Mary: God’s Humble Teenager

Sermon Transcript

Well, as most of you know, I am a father to three children. And I will concede with most of you that parenting is certainly a challenge. The challenge? Actually, it’s a bit overwhelming if you stop and think about it—what a big responsibility this is from God as he entrusts these young lives to your care. It can be a pretty apprehensive kind of assignment.

No other time in my parenting did that feel more concentrated than the day we brought our firstborn home from the hospital. Parents remember that? At the hospital, you have this baby, you’re surrounded by doctors and nurses, you’ve got the nursery there, you’ve got monitors, you’ve got scales and gauges and all this stuff. And then your insurance tells you you’ve had enough of that, and you get wheeled to the curb, you know. And I remember thinking, “What? I wanted to get a late checkout. We need to stay here a bit because we’ve never done this before.” And here we are at the curb.

And of course we’d never put our kid in a car seat. So that takes fifteen minutes to strap him in at the right pressure. We’re trying to figure this all out. We live two miles from the hospital, so it took us longer to strap him in the car seat than it did to get home. And then we get home, and this is where it started to really strike me. We get Jr. out of the car seat there, and we’re walking him down the hall. We come into the living room—this little blob, this little jello of humanity, you know—and I remember laying him on our little sofa there in the living room and getting my hands out from underneath him. Then I just kind of step back. I looked at my wife and I said, “Now what? I mean, I guess the next two decades are booked. I don’t know, what do we do with this kid?”

Then it got even worse when she looked at me and said, “I’ve got to go rest.” Like, “You’re not leaving me here with this kid!” I was just in that overwhelmed, overwhelming feeling of apprehension and trepidation and nervousness and inadequacy. It’s like, wow—parents, this is big and scary.

Now, it’s one thing to be commissioned by God to raise the three Fabarez children, you know—I’ll admit that, whatever, that’s that. But last week, when we started here looking at the characters in Luke chapter one, we met Zechariah, and we had to have that sense, you know, kind of a whole other level. You’re Zechariah, the senior priest, called on by God to raise someone that the Old Testament that you’ve been studying has actually mentioned twice, and alluded to maybe even a couple more times than that—that your kid that you are responsible to raise is going to be the forerunner to the coming Messiah. Right? He’s the one talked about in Malachi chapter three and Malachi chapter four, and it’s your responsibility to teach him to, you know, walk and talk, and you’re going to raise that kid. That would be a heady, scary responsibility.

But if you start to feel that and you sense like that’s kind of an upgrade on what you felt if you’re a parent the first day you came home with your baby, can you imagine what happens now as we get to verse 26 in Luke chapter one—how that thought is about to skyrocket through the roof as we meet our next character that we’re going to study this morning?

If you haven’t already turned there, take your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter one, and let’s begin and meet this next gal here in verses 26 and 27. If you really put yourself in that situation, it is an absolutely, I mean, a humbling, overwhelming sense of inadequacy—how in the world can I do this?

Now, you remember Gabriel was the one who brought the message to Zechariah. He was in downtown Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, in the temple building, in the holy place, sitting there right next to the curtain by the Holy of Holies, burning incense. Gabriel shows up and he says, “You’re going to have this kid,” and we have all that that we dealt with last week. Now Gabriel is dispatched six months later—verse 26—“In the sixth month” (now, Elizabeth had been pregnant for six months), “Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.”

Now, even if you don’t know your geography, that’s when the maps in the back of your Bible are helpful to get a sense of where we’re at. Downtown Jerusalem—that’s the center of God’s attention all through the Old Testament. And now we’re going to go up to Galilee—right, you’ve got the Dead Sea, you’ve got the city of Jerusalem, outside of that you’ve got the Jordan River and then the Sea of Galilee up here. And in that region, just off to the west, you’ve got all these little villages as you kind of work your way to the Mediterranean Sea. There’s a little village there about sixty-five miles north of Jerusalem called Nazareth.

Which, by the way, is so nondescript the Old Testament never mentions it. The intertestamental writings never mention it. The rabbis and all the extra-biblical teachings from the leaders of Israel never mention this city. Estimates are—as we do research on it now—probably about eight thousand, maybe nine thousand, maybe close to ten thousand people. So this is a small town, but it’s there. It’s a village, and there are plenty of people—enough to have a synagogue—and it’s so nondescript we hear nothing about it.

And you often hear me joke about the city Blythe, do you not? I feel bad about that, especially because my sermons are broadcast every day in Blythe. So hopefully we’re doing a great edit job for the radio station there in Blythe. And if not, I just want to say I love the city of Blythe, California. But, you know, I learned as a kid to have this kind of vision of Blythe as just kind of the middle-of-nowhere kind of town, right? I’m sorry, that’s just how it felt as a kid going through the day. This is like, wow—talk about nondescript. Well, this is the Blythe of the ancient world. It’s just a nondescript, you-know, maybe-stop-to-get-your-camels-watered-and-move-on kind of town. That’s what it is. And it’s so far removed from downtown Jerusalem. It’s so far removed from the regalia of the priesthood. It’s so far away from all the bustle of the Temple Mount.

And now we go from senior priest—who’s a seminary grad who’s leading in worship—down to this place. We’re in verse 27: “He was sent to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph,” and Joseph was of the house of David, “and the virgin’s name was Mary.” Mary. Not only is she from a nondescript town that doesn’t have a lot going on there, she’s engaged to a guy named Joseph, we learn later is a carpenter—right? I mean, that’s a pretty simple, blue-collar kind of job, not going to make a lot. And we know she’s poor because in chapter two, when she comes to bring Jesus to be circumcised, as the Law said, she brings the sacrifice which was required of the parents—to bring either a lamb, sheep, some kind of livestock. But if you couldn’t afford that, there was another tier of offering and you brought the offering of the poor—the turtledoves or the pigeons. And that’s what it says she brought. They brought two pigeons. That’s all they could afford to come for the ceremony of circumcision for Jesus.

And this proves that she was—I mean, talk about the priest—even though he was a country priest from the hill country of Judea, here’s the deal: you’ve got someone on the opposite end of the spectrum.

“And he’s got a greeting for her,” verse 28: “He said to her, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.’” Now, you’ve heard this in various translations. But in Greek, it’s a play on words: chaire—it’s the vocative form related to the word charis. It was an ancient greeting in the Greco-Roman world. Chaire—it meant “greetings,” or some translations “hail.” It was, you know, a verbal salute: “Greetings.” And so that’s how it starts. And then the next word is the same word, different form—favored. See the word charis? A form of chaire and a form of charis. It’s the word: “You’ve been favored.” It’s a passive participle: God has put his favor on you. Now, unfortunately, the Latin Vulgate translates it in a way when it went into Latin that makes it sound like she’s some repository of grace that she can dispense. That’s not how the grammar in Greek puts it. She’s simply someone on whom God rested his favor. You’ve been favored by God; God’s grace is on you.

