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Submitting to the Relentless God
by Ken Gehrels
Bible Reading: Luke 1: 26-38
Hands out - pushing away; rejecting.
Hands out - No! Wait.
Ever notice how some people seem to instinctively put their hands out.
Unlike "hands up" people.
We've been spending time this summer considering the Relentless nature of God.
Relentlessly pursuing us. Relentlessly shaping our lives. Relentlessly hanging
on to us.
Relentless in preparing salvation. Relentless to eternity.
The Relentless God is also an enormously large God.
When He invades our lives, it is not always possible to fully scope it, to
contain it, or even
sometimes to understand it.
What God is concerned about is our response -
Hands out?
There are some men and women ordained as Christian leaders who approach their
work with a hands out attitude -
Reading the miracle accounts in Scripture, which seem to supersede typical
natural patterns, they don't understand how they can be possible.
How could it be that a few loaves and some fish feed thousands?
There are other Christians who read the accounts and say - "What they say,
that's what happened. That's what I believe."
They receive it as presented. Far more receptive than some of their leaders.
When you open the Bible to Luke 1, you are confronted by exactly the same
situation. A few weeks ago we focused on the priest Zechariah. Schooled in the
matters of faith. Anointed into holy temple service. Literate in the Scriptures.
But when a real life angel appears to him, the priest backs away. He holds out
his hands. He's not sure. He resists.
The one who is supposed to be the spiritual leader of God's chosen people is
left dumb - in more ways than one.
The chapter continues by moving the spotlight to the village of Nazareth. Here
we meet someone with a "hands up" posture. A simple girl. But receptive.
Beautiful in her faith. Willing.
Read the account with me, please -
LUKE 1:26-38
The Bible doesn't say, but if Mary followed the typical pattern of her day,
she'd have probably been around 14 or 15 years old. A young teenager. She would
have been living at home, learning all the needed skills for life from her
mother. She would not have received much formal training, not even much
religious instruction. That was reserved for the men.
I trust that we can appreciate that she had questions in her untrained mind.
"Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you."
She doesn't run away. She doesn't resist in unbelief.
It's just so very overwhelming for this young girl, inexperienced in life and
without much religious teaching to guide her through this moment.
Her attitude is rather different than that of Zechariah, the religious
authority, the trained one, the leader.
Mary's only question is one of direction - "How can this be, since I am a
virgin?"
Mary was betrothed, something far more binding than what we understand by
"engaged" here in Canada. To be betrothed was a legal commitment. If your
beloved died during this period, you'd be referred to as a widow. But you didn't
yet live together. And you didn't sleep together. That waited until marriage.
That was the law - no committing adultery.
And that was OK with the angel, who speaks words of reassurance to this young
woman with the hands held out and the heart open wide.
And the open-handed Mary responds -
One thing Mary would get -
And yet - there's her answer:
Have you ever wondered why God chose to go to the north country of Israel, to a
non-descript home, to a plain young teenager?
Why did the Creator choose her to be the mother of His Son?
Why would God choose her?
Actually, as you leaf through the Bible, you'll come across page after page
where exactly the same thing happens.
Moses, raised as a prince among the Egyptians, has to flee and live 40 years in
the desert before God sends him back to lead Israel to freedom.
Gideon, prince among his people, has to send all but 300 of his army home before
God uses him to defeat 10's of thousands of enemy soldiers.
Paul, great mind and trained theologian, is thrown roughly off his high horse,
blinded, and sent packing into the desert and then back to his home. For three
years he's left in oblivion - just him and God. Only then is he ready to serve.
The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:
Mary consents.
And if He knows, it'll work out just fine.
Zechariah - hands held up in protest - had life figured out. He knew what would
work and what wouldn't.
Zechariah had to learn that if his way of life and God didn't fit, then it was
the way of life that would have to change.
A lesson somewhere in there for us too, wouldn't you say?
Her simplicity is juxtaposed to Zechariah's stubborn disbelief
As Cecil Murphy puts it in his study, The Relentless God,
Murphy writes, "No matter how powerful the divine invasion of our lives, and no
matter
Mary is the vehicle for Christ's entrance to the world.
And one other thing - perhaps something that speaks directly to our free
enterprise way of North American thinking -
Can you tell me how often Mary takes advantage of her position as the Mother of
Jesus?
