Obedience in the Midst of Chaos

This is Court Conversations with Russ, where we clear up all your holidays confusion.

Okay, so we're talking about Mary from the Bible.

From the contrary.

No, don't read the scripts or the prompts or anything to say.

I've got some spam email, so I just turned it off.

Okay, Mary from the Bible.

Mary J.

Bush.

Jesus' mom.

Mary Bluff.

She flew with the umbrella.

She dipped.

That was so cool.

But this Mary saw.

This Mary also did some really awesome, you know, some things.

She did some great things.

So let's talk about her.

From the Bible.

Okay, we're good?

Mary from the Bible.

Nothing.

I got it.

Okay.

Good?

Yeah, sure.

Everybody quiet offset?

Sure.

Mary.

Mary.

So uh man, you know, I've just been just thinking about this Mary person from the Bible.

Um, weird last night.

Um, but uh, you know, I I do know a little, I do know a little bit about her, right?

Um, but I feel like she's so misunderstood.

You know, like some people think like she wasn't like she wasn't even Jesus' mother, she wasn't a virgin, you know, all this kind of stuff.

And you got some people like, pray to her, um, which is different.

And um, yeah, like I just don't know, I don't know where I land on it.

You got some people that are like grilling her with questions, like Buddy Green in 1991 with this song, Mary Did You Know?

You know, and like I'm I'm done.

Like, I'm I'm sticking up for Mary, you know?

Like, I'm I'm tired of her having to answer all these difficult questions.

Like, like Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?

You know?

Did you know that your baby boy would save our sons?

And she's 15 years old.

How would she know that?

Actually, um, she she knew that the night that the angel told her that she was having a baby.

So she she did already know that was gonna happen.

You talking angels, you're talking about Angels in the outfield, that uh baseball movie?

Uh what's his name?

Texas Boy.

All right, all right, all right, but Connahey.

Guys, I'm not an idiot.

All right, it's good to have a little levity, right?

A little fun, a little laughter.

Um, it is it's great because um we're we're journeying toward Christmas, and we know that the journey leads us to a manger, and in that manger is baby Jesus, and it's all about Jesus, everything Jesus.

It's it's it's gonna be um a season where we lift up the name of Jesus.

But what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk through um the story, look at a few of the characters in the story, and today we're gonna talk about Mary and the specific um idea centers around her obedience.

And and and I want you to see this the obedience brings blessings.

But as we often see in our lives, and as we see in the stories from Scripture, blessings often come in disguise, and they often carry a cost.

Blessings often come in disguise, and they often, if not always, carry a cost.

Obedience carries a price.

The way of Jesus, following Jesus, giving your life to Jesus, it it requires obedience as we follow him.

It always carries a cost.

Over the life of my marriage with Jill, we've um uh subscribed to Voices of the Martyrs, which is an organization that that keeps track with how people suffer and end up giving their life for Christ all over the planet.

And and we would read stories of martyrs to to our children growing up.

And and and so one of these martyrs is a name uh goes by the name of J.W.

Tucker, and it's not one that many of us probably know, it's not familiar to us.

Many of us know the story of Elizabeth and Jim Elliott and some of the famous martyrs, and we we know of in scripture the martyrs, people like Stephen that gave their life.

And so um we came across this story of J.W.

Tucker.

Um, he was uh killed in November of 1964.

He was beaten with sticks and he was beaten with broken bottles and other objects.

Um, and this happened in the Congo, and he was thrown in to the Bomaconde River, where he was eaten alive by crocodiles.

And so it happened at the hands of what were known as the Congolese rebels during a civil war.

And it's a natural instinct when we hear a story like this to feel sorry for J.W.

Tucker and his companions because his earthly life was cut short.

But if the truth of the Bible and the truth of scripture teaches the truth, we believe that life can't be cut short because we all live eternally.

We all live somewhere forever.

Um, his wife lost a husband, uh, his three children lost a father, but heaven gained a hero.

J.W.

Tucker was obedient to the call to carry Jesus to the lost people of the Congo.