And he says, “Hail, greetings—grace to you,” if you will. “You’ve got grace on your life. Grace to you; the favor of God rests on you. The Lord is with you.” She was greatly troubled at the saying—not only the fact that this is some guy who pops out of nowhere. She’s like, What’s the deal? She tries to discern what sort of greeting this might be. But the angel, verse 30, said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found”—there it is again—charis—“you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Yeshua.”

Yeshua—that sounds like Joshua. Joshua is the word. The Hellenized form of that, the Greek form here, is Jesus. We met Joshua—there’s a book named after him in the Old Testament. He was Moses’ understudy who took the people not only out of slavery with Moses, through the desert wanderings, and he was the quarterback to lead them into the Promised Land. He was the savior—what his name means. It’s a compound of a little abbreviation of the word Yahweh, God’s proper name, and the word “to save” in Hebrew, and his name means “the Lord” or “Yahweh saves.” And that’s certainly applicable and apropos for Joshua in the Old Testament. And if it was appropriate for him to save them in a geopolitical landscape, how appropriate is it of the Messiah to have the name that wasn’t revealed until now—the name “Yahweh saves,” “the Lord saves.” Your kid’s going to be named Jesus.

“And he will be great,” verse 32, “and”—as if you didn’t catch it here—“he will be called”—all the fulfillment of the Old Testament—“the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” You’re engaged to someone of the house and lineage of David from the tribe of Judah. You’re going to have a son here, and that son is going to be the one that all the promises of 2 Samuel 7, and all the things that were said about the coming Messiah—about the one who rules and reigns over not only Ephraim and Jacob and Israel and Judah, but over the world. Matter of fact, if you didn’t catch that, he’s going to say in verse 33, “He’s going to reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

I mean, you want to talk about a heady announcement—about feeling overwhelmed with the commission to raise an important child. I don’t know what my kids are going to be—you probably don’t have any clue what your kids are going to be, depending on where you are in your parenting. Zechariah’s got a hint from heaven: your kid’s going to be great in the sight of God; he’s going to be the one that the prophetic Scriptures spoke of a couple of times. Can you imagine now, going from the center of downtown Jerusalem out to the outskirts in this little village and having this young, engaged gal be told: you’re going to have to raise now the fulfillment of all the pages of the Old Testament Scriptures. You’re going to be raising the Messiah—the one who will reign as King, the one that all the prophecies, even including those ones of the Suffering Servant, all spoke of—the reigning King, the Suffering Servant, the one who would save his people from their sins. You’re going to raise that one. You’re going to teach that one, you know, to speak, to eat solid food. You’re going to change his diapers. You’re going to, you know—you’re going to breastfeed this baby. You’re going to sit there and play with this kid. You’re going to raise the Messiah. I mean, talk about being overwhelmed by that.

Not to mention that all of this is a very “now” kind of conversation from Gabriel. He’s saying it’s all going to happen. She’s thinking—here’s the deal: in the culture of the first century you got engaged for an entire year—that was the custom. So you had a whole year from the time you were engaged, which was a legal contract—it’s as good as married except there were no sexual relationships, you didn’t move in together yet. You had this year period—usually in arranged marriages—you got to know this person, you grew and fell in love with this person. And then you moved in together, you had sexual relations, and then you thought about having a family. Well, this is a very “now” kind of conversation. So she says there in verse 34, “How can this be, since I’m a virgin? You’re talking about having a kid now—I’m just engaged. I just got engaged. I’ve got a long time before I’m going to be having kids.”

And the explanation—you want to talk about going from a big responsibility to an outrageous responsibility—verse 35: the angel said, “This isn’t a normal kid. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. You don’t need the twenty-three chromosomes from your fiancé. This is a God thing that’s going to happen inside of you. The child who will be born will be called holy—different, set apart.” That’s what hagios means—that’s what holy means—“the Son of God.” Different, special—he’s not like every other kid born.

“And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and she’s in the sixth month now—the one who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Overwhelming. You felt inadequate with the few things God has called you to do in life—the job you’ve got, the parenting you’ve got to do, the kids that you have—you know your responsibility to be a good Christian in your workplace, salt and light, a messenger of the gospel to bring Christ to the lost, people serving in ministry. Whatever it is that you feel under-clubbed to do, put yourself here and think about how overwhelming this must have been for her.

And then, by the way, let me say as your pastor that that’s what I find when I study the Bible from beginning to end, and that is that God calls people into situations in which he almost every time guarantees that at some point they’re going to feel inadequate for the job. That’s part of the way he works. And it’d be a good place for us to start—hopefully you take some notes this morning. And if you haven’t found the worksheet, it’s there in your worship packet. Hopefully you have it out, and if so, let’s jot this down first. Number one: you and I—we need to get used to feeling inadequate. Used to feeling that way. Because if you’re going to live the Christian life the way God intended us to live, he’s going to put you in situations—if you’re obedient and responsive to his leading in your life—where you’re going to be sitting there feeling like, “I can’t possibly do this.”

And if you think you can get your hands around it, if you think you do have it under control, maybe like Gideon that we mentioned last week, God is going to do something to make sure you don’t feel like you can handle it. Remember Gideon? First thing he said is, “How in the world can I lead an army in Israel against the Midianites? I can’t do that. I’m from the weakest clan in all of Israel.” That’s what he said when he argued there with the calling. And you remember, then he starts to at least warm up to the idea that he’s going to do it. So he goes out and collects an army. He gets his army all together. He comes to God, he says, “All right, I’m ready. Going to take them. They’re not the best, but it’s the best I can find, and let’s go get them. The odds aren’t in our favor, but I think we can do it.” Remember what God said to Gideon about his army to fight the Midianites? “It’s too big. It’s too big. Too many people.” At that point you’re cleaning out the wax out of your ears—“You couldn’t have said ‘too big.’” But the opposing army—“No, no, your army’s too big. You need to pare it down.” He went through cycles to get it small enough to make sure that Gideon felt inadequate for the job.

Why does God do that? God throughout the Bible is doing that not just to make us feel small, but to make us—here’s the other side of the word “inadequate”—to make us feel dependent. And that’s a decision of your will. You have to make a decision when you look at whether it’s evangelism, ministry, raising kids, doing your job at work for the glory of God. You need to recognize God would like you to feel inadequate so that you would be dependent—depend on him.

Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 1: situations got so bad in his work to do God’s will in his life that he felt like he couldn’t even go on living—we despaired even of life. And then he said, “This happened so that we might not depend on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.” If you’re not trusting in God to do the assignments in your life that God has called you to, then just hang on—if you’re a real Christian, you’ll get there—because he’s going to change the way things work so that you sit there and recognize, “This is too big for me.”

Way under-clubbed for this. You golfers know that phrase, right? Talk to golfers: “How far do you hit your nine-iron?” Just shout it out. (Oh, I don’t believe that—no, I’m just kidding.) Seriously, pick the number in your mind—you know what you hit your nine-iron, right? And you’re telling your pastor, so I hope you get the real number out there. So shout it out—you got it—how long you hit your nine-iron? Okay, that’s impressive.

Now listen: you’ve seen that commercial where there’s only one club in the bag. Imagine you get put up on this par three; it’s 205 yards—par three, that’s a long par three for most of us—and all you’ve got is a nine-iron. I don’t care who you are; I don’t care if you’re a pro—that’s going to be a very different…that’ll be an impossible shot. And that’s how it is. It’s often like we feel like, “I need a driver for this hole,” and you recognize you’ve only got a three-iron, and God’s going to say, “Nope, not that. Not that. Not that. Here’s the nine-iron.” You’re going to feel like, “There’s no way I can get there with a nine-iron,” and God’s going to say, “Now you’re exactly where you need to be. Because now you’re going to have to depend on me.” “Well, I have to swing this really hard.” “No, no. Don’t hit hard; just get up there and swing it. Do exactly what I want you to do. Trust me on this.”

See, we should feel—and I’m not saying we work to feel this way; I’m not saying if you’ve got a seven-iron, use the nine-iron—I’m just saying you use what you’ve got, and you say to God, “I’m going to do this the best I can do it. I’m going to use all the resources I’ve got.” But when God starts to whittle those resources away and put you in seemingly impossible situations, just know that’s how he works from beginning to end.

Because I’m going to blow your mind right now about Mary. Really, one of the goals of this sermon is to take you from the stained-glass image of Mary and the statue image of Mary—let’s get to the biblical image of Mary. Okay, this is going to freak you out—and don’t groan and “ooh” and gross out—but when you got married in the first century (some of you know where I’m going with this), when you got engaged, these were usually arranged marriages. And because it was so important to raise kids in an agrarian society, we wanted to start as soon as you were able, right? I mean, if you’re able to have a kid, it’s time to get you married, start having kids, grow this clan. We need the workers—it’s Social Security, it’s an insurance for the future—kids, kids, kids. Very important. Rabbis said you could not betroth your daughter for marriage until she was at least twelve. (Oh wow—how mature are you? I know—that’s weird.) So the average in the first century was getting your kid engaged by the time she was twelve, thirteen, or fourteen. You think you’re feeling like you missed it at thirty? Here’s the thing: if you were sixteen years old, people are looking at you like, “You’re not engaged yet? Woo.” Sixteen was like, “What’s going on?”

So when we talk about Mary, we’re going from—I don’t know how old he was—sixty-five-year-old priest in downtown Jerusalem to a peasant girl who probably is, I don’t know, thirteen or fourteen years old. Does that change the twenty-seven-year-old stained-glass girl image? Right, that’s not how she looked. She didn’t have any pimples on her face in the statues, if you notice that. She seems much more mature. She was probably fourteen years old—fifteen maybe. Think about that: graduating from junior high and saying, “Okay, time to get married.” How inadequate would you feel when God says, “Okay, now you’re going to raise the Messiah”? I mean, this is an overwhelming responsibility for a teenager. I want to make sure you get that. So next time you look back at these notes and you saw the subtitle, I wanted the word “teenager” in there so you’ll never forget and you don’t get morphed into this vision of Mary with a halo looking like she’s twenty-nine years old and all under control as she cradles the baby Jesus in her arms. This is a teenage girl, and that was the norm for the first century.

Speaking of that, don’t let what the church has done to pervert the image of Mary—which I’m sure is an egregious perversion in Mary’s mind right now—don’t let that creep into your thinking. Mary was not what the church has made her out to be. I mean, she was someone that I know the church by the seventh century was encouraging people to pray to as someone who dispenses grace. But as I said—though the Vulgate may make it sound that way in verse 28—she’s not someone who’s dispensing grace; she’s someone who is a recipient of grace. And don’t believe what the church has said about her being sinless, or a perpetual virgin, or someone that in some way participates in the redemptive work of God as the co-redemptrix. That’s not the case. The Bible does not teach that.

As a matter of fact, look in this text—and we’ll jump ahead real quick. Look down to verse number 47, Luke chapter one: “My spirit rejoices in God my”—what?—“Savior.” This is Mary’s words here. You don’t need a Savior unless, of course, you are a sinner.

And speaking of that, go to Matthew chapter 13. Keep your finger here, if you would, in Luke one, and go to Matthew 13. If we can humanize this halo-wearing stained-glass image and bring her to the place where she needs to be—I’m not trying in any way to deprecate or insult Mary. I look up to Mary as a teenage example of a humble servant of God. I need to learn from her. I need to read this text and be challenged by her life. But I cannot picture her as someone she wasn’t.

For instance, I said it was very important that you had kids in that day. Look at this: as Jesus returns to his hometown in Nazareth, drop down, if you would, to verse number 54—long way down in Matthew 13. Think of all the doctrines—perpetual virginity of Mary, sinlessness of Mary. Some people started asking, if she was sinless, how could she be if she was born regular, you know, like everybody else? We’re all born inheriting sin from Adam—that’s what Romans 5 says. So they came up with what was called the “Immaculate Conception.” Have you heard of that? You think we’ve just read about that? That’s not what we read about. Oh, clearly Jesus was born by God’s overshadowing work of the Holy Spirit—not the normal way we were—and that’s why he’s without sin. But they created a doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which was the doctrine—ask your priest (hopefully you don’t have one)—but he will tell you the Immaculate Conception is the dogma of the church that teaches that Mary was conceived in an unnatural, divine way that kept her from ever inheriting sin from Adam. And then, of course, in seminary class they were asking, “Now wait a minute—if she didn’t sin, and she was born without sin, and she wasn’t born like us with the sin of Adam, she certainly wouldn’t have died because the wages of sin is death.” So then they came up with the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary—that she never died because she wasn’t a sinner, that she just got assumed to heaven.

I just want to take all of that and say, let’s push that off the stage if it’s not biblical, and understand this gal from Nazareth as she was: a sinner in need of a Savior, a great example of faith—I get it—an amazingly blessed person on whom the favor of God rested. But a mom, like a lot of you, trying to go about the work of doing the job of being a parent in desperate need of the grace of God and the help of God and the strength of God. The Holy Spirit not only initiated the process—she needed to depend on the Holy Spirit to see this process through.

