Hello, and welcome to this
teaching from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. We pray that God
uses this message to strengthen your faith. If he does, we'd love
to hear about it. Email us at
mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if you'd like to support
this ministry financially, you can give online securely
at calvaryabq.org/give. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is
central to the Christmas story. Unfortunately,
people are greatly divided about her
importance and her role. In the message, the Magnificent
Mother of Messiah, Skip considers five
notable attributes that formed Mary's personality. Now we invite you to turn in
your Bible to Luke Chapter 1 as Skip begins. Would you please turn in
your Bible to Luke Chapter 1 this morning. The gospel of Luke, third
book in your New Testament, Chapter 1. I was supposed to
have been a girl. I know that's an odd statement
to begin a sermon with, and it needs explanation. But I wanted to
get your attention. I was supposed to
have been a girl. I'm the fourth boy born
to Lou and Agnes Heitzig. They had four boys. They were hoping that one
of them would be a girl. That didn't work out
with the first three, so I was their last hope
at having a daughter. What a disappointment I
was when I came out a boy. And yet, there is often
a very special bond between a son and a mother,
and I will admit to you freely that though I love
both mom and dad and respect to them greatly, I was very,
very close to my mother. Moms love you no matter what. Their love is fierce,
and it is unbreakable. In fact, we even have a saying. You have a face that
only a mother could love. Mothers love no matter what. My message today is about
Mary, the mother of Jesus, the mother of the
Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world. I can only imagine
there must have been an incredibly strong
bond of love between Jesus and his mother Mary,
and one of the reasons is that we believe
Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, died at a young age,
leaving Mary alone. And did you know Mary was
the only human person who was there at both of
the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus? A wonderful event,
a horrible event. When he came into the
world, she was rejoicing. When he died on the
cross, like the prophecy, a sword pierced her own heart. But if you know much
about Mary, you also know that Mary is a very
controversial figure. Mary is someone that
Catholics will fawn over and Protestants
will wince about. I've watched it for years. I grew up in my early years
in a Roman Catholic family in a religious environment
that exalted Mary, and prayed to Mary, and elevated Mary. I remember Mary
being described as the co-redemptrix
of the human race, as well as the co-mediatrix
of the human race-- big fancy words that simply mean
Mary helped redeem the world and is a mediator
between mankind and God. There is even a basilica in Rome
called the Santa Maria Maggiore that has a picture of
Mary hanging on the cross with Jesus, as if she
helped redeem the world. Inside that church
is a painting that depicts Jesus himself crowning
Mary as the queen of heaven. According to the Catholic
Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Mary was
always a virgin, even after she had Jesus, the
perpetual virginity of Jesus Christ, even though the
scripture attests otherwise. Also those two
religious denominations believe in the
Immaculate Conception, that Mary was untainted
by original sin, and thus she is
elevated to the place where Mary answers prayers
and Mary dispenses grace. Now all of those
are not true at all, from a biblical perspective. You can say they are, but
you cannot find any evidence in the Bible that
those are true. However, the other extreme
committed by Protestants is to disregard Mary altogether,
to ignore her altogether, to ignore the fact that she
was uniquely favored by God and is blessed among women. Now, many Protestants
will avoid her. I don't want to do that. I think she was a
magnificent woman, and I want to show you
in the scripture that. I love Christmas, and I
love Christmas messages. I love the Christmas story. I love preaching on it, but
I have to be honest with you. I hesitate every year when
I do any Christmas message, and you know why? Because you know it. Because it's so familiar. You know about shepherds,
and Herod, and the star, and the magic. You know all this, manger. You know it all. And that's a good
thing, but some of you even know the real story. Some of you know that
there weren't three kings from the Orient. Some of you know that it wasn't
a Silent Night in Bethlehem. You've gotten the
historical background. You know some of the more
advanced real historical facts of the story that
is told in the Bible but often misrepresented
by Christmas carols. So I know you know it, but to
come to grips with the thought that a virgin girl was
impregnated by the Holy Spirit so that that baby bump on Mary
was the creator of the universe is mind boggling. I still don't get
my mind around that. I've heard people
say, preacher, I don't believe in
the virgin birth. A virgin birth is impossible. I agree with you. It is impossible, but with God,
nothing shall be impossible. And really that is the solution. I've always thought and
believed that if you can get past the first
verse of the Bible, the rest will be easy. If you can believe in