His obedience uh follows a long line of heroes that we see throughout scripture and throughout church history, all the way back to Stephen, who was the first martyr to give his life and pay the heaviest price because of Jesus.

And so when we get to heaven, we'll find that the price that these martyrs have paid all throughout history will be more than worth the price because of the heavenly reward that they receive when they enter into their eternal state.

You see, my prayer is that we would all understand that God wants to bless us.

But blessings often come in different ways.

They're not always recognized as something that we desire or what we want.

It's always about obedience, it's about God's word, God's call, and the way of Jesus.

And so the blessings of God far outweigh the price that we would pay.

In the grand scheme of things, God's perfect will, our eternal gain, far outweighs any earthly pain.

It's kind of like Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

How many of you know?

You know the picture, you've seen the movie where he's got to take a step.

He knows there's a bridge there, but he can't see it.

And so obedience requires faith.

And sometimes that step of faith is a step that doesn't include certainty or clarity.

Sometimes it's chaotic in our lives when we're trying to figure out what the next step is.

And God is calling us to take that step.

He calls us to walk by faith and not by sight, putting our faith in what is unseen rather than what is seen.

It's this kind of faith that leads to not happily ever after, but a happy forever after.

And that's the big difference.

When we maintain an internal perspective about life, we can move beyond fear, we can move beyond anxiety, we can move beyond seasons, maybe like we've just been through, whether it's your personal life or whether it's what's happening on the world stage, pandemic and all, we can walk by faith.

We can take steps with confidence.

Tucker didn't fear death because he had already died.

One of my life verses of Galatians 2.20 that says, I have been crucified with Christ.

And it's no longer I who live, but Christ that lives in me.

And the life that I now live by in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's what J.W.

Tucker knew.

When it comes to obedience, we're called to simply obey God and leave all the consequences to him.

And I'll give Charles Stanley credit for that quote.

Years ago, through another pastor, I heard that.

When it comes to obedience, we're called to simply obey God and leave the consequences to him.

And so it's not about, let me bring it in practical terms down to where we where we live in our life.

It's not about uh coming out with an album, it's about going into the studio and laying down tracks.

It's not about going into the bank and trying to get alone, it's about putting together a business plan that requires a step of faith.

It's not about coming out of the general election, winning the popular vote.

It's about throwing your hat into the ring in the beginning.

See, in the kingdom of God, it's not about success or failure, it's all about obedience.

And obedience to whenever, wherever, whatever God calls us.

And this is where we find this amazing young girl by the name of Mary.

In the midst of chaos, in the midst of oppression from a foreign government, in the midst of being betrothed to a husband in the midst of a world that's hard and rough in the earthly sense, probably disease and pandemics and poverty.

We find Mary, Luke, chapter 1, is where we're gonna be.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

And we're gonna start with verse 26.

We're gonna read uh uh segments of this story and share segments of the story, but but it says in verse 26, it says, In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.

She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.

Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favorite, favored woman.

Greetings, favored woman.

The Lord is with you.

In a sense, you are blessed.

How many of you would like to be blessed?

How many of you would like to be more blessed tomorrow than you were today?

I mean, let's be honest.

Who wants the blessings of God?

I think most of us would say that.

I would say that we want the blessings of God, but very often we associate the blessings of God with things that are part of our culture, health and wealth and and happiness or prosperity.

And we we preach a gospel that becomes Americanized.

I think of our our uh partners, our uh churches that we support, that you support when you give to Church at the Grove, uh places I've been in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

See, blessing to them is very different than blessing to us.

Blessing to them is the next meal.

Blessing to them is safety and security in a hostile environment, especially in Haiti right now.

Blessing to them is being able to have a roof over your head and to have shelter.

Blessing at its core is not a material thing, it is a spiritual thing.

It is an immaterial thing, it is a heart thing, and it's found in obedience and walking in the way of Jesus, uncovering step by step his perfect will for our lives.

And many of us have tasted a little bit of success.

Some of us have had successful runs in life, in business, and and in something that we've achieved.

And many of us have experienced great failures.

