There's Something About Mary

I'm excited to dive into the word today.

I thought, you know, Mother's Day, uh, what greater uh message and what greater mother, if you're gonna look at all the mothers throughout human history, throughout history, who are you going to actually talk about?

And I thought, well, you know what?

The chick that was chosen to be the mother of God, that would be pretty awesome.

Because I mean, what does it take to be the mother of God?

And some of the guys are in the room going, oh no, uh, why did I come on Mother's Day weekend?

They're gonna talk about chicks and babies and mothers.

And I want you to know that today's message you're about to get shocked because it is for all of us male, female, young, old, every person in the room, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us and activate us and propel us into our God-given purpose and destiny.

But I thought I if I'm speaking today from the subject, there's something about Mary.

And I know the 1045s are the holiest congregation of all of Gateway, and so none of you watch movies, and I understand that you didn't get an instant image of anything as I said that this morning.

It is Sunday morning, and we'll behave.

Um, and so I am speaking from the some subject, there's something about Mary because there is something about her, and I pray that it will relate to all of us, and it will.

Don't just switch off because she's a chick.

I learned things from David, I learned things from Saul, I learned things from Solomon, I learned things from all the great people in the Bible, and I think we're about to learn something very significant.

And this text that I'm about to read, we normally read around Christmas time, um, but there is nothing that says you can only read Luke chapter 1 around Christmas.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

I think this is a really apt text for this morning.

So let's dive in and see what the Holy Spirit does.

The Bible says in Luke chapter 1, verse 26 in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

Luke 1:26

And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you.

Now, I love the understatement of the Bible, because check out this next verse.

But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

I'm like, we would be running to change our underwear if the angel of the Lord came.

But this is like, she didn't have a heart attack.

She just is like, wow, what manner of greeting might this be?

I I wonder if she's had other greetings because she didn't have a shock that this was happening.

This was just a different type of greeting, obviously.

And then it goes on, and the Bible says, and the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for sure.

For you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

I mean, only a man, Dr.

Luke, would write this.

It could only be a physician that would go, and no worries, love.

You're just gonna conceive, you're gonna um, you know, carry him for nine months and just pop him out, go for it.

No epidural, you'll be fine.

And you shall call his only a man would write that, and you shall call his name Jesus.

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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom.

There will be no end.

I love that.

And Mary said to the angel, how will this be?

Angel, did you fail biology?

Since I am a virgin, that's not in the original, just in case anyone's wondering.

Like, wow, when did they put that in the Bible?

No, it's not there, okay?

Just it's all right.

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.

Just when you thought this story couldn't get weirder, there it goes.

And then 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.

What a way to open the book of Luke.

God has been silent for 400 years, and then suddenly, here we have the New Testament.

God appears, and there's two angelic visitations, one to Zechariah, one to a teenage girl.

Now, angelic visitations are not common in the Bible anyway, and they're definitely never common to teenage girls.

So we know that something is up.

We know that something quite profound is about to happen.

And the angel of the Lord turns up to a very ordinary girl.

A girl that's getting ready.

She's betrothed.

I'm sure that morning she got up to put up a make put on a makeup, and she was thinking about Joseph.

She was thinking about the wedding.

She was thinking about her future and babies and making hummus and eating pit of bread and whatever it is that one does.

She was probably thinking, she was not thinking I'm gonna have an angelic visitation.

But the very fact that the girl didn't have a heart attack when the angel turns up suggests to me that just maybe, just maybe, this was not highly unusual.

Because she only wondered what manner of greeting it was.

And if you're wondering what manner of greeting this was, perhaps there's been another greeting at another time, and this was a different kind of greeting, and you're trying to wonder why this greeting different.

Now, my point is that the very fact that she had a conversation with the angel suggests that she was a young woman with a heart after God.

She was a young woman that was aware of the things of God, she was a young woman that wasn't shocked when an angelic visitation happened to give her a divine assignment.