Matthew 13:54: “And coming to his hometown” (this is Jesus coming back to Nazareth), “he taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?’” (This is not Judas Iscariot—very common name in the first century.) “And are not all his sisters with us?” Right? Let’s be grammarians here. That’s plural. That means at least two—“all his sisters.” I think it would at least hint that we could talk about three. So we’ve got James, Joseph, Simon, Judas—that’s four brothers. “All his sisters,” in verse 56. Right—are you with me on this? So we’ve got at least how many siblings? Six, seven.

Now, just to humanize her—not only is she a mom—think about it: when Jesus—we’re going to learn about this; we’ll get into all the details of this later—Jesus is twelve years old, they go to Jerusalem for the festival. They’re coming back—remember, he gets separated from the family and gets lost. And some of you are thinking, “Wow, Mary, you’re raising the Messiah—what are you doing?” Because we picture her as raising an only child. Think about that: twelve years old—if she’s fifteen when this started, now she’s twenty-seven—clearly she’s got a lot of other kids. Let’s just picture her now with at least six or seven siblings of Christ. Now this is the Duggar family in the making here, right? Picture this. How do they treat those older kids? They expect them to be adults by the time they’re twelve, right? Why? Because they’re helping everybody else. You’ve got a twelve-year-old Jesus—no wonder they figured, “Jesus—surely he’s taking care of one of the toddlers, he’s with Uncle Jim,” or whatever. They’ve got a lot to do. Mary’s probably nursing and bouncing a toddler on her hip. This was a big family with a gal just like you and I—stretched for time, all the difficulties of raising a family, doing all the things that the average parents do—except for the fact she’s been saddled with the greatest responsibility in all of the Gospels: to raise Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the one who would sit on the throne of David.

If you don’t think you’d feel inadequate with a household full of kids, knowing one of them was to be cared for as the Son of God—then whatever we’re dealing with that seems beyond us, that we seem under-clubbed for, is nothing. And for us to recognize, that’s how God works. He didn’t choose a person with a résumé who had all these accomplishments, that had all these things to her credit. He picked a teenage, pimply-faced girl who was all new to all this—just barely getting used to becoming a young woman—to raise this kid. That is an amazing turning of priorities and things on their head to show us: God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

Now, you’re not going to carry the physical body of the Messiah in your body like Mary did, but you are—think about the things that Paul seemed overwhelmed with—you are called to bring the message of Christ to people. And Paul said this—he said, “I feel overwhelmed,” 2 Corinthians chapters 2 and 3 (I put it on the back of the worksheet because we don’t have time to look at it). But if you look that up, Paul talks about the fact that this is an overwhelming thought: “I’m bringing the message of Christ to other people, and it will determine whether or not—humanly speaking, the way and the point of evangelism determines the destiny of people—heaven or hell.” That’s—“I mean, who is adequate for these things?” Right? (The way the ESV puts it: “Who is sufficient for this?”) Who can do this? And yet he ends in chapter three by saying we’re competent. We’re competent—not in ourselves—we’re competent in God.

Give me one more example—turn to Luke chapter 12. Let’s just take that one thing that God may call you to do that you feel overwhelmed in. I mean, every time we talk about evangelism I know it scares a lot of people. You think, “Okay, you go to work this week, you talk to your neighbor this week—you’re going to feel like I feel inadequate for that.” And here’s the reason why: because they’re going to ask me questions I won’t be able to answer; they’ll have a comeback I won’t know how to defend. Okay—that’s exactly where God wants you. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not saying we stay purposefully ignorant, we don’t do our homework. But I am saying you’re going to be feeling like you’re put in situations that will be beyond you.

Jesus sent out the first generation of evangelists, and he said, “Listen, go take my message to all these villages. You are going to be backed up against the wall. And when you are, I want you to know you shouldn’t be anxious.” Look at how he puts it in verse 11, Luke 12:11: “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, don’t be anxious as to how you’ll defend yourself or what you should say.” Now first of all, let me remind you: most of the disciples Jesus gathered together were in their late teens—maybe you don’t know that—but much like we see here with Mary, we’ve got young fishermen that are just getting going with the family business. Who were—how old are you leaving the synagogue? The word “elder” came to be because usually it was the older guys, the experienced guys, the highly educated guys—they were leading in the places of worship. So these teenagers and young twenty-somethings were going out preaching the gospel, getting in trouble with the elite religious leaders of the synagogues—called in. You’re going to be anxious, man, but I’m telling you: don’t be anxious. You’ll feel under-clubbed for this, but don’t worry—swing the club. Verse 12: “For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Now look at that—just like the Holy Spirit came to Mary, said, “I’m going to start this thing supernaturally,” and the assumption here in the Scripture is “I’m going to guide you and empower you; I’ll take you through this; I’ll finish what I start.” In your Christian life, when you’re called to do things that feel beyond you, just know the promise of God certainly echoes into our day, does it not? You’ll step up; you’ll do this. He’ll get this done through you.

Your job is to be like Mary. And what was her response? Let’s go back to it—this is a great line; it’s one of the best in all of this narrative—verse 38 of Luke chapter one. After the angel says, “Listen, you want an example of something unlikely? Elizabeth gets pregnant in her old age,” verse 36—“Nothing’s impossible with God,” verse 37—verse 38, Mary says—great line—“Behold, I am the doulē of the Lord.” That’s the feminine—I just like the way it is; she’s obviously a young teenage girl—she uses the feminine form of the word doulos. “I am just a slave, just a servant girl of the Lord”—and that’s how that reads in Greek. “Let it be to me according to your word.” If you want me to do that, I will do that. If God commissioned me to do it, I’ll do it. Why? Because I’m a servant of the Lord. I’m just here to do whatever he wants me to do.

You want to know the attitude and the heart we need to maintain in our lives? It’s Mary’s heart. And sometimes you say, “Well, she’s got an advantage—she’s just an idealistic, you-know, thinking teenager.” I get that. But she’s not stupid, right? She understands this is going to be a big deal. And she also understood this is probably going to cost me—as it did. But she kept what we call around Compass Bible Church an “ADaPAT heart.” You know that phrase yet? If not, jot it down on your worksheet. Number two: we need to maintain an ADaPAT heart. And if you’ve never heard it, let me explain it to you. ADaPAT—A-D-a-P-A-T—stands for this: Anything, Anyplace, Anytime. That’s the foundational response of Christians to Christ. It’s the foundational response of people to the gospel. It’s recognizing that God is God and we’re his servants, that Christ is the Lord and we’re the ones here to do whatever he asks—anything, anyplace, anytime.