We've experienced great losses.

Some of us have had difficult seasons recently in our life.

I don't know what's going on in your life right now, but probably if I took a survey that there's somebody that you've lost in the last couple of years that's been affected by this pandemic.

We've all experienced difficulties and chaos and disruptions in our life.

True blessing comes through obedience, and it might include some difficulty, it might include some suffering, but it always leads to the glory of God.

Where he takes center stage, he's on his throne, and he is at the center of our hearts.

See, the blessings of God don't come without a cost.

The blessings of God can complicate your life.

Sin can complicate your life.

Sin will complicate your life, always in a negative way, but blessings from God can come with complications.

Marriage is a marriage is a blessing.

But but when you get married, there are complications in life.

I'm thankful for for my 26 years of complications.

And she's somewhere in the building, I'm not sure, but she might be with kids.

But but we're and having children can complicate your life.

I'm thankful for our three complications.

Josiah, Abigail, and Caleb.

I mean, they're that's just that's the life.

Success can complicate your life.

You want the promotion, then be ready to make the heavy decisions.

You want some more responsibility in your organization, then be ready for the weight of that organization to rest on your shoulders and on your back.

You carry the weight when God calls you to something.

We see this played out when Jesus teaches us about the parable of the talents.

The reward for good work in the kingdom of God, what is it?

It's blessings.

But you know what it is?

It's more work.

God says, Oh, you're faithful.

Well, then I'm gonna give you more.

I'm gonna give you something else.

And it might be a little complicated and it might be a little chaotic, but it's a blessing.

Let's look at go on with this story with Mary.

Verse 42 of Luke 1, it says, Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, listen to this, God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.

At which I have to say, or ask, seriously, God?

Seriously?

I mean, we when we think about marriage and a wedding, betrothal, we think about the dreams of walking down an aisle, we think about the perfect setup, the perfect place, all the perfect people with us.

We don't script it like we see it with Mary and Joseph.

We want the romantic honeymoon.

We don't script a donkey ride to a small hick southern town.

We don't script no room at the end.

We don't script the manger.

We don't script Mary and Joseph already having Jesus having to leave in the middle of the night as refugees to leave and go to Egypt because of the evil king that is afraid of this new king.

So I'm gonna kill all the children under two years old.

You ever think about that?

Mary and Joseph were refugees in a foreign land before they're allowed to come back to their home.

They're living in chaos, uncertainty.

It had to be fear, but there's obedience.

When we understand that there are times we must surrender to God's plans above our own, the fog of chaos is lifted.

And we begin to gain some clarity, even in the midst of chaos.

Now, I'm not really sure we would call Mary Joseph blessed in our culture today, 2021, almost 2022.

Probably the opposite, but I would offer this that God's in God's kingdom, she is highly favored because that's what it says in God's book.

She's chosen to carry the Son of God, she surrenders to raising the Son of Man.

Can you imagine a more difficult or weighty assignment in the kingdom?

And all of this is a blessing, it says, to Mary.

Obedience brings blessings, and often those blessings come in disguise and they carry a cost.

As a matter of fact, in the moment, they probably don't feel blessed at all.

It's really when we look at life through the rearview mirror, it's the hindsight perspective that we really can see how God is at work.

Sometimes we're in the middle of chaos.

It's faith and it's trust and it's hanging on.

Luke 1, verse 30.

Luke 1:30

It says, Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her.

For you have found favor with God.

You will receive, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.

He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever.

His kingdom will never end.

And so we often suffer from what is is termed hindsight bias.

And it's it's it's because it's hard for us to know in the moment and to have perspective in the moment.

We know how this story ends, but let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of Mary.

Let's try to put ourselves in the position of Mary.

She is in the midst of trying to walk through an unplanned pregnancy.

You hear these words, you're gonna have a son.

You'll name him Jesus.

He'll be great, he'll be called the Son of the Most High.

In her context, here's what I think she probably would have thought.

My son is going to be the Messiah, the great next political leader for this nation.

It'd be like God coming to you and you being finding out that your child has been picked to be the next president of the United States.