Many of us, if God turned up to give us a divine assignment, he'd have to resuscitate us because we go, Oh my gosh, this is real.

The cross does have the final word, this is real.

I really believe this now.

I sing it every Sunday, but I don't really believe it.

Something would happen, it would change everything.

So, who are the kind of people that God uses to do something extraordinary?

I mean, this girl was about to get the job profile of birthing God to the planet.

I mean, that is a fairly big deal.

Now, my mother-in-law, my husband is the 12th of 13 living children.

His mother had 15 full-term pregnancies in 17 years.

All the women are crossing their legs and freaking out right now.

I know.

It's just, it's like, it's a big deal.

There was obviously no television in that part of Australia.

And so she just did that.

This is why when I took my daughters to her, I would always go, This is Catherine, Alpha, this is Sophia, Omega.

They are the beginning and the end of my childbearing years.

I would always do that because she didn't think you're a chick until you popped out number 10.

I'm like, what are you on?

But anyway, um, the point is, what kind of woman gets chosen to birth God?

I mean, most of us girls, and this is pre-epidural days.

I mean, God did not even wait for Jesus to be birthed when epidurals were invented.

This is like pre-drugs, and so she's gotta come and have a baby, and not just any baby, most of us freak out.

If you've got a, you know, having nine-pound baby or a ten-pound baby, you're like that.

This is God.

I mean, he flung the universe into being and all the stars and the planets into the sky.

And and imagine that you've got the job profile that God says, that God that did all of that, I'm gonna fit him into fingers and toes and put skin on him and shove him in your womb, and you're gonna pop him out.

Look, I'm just saying you ought to have sympathy for us women.

It is amazing the job profile she was given.

But the angel came to a very ordinary girl.

Because how God is birthed to our generation is through very ordinary people.

See, you and I are born again and sealed until the day of redemption with the spirit of God.

When God had a plan to take his spirit into a lost and a broken world, sometimes we pray, God send revival.

He goes, I already did, I sent you.

I put my spirit on the inside of you and I sent you into your workplace, I sent you into your community, I sent you into your college, I sent you into your school, I put my spirit in you.

I need out of you to flow rivers of living water.

I sent you there to birth me in your environment.

Our world is chaotic, our world is desperate, our world is in darkness.

Can I tell you though, the hope of the world is not the government, it's not the education department, it's not the media, it's not any sort of um any other sphere of life.

The hope of the world is the church of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, living on the inside of us.

And God says, I want you to birth me into your world.

Go ye into all the world and make disciples.

Birth me.

We're salt and light, we're given the same job profile.

Of course, we're not birthing God incarnate, but we are carriers of the Spirit of God.

We are in us, the Spirit of God is the hope of this world.

That's who the church is.

That is our job profile.

We are here to be salt and light in a lost and a broken world.

So just like Mary was called to birth God to her generation, you and I are called to birth him and bring him into our generation.

So, what does it take to do that?

Because there's something pretty unique and special about Mary.

And we all, each and every one of us, needs to have these qualities if we're gonna be the men and women of God that God has called us to be in our generation, to our generation, for our generation.

So the first thing we have to accept is that God uses incredibly, incredibly ordinary people.

We're talking about a teenage girl.

Nothing extraordinary about her.

Nothing to suggest that she came from any great lineage, any great family.

She was an ordinary girl with a willing heart.

To do something significant for God in our generation, you do not need any great ability.

You just need availability.

You just need to be available to God and to have a willing heart.

God is looking for people that will say yes to him.

God is looking for people that have the faith to believe that he is who he says he is, that he will do what he says he will do.

So he comes to a teenage girl and he says, Will you accept this divine assignment?

The angel says to her, Mary, you have found favor.

You are highly favored.

Three times he tells her that she is favored.

Now, many of us we think, of course I'm favored, I'm the blessed one of God.

Favor ain't fair.

I got a good parking spot, you didn't.

Ha ha, favor's not fair.