And when Mary gets asked to do something that she’s way under-clubbed for—something she is inadequate to accomplish, something that she cannot do on her own—she says, “All right—whatever you want. I’m a doulē.” We’d say we’re douloi of the Lord—we are servants, slaves of Christ. “Let it be to me according to your word. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll do exactly what God asks me to do.” Big deal—ADaPAT.

Keep looking here in this text—and we’ll look at this more closely when we look at Elizabeth’s life next time—but Mary goes off in verse 39 and visits Elizabeth. We find out in verse 36 that they’re related—more on that next time. “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah.” Now, that is going to take some time—to come down by the Jordan River, down across the suburbs of Jerusalem, over into the hill country of Judea. That’s probably going to be, I don’t know, seventy-five, eighty miles. She’s not traveling by herself, obviously—she’s a pregnant teenage girl—but off she goes with her family, whatever, fiancé. She’s on her way to get down to visit Elizabeth because the angel had mentioned her—this makes sense.

“She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth”—that’s, of course, Zechariah was our character last week. “And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb”—which you might expect if you know anything about John the Baptist, right? Firecracker of a personality—kicking in the womb and kicking out of the womb. He’s something. But that’s not why—Elizabeth is going to explain: “And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud voice, ‘Blessed are you’”—now think of this: this is the sixty-something-year-old wife of the pastor, if you will, the experienced, educated person who has credentials, has experience—she looks at the teenage pregnant girl and says, “‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’” You think the pastor’s wife here understood the theology of the Old Testament promises of the coming Messiah? “The baby you’re carrying is the Lord. How is it that the mother of my Lord would come and visit me?” Talk about humility, right—look at that.

“For behold”—then she explains all the kickin’, verse 44—“when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” And then look at this line—this is almost humorous if you think about the context: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Look at that: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Hey, Zech—Zechariah—did you hear that? “She believed what Gabriel said to her.” Oh—that’s right, you can’t talk. Never mind. You know—blessed are you, Mary, for believing the angel. When he came and told you, you believed. You understand the word in Greek—believe—we also translate “trust.” You trust; you had confidence; you believed what God said.

Now here’s Zech in the corner, doing sign language because he can’t speak—because when the angel said to him, “You’re going to have a baby in your old age,” he goes, “Nah, I don’t believe it.” Blessed are you, teenage girl, because when God made his will clear, you responded in faith—you believed it. You had an ADaPAT heart. That’s fantastic—because you prove that even an old senior priest can fumble the ball when it comes to stepping up and saying: anything, anyplace, anytime. It’s exactly where you need to be. Praise God for you. “Blessed are you who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Luke 9 would be a good place—just real quick. We’ll get to this passage; we’ll explore it in detail down the road, Lord willing—but I just want to show you—and I have to mention this because some people hear this, especially if you’re new to the church. You think, “Wow, that sounds like varsity Christianity right there. That’s upper-level stuff. That’s AP Jesus stuff.” It’s not—that’s certainly the basic requirement. I just want to let you know: ADaPAT is certainly the basic requirement. Biblical faith and biblical repentance certainly constitute and contain this idea of anything, anyplace, anytime.

No matter when we see the rich young ruler come to Jesus, he’s sent away without eternal life. Why? Because whatever his faith was, it wasn’t of the quality to say to Christ, “You’re the King; you’re in charge.” See, God doesn’t have any of these arrangements where he’s the co-pilot. You’ve seen that bumper sticker—I’m not into that. He doesn’t fly in the co-pilot seat. If you’re going to come and be a part of him—if you’re going to be on his team, if you’re going to have his benefits—there’s a simple arrangement here. Oh, it’s profoundly difficult, I get that—but it’s simple. Speaking of golf, right? Get this ball in that hole. Simple concept—very difficult.

I realize to put your life on the line—and maybe it’s easier for a fifteen-year-old girl than it is for the rich, accomplished lawyer who looked at Christ and said, “I can’t do that. You can’t be fully in charge. I want to be on your team; I just don’t want you to be the boss of me.”

Look at this text in verse 23, Luke chapter 9. The emphasis here is telling. He says in verse 23—and “he said to all”—love that—not the varsity guys, not the guys that want to be pastors. He says “to all,” verse 23, Luke 9: “If anyone would come after me”—want to be my follower—“let him deny himself”—your stuff laying on the altar, your dreams, your idea about what you want to do for your life, where you want to live, how you want to spend your days—you put it on the altar. “Take up his cross” —are you willing to bear that cross? Really? Do that. “For my sake, and follow me, and things will work out.” Here’s the problem, verse 24: “If you want to save your life, you’ll lose it. But when you lose your life for my sake, you’ll save it.”

Now, I just want you to think of that principle—don’t leave this text (we’ll look at more of it in a second). When Mary was told she was going to bear Christ and raise this kid, was there a cost involved in that? I told you—she’s not stupid, right? Clearly she knows—and you know the story over in Matthew—it says when Joseph found out…can you imagine telling Joseph, “I’m pregnant”? That kind of messes up an engagement, right, when you haven’t had any relations with your fiancé. This was tough. Matter of fact, Joseph in the Matthew account decides to divorce her quietly—just to say, “Let it be to me according to your word. I’m your servant.” Just to do—“I’m willing. Anything, anyplace, anytime.” It really could cost her her relationship with Joseph. It could be over. That’s what almost happened, were it not for the angel intervening and saying, “Don’t do that.”

Do you think angels made special trips to all the gossipy old ladies in the village of Nazareth? No way. What’s it like being pregnant as this teenage girl? And all the chatter is—of course, this wasn’t Joseph’s kid. And even if it was, that’d be scandal enough, right? The fornicating young, you-know, godly girl got pregnant. It wasn’t even that. It was, “Joseph? Not my kid.” “What? What? God’s kid? Sure.” I mean, think about the conversation that goes on in the living rooms and at the dining room tables of the ladies in Nazareth.

Not to mention that you’re called—to talk about losing your life—Mary, you’re called to raise Jesus. And what does that mean? Well, he wasn’t all that popular. Oh, he was in some circles, but you know what—he actually was hated. So hated that people wanted him killed so badly—just think of that scene in Nazareth where he preached in the synagogue. I don’t know if you know how that ended—they drove him out of town to the edge of a cliff and wanted to push him off the cliff because he was teaching there as though he was someone who was fulfilling biblical prophecy. Not only that, they hated him so much in Jerusalem that when it came time at the end of his earthly ministry they wanted to crucify him on a Roman execution rack. And when the day came, Pilate knew he was in a quandary and he thought, “I’ve got to get out of this; I can’t condemn an innocent man.” He took the worst of the worst—Barabbas—and he said, “I’m going to release to you one person, as we do in the tradition every year. You pick one to release. I’m going to pick the worst I can pick—I’m going to pick Jesus.” They hated Jesus so much, the mob did, that they were willing to release the worst of the worst—Barabbas—and they said, “That guy? We want him dead.” You’re the mother of that person. This is a tough calling for Mary.

