WILL
I ACCEPT GOD’S DESTINY FOR ME?
5
Questions that Determine Your Destiny – Part 1
12-02-12
Sermon
For the next five weeks we’re going
to look at the crucial questions of
Christmas. The destiny of your life
is largely determined by the questions you ask.
The questions you ask yourself will determine the quality of your life. The questions you ask yourself will largely
determine the quality of your life. And
the more brave and the more honest the questions you ask of
yourself in life, the further you’re going to go.
So we’re going to look at the
most important questions of life.
In that very first Christmas
the destinies of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men and even the
innkeeper were all determined by how they each answered an important question
of life. We’re going to look at those
five questions.
Next week we’re going to look
at the question Joseph had to ask himself. And it changed his destiny. The week after that we’re going to look at
the question the shepherds had to ask and that is, who is this Jesus? The weekend after that we’re going to look at
the question that the wise men had to ask themselves that changed their destiny. And the weekend after that on Christmas Eve,
we’re going to look at the question the innkeeper had to ask. But today I want us to start with Mary. And the question that Mary had to ask herself
and it is the title of today’s message: Will
I accept God’s destiny for me?
There are a lot of misconceptions
about Mary. So let’s just clear them up
right here at the start. First, Mary was
not perfect. Number two, Mary was not
sinless. Number three, Mary was not God. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to pray to Mary. Nowhere.
Nowhere in the Bible are we told to worship Mary. Nowhere.
But the Bible does tell us about who Mary was.
What made Mary very special was
not that she was perfect or sinless, but that she was willing to accept her
destiny. And she was willing to accept
and trust God in things that she was called to do.
The Bible tells us Mary’s story
in Luke 1. The Bible says this in verse
26, “In the sixth month, God sent the
angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin engaged to be married
to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel said to Mary, ‘Greetings, you who
are highly favored! The Lord is with you!’
Mary was greatly troubled at his [the angel’s] words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”
You need to understand, Mary is
extremely young. In Bible times, because
marriages were arranged, you could be engaged at twelve and married at thirteen. One of the reasons is that people often died
in their thirties or forties from disease.
They didn’t live to be seventy, eighty, ninety years. You got married early because you had a fairly
short life.
Mary is, at the most, fifteen years
of age. She’s probably thirteen or
fourteen. She was just barely into her
teenage years. One day an angel shows up
and the angel says, “Have I got a plan
for you! You are not going to believe
this! God has got this incredible plan. And what he’s about to do is really fantastic. He’s going to send a Savior into the world. He’s going to come in human form and he’s going
to be born into this world like everybody else.
And by the way, you’re going to be the mom without having sex.”
And Mary goes, Me? That’s
a pretty fantastic story. Your destiny
is to have a baby without having sex and the baby will be God.
It says here “Mary was greatly troubled…” You might circle that. Greatly troubled. I looked up this Greek word in the Bible and
it means scared spitless! I think anybody
would be if you got that word. Mary was
greatly troubled. She doesn’t know what
to think. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know who to tell. I’m going to have a baby without having sex
and it’s going to be God. She’s thinking,
nobody’s going to believe me. My mom’s not going to believe me. My girlfriends aren’t going to believe me. I can’t believe I’m going to tell Joseph, who
I’m engaged to, I’m pregnant but you’re not the dad and I’ve never had sex. And he’s going, Right! The community is not going to believe me. If your friend told you this, would you believe
her? Not a chance!
She’s afraid. Then it says in verse 30, “The angel said, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary! You
have found favor with God. You will be
with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the
Son of the Most High. The Lord God will
give him the throne of David, [What the angel is doing here is giving her
code words that this is the Messiah. This
is the promised Savior. This is the Son
of God. Code words.] and he will reign over the house of Jacob
forever; and his kingdom will never end!’”
This is code word for the Son
of God, the Messiah, the Savior. He’s
saying this is no ordinary birth because this is no ordinary baby. This is not going to be the son of
Joseph. This is going to be the Son of
God.
In verse 34 Mary says this: “‘How will this be?’ [Good question!] Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin.’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One
to be born [the baby you’ll carry] will
be called the Son of God. [Not the
son of Joseph – the son of God] Even
Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age… and she’s
already in her sixth month. For nothing
is impossible with God.’”