She would have had to have had a bit of that perspective.

That's how most Jewish people, that's how most observant Jews look at the Messiah.

It's gonna be a political lead.

She's thinking political categories.

We place a high value on these types of positions and these perspectives.

Even in our culture, even in our churches, we think if we can get the right person in the right seat, it's gonna help us and bless us as a nation or as a people.

That's what even we think as followers of Jesus sometimes.

Oh, we've got to support this person, we've got to, we've got to have the right person in leadership.

And listen, I'm I I we ought to be active in our community.

We ought to be involved in what's happening in our community.

And I encourage people to vote.

Vote your conscience.

But you need to know that that the gospel of Jesus Christ transcends any earthly kingdom.

And so what is happening here goes so far beyond what Mary could have imagined.

Lasting change does not come through a political process or the right leader in the right seat.

Lasting change comes when a heart is transformed by God through an encounter with Jesus Christ.

And so the church should step up in ways to take responsibility for what God has called us to and be obedient to what He's called us to.

It needs to be about Jesus.

It needs to be about the gospel, it needs to be about sharing.

With the lost.

We need to obey what Scripture tells us about taking care of the homeless and taking care of the widows and the orphans.

The government should not have responsibility that God has given the church.

And so Mary, Mary doesn't have the advantage of hindsight bias.

So your son will take the throne of his father David, but Jesus' life is not pointed toward a Roman throne.

It's pointed to a Roman cross.

He isn't solving their political problems, which are very real under the Roman oppression they're experiencing.

He's about to solve a much deeper problem, the sin problem.

The Apostle Paul says, we're all sinners.

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We, our greatest problem is redemption.

Our greatest need is to be saved, is to be redeemed.

I am a sinner in need of a savior.

I can't help but wonder how Mary would have had flashbacks to the visit from the angel and her experience at this point while Jesus is on the cross.

Why, God, you promised something to me and now he's dead.

It doesn't make any sense, God.

Why is he dead?

Of course, we know that death could not hold Jesus down because he was the Son of God.

He was the Messiah.

And the same, listen, the same spirit that breathed life back in his body where he could walk out of that empty tomb.

That same spirit is here this morning.

And it has the power to give you life and to give you hope and to give you clarity in whatever bit of chaos that you're in right now.

Whatever you worry about, what you're anxious about, the power of God that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us if we have turned and put our faith in Jesus.

Now that's a blessing.

That is a blessing.

He wasn't winning an election.

Jesus came to win in redemption.

When I say that God has blessings for you in categories that you don't even know, I mean that.

First of all, God is able to do immeasurably, way beyond that you could ever imagine or think, according to the power that works in us.

We can't wrap.

Our left brains are not able to wrap themselves around the good works, the good things, the categories, what God has prepared for you.

And there are blessings beyond your ability to imagine.

But it also means that God blesses us in different ways.

And although these blessings are going to be awesome, these blessings will include possibly obedience in a direction that is difficult.

And it might include you hanging in there.

As I've always said, sometimes like a hair in a biscuit.

Luke 129.

Listen to this.

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.

Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.

That's the New Living Translations.

Let me read out of the English Standard Version, and it gives you a couple uh words that are different.

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

Mary was holidazed.

I had to throw it in somewhere.

Mary was confused.

She's disturbed.

She's thinking.

She's discerning what in the world is going on.

How can I make sense of this?

It's difficult.

That word discern in the Greek, it means to question, to dispute.

It's often used in Scripture to interpret the word argue.

And so she's wrestling with the word that God is giving her.

She's confused and she's disturbed.

There is chaos, and she's trying to find the clarity in the midst of it.

Wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you be disturbed?

Would you struggle?

It's almost this idea that she might be arguing with God.

And I've learned if you win an argument with God, you lose.

And if you lose an argument with God, you win.

The miracle is on the other side of losing the argument where you choose obedience regardless of how it feels.

Part of the understanding here is to reason thoroughly, to consider carefully, and to think deeply about how God is leading you.