I mean, you want to think about it—Jesus said it often. He said it in many different ways. But he said it this way once in Matthew: “They call the head of the household Beelzebul”—they’re calling me a demon, they’re calling me Satan. He said, “How much more the members of his household?” And I know he’s talking about his disciples, his metaphorical household. But what about his mom and his brothers and his sisters? They hated him a lot, too. This was a big deal—to stand with Christ and to say, “I’m your servant; let it be done to me according to your word.”

And it’s going to be hard for us. And when Jesus comes to you, he says this: “Are you ready to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me? You want to hang on to your life and protect it—be protectionist? Problem is, that’s not the deal I’m making. You’re going to lose your life that way. If you’re ready to lose your life for my sake, you’ll find it.” Now, most people aren’t into that. And it gets real practical at the end of this chapter—drop down to the end of this chapter—verse 57 in Matthew 9. (Jesus going along the road—he says to someone…someone rather says to Jesus,) “I will follow you wherever you go.” You see that in verse 57? Jesus says this—and this is the great thing about Jesus, of course, in his ministry. He could look at a guy who says something like that, and he knows—he looks through his heart into his motives. Here’s a guy saying, “I’ll go anywhere. I’ll do anything.” Talk about anything, anyplace, anytime—the ADaPAT heart—it looks like it’s right there. Jesus knows. But like a lot of us, we say we’ll do whatever God wants, and we wouldn’t say it out loud, but we’ll think: “But I just—I wouldn’t want to move anywhere else. I mean, I don’t want to quit my job, be a missionary—anything like that. I’ll follow you wherever you go. I certainly don’t want it to affect my income in any way.”

Jesus looks at this guy who says, “I’ll follow you wherever you go,” and Jesus says, “Now listen—I don’t think you really understand what you’re saying. Foxes have holes,” verse 58—they live in their little dens under the ground. Birds of the air—they come back every night to their nests that they’ve made. “But the Son of Man”—the one you want to follow anywhere—“has nowhere tonight to lay his head. I don’t have any home.” Are you really saying—do you understand what you’re saying? Anything, anyplace, anytime—just count the cost of that for a minute.

“To another,” Jesus then turns, verse 59, and says, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” “You know, my dad’s old and he’s going to be in a retirement home soon. I’d like to join you with those fishermen and all those people, but I don’t have time. Maybe in the next season of my life I can get around to that.” Jesus said to him, “No, no—in your case I’m calling you for it right now. I’m the King; I’m the Lord; I’m the pilot. Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. I’ve got the job for you.” And that comes before any of your domestic responsibilities.

I don’t know how that one ended. But in this triad of people here, the third one starting in verse 61—I don’t think it ended well. Verse 61: “Yet another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at home.’” “I gotta talk to those in my family; I want to make sure they’re okay with it all. I gotta say goodbye to them; it may take some time.” He says, “Listen,” verse 62: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” You don’t understand the arrangement here. What we’re looking for in Christianity 101 is anything, anyplace, anytime. And that’s how it starts.

And for many of you, I know you got saved—and if someone preached to you the biblical gospel, you understood what repentance was, what biblical faith was—and you started your Christian life that way. And you did that deal with God, if you will—it felt like that—you laid everything on the altar. And then God may have taken this and taken that, and then your life kind of settled into a pattern, and you weren’t called to Africa to be a missionary, and it didn’t change your job or your zip code. And then you start to live the Christian life, year after year after year after year. And it’s funny how things start to change. So I chose this word “maintain an ADaPAT heart,” because it’s not just the idealism of a fifteen-year-old girl. What we want is that to last your entire life. We need to maintain an ADaPAT heart.

And I don’t have time to look at this, but a good study on your own might be Revelation chapters 2 and 3—seven postcards from Christ to his churches. Watch how many of those churches—starting with Ephesus—it is a condemnation that they let their love for God wane. He says, “You’ve left your first love. Go back and do the things you did at first.” What a great analogy for us. Because in relationships it’s that way sometimes, right? I mean, you know, when I’m dating Carlin before we’re married—oh great, “Whatever you want—swim to Catalina today? Fine, I’ll be right back—let’s do it.” “What do you want to do?” “Anything—right now.” It’s a call—now, long day—“Would you pick up a gallon of milk on the way home?” “What are you talking about? I don’t have time for that—forget it.” I mean, it is easy… (That’s not autobiographical, I’m just saying—illustrations about yourself are never a good idea.)

Listen, what’s the point? Relationships start to change. What does he say to them? “Repent—do the things you did at first; go back to that life.” And maybe you’ve been a Christian for fifteen years—now stop, go back. Is it back to the way it started? Are you ready to say to him: anything, anyplace, anytime? Really—you’re ready? That’s how you’re supposed to be.

He then turns in the next chapter to this… Sardis. I don’t want to look at this now, but the same thing—he says, “Listen, you’ve got a reputation that you’re alive, but you’re not.” He says, “You’re falling asleep.” He says this: “Wake up and strengthen what remains—get back to where you were. I’ve not found your works complete in my sight.” Then, of course, the most famous one is the end of chapter three—the church of Laodicea, church number seven. He comes and says this: (to non-Christians hot, new Christians…) “Here’s the problem: you’ve gotten to this place of equilibrium.” What does he say? Lukewarm. And just like you don’t like those tepid lukewarm beverages—you want it hot or cold—same way with me. Because if you want to live there, it makes me want to spit you out of my mouth.

Where does God want you and me to be? Anything, anyplace, anytime. The Christian life starts that way—that’s the way we’re supposed to live every day. He says take up our cross—be willing to do whatever he wants. If you’ve gotten to a place where God hasn’t messed much with the equation of your life, then just maybe today would be a good morning just to say to him again, “Listen, I want to get back to biblical faith—anything, anyplace, anytime.” You say that to God, he puts you in situations where he makes you feel inadequate, and then his Spirit empowers you to do what he asks you to do. And you raise kids that do something great, or you do something at work that makes a difference for the kingdom, or you share the gospel with someone and they get saved—you start to sense, “Wow, this is pretty cool—God is using me to do something big.” Right? I mean, you get excited even about some small things if you see God at work in your life.