the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth, everything else is a cake walk compared to that. If he can pull that off, he
can pull anything else off. So I do believe
in a virgin birth. But these thoughts must
have dawned on Mary from the very beginning. She didn't quite grasp it all,
but from the first announcement made-- these thoughts
of what she was doing, and who she was
carrying in the womb, and what this would mean--
began to dawn on her, and we have her response
in Luke Chapter 1. So going through this
chapter, some select verses, I want to show you five
attributes of Mary, five character traits
that hopefully will get us ready for Christmas. And here's the first. Mary was real. It's weird that I'd
have to say that, but I do have to say that. She was a real person. She actually existed. She was historical. I'll explain in a moment. Let's look at the text,
Chapter 1, Verse 26. "Now in the sixth
month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city
of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed
to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in,
the angels said to her, rejoice highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she
was troubled at his saying and considered what manner
of greeting this was. And the angel said to her,
do not be afraid, Mary. For you have found
favor with God. And behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bring forth the son
and call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be
called the son of the highest, and the Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the
house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom
there will be no end. And then Mary said to
the angel, how can this be since I do not know a man?" In other words, I'm a virgin. "And the angel answered
and said to her, the Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the
highest will overshadow you. Therefore also, that Holy
One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth,
your relative has also conceived a
son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month
for her who was called barren. For with God, nothing
will be impossible." Mary was real, and I make this
statement because by some Mary has been called a myth, an
allegory, a fictitious made up person. She'd never existed in history. And the reason somebody will say
that is because they say, well, the only record we have that
Mary existed is the Bible. We have no historical records. We have no other historical
records beside the Bible that she ever existed. I just have to
answer that by saying I'm not surprised at all by
that, for several reasons. Number one, she
lived in Nazareth. Nazareth was podunk central. It was some little out of
the way hayseed village that nobody cared about,
nobody knew about. You wouldn't even have
heard about it unless Jesus was from there, raised there. And people like that
from places like that were never recorded
in ancient history. Furthermore, she was
a Jew, a society that had been subjugated by
the Roman government, and Romans had no
interest in recording the lives of conquered peoples. Number three, she was from
Israel, a patriarchal society where men had top billing. Women had no legal rights. A woman was owned by her father
and then later by her husband. Women weren't recorded
in genealogical records typically unless she was a woman
of wealth, or status, royalty. So I'm not surprised
that Mary is not recorded anywhere else except
in the historical record of the scripture. So who was Mary? Having established that we
believe she was a real person, who was she exactly? Well, because she had
a miraculous birth, the Jewish nation
historically has had to come to terms
with that, and so they have made all sorts of
stories up about her. The Jewish Talmud says that
Mary was a hairdresser. How? Where do they come up with that? I don't know. I can honestly say that
came out of left field. She was a hairdresser. Did she do nails, too? They say she was a hairdresser
who had an affair with a Roman soldier. That's how Jesus was born. The Roman soldier's
name was Pantera, and the union of Mary and
Pantera, the Roman soldier, brought forth this elicit child,
this illegitimate child called Jesus. I even read a pastor
online whose Christmas text that he chose from was
the Beatles song "Let It Be". You're familiar with the song? When I find myself
in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom. Let it be. So he chose that as his text,
and his opening statement was, I had no idea all these
years singing that song that that was about
Mary in the Bible. And I thought not only are
you biblically illiterate, you're musically illiterate,
because Paul McCartney wrote that song about his mother
whose name was Mary who died. And in a dream he
saw her one night and wrote a song that
became a hit the next day. I love the song, but it's
not about Jesus' mother Mary. It's about Paul
McCartney's mother Mary. Mary was real. She was from a Jewish family. Her Jewish name would have
been Miriam, a common name. And because we believe the
genealogical record in Luke Chapter 3 is Mary's genealogy
whereas Matthew's genealogy is that of Joseph, then we would
surmise that Mary's dad's name was Heli, H-E-L-I, or Eli. So her name would be Miriam
bat Eli, her Hebrew name. Now, how old was Mary
when she had Jesus? Well, some of you know,