I mean, some of us, I mean, if that's the extent of what we think favor is for Christians, a good parking spot, we need to get a life.

We need to get a life because favor's for a whole lot more than that.

Favor is for service, not for status.

When God puts his favor on our life, it is so that we can serve a lost and a broken world.

It is not for our own status.

He says to her, You have got favor, and then with that favor, her life is about to turn upside down.

See, some of us we think God has left us because our life has turned upside down, and we think I don't have the favor of the Lord, and the Lord says, Oh no, it's not a sign that you don't have my favor, it's a sign that you might just have it.

She had the favor of God.

When she's thinking, I imagine when she was told she had the favor of God, she would have thought, awesome, awesome, I've got the favor of God.

I'm gonna get my own reality TV show, they're gonna pay for my wedding, say yes to the dress.

This is it.

Because that's what we think, that's God's favor.

But no, no, no.

The angel of the Lord says, You have found favor, so this is what's gonna happen.

Um, the you're gonna be overshadowed with the spirit of God, and you're gonna have an immaculate conception, and I want you to go and explain that to Joseph.

Awesome.

This is what happens when you start getting pregnant with the God dream.

It is like about to mess your life up.

I want you to go because this is what it costs to.

We think this is all lovely.

Now, look, when Nick and I were engaged, we knew what we had not done.

So, no matter how much he loved me, if I said to him one day, I went on Nick, you got no idea.

I was getting ready this morning for work, and I had a divine visitation from an angel of the Lord, and I'm pregnant.

You know, the guy was not gonna buy it.

I tell my daughters, don't try this at home.

There was only ever one Immaculate Conception, that's it.

And so imagine she had to go and tell her parents.

She could have been ostracized from her society.

She literally could have been stoned to death.

I'm not talking about smoking drugs, I'm saying stone, like real stones to death.

The favor of God has a price tag.

The favor of God might mean you lose the favor of men.

The favor of God means not everyone's gonna think you're awesome.

The favor of God means you've got to be willing to go it alone with God because there's gonna be a season of time where only you and God know what's being conceived and nobody else will ever understand it.

And you've got to be willing to live like that.

I can't think of one thing that's come out of our life in ministry where there has not been this incubating season where everyone around me would think she has gone cray cray.

But God and I knew.

Or some of you are going, yes, we know, I know, that's it.

But the point is, are you willing to say, God, I receive your favor and I understand it's for service, but not for status.

Feeling the fear of it all is normal.

The angel of the Lord says, Fear not, which is just like, really?

Really?

This angel, I might lose everything, let alone of the fact that you want me to carry God, and you're telling me not to be afraid that my fiancee may leave me, my parents may disown me, my community may ostracize me.

No wonder he says, fear not.

And many of us, the thing that holds us back from doing what God has called us to do and bringing God forth into our generation is that we are afraid of what it will cost us in terms of reputation, in terms of relationships, in terms of resources, and so we are paralyzed and crippled by fear.

And at the threshold of every major transition in all of our lives, the enemy will always send a spirit of fear.

And that's why 2 Timothy says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.

And our world has gone spiraling out of control, and fear and terror are gripping people, and everywhere that I travel, I'm seeing Christians paralyzed and crippled by fear.

But God never gave us a spirit of fear.

We don't stop taking risks, we don't run away from the darkness, we are thrust into the darkness, we dispel the darkness with the light and the life and the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're not running away from the world, hiding in our little basement, us for and no more.

Hurry up, Jesus.

I need the rapture, I'm so scared.

Are you kidding me?

Jesus Christ did not come from heaven to earth, die on a cross, and rise again from the dead so that we can hide and cower and be nice and safe and comfortable.

Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth, died on a cross, and rose again to make us dangerous to the kingdom of darkness, that we might establish his life, his light, his hope, his mercy, his truth.

That's what we're called to do, church.

That's what we're called to do.

So you got to do it afraid.