Be careful, though. The great thing about this passage—and we won’t take time to analyze it all—but in verses 46 through 56, in the middle of Luke chapter one (the end of our section today), Mary gives this great statement of praise. As a matter of fact, if you have an ESV it says “Mary’s Song of Praise (the Magnificat).” You see that there—the Magnificat? That is often used in liturgical churches because it’s the first word that came from the Latin Vulgate—again, important translation; for years it was the Bible of the church for many years in church history. The first word of the sentence out of her mouth is magnificat, which translates in our Bibles here, “magnifies.” And she starts this prayer and she says, “My soul”—what?—“magnifies the Lord.” Is that what she says? Not “magnifies myself”—no—“my soul magnifies the Lord.” This is the thing—she’s now had time to kind of let the idea sink in that she’s going to be nursing, raising, teaching to walk, developing into an adult the Messiah of Israel. And with all of that, she doesn’t let the magnification in her own heart or mind come to herself. She’s still saying, “The Lord be magnified.”

Matter of fact, “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. He has looked on the humble estate of his”—there it is again—doulē—his bondservant girl. “I’m just your slave, Lord. Behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.” Right? Wow—look at how you have looked upon my humble estate. “For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel”—she understands the Messiah is not just about her being favored; it’s about Israel being helped—“in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” And “Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.”

This picture of her praise to God is a great example of—one reason I called the subtitle of this message “God’s Humble Teenager”—because the one thing we see in the snapshot of her life is even when she starts to think through the implications of raising the Messiah, when she opens her mouth and prays to God, she’s making it very clear she keeps herself in perspective. That’d be a good thing for us to do no matter what God uses you for. Number three on your outline—be great to jot it down: you and I need to keep ourselves in perspective. Because God will do something and it will impress you—you’ll say, “Wow, I can’t believe God did that through me.” And the problem is, if you are not careful, your heart will be drawn into an increasing sense of you being the reason for that. And we need to be careful that we never think that way. God wants it to be clear—it is about what God does. You need to continue to fear the Lord and, in your humble heart, be able to rebuff the pride that comes to you when you start thinking, “Look at what God did in my business. Look at what God did in my family. Look at what God did in our finances. Look at what God did in our Sunday school class or ministry, our discipleship or evangelism.” Be careful. Keep yourself in perspective.

I just want to illustrate this with one story—then we’ll wrap it up—2 Chronicles chapter 26. She mentioned so many things—my mind was brought back to this particular text. When she says things like this: “His mercy is for those who fear the Lord,” and then she goes on to say in verse 52—Mary does—“he’s brought down the mighty from their thrones.” Now here’s the problem: when you see success and get exalted to a throne, you’re tempted to be prideful about the accomplishments that God has allowed you to experience, and it leads to your demise. And I thought about a king in Israel who had served for fifty-two years in Israel. And I mean, for the most part, he was known as a godly king. But unfortunately, he got filled with pride and it didn’t end well.

So many things crisscross with our text. One is the namesake of Zechariah is found in this text. But the king I want to talk about just for a couple minutes is King Uzziah. If you don’t even know that name, maybe you’ll remember it when I remind you—Isaiah chapter six: the vision Isaiah has—high and lofty, the train of his robe filling the temple, seraphim flying around: “Holy, holy, holy.” It starts with this: “In the year that King Uzziah died.” That’s the king—long reign, prosperous reign. And this king, here we find at the end of his life, made a big mistake. He allowed his own thinking about what God had done through him to begin to lure his heart into a prideful state.

As a matter of fact, the first sentence of verse 16 can almost be taken out of here and thrown into the book of Proverbs. It’s almost stated in a proverbial way. I mean, it’s obviously narrative, but look at how it’s put—and it’s a great little phrase for us to remember: “But when he was strong”—this is 2 Chronicles 26:16—“when he (that is, Uzziah) was strong”—God had given him great success—“he grew proud.” Notice the word “grew”—this is an incremental, insidious process—“to his destruction.” Read that again: when he was strong—problem—he grew proud—consequence—to his destruction.

What did he do? Keep reading: “For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.” Remember, we met Zechariah doing what? Being picked by lot to go in and burn incense. I told you last week—how often could you do that in your lifetime? One time. You waited your whole life to do that one thing. You can be from the tribe of Levi; you can be a faithful priest; you can know the Torah; you can know the Law; you can quote the Prophets. But you only get to walk into the holy place at the temple one time and burn incense. It was the highest privilege a priest could have. Here was Uzziah—greatly blessed by God in his ministry and leadership—he starts looking beyond the boundaries of what God had assigned to him, and he said, “I think I can do that.” So he goes in to burn incense on the altar.

“And Azariah the priest went in after him, and eighty priests of the LORD who were men of valor, and they withstood King Uzziah and said, ‘It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the LORD God.’” Now that was what he was receiving—honor—just like Mary, right? Favor—“found favor with God, the Lord is with you.” The Lord was with Uzziah; the Lord was favoring Uzziah; the Lord had given Uzziah great success. It’s starting to go to his head now. Now he’s thinking, “Oh, okay—I’ve got carte blanche in Israel now.” No, you don’t.

Uzziah doesn’t even respond here with contrition—verse 19: “Then Uzziah was angry.” You can see his face getting red. He had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and as he became angry with the priests, right in the middle of his red forehead there was a little white splotch that started growing—this little miraculous outbreak of leprosy. “It broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense.” Now, nothing could be more ceremonially discordant in the heart of a priest than to see someone with leprosy in the holy place in the temple. And that’s one thing the Bible made clear—ceremonially you had to be clean; you could have no disease; you could have no deformity; you certainly couldn’t have leprosy, which was the disdained, awful disease of the ancient Near East. This was terrible. You had to be confined and cloistered away from everyone else if you had that. And he’s standing in the holy place with leprosy breaking out all over his face.

“And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death.” This wasn’t a spanking; this was like the rest-of-your-lifetime kind of timeout. “You’re going to now be in a colony over here being a leper.” He lived in a separate house—couldn’t even live in the royal palaces anymore. “And he was excluded from the house of the LORD”—he couldn’t even worship on the Temple Mount anymore. “And Jotham his son was over the king’s household, governing the people of the land.” Think that through—you were blessed by God to be the king. Now the thing that you transgressed to do—something else—you can’t even go back to now. The thing that God had called you to—you forfeited. See what destructive consequences pride has.

