"THE POSSIBILITIES WITH GOD: BLESSINGS OF OBEDIENT FAITH"
LUKE 1:26-38, 46-55: LIFEWAY WINTER QUARTERLY: SESSION 2
One of the first toys as a “little guy” I can remember playing with are “Weeble Wobbles.” (“Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down!” Was the slogan)” For a 3 to 4 year old they were delightful! Each little character was egg shaped, brightly colored and could be spun around like a top fascinating little minds and hands and they would not fall down- how could they when the base was a curved inch and a half wide and the top (the character’s head) came to a rounded point at just a quarter inch. However, when I look at them as a parent and an adult I now know why my parents soon got bored playing Weeble Wobbles with me. There is only so much you can do with an army of “toy Humpty Dumptys” without any arms and legs and whose every accessory was little more than an egg carton. There is only so much bobbling and wobbling one can take- for adults, rocking chairs would offer more excitement. Years later, a new toy/game came out called “Jenga” which involved a series of several tightly packed light weight balsa wood blocks where you would take from the base and foundation rows and stack on the top row. The base would get narrower and shakier while the top got heavier and taller. Your goal was to see how high you could build the tower before it toppled. We got our towers really tall, but it was always very loud and nerve wrecking to build, watch it sway and then topple over with a crash! Not a good game or toy if you are prone to anxiety; defective Jack-in-the-Boxes are more soothing! One toy was stable with a wide foundation, but limited in what you could do with it. The other took you “to new and exciting heights” but with a great deal of uncertainty, anxiety, and the promise of a crash if you kept playing.
One wonders what would be the possibilities if you could build something that had a completely solid foundation and no imaginable limits to how far and how high one could go and build on that foundation. What would you do with that kind of limitless possibility? What would you build on so firm a foundation with the calling of “excelsior!” (ever upwards- excellence) over that life? Enter the imagination, divine providential plans, power, purpose and limitless love of God. Enter the story of Christmas according to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 1 where as the Angel Gabriel tells Mary and ALL believers concerning our impossibilities and God’s possibilities: “For nothing will be impossible with God. (Lk 1:37)” and gives us Jesus (The Great I Am in human flesh incarnate) as the evidence. Last week we looked at how God uses “birthed doubts” in our lives through Zechariah’s experience, this week we will look at how God uses “birthed Faith” in our lives through the story of Mary. What are the possibilities WITH God? What are the blessings of an obedient faith that humbly takes Him at His Word? As the old Gaither song reminds us: “Something beautiful, something good”… The beginning of the Good News of the Gospel over us let’s take a look.
The first thing we see in verse 26 is that Luke is interweaving the forthtelling of John the Baptist’s birth with that of Messiah Jesus (“In the 6 month” means of Elizabeth’s pregnancy- also remember nothing in scripture is “foretold” by God; it is “forth” told- as if it has already happened because God keeps His Word. Only God’s prophets and messengers {angels} can speak of future events in the past tense). Luke is showing this for two reasons: one, he is telling a true story with inter-related parts and secondly it shows the divine planned and providential connections that went into God’s salvific design from Isaiah to 600 years later! While there is free will and either our acceptance or rejection of God’s plans there is no “chance” or happenstance in God’s plans- and ultimately they cannot be thwarted. John was purposed to herald the Messiah, and Mary was favored with God’s unmerited grace to conceive as a virgin, mother and raise Jesus. What relationships are there in your life that God has providentially orchestrated? Reflecting on that providence what differences has it made or are you allowing it to make? Where do you see those “matches made in heaven” leading and are you following God’s design or desiring your own? Gabriel visits betrothed (one step left to marriage) Mary and tells her that she is “favored” (blessed) and that God is with her.
Is Mary blessed because God is with her (i.e. God being with her will provide the blessings she and Joseph will need to raise Jesus and the troubles and joys {the misunderstandings of His Mission, His passion, burial, and resurrection} she will witness and experience) or is because God is with her Mary will be blessed with being the mother of the Messiah? The answer is “Yes;” God’s abiding presence will meet the family’s needs and Mary’s faith will grow as she witnesses Jesus as not only her son, but the Son of God who died for her sins as well. Mary’s experiencing God’s gracious and unmerited favor does not make her divine but opens her up as one of the first and most intimate eye witnesses to the incarnation and God’s divine plan for humanity. This simple young peasant girl will have her faith and joy in God strengthened to limits she cannot imagine, while her very heart is pierced with sorrow. She is akin to John in greatness not because of anything she has earned, but because of what God has given her and her response- her fear of such a startling announcement being replaced with one of soothing belief in God’s limitless possibilities through Christ Jesus in humble faith.
Why is Mary’s question in verse 34 of “How can this be?” not chastised like Zechariah’s question “How can I know this?” Mary asks in faith while Zechariah asked in doubt. Zechariah meets the angel while he is an elder statesman at the peak of his office as a Jewish Priest, while Mary meets the angel as a humble and powerless peasant girl. Both are startled by the angel and for more than just the supernatural experience- it is one thing when we “choose God” it is another thing when “God chooses us (see John 15:16-17).” Sometimes when we choose or decide to follow Jesus we think we can dictate some of the parameters of the relationship. I can choose to pray or not, I can choose to follow and obey Jesus daily or not, I can choose to doubt or to believe. But when we awaken to know that God has chosen us we realize that thinking I am free to make my own choices is the wrong place to begin our walk with Him, the right spiritual mindset says that obedience then becomes our only option because Jesus is LORD and we are to bear spiritual fruit (whether our choice is to acknowledge Him as LORD or not is irrelevant to the fact of His LORDSHIP over us but very relevant to our fate, faith and obedience) and we are to live each moment from then on knowing He has chosen us to do His will as a part of His plan. Mary believed this (verse 38) even though the way God would fulfill His plan was beyond her imagination and understanding. Zechariah wanted the choice to obey only what he understood and that was not an option because God’s possibilities with humanity begin at our impossibilities (the virgin birth) and His limitlessness (The Kingdom of God come to earth without end) starts where the limits of our understanding ends. Zechariah learned this when he listened and didn’t speak, Mary learned this when she opened her heart lifted her voice and expressed her obedience and faith.
We tell our kids when they are young and ask us why they should obey us:“You will obey me because the Bible and I say so!”But oftentimes what our children really want to know is: “What is it like to obey you?”“What is it like to follow you?”To trust us with their obedience they want to know that we are trustworthy. The Gospels, especially Luke, and the testimony of scripture give us that answer in the complete and only “worthiness” of God.The road of obedience for Mary and Zechariah was a difficult one but it was one filled with an inexpressible joy, and the greatest hope for Israel, themselves and for the entire world in salvation through Christ Jesus the King.For He alone is worthy!It seems that all we see around us today are impossibilities.Covid-19, our leaders, each other and everything else seems unstable and unworthy of our trust in this world.We have followed politics, wealth, success, fame, and addiction, the pursuit of our own actualization and betterment of ourselves to only be disillusioned and disappointed experiencing a negative reversal of fortunes- which Mary so elegantly expresses in her song and her God that has overcome them all…But at the dead-end of our possibilities and limits, at the wall of our impossibilities comes the possibilities the limitlessness with God when we trust Him and humbly obey- that is what the Bible and Luke promises this is what Mary expresses and experiences with her faith.We are given Eternal life with Jesus in His forever Kingdom that began when He came- when we believe in Him.Humbly trust Him today and experience His wonder working possibilities in your life!Love to you all!Keep us in prayer as we go through these trying times.God is with us, may he be our strength and shield!Know I am praying for you!Love in Christ, Darrin.