My spiritual mother told me from the beginning of my ministry, Christine, do it afraid until you're not afraid anymore.

I remember when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

You know, I was I had had a biopsy and um some tests done and then got straight on a plane.

I had them done Wednesday afternoon, and I was on a plane Wednesday night to Australia for our Hillson conference.

And I remember I landed on Friday morning, and the doctor called me just as soon as I landed in Australia, and she said, Christine, we got your biopsy results back, and um I need you to know that they've come back positive.

And at that point, they didn't know.

She goes, You have cancer.

I had another growth on the other side of my throat, so they didn't know if it was stage one or four, they didn't know if it had spread into the other side of my throat.

They just knew that the cancer was between my trachea and my larynx.

Now that wouldn't be the enemy, would it, right there on my voice box?

And so I remember I'm on the phone and I had a choice in that moment.

And our conference at the time was called No Other Name.

We were singing that song at Hill Song, and I remember I sort of like I could hear her voice wavering a bit, and I thought I need to do pastoral care on my doctor.

I went, It's okay, Leslie.

I said, It is okay.

My struggle right now, my challenge is not against cancer, because there's a name that is above the name of cancer.

I said, My challenge right now is to make sure that I don't cower to fear because what the enemy wants to do is he wants to paralyze and cripple me so that I won't activate my faith and I won't declare and decree my healing.

So my fight is not against cancer.

Jesus has defeated that.

I said, I don't have to worry.

She goes, What do you mean?

I said, Look, God is gonna do one of three things, and what I'm believing for is that He's going to supernaturally heal me.

I'm gonna come back and you're gonna go, we're wrong.

The second thing is that I'm gonna come back and you're gonna isolate that cancer and you're gonna cut it out, and medically it'll be treatable, which is what happened in my case, and you're gonna I'm gonna be okay.

I said, option C, I'm gonna die and go to heaven and I'll be healed there.

I'll be okay.

You'll all be depressed, but I'm fine.

I said, So this is what will happen.

Option A, I win.

Option B, I win.

Option C, I win.

You cannot lose for winning.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.

So the angel of the Lord says, fear not.

You're not gonna be able to work this out in the natural, Mary.

But make sure you're not afraid because fear will cause you to say no when God's saying, say yes.

And so many of us, what is the fear that has caused you to step back and not take a risk of faith and do the thing that God has called you to do.

And you have to understand that when you say yes to God, your life will be interrupted because God comes and He interrupts our plans with his purposes.

Every time God calls us to do something, we were on our way to do something else.

Mary was on her way to get married to Joseph, she was not planning to get pregnant with God.

Some of us go, well, that wasn't in my strategic plan.

It never is.

What God has called you to do will not be in your strategic plan.

I was on my way to speak at a women's conference in Greece.

And then on the way, I saw these posters of these young women and children that were the alleged victims of human trafficking.

I mean, I had just popped out my second kid at 40.

When you've just popped out a kid at 40, you want a purple heart.

I was looking for having a vacation on the island of Santorini.

I was not looking to start a global anti-trafficking organization.

I was on my way somewhere else, but God said, Hey Christine, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to see thousands of people rescued and hundreds of traffickers in Jemma, but I have to interrupt your plan, Christine, with my purpose.

And we start at that moment and go, Well, God, this isn't part of my strategic plan.

He goes, I know it's mine, not yours.

And then we go, but God, you don't understand, I couldn't do this.

This is my list.

I'm standing in the airport going, but God, I live in Australia and this is Greece, it's like far away.

But God, you know, I don't have a spare like 10 million dollars to start an anti-trafficking organization.

But God, at that time in 2008, Greece is on the edge of economic collapse.

Since then, we've bankrupted the whole earth.

But back then we were on the edge of economic collapse.

There's not enough money to do this.

But God, the church is embryonic in Greece.

But God, I've just had another baby.

But God, I'm a woman.

But God, this is like Russian and Albanian mafia, they kill people, and so I was like, but God.