Why did God choose Mary over
all the women on the planet? Why Mary?
It wasn’t because of her education. She had none.
It wasn’t because of her wealth. She
was a poor peasant girl. It wasn’t
because of her maturity. She’s barely a teenager. Why did God choose Mary?
Because she trusted God completely
and she was willing to accept God’s destiny even though it meant hardship,
misunderstanding, criticism from everybody who was around her and nobody would
understand it. She was still willing to
accept God’s destiny for her.
It mentions Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Mary’s aunt. She was well up in age. She was a very old woman and she had never
had any children. She and her husband
had been unable to conceive. She’s in
the middle of her own miraculous birth where an angel had shown up to Elizabeth
and said you’re going to have a baby. You’ve
never had a baby in your life. You’re
old. You and your husband are going to
have a baby and that baby would be John the Baptist. Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins.
It’s just like God to provide Mary
with a relative who would understand her miracle. Because nobody is going to understand a
virgin birth. But Elizabeth, her aunt,
is already having her own miraculous birth, a baby at a very old age when she’s
never had children. She understands. So Mary goes to Elizabeth’s house to live
with her for a few months.
Here’s the news to Mary. What is Mary’s answer? Verse 38,
“Mary responded, [to the angel] ‘I am
the Lord’s servant, and I am willing [This is the key] to accept whatever he wants.
[I am willing to accept God’s destiny for me.] May everything you have said come true!’ And the angel left.”
Why did Mary say yes to her
destiny? It was going to be tough. It was going to be misunderstood. It was going to be challenged. Why did Mary say yes in spite of her fears,
in spite of her doubts, in spite of her questions?
Fortunately, Mary wrote a song. In that song she tells us her five reasons
for accepting God’s destiny for her life.
Mary’s song is covered in about
ten verses in Luke 1. It’s one of the
great pieces of poetry in history. It’s called
the Magnificat. Mary’s Magnificat, this
poem that she writes, this song that she sings, has been used as a basis of all
kinds of operas and oratorios and literally thousands of songs have been
written about this great piece of poetry.
Mary’s song is found in these
ten verses. In this passage, Mary’s
song, we find the five reasons why she accepted God’s destiny for her life. They are the same five reasons why you need to
accept God’s destiny for your life. Why
God’s destiny for your life is far better than anything you can think up for
your life. Why God’s destiny is far
better than anything anybody else can think up for you to do with your life. Why God’s destiny for your life is the best for
your life. She gives us five reasons.
1. Because God
made me for his purpose.
You are God’s idea. You are God’s invention. You are God’s innovation. You are God’s product. You didn’t create yourself. You were created by God. You are God’s creation. He formed you, God designed you, God crafted
you, God constructed you, God built you for his purpose. That’s your destiny. God never makes anything without a purpose
and he made you for his purpose and that’s a destiny. Who knows more about you than God does?
Not only did God make you and
create you and form you and shape you, God saved you. Because even though he has a destiny for your
life, he doesn’t force you to follow it.
And you didn’t. And you went off
and started following your own way, started doing your own thing, started going
after your own plan for your life and you’ve messed up and you’ve sinned. So he not only created you, he sent Jesus to
come and die for you, for your sins, and to save you.
This is what Mary says in the
first verse, verse 46 and 47, Mary
said, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my
spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” He
didn’t just make me. He saved me. Circle
the word “rejoices.” Mary is saying I’m
not doing this haphazardly. I’m not doing
this vision reluctantly. I’m not
following God’s plan because I have to. I’m
following it eagerly, expectantly, enthusiastically. I’m doing it rejoicing. I’m happy.
This is what I was made for. Now
I know this is why I’m here on earth. This
is my purpose and I’m doing this rejoicing.
I’m not following God’s plan, hating it the whole time. I’m following God’s plan knowing it’s the
best plan for me because it’s what I was made to do.
When it comes to life planning,
even a lot of Christians act like atheists.
They accept God for their salvation.