again, the answer to that. But scientific records estimate
that women in Mary's day achieved menarche-- that is
menstrual maturity-- around age 13 or 14. That's according to the
National Geographic Atlas called the Biblical World. So Mary was somewhere
between age 12 and 14. Let's just say safely 13. We would not be unsafe to
say Mary was 13 years of age when she was pregnant
by the Holy Spirit. Jewish women, once they
reached physical maturity in those days, got
married and had a family. So we have somebody very
young from a poor family, a young teenager from Nazareth,
a working class village who's engaged to a young
man named Yosef. And what did Joseph
do for a living? He was a what? You can say it out loud. A carpenter. That's the English translation,
and unfortunately, you think of a guy who builds
wood houses or something or makes tables and chairs. The Greek word is
he was a tecton, and a tecton meant
he was a craftsman. That is a worker with hard
materials, and in those days, you know what they built with? Stone. He was a stone cutter,
a stone worker. He may have worked with
wood as well, but primarily stone and some wood. He was a working
class craftsman. She was engaged to Joseph. She, Mary, was from
the tribe of Judah. She was a direct descendant
of King David, the royal line, which meant in her
lineage there were the great kings like David,
Solomon, King Asa, Josiah, Jehoshaphat, great and
godly leaders of the past. But here's what's interesting. For 400 years, there
has been no word of God. There has been no prophetic
Revelation to Israel. There's been no angels,
no miracles, silence for 400 years, till now. And what happens 400 years
later when God decides he's going to speak again? The angel Gabriel is
sent to Jerusalem first, six months before this,
to a priest working in the temple named Zacharias. And Gabriel says, hey, heads up. Your wife-- I know
you guys are old, but you're going to have a baby. You're to call his name John. He's going to be the
forerunner of the Messiah. Six months later, Gabriel
shows up in Nazareth and appears to Mary in the
scene we have just read. Now, Gabriel is interesting,
because Gabriel isn't just an angel. He's like the angel's angel. He's a super angel. There's only two
angels in the Bible, named Michael and Gabriel. Gabriel is the guy who gives
to Daniel prophetic messages about the future in Daniel
Chapter 8, Daniel Chapter 9, the great 70 week prophecy. Gabriel gives that. Gabriel is in
charge of all things messianic for the Jewish nation. He shows up and
gives this to Mary, and Mary's response
is I'm confused. I don't get it. How can this be? I'm a virgin. And the answer is
simply, it's God. Nothing shall be
impossible with God. The Lord will overshadow you. This will be born. He will be born of the Holy
Spirit conceived by God. So this young confused
teenager gets up and goes to visit her older
cousin Elizabeth in Jerusalem. It's a long journey. Why? Why does she go visit her? I think I can guess. Who else would understand
what just happened? There's only one person on
earth who would understand, and that is Elizabeth. Why? Well, who else would understand
when a 14-year-old girl says I'm pregnant by God? A woman who's had her
own unusual pregnancy announced by the
same angel Gabriel. Who's going to believe
a girl when she says she's the mom of the Messiah? A woman who has been
told she's going to be the mother of the
forerunner of the Messiah. So she goes to visit Elizabeth. Mary was real. Second character trait
I want you to see is that Mary was humble. Verse 38, look at her response. Mary said, Behold, the
maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me
according to your word and the angel
departed from her." That's a statement of
absolute submission that shows her humble faith. Did you know that
every Jewish girl-- from the time that Messiah
was announced, Jewish girls grew up in ancient times
hoping that maybe they might become the mother of Messiah? Messiah is coming. Messiah's going to be
the son of some mother. Maybe I'm the one. Maybe my baby boy is going to
change the nation of Israel and reside over as king forever. Maybe I'm going to be the one. Now, having said that,
when Mary discovered that she was the one, her
response is interesting. Because if God dispenses
an angel from heaven to say to a young woman,
you are very unique, you are the one God has
chosen of all people on Earth to have ever lived to birth
the Messiah, that could tend to make a person puffed up
with pride, walk away from that and say, I must be special. And indeed, Mary was special. Mary was unusually
spiritual, very, very unique, but she was also humble. For she says, behold the--
look at the word-- maid servant of the Lord. Literally, behold the
slave maid of the Lord. The word is doule in Greek. Some of you who
know the language know that sounds familiar. It's the feminine version
of the typical word for servant or slave, doulas. When it's put in
the feminine form it means as a woman
having no rights in this patriarchal society,
but also a slave maid. I am completely
owned by a master. I have no rights of my own,
and I gladly take that place. In ancient times, there were
both servants and slaves, and there was a difference. A servant wasn't owned,
but contracted out. A servant was compensated
for work produced. A servant could come and
go as he or she pleased. A slave on the other