We've talked recently about the importance of Sabbath, soul care, sitting, and settling so you can have clarity in how God would lead you.

I like Luke 2.19.

That's a little bit off the path of where we are, but I love where it says Mary pondered these things in her heart.

She pondered these things in her heart.

What we could admire about Mary in psychological terms, there's this thing called confirmation bias.

Some of you have probably heard of that.

And it's basically we tend to interpret information in a way that confirms something we've already been predisposed to, a perspective that we already have landed on.

We explain away anything that we disagree with.

It doesn't fit our paradigm.

We don't let it in.

It's confirmation bias, and it plays out in all types of ways.

Tyler Simmons was on sides.

See, that was a lot funnier when I wrote it down.

And that game doesn't matter after last night.

So maybe I should have cut that out.

But it's when you you as a fan or as a perspective, as a parent, as a leader, I'm always going to favor from my perspective.

And so this is huge when we think theologically, when we think about looking at this story.

See, the Pharisees were looking for a political Messiah.

So there's no way that Jesus could have been the Messiah.

A peasant girl has a baby in a barn or a cave.

And think about all the prophecies that we now know and look at.

Those prophecies were available to all the religious leaders and the Pharisees.

They had confirmation bias.

We were looking for a strong political leader.

We're looking for our kind of Messiah.

They weren't looking for a Messiah that would that was born in a manger.

They weren't looking for a Messiah that rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

They're not looking for a messiah that washed feet.

They're not looking for a messiah that ate with sinners or would heal on the Sabbath.

And it caused him to miss the Messiah and to miss the miracle and miss the blessing.

See, we want God on our terms, but we don't get God that way.

You get God on his terms.

And there's something about this moment that Mary has that changes history.

Mary could have easily said, no way.

It doesn't make sense to our earthly minds.

This isn't how I thought it would be, and I didn't sign up for this, Mary would say.

Yet we have a teenage girl that chooses faith over what is unseen in order to see God's plan unfold and his will carried out.

There's something about her ability to be tuned in to the Holy Spirit.

Look at verse 38.

Luke 1, 38.

And Mary said, Behold, I am your servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me.

Would you read it with me?

According to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

May it be to me.

According to your word.

A child.

She has amazing faith, amazing trust, and she's willing to take a step.

See, we want the whole game plan before the first play.

We pray, God, give us this year our yearly bread.

That's how I would pray.

We want everything to make sense and to be clear.

But God is bigger than us.

God is transcendent.

He is other than us.

And so his ways, although they may not make sense, his ways are his perfect will.

We follow the way of Jesus by faith.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 119.103, he says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

And I've, I don't know about you, but I've been in places in this world, in Africa, for example, where I had to go to the bathroom somewhere outside of where I was sleeping, and it's pitch dark, and I have a flashlight, and I literally understand one step at a time, I can see in front of myself because it's so dark.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light in my path means that he might show you the next step without showing you the whole journey up front.

See, I love Jeremiah 29.11, and we love Jeremiah 29.11 because we embroider it and we put it in a frame.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, they are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope.

But we don't really always have that verse in context because if you just go back to the verse before that in verse 10, this is what the Lord says.

You will be in Babylon, which means you are going to be captives, you are going to be refugees, you are going to be in a place of misery, you're going to be in Babylon for 70 years, but then I will come and do for you all the good things that I have promised, and I will bring you home again.

And so, based on this, if I understand this, the last deportation of the Jewish refugees to Babylon was 586.

Seventy years later in 516, the temple is rebuilt.

We love this verse, but we don't consider the context.

Sometimes it takes time to get to the blessing and to the future and the hope that God has for us.

And we've got to be willing, like Mary, right where you are, be it unto me according to your word.

My grandmother used to pray it this way.

She used to read it this way in her King James, be it unto me according to thy word.

This is a declaration, it's a resolution.

See, J.W.

Tucker knew, he said, God didn't tell me I had to come out of the jungle, he told me to go into the jungle.

And obedience brings blessings, and often those blessings come in disguise, and the blessings carry a cost.