But then they think, “I can just go out and plan my life any way I want
to.” Really? You think God put you on earth to live for
yourself? I don’t think so. Do you think God put you on this planet
without a purpose? I don’t think so. Do you think God put you here just to waste
your life? I don’t think so. No. God
made you for his purpose. And who better
to trust with your destiny than the one who made you. That’s her first reason.
2. Accepting
God’s destiny for my life is best because no one cares for me more.
No one cares more about my life
than God does. He cares about your life,
actually, more than you do. He cares
about your life!
Do you remember that old Willie
Nelson song You Were Always on My Mind? There’s a word for that: baloney! If you aren’t there when she needs you, if
you aren’t there when she has a question, if you aren’t there in the tough times
of life, it doesn’t matter. You’re not
thinking about her. Maybe I wasn’t there
in all the stages of your life but you were always on my mind. Liar! That’s
just not true. You’re just justifying
the fact that you didn’t show up in her life.
Let me tell you something. I love my wife. I love her to death. But she’s not always on my mind. I think about a lot of other things. I love my kids. I love my kids to death. But they’re not always on my mind.
But I want to tell you this: You
are always on God’s mind. He is never
not thinking about you. Because God is
love and his love is perfect and he is always thinking about you. He’s thinking about you right now. He thinks about you more than you think about
yourself.
Look at what the Bible says. I could give you hundreds of verses on this. Psalm 115:12, “The Lord is constantly thinking about us and he will surely bless us.”
There is never a moment in your life
he is not thinking about you. 1 Peter
5:7 “Give God all your worries and cares for
he is always thinking about you.” You
are always on his mind. And he is
watching everything that concerns you.
Whatever concerns me concerns
God. Whatever worries you, God’s
concerned about. Whatever makes you
afraid, God’s concerned about. Whatever
gets you uptight, God is concerned about.
There is nothing in your life that you’re concerned about that God isn’t
concerned about, because you are always on his mind.
That’s the second reason why
you ought to go with his plan not your plan for your life. First, he made you for his plan and second,
he’s always thinking about you. Whatever
concerns me, concerns God. God is always
looking out for you.
Mary accepted God’s destiny because
she knew God was always looking out for her.
It was going to be tough. It
wasn’t going to be easy. God’s destiny for
your life will have problems. God’s
destiny for your life will have criticism.
God’s destiny for your life will have things that are really tough to do. But he’s looking out for you and you’re
always on his mind.
Mary says this in Luke 1:48 “For he has been mindful of the humble state
of his servant.” Circle “mindful.” This is the second reason she says I can trust
God. Because he’s mindful of the humble
state of his servant. That’s me, Mary
says.
What does “mindful” mean? That means he’s alert. He’s attentive. He’s aware.
He’s focused. He’s paying attention. When nobody else is paying attention to you,
God’s paying attention to you. He
notices everything. In fact, Jesus said
this about your life. Matthew 10, “Not even a little sparrow can fall to the
ground without your Father noticing it. The
very hairs on your head are numbered.”
You don’t even know how many hairs on your head you’ve got. But God says, I know. That’s how much detail I pay attention to in
your life. I know how many hairs are on
your head. God knows how many hairs are
in your ear! And nose! He knows it all. There’s nothing God doesn’t know about your
life.
And Mary says I can trust God
with my destiny. I am willing to go with
his plan because first he made me for it and second he’s paying attention to
everything in my life.
3. Mary says in
her song, the Magnificat, that accepting God’s destiny for my life is best because
it is the key to blessing.
I want God’s blessing on my
life. I want God’s blessing on your
life. But the key to God’s blessing is to
go with his destiny for your life. God
isn’t going to bless your plan. If you
ignore God’s plan for your life and you go out with your plan, good luck, because
you’re on your own. God owes you nothing. If you say, forget God, I’m going to go with
my plan for my life, God owes you nothing.
God only blesses when we do what we were created to do.
Following God’s destiny is the
way I get God’s blessing on my life. And
Mary knew this. She knew that faith and obedience
to God were the keys to his blessings. She
knew that that’s what God would do in her life.
Luke 1:48 she says this, “From now on, every generation will call me
blessed! For he, the Mighty One, is holy, and he has done great things for me. He chose me and God will show his mercy…
[She says not only will God bless me, but she says…] God will show his mercy to every generation who will worship and serve
him.” God doesn’t just bless me. He’ll bless anybody who worships and serves
him, who follows God’s plan for their lives.