hand, was the property of a master, had
no rights at all, ever, was under
complete ownership, could not come and go
as he or she saw fit. So Mary didn't see herself
as just a servant, but as the slave maid of God. Notice in Verse 48-- I
just want to skip down to Verse 48, her prayer. We'll get to it in a minute. She says, "for he,
God, is regarded-- look at this-- the low or the
lowly state of his-- here's the word again--
maidservant, slave maid." In other words, look,
I know who I am. I'm a poor, young
teenager from Nazareth. I know what God has done. He has not gone to Rome, the
political center of the world. He has not gone to Athens, the
cultural center of the world. He has not gone to Jerusalem,
the spiritual center of the world. He came to a no where
place, to a nobody, and has done this-- the lowest
state of his maid servant. But she says, future
generations are going to hear how God blessed me. Look also at Verse 52
to see her humility. "He has put down the
mighty from their throne and exalted the lowly." She would include
herself in that. This is humility. Every year I hear people talk
about the Christmas spirit. Let's get into the
Christmas spirit. Question, what is that? IS that where you walk by
lights and get a fuzzy feeling. Oh, it's the Christmas spirit. Or the song, I get into
the Christmas spirit. I submit to you, this
is the Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit
is not, man, I didn't get everything
I wanted for Christmas. The Christmas spirit is wow,
God stepped out of heaven and brought Christmas to me. I don't deserve anything. So she was real,
and she was humble. Look at a third
character trait of Mary. She was worshipful. Now I want you to
consider, beginning in verse 46, her prayer. She goes to Elizabeth's house,
and they have a conversation. And listen to what Mary says. Here's her song. Mary said, "My soul
magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced
in God, my Savior. For he is regarded the lowly
state of his maid servant for behold henceforth
all generations will call me blessed. For he was mighty has
done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on
those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength
with his arm. He has scattered the
proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the
mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the
hungry with good things, and the rich he has
sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel
in remembrance of his mercy has spoken to our fathers
to Abraham and to his seed forever." What did I just read? A teenager just said that? A 14-year-old at best, girl,
13-year-old spoke that? This is the praise that comes
out of her heart at this time. And it's worth considering. There's that question, when
you bump up against something, what spills out? Answer, whatever's inside. This is what's inside this girl. When she is bumped up against
when an angel gives her the most shocking
news of her life, this is what bubbles forth. This is her song of praise. It's called the Magnificat. It's a Latin term for the
third word in her prayer-- "My soul magnifies the
Lord"-- a song of praise. And it tells us
a lot about Mary. We're peering into
Mary's spirituality here. Do you know that one of the best
ways to get to know a person is to pray with a person? I often tell a young couple--
if they're dating, I say, do you spend much
time praying together? And then they sort of look
at me like, well, you're a pastor you're supposed
to ask questions like that. But I mean it. I remember dating my wife Lenya. And I remember one
night in particular after a dinner we
had-- I hadn't seen her for a while-- I took her
home, and we prayed together. And my impression
on that night-- I'll never forget it-- I thought,
man, I want a relationship with God like that. She is connected with God
on a level that I yearn for. And it's been said that prayer
is a window to the soul. You're peering through the
window into Mary's soul. Her heart is pretty
mature for a 13-year-old. Wouldn't you say? Last night, I gave this
message, and a proud grandfather came up to me-- I've
known him for years-- with his granddaughter,
Addison, nine years of age. He said, we came a little late. She couldn't go into
the Sunday school, so she sat with me in big church
and showed me her notebook. I said, notebook? A nine-year-old
carries a notebook? And it's filled with sermon
notes, several pages, and it said Skip's class. And she had taken notes
through several pages. And I'm looking at the
notes going, you're how old? That's what I think about when
I read this prayer of Mary. So she was real. She was humble. She was worshipful--
three character traits. Let me give you a fourth. She was scriptural. Now, get this. I hope this will
impress you about Mary. I have discovered no
less than 15 references in this teenager's prayer to
Old Testament scriptures, 15. Most scholars read this
prayer, and they go, hmm, that sounds familiar. It sounds very similar to
Hannah's prayer, First Samuel Chapter 1 and 2, where Hannah,
you remember, was barren, and the Lord said she's
going to have a boy. And his name was Samuel. So there is a corollary,
and probably I wouldn't doubt
that after Mary was told that she's pregnant
by the Holy Spirit she went and found the
scroll in the synagogue that had First Samuel
in it and wanted to read that story to bone up