So my list is but, but, but, that's what we all do.

And God's in heaven going, oh, I had no idea.

Oh, Peter, did you know she lived in Australia?

Could you get me a GPS?

I'm so rusty on my earth geography.

Honestly, Bartholomew, did you know that Greece is on the edge of economic collapse?

And look at the stock exchange about I mean, Mr.

Dow Jones is having another schizophrenic attack up and down, up and down, up and down.

Like really?

Honestly.

Honestly, Paul, did you know she's a woman?

A woman?

Why didn't someone tell me I'm God?

That's what we start going, but God, didn't you know?

Didn't you know?

And it sounds pious and it sounds so holy, doesn't it?

But the truth of it is, the root of it is pride because we are saying that my limitations are greater than God's supernatural ability to do something in my life.

And what we need to do in the body of Christ, if we're gonna step up and into the purposes of God Church, you know what we need?

We need a big fat buttectomy.

Some of you at lunchtime are gonna look that up in the medical journals.

I know you are.

We need to get our big fat butts out of the way because it's not about what we cannot do, it's about what God does.

Can do and who God is.

It is not about my limitations, it's about his supernatural ability.

You can never do it.

Mary can't say, God, there's no such thing as a pregnant virgin, oxymoron.

It's impossible.

And most of us we disqualify God from being God because it's impossible.

But you have to understand, impossible is where God starts.

Miracles are what God does.

He doesn't turn up.

If you are talented enough, gifted enough, resourced enough, educated enough to do it in your own strength.

You don't need God.

And you're gonna take the credit for it anyway.

But when you get to a place where there is no human way that this is possible, God says, I turn up now because I'm God, and in God operates in the currency of impossible and miracles, it's what God does.

And so he's just saying, Mary, I didn't ask if this was possible, I've just asked you to say yes.

And for the thing that God's called us to do, church, on an ongoing basis, walking with him.

He's not asking us if it's possible.

Impossible is his forte.

He's just saying, Will you say yes to looking like a fool?

Well, today we are here.

And Gateway has been one of the greatest, greatest contributors.

The very first offering we received was right here from in 2008 at Pink Impact, a significant seed offering your church has sown, and you've continued to support us over these last nine years out of your global department, which is absolutely phenomenal because of that.

We have 13 officers in 11 countries with hundreds of people rescued, dozens of traffickers in jail.

Even just before I came up here last night, another 20 rescues in Thailand, another two rescues in South Africa, more rescues in Bulgaria, and you know what?

So many traffickers in jail because we said yes, I am no more able to do it now.

When we opened office number 14, I'm no more able to do it now than I was at office number one.

But it never was about me, it was about God's ability.

And some of us we haven't been in faith for years.

We stepped out of the boat once, but now our life is so manageable, it's so controllable, we don't even need faith to live it.

And God says, Would you step out of the boat and say yes again?

Would you carry me to your generation again?

To do that, you've got to be prepared to look like a fool because that's what Mary did.

She was prepared to be ostracized and marginalized, she was prepared for people not to understand.

But you know, there's a precedent for this in scripture.

All the way through scripture, God used incredible people that were willing to be fools for the sake of the kingdom.

Can you imagine how foolish Noah looked when he was building an ark and all his friends are saying, Noah, what are you building?

He's like an ark.

They're like, What's an ark?

I don't know.

And why are you building it?

Because rain's coming.

What's rain?

Haven't got a clue.

So, Noah, you are building, I don't know, for I haven't got a clue.

Yeah.

That's how I feel with most of my Christian life.

I don't know.

I'm just building this thing and I haven't got a clue why, but somewhere it's gonna come together.

Can you imagine Moses?

There's a Red Sea in front of him and an Egyptian army behind him, and he's got a stick.

What are you gonna do with a stick, Moses?

I don't know.

That's how I feel most of my Christian life.

I've got a stick.

Some of us that's how we feel.

I've got a stick in a Red Sea.