What’s Mary saying here? She’s going, if I accept God’s destiny for my
life, I’m going to be the most blessed woman on the planet. What God is going to do through me and
through my teenage body will never be forgotten.
You think, “Maybe that’s true of
Mary but that’s certainly not true of me.”
You’re dead wrong. Everything you
do will be remembered for eternity. It’s
not going to be remembered on earth. But
everything you do will be remembered for eternity. It’s not just Mary’s destiny. She said whatever I do is going to be remembered
forever and ever and ever. And
everything that you do is going to be remembered by God forever and ever and
ever. That’s why you better make your
life count. You better not waste it. You’d better go with God’s destiny for your
life.
Here’s the question: Could Mary
have said no to God’s destiny for her? Yes. God doesn’t ever force his plan on us. He gives us a choice because he wants us to
follow him because we love him, not because we’re forced to love him. If God had wanted to, he could have given you
no free will; you would have had to do what he wanted you to do. He could have made you a puppet, a marionette
on strings and you would have no choice.
But God says it’s only love if you choose to love. So you can choose not to love God. You can choose to not follow his destiny for
your life.
The fact is, most of the people
in the world miss their destiny. Billions
of people miss the destiny God created them for because they choose to go after
their own plan instead of God’s plan for their life.
Could Mary have missed it? Yes. Could
you? Yes. Let’s go back to our very first verse, the
theme verse of Decade of Destiny. We talked
about it probably a dozen weeks ago. It’s
our theme for the next ten years. Deuteronomy
30:19, God says this, “This day I have
set before you life or death, blessings or curses. Now choose life [He says it’s your choice. It’s your decision. I’m not going to force it on you. I’m going to let you choose. Choose life.] so that you and your children may live.” Your choice will not only affect your life,
they affect the next generation.
The Bible says this in James
4:17 “Remember, to know what you ought to
do and then not do it is sin.” It
would have been better if you had never come to Saddleback and didn’t know
about it. But God brought you here and
you know that you have a church family that says we’re going to help you grow for
the next three years. Are you going to
do anything about it? Or are you going to
miss the blessing?
4. Mary
says accepting God’s destiny for my life is best. It’s better than any plan
I can come up with because God honors
humility.
It takes humility to say, God,
I’m going to go with your plan, not my plan.
It takes humility to say, God, I’m going to go your way, not my way. That takes humility.
Pride, arrogance, says forget you,
God. I’m going to do what I want to do. I have my plans, my dreams, my ambitions. The Bible says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” The Bible says, “Before honor is humility.” The
Bible says, “Humble yourself before the
Lord and he will lift you up.”
I want God to honor you in the
next ten years. I want him to honor your
business. I want him to honor your
family. Want him to honor your life. The Bible says, “Before honor is humility.” I
want God to lift you up. I want him to
lift up your finances. I want him to
lift up your health. The Bible says, “Humble yourself before the Lord and he will
lift you up.” It starts with humility.
Mary talks about this in the
next couple of verses, verses 50-53. “Now he [God] has displayed his power with many mighty deeds but has scattered the
people who are proud and think they are the great ones. [in other words, I
don’t need God] He has brought down
mighty rulers from their thrones but has raised up the humble! He has filled the hungry with good things but
sent the rich away with nothing!” Those
people who think I don’t need God.
Notice this is the great reversal. This is an amazing piece of poetry. I wish you could hear it in the original language.
Taylor Swift. She’s a pretty amazing songwriter. She wrote her first song at age ten. By age fourteen Taylor Swift was hired by Sony
to write songs. How would you like to be
a fourteen year old being paid by Sony Corporation to write songs? That’s talent.
But I want to tell you: The
greatest teenage songwriter who ever lived was Mary. Mary is thirteen or fourteen and she’s
writing this poetry and it’s quite a song.
In these ten verses she mentions seventeen different attributes of God
and she strings together ten different verses from the Old Testament from
memory. Could you do that at thirteen? You couldn’t do it now! This is why God chooses Mary. Mary knew the Word. She wasn’t educated. You’re far better educated than Mary ever was. But she knew the Word. If you want God’s blessing you need to know
God’s Word. You need to study it and
memorize it and meditate on it and get to know it. If you want God’s blessing you need to know
the Word.