Mary mentioned the fear of the Lord. Mary was a teenager when this whole thing started. 2 Chronicles 26—I just want to show you the beginning of Uzziah’s life, the beginning of his career, the beginning of God’s blessing in his life. Look at verse 1—2 Chronicles 26:1: “And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old”—talk about that, I mean, we’ve got the lanky, yet-to-fill-out, pimply-faced teenage boy—“and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Eloth and restored it to Judah, after the king slept with his fathers. Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.” Verse 4: “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the”—here’s the word—“fear of God.” That’s that thing antithetical to pride. That’s the thing where humble people before God recognize—not fear of condemnation, right? (So I put the book on the back again—John Bunyan’s treatise on the fear of God.) We understand the distinction between survival fear—the fear that we’re going to be cast into hell—and the fear that we should all maintain for the rest of our lives. ADaPAT people need to have it, where they keep themselves in perspective—that God is God, an awesome God, dwelling in unapproachable light (as the New Testament puts it in 1 Timothy 6). This is a God that we dread, and all that means is we have an uneasiness about the authority and power of God; we want to please him; we’re careful to do what he says. Zechariah instructed him in that, “and as long as he sought the LORD”—as long as he feared the Lord, as long as he set himself to seek the Lord—“God made him prosper.” That lasted for a lot of years. But unfortunately, because he started to let that go to his head, he started to see himself as the one that—“Maybe, you know, I’m pretty neat”—unfortunately, he cashed it all in and lost his position and blessing in God’s economy and in the ministry as a leader in Israel.

God’s going to put you in places where you’ll feel inadequate. Your job is to trust him with an ADaPAT heart. When God gives you success and you see good things happen, I’m just asking you—like Mary—at least she was off to a great start here: she kept herself in perspective with a word of praise and magnification of God and not herself.

I think sometimes we look at Mary as a teenage girl and we think, “Well, maybe this is just a snapshot of this period when a lot of teenagers can say, ‘I’m all in. That’s God—whatever—I don’t care.’” And we unfortunately see too many stories like Uzziah, who after a long time leave their first love, stop seeking the Lord with humility, and they bomb out. So I started thinking of all the teenagers God had used in so many ways in the Bible—and there are a lot of good examples—but I thought of one in particular in church history. Mary was two thousand years ago; King Josiah was, you know, fifteen hundred years ago. But two hundred years ago there was a young kid named Will in Northamptonshire, England, who was a shoe apprentice—a shoemaker. He was just learning the trade, but he was a kid who had come to Christ as a teenager and basically, like Mary, said, “I’m the servant of the Lord; I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” ADaPAT heart—anything, anyplace, anytime. And I understand—he didn’t have a lot to put on the altar, but he put his life on the altar: “Whatever you want me to do, God, I’ll do it.” And God started to use him. He had no formal education; he never went to college. He was working in a shoe-mending shop there, and God kept putting on his heart the passages of Scripture that talked about evangelism. And he said, “Man, I’ve got to share the gospel.” He looked around and he saw a lot of evangelism going on—a lot of good things, perhaps you could attribute to God’s grace in England—but he said, “There are a lot of places where the gospel is not thriving.”

He had no formal education, but he started to study linguistics, and he had a knack for it, and God honored him in doing it. He started to learn languages—first of the Bible: the New Testament Greek, Old Testament Hebrew, the language of theology, the language of Latin. He mastered these languages. And the more he looked around the globe, he started to recognize people didn’t have the Bible in their language. He took his knowledge of biblical languages, he studied other languages, and as a guy with no real credentials to his past, as a young guy, he started translating the Bible into languages that didn’t have it. He translated the entire Bible into six different languages by the time he was done, and twenty-nine different languages he put parts of the New Testament and parts of the Bible into those. Think about the legacy of leaving behind and changing an entire culture by getting the Word of God into the language of the people.

William—Will—did this for years and years, not only as a linguist, but he said, “If I can lay down my life in a place and make a difference, I want to do it.” And he kept coming back to a place on the map—India—and he said, “I just want to see the gospel grow there.” He went into the interior of India, and he did things there that no one else had ever done. He really opened up doors to the gospel like no one had before. As a matter of fact, if you read in modern missions today, they’ll call this guy the “father of modern missions.” Maybe you know his last name—Carey. William Carey. He was known, by the way, for a sermon and a line from a sermon that really reflects this kind of ambitious drive to serve the Lord. He used to say this—remember this line: “Expect great things from God, and attempt great things for God.”

And he lived that kind of life from the time he was a teenager. And unfortunately, we kind of wince and think, “How’s this going to turn out?” Especially with all these accolades and accomplishments and all the things he did for God, and people praised him everywhere he went. Well, here’s how it ended. In his life before he died, he dictated what he wanted on his headstone, and this is what they actually inscribed on his headstone. Here’s what he asked to have below his name on his headstone: “A wretched, poor, helpless worm.” I don’t know what your grandfather or your father wants on his tombstone—probably something a little better than that—“Loving father, faithful husband.” By the time William Carey had laid his life down after all of these accomplishments, he still kept the perspective that we saw from a teenage Mary in Luke chapter one. “I understand my place in all this—God is great; I’m wretched. He’s rich; I’m poor. He’s the great King and Savior; I’m just a helpless worm.” That’s not just bloviating self-deprecation—that’s not, you know, kind of false humility. This is a guy who understood that to be used by God doesn’t mean that we are something great. It just shows the greatness of God when God takes the weak things of the world to shame the wise.

You’re feeling inadequate for the tasks that God has commissioned you with? Welcome to the club. Just keep saying every morning, “Anything, anyplace, anytime.” When things start to happen that are great, just keep yourself in perspective—certainly what we see in church history of God’s heroes, and it’s something that we admire even in a teenage peasant girl from Nazareth. Let’s make that our passion this week.

Would you stand with me as we close our service out in prayer?

Pray with me, please. God, thanks for your Word. Thank you so much for the life of Mary. God, please, on behalf of the modern church, we are grieving over the way she has been turned into something she’s not. We’re sorry that our generation continues often to propagate these myths about her. Surely that’s grievous to her heart. But God, we ask as we think accurately about this gal who’s like so many others we read in the Bible, who learned the fear of the Lord and humbly see themselves in perspective and simply say to you, “We’re servants. Be it done unto me according to your word.” Let that be the cry of our hearts this week—recognizing that whether we’re an aged priest or a young teenager, whatever our lot in life, God can do something significant and eternally impactful if we would just make ourselves available and trust the great God of the Bible.

So let us trust you more. Let us be more engaged in the kind of dependent prayer that we need to have—recognizing that you are the source of all things and all good things come from you. And then, God, let us always praise you for what you do, whether it’s through someone else or through us. Let our hearts magnify you and rejoice in you, our Savior. Make that the cry of our hearts this week and for the rest of our lives. Keep our hearts ADaPAT—keep us ready to do anything, anyplace, anytime—for the glory of the King. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.