We're called to simply obey God and leave the consequences to him.

Here's the rest of the story.

J.W.

Tucker, two days after his death, the Belgian paratroopers came in.

You can find this on the internet.

And they rescued the rest of the family.

And as the Tuckers were flying back to the U.S.

from the Congo in the midst of grief, J.W.'s wife began to pray and to worship in a plane at 20,000 feet above the ground.

She said, Oh Father, I thank thee for thy goodness and many blessings.

Thou hast delivered us out of the lion's den.

We praise thee and thank thee for it.

And we asked that you would take JW's life, which has been laid down, and use it for thy honor and for thy glory.

Wow.

Be it unto me according to your word, Lord.

And for 30 years it seemed like JW's life and his sacrifice and his death was for naught.

That Bamakonde River that flowed through the middle of this unreached people group had taken his life.

He was eaten by crocodiles during the civil war that happened in the 60s.

The king had to appeal for help, and the Congolese government sent a man.

This is 30 years later, they sent a man known as the Brigadier to come in and to bring order.

The brigadier was a policeman that J.W.

Tucker had led to Jesus two months before his death.

He discovered something interesting in the culture of this unreached people group.

He discovered in his desire to share the gospel, he discovered a tribal tradition that said, if the blood of any man flows in this river, you must listen to his message.

And so the brigadier gathered the village elders and said, Some time ago a man was killed and his body was thrown into your river, and the crocodiles in this river ate him up.

His blood flowed in your river.

Before he died, he left me and gave me a message.

And this message concerned God's Son, Jesus Christ, who came to this world to save sinners.

He died for the sins of the world.

He died for my sins, and I received this message, and it changed my life.

That night, several members of the tribe, for the first time got on their knees and professed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Thirty years after JW's death.

Since that day, thousands of people have put their faith in Jesus.

Dozens of churches have been planted in that area and the surrounding area.

All because a man whose blood flowed in that river.

It wasn't for naught.

Every prayer will be answered, every sacrifice will be honored, every good deed will be rewarded, every seed of faith will bear fruit.

But where does it start?

It starts with obedience.

It starts with a heart that would say, be it unto me according to your word.

It starts with whatever, whenever, wherever, God, you put me.

We can trust God as sovereign.

He's good.

That never changes.

If you ever question it, you look at the cross.

If you feel in this season that you're dazed a bit, you need some clarity, look at the cross.

If you feel chaotic, look at the cross.

We don't have to settle for confused, frustrated, and wonder what God's plans are.

We can trust Him.

Like Mary, we simply surrender.

Be it unto me, according to your word.

So as we enter this Christmas season, here's my question.

What is your next step?

I mean, that's that's just the simplest question I can ask.

For all of us, that's that's relevant for all of us.

If you have followed Christ for most of your life, you have a next step of obedience.

If you are a brand new believer, you have a next step.

It might include baptism.

Maybe your step today is to understand that Christ died for you.

He wants to forgive you.

He invites you.

He says, Hey, come come to me.

All of you who are holidays, who are who are weary and heavy laden, come to me.

I'll give you some rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

Come to me, and he'll forgive you.

And he will give you a future and a hope.

So, what's your next step?

As we enter this Christmas season, let's not go through the motions, let's not settle for holidays.

Let's press forward and see what God has in store.

And let me tell you, because I'm telling you, as we enter into next year, I am more excited about what God has given us as a church that we're going to share at the beginning of 2022.

Buckle up.

It's going to be a fun ride.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for the obedience of a young teenage girl that is an example for us all.

Father, you say, come, come unto me.

And really what you're asking for us is to be faithful, to trust, and to obey, and to understand that the significance of this season is found in the person of Jesus.

And Father, may we, whatever the step is, whatever it is you reveal to us, may we step into obedience, trusting that your blessing comes.

And it might be disguised and it might be costly, but oh in the eternal perspective, Father, it is so worth it.

And we thank you for being a heavenly father to love us, to bring clarity in the midst of chaos, to bring the child who would become the savior of the world.

May we be a people that represent Jesus well.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.