’s allowed the impossible to happen.