Do you know the answer?
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
What a marvelous inspiration for us all!
And a reminder - that all our talents, all our understanding, all our
opportunities are given into our lives by the Spirit of Christ. They are not
something that we earn or deserve for our personal gain.
Part of the reason that our Saviour pursues us, relentlessly, is not only to
enable us to belong to His eternal family, but also to be an active, serving
member of His team here on earth.
What do we have that God didn't give us?
If we win a promotion to office manager, have perfect pitch in one ear, or
become known as the best cook in the community, doesn't that give us the
opportunity to say, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord."
Here's the thought for today -
Could it be?
O Lord, Divine Pursuer, and Gracious God -
Source: A Sermon delivered at the Calvin Christian Reformed Church of Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada.
Hands up - ready to receive; welcoming.
Try it.
As you do, the different postures almost set you up for a different attitude.
Hands up - Ok! Come on.
They're the skeptics of the bunch.
Won't believe it unless they see it for themselves.
If it isn't logical, if they don't understand it, they don't have time for it.
They tend to stand back.
They tend to resist.
They'll receive what you say.
They'll go along with what is told them.
Not necessarily gullible. But open. Receptive.
or Hands up?
How could it be that a dead man could live again?
And they push away.
They interpret things allegorically.
Or simply read past them.
Why her? What has she done to
deserve this?
Why not the local rabbi or his wife..... or Mary's mom? Why her?
He, too, asks questions. But his are
more defiant in nature. He knows how things work.
The message of the angel makes
no sense. It defies the laws of nature. He holds his hands out.
And God's
messenger has to come down hard on him.
Other translations read, "....since I am not married?"
Mary knew that.
Her desire was to remain pure.
So - confusion swirled as to what the angel meant.
- last verse of our reading -
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
- what would come would be very difficult.
A baby outside of the regular route of marriage and a husband.
Questions.
Probably pointed fingers and whispering.
Rejection. Maybe even by Joseph.
Not sure.
But maybe.
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
Nothing spectacular about her.
Nothing outstanding.
Nothing seemingly brilliant.
Except....
Except that her hands, so to speak, are open.
And that,
I think
is the answer to the question.
Precisely because she has nothing to point back to herself. No impressive
resume. Just a willing heart and open hands.
Ordinary people are plucked from the crowd
to do extraordinary things for God.
And, even when God chooses people that seem
to have something going for them, from a human point of view, sometimes God
chops them down to size.
Where is the one who is wise?.... Where is the debater of this age? Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world?...
For God's foolishness is wiser than
human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength....
God chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might
boast in the presence of God.
Nothing complicated.
No need to fully understand, or see the whole program, or
to get a handle on it.
Just a simple, total trust on her part that if God's
announcing it to be this way, He must know what's going on.
End of story.
He had his beliefs and his ways of doing things. His
systems. And this didn't fit.
And so he is forced to live out the words of Psalm
46.10, "Be still and know that I am God."
Like the other big name characters,
Zechariah has to be brought low before he can be of service to God.
Not God or God's sovereign ways.
Zechariah.....
and then there's Mary -
Unsure of what will come, but sure of who will bring it.
Mary, Mary -
Thank you for deep, deep words:
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
from which this sermon series draws its inspiration
We're only the flashlights that direct others to look heavenward.
how mightily the spirit uses any individual, it doesn't happen for our prestige.
Our answer is
always to be - Here am I, the servant of the Lord."
A willing vessel.
Hands, life, her very body - open.
How often does she use it to move to the front of the line, or gain some
recognition?
Never once does she do it.
There are no acts of carpe deim for Mary's personal gain!
Those are the words of someone who has been found by the Holy and Relentless
Pursuer, and rejoices to be used in what ever way the Saviour has chosen for
them.
[Cecil Murphy The Relentless God p.47]
Could it be that the greatest pleasure Christ finds in our lives is not first of
all in
outstanding achievements and our moving forward and upward in life, but a solid,
open,
receptive humility that says:
I have nothing, and can never be anything except by God's grace.
Protect us from being inflated by our own success or achievement.
Remind us that it's not our own doing.
But that it's all about you!
Lord Jesus Christ,
We are your servants.
Do with us, this week, as you desire.
Amen.
See Also:
Sermons, Bible Commentaries, Bible Analyses on Annunciation to St. Mary
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