on what happened back then. But Mary must have
memorized scripture. She must have, because there
are references in this prayer to the Old Testament law, first
five books of Moses, prophets, and the psalms,
all in her prayer. Let me give you an
example, a few examples. Verse 46, she says, "My
soul magnifies the Lord." That's an echo of
Psalm 34, Verse 2. "My soul shall make its boast in
the Lord or magnify the Lord." Verse 47, "My spirit has
rejoiced in God, my Savior." Sounds very much
like Isaiah 45:21. "The is no God besides me. A just God and a Savior,
there is none besides me." Look at Verse 48. Mary says, "For he has regarded
the lowly state of his hand maiden or his maid servant." That's very much
like what Hannah prayed in First Samuel 1:11. "You will indeed look on the
affliction of your maidservant and remember me." Verse 48, "For behold
henceforth all generations will call me blessed,"
sounds like Genesis 30 when Leah, the
wife of Jacob, prayed, "Happy am I for the daughters
will call me blessed." Amazing. Verse 49, Mary says,
"For he who is mighty has done great things for me." That's an echo of
Psalm 126, Verse 3, "The Lord has done
great things for us." And then finally, Verse
49, "And holy is his name," a direct quote of
Psalm 111, Verse 9. Here's the thought
I walk away from. Mary must have paid close
attention in the synagogue when the scriptures were read. Don't you think? For her as a 13
maybe 14-year-old to have this kind
of a prayer, she must have paid close attention. Now again, here
is a teenage girl who knew the Old
Testament, and she didn't have a concordance she
could pull out and look it up. This just flowed from her. On occasion, I meet a
very spiritual teenager. Whenever I do, I'm so
impressed, and I pause, and I gravitate toward that one,
whether it's a girl or a guy, when they have that heart
for God at a young age. And I want to channel that. I want to get behind that. I want to encourage that. Because I remember when
I was 17, 18, and I'd just come to Christ. And I had all this
zeal and energy, and I had a mentor who saw that
and saw that's a good thing. But it has to be directed. It has to be challenged. 1 Timothy, Paul writes to
young Timothy and said this. I love it. "Let no one
despise your youth." Another translation, let
no one look down on you because you are young. Did you know Jesus
lead a youth movement? If you're picturing
the apostles as gray headed, gray bearded old
guys sitting around a table, you got the wrong impression. They were young. It was a youth movement that
Jesus spread around the world. So here's a teenager,
Mary, without a library, without a computer, without
internet Bible programs, and this comes out. Not only does she
know her Bible, this girl knows theology. As I read her prayer, she knows
about the Abrahamic covenant. She knows about the
Davidic covenant. Man, she knows stuff
pastors I know don't know. And let me just give a footnote
to this, because I just want to press this just a bit. Then I'll leave it. You will never regret as
you grow older spending too much time with scripture. I've never met a person on
their deathbed to think, I wish I wouldn't have
memorized so much Bible. Because it's at times
like your death bed or like a bed of suffering
and pain that those scriptures come back to comfort you, that
you have placed in your heart, that you remember. And they carry you through, and
Mary knew that as a young girl. So when people bump into
you, what comes out of you? Same answer, whatever's inside. From the abundance of the heart,
Jesus said the mouth speaks, and this is what she spoke. She was real. She was humble. She was worshipful,
and she was scriptural. Let's close on this. She was also needful. She was needful. Verse 46, Mary said, "My
soul magnifies the Lord." Verse 47, "And my
spirit has rejoiced in God-- say it out loud,
my what-- my Savior." My what? Savior. Thank you. Who needs a Savior ? Yeah, I know. I appreciate that. Let me rephrase that. Technically, I know you do. We all do but, who
needs a savior? A sinner needs a savior. Savior is only good to
somebody who needs saving. That's what a savior is. A savior comes and does
what a person cannot do, saves the person,
delivers the person. So for Mary to say God
is my Savior-- not just quoting the scripture, but
he is my Savior-- denotes that she has a need. She recognizes that she
has a need for salvation. Now, I'm pressing
that, because nothing is stated here or
anywhere else in the Bible that Mary was immaculate,
that Mary was to be prayed to, that Mary dispenses grace. Somebody might say,
now wait a minute. Verse 48 says, "He has
regarded the lowest state of his maidservant. Behold henceforth
all generations will call me blessed." That's right. Look at what it says. It didn't say all
generations will ask me to give them a blessing. They're going to regard
me as the one who's the recipient of the blessing. They're going to
call me blessed. This is what God
has done for me. Verse 49 says, "He who is mighty
has done great things for me, and holy is his name." Listen, the greatest
thing God ever did for Mary was to
save her, and she knew that she needed
saving, that she along with everyone else was
a sinner in need of salvation. She admitted that. Hey, do you remember the time
when somebody came up to Jesus? This is the first
time Mary worship started to get in vogue. It was during Jesus' own time. A man came up to Jesus