God, you better show up.

Can you imagine how foolish Sarah looked when she was in the maternity section at Target?

Shopping for herself.

Can you imagine how foolish the Israelites looked?

Lap six, day seven, around the walls of Jericho.

No AK-47s, no cruise missiles, just a chauffeur.

How foolish did David look with his little slingshot and Goliath in front of him?

How foolish did Esther look going into the king when she wasn't summoned?

How foolish did Caleb look at 85 when he said to Joshua, I'm not cashing in my 401k.

There's no retirement in the Bible, there's only refirement.

I'm 85, I'm as young now as I was then.

Now give me this mountain that's my inheritance.

How foolish did Mary look, a pregnant virgin?

How foolish did the wise men look as they were looking for the Messiah following a star?

How foolish did Peter look as he stepped out of a boat onto the water?

How foolish would the woman with the issue of blood have looked as she reached out to touch the hem of his garment?

How foolish did Paul and Silas look, chained in prison, singing oceans?

How foolish did the little boy look with five loaves and two fish and 15,000 people on a mountainside?

And certainly to many people, Jesus Christ looked foolish as he hung on a cross.

People ridiculed and mocked and scorned.

That's the king of the Jews.

That's your Messiah.

But nobody has ever done anything significant without daring to look foolish.

And in 2017, in our post-modern secularized, privatized, pluralized, trendy little info techno society, God's saying, are there any Christians out there that are willing to look foolish to birth me into their world?

Are there any that are willing to trust me, to defy logic, to step out of the boat?

Because if you do, we might just see the kind of results that these people saw in scripture that were prepared to look foolish for the sake of the gospel.

Because you know what?

Noah and his family, they were saved from the flood.

Moses did see the Red Sea part.

Sarah did give birth to Isaac.

The Israelites saw the walls of Jericho come down.

David did defeat Goliath.

Esther stopped the Jewish genocide.

Caleb did get Hebron.

Mary did give birth to Jesus.

The wise men found the Messiah.

The woman with the issue of blood, she was healed.

Paul and Silas, they were freed.

The little boy's lunch did feed 5,000.

And Jesus Christ got off that cross.

He raised from the dead.

He defeated hell.

He defeated death.

He holds the keys to hell and death and the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Lives on the inside of you! And lives on the inside of me! God insane! Would you dare?

Look foolish for the sake of the gospel! Would you dare?

Church! Our world is desperate! Our world is desperate! It's not gonna take slick cool Christianity.

We need a bunch of radical revolutionaries for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the planet.

Mary was willing to risk it all to birth the incarnate God to her world.

Would we, the Church of Jesus Christ, be willing to risk it all to carry the Spirit of God into a lost and broken world?

The same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives on the inside of you and me.

If you're willing this morning, if you're willing to say, God, I want you to kiss me, I will dare to trust you for the impossible.

I'm willing to look foolish for you, whatever that might mean in your world.

Then I believe that things are gonna be activated in this place this morning.

I know you came to church thinking you were gonna get a prissy little chick sermon about Mother's Day.

I'm sorry.

But I came here to do business.

I want to see Christians activated to change the world.

Activated to change the world.

So I want you to close your eyes if you're willing.

To raise your hands if you want to surrender and say, okay, God, I'm willing to be a fool for the sake of the kingdom.

Use me.

I'm gonna say yes, like Mary said yes, whatever that might mean in your world, but you're willing to say yes this Mother's Day morning.

So, Father, our hands are raised to you as a sign of surrender.

Father, we're saying we don't want to settle for a complacent, comfortable Christian, religious life.

Father, we want you to use us to take you into a lost and a broken world.

So, Father, our hands are up this morning, mine and all these other people's, because we're saying yes.

We are responding in the way that Mary responded.

We are saying, let it be to us, according to your word.

We're not gonna try to work it out, we're not gonna try to control it.

Holy Spirit, you have your way.

We say this morning, yes, we trust you in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.