in Luke Chapter 11. Listen to his words. He said, "Blessed
is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." Now, that sounds
very similar to what I remember growing up with. "Blessed is the mother who
gave you birth and nursed you." And Jesus immediately
spouted back, "Blessed rather are those who hear the
word of God and obey it." He didn't say, oh, you're right. Blessed is my mother. None of the apostles, none
of the writings of the New Testament venerate
Mary in any capacity. But they would agree
with what Jesus said. "Blessed are those who hear
the word of God and obey it." Did you know that Mary
would be the first one to be appalled if she saw or
knew that people were praying to her, venerating her? Now, I do believe Mary
should be honored. I do believe that what Elizabeth
said of her in Verse 42, "Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." I believe that. She is to be honored. Best way to honor Mary is to
worship the God she worshipped. Best way to honor Mary
is to receive the Savior that she birth into the world. That's the best
way to honor her. You remember that song
"Mary Would You Know?" or "Mary Did You
Know?" by Mark Lowry? And some people think
it's an ancient hymn. It's pretty recent actually, but
a lot of people love that song. Mary, did you know
that your baby boy would one day walk on water? Mary, did you know that
your baby boy would save our sons and daughters? But my favorite
verse is, did you know this child
that you delivered would soon deliver you? Yes, she knew that. She may not have known
it at all at that moment. She's sort of figuring
this thing out. But by the end of Jesus'
life, she will know it. She'll discover it over
time as she raises Jesus. Can you imagine raising
a perfect child? See, you can imagine
that, can you? I can't. I've never seen one. Can you imagine
how frustrating it would be to be a brother
or sister of Jesus? I know. He's perfect. Mary would watch, and
Mary would discover. And she would hide these
things in her heart, and she would stand at
the foot of the cross. And she will know one day
that the baby she delivered would deliver her, and she
includes you, by the way. She includes you in
her song, Verse 50. "And his mercy is on
those who fear him from generation to generation." That includes you. This is your generation. This is one of those
generations she sung about in the
lyrics of her song. That's us. His mercy is still
around to save. Father, thank you for this
young girl-- very, very unique, very honored, very
blessed among all women. Not to be worshiped,
but to be honored. Not to be prayed to,
but certainly learned from and learned about,
seen as an example. And what a humbling
example she is. We thank you for her, Lord. We thank you for
her spirituality, her scriptural emphasis. We thank you for her
humility, her simplicity. And we thank you for the
Savior that she bore. The issue is never Mary. It's always the Messiah,
the Savior of the world, the incomparable
Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood alone saves a
man or a woman from sin. Hey, as your eyes are
bowed, you're praying, maybe you're just
realizing you don't have a relationship
with the Savior, you're not walking
with Jesus, you're not living obediently to Jesus. You know him or you know
about him religiously, culturally from your
family, but you've never met him personally. He's not the center
of your life. You've never received him as the
one who cleanses you from sin. I want to give you an
opportunity to do that. Real quickly in closing,
our heads are bowed. Our eyes are closed. Mine are going to be open. I'm going ask you, if
you don't know Jesus yet, I want you to raise
your hand up and say I want to receive him
right now, right here. I'm willing to just
pray a simple prayer and ask Jesus to
come into my heart. Just keep your hand
up for a moment. God bless you right
up here in the front. Anyone else? Just raise that hand up. Just say, yep, I
need to do this. I know I do. Pray for me. Here's my hand. God bless you to my
left-- a couple of you. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Right up here in the front. Toward the back,
way in the back, thank you for raising it high. Father, we just want
to pray for those who have raised these hands and
pray that you just bring change to them, hope to them,
peace to their hearts as Jesus becomes the very
center of their lives. So wherever you are right now,
if you raised your hand up, I want you to pray with me. I want you to say these words
from your heart to the Lord. You can say them out
loud if you wish. You can say them
silently if you wish. Say Lord, I give you my life. I know that I'm a sinner, and
I'm asking you to forgive me. I believe that Jesus
died on a cross, that he shed his
blood for my sin, and that he rose from the grave,
and that he's alive right now. I turn from my past. I turn from my sin. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. I want to live for
him as my Lord. Help me to do that. In Jesus' name, amen. Though she was human
just like everyone else, Mary exhibited attributes
that led her to be chosen to birth our savior. What did you learn
from her example? Let us know. Email mystory@calvaryabq.org. And just a reminder, you can
give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/give. Thank you for listening to
this message from Calvary Albuquerque.