5. Accepting
God’s destiny for my life is best because God keeps his promises.
This is the fifth thing Mary
sings about. God keeps his promises. It’s a big theme of Mary’s song, that God is
faithful. God can be counted on. God is good and if he makes you a promise you
can count on it. It’s going to happen. It may take a while but it’s going to happen.
Luke 1:54-55 “And he [God] has kept the promise he has made to our ancestors,[What is that
promise? That God would send a Savior, a
Messiah.] and has come to the help of his
servant Israel. He has remembered… [God
doesn’t forget a promise he makes. I
forget promises I make. God remembers.] he has remembered to show mercy to Abraham
and to all his descendants forever!”
What in the world is she talking
about? Two thousand years before Mary,
Abraham lived. It was two thousand years
ago Mary lived; so four thousand years ago from today Abraham lived. Four thousand years ago God makes a promise to
Abraham. “I’m going to bless your family because through your line one day I’m
going to send the Savior of the world. Through
your family line I’m going to send the promised Messiah who will save everybody
from their sin.” That was a promise made
by God four thousand years ago to Abraham.
And Mary knew the story had been promised thousands of years ago and
she’s saying, “He keeps his promise!”
In fact, Mary’s story began
hundreds and hundreds of years before Mary was even born. In Isaiah 7 – this is thousands of years ago
for us – God tells Isaiah a prophecy “Therefore
the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold
a virgin shall conceive [He predicted this.
This is thousands of years ago] and
bear a Son and shall call his name Emanuel.” The destiny of Mary’s life began thousands of
years before Mary was even born.
And the same is true of
you. God planned your destiny before he
created the world. The Bible says that very
clearly. Your destiny was planned, not
the moment you took your first breath. Your
destiny was planned thousands of years before you were even born. The Bible says before he formed the earth,
God had us in his mind. And he still
gives you the choice to accept it or to miss what he planned before you were
even born.
Mary’s destiny was planned. She accepted it and the truth is the Savior did
come to earth and God did keep his promise and Jesus did come at Christmas. Then he died on the cross for us.
It’s interesting that in the Scriptures,
not one time in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Not once.
Never in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. But we are told over and over and over to
celebrate his death and his resurrection.
Because if Jesus hadn’t died on the cross and been resurrected again,
Christmas wouldn’t even matter.
We’re going to celebrate Christmas. But today we’re also going to take Communion,
the Lord’s Supper, because Jesus gave two symbols to remember his death and his
burial and his resurrection. One is baptism. If you haven’t been baptized the way Jesus
was, you need to be baptized. And two is
communion. But I want us to begin with a
prayer. Would you bow your heads with me
as we pray together?
I want to pray a prayer of surrender. I’m going to invite you to pray this: Will
you accept God’s destiny for your life just as Mary did? The one that was planned for your life before
you were even born. Or are you going to
continue to go with your plan? Would you
pray this: Father, today I surrender humbly
to your plan for my life. I surrender humbly
to your plan for my life. I realize that
you made me for your purpose. I realize
that no one cares more about my life than you do. I know that going with your plan for my life
is the key to blessing. So I humble myself
before you knowing that you honor humility.
Thank you that you keep your promises.
I want to fulfill my destiny. Today
I make a faith commitment to you. Just
like Mary did. While I don’t understand
it and I don’t understand all that’s going to be involved in it, but I’m saying
yes to you Jesus, in advance. Jesus
Christ, I trust you with my life and I ask you to save me, and change me, and help
me to follow your plan from this day forward.
In your name I pray. Amen.
WILL
I ACCEPT GOD’S DESTINY FOR ME?
5
Questions that Determine Your Destiny – Part 1
12-02-12
Sermon
For the next five weeks we’re going
to look at the crucial questions of
Christmas. The destiny of your life
is largely determined by the questions you ask.
The questions you ask yourself will determine the quality of your life. The questions you ask yourself will largely
determine the quality of your life. And
the more brave and the more honest the questions you ask of
yourself in life, the further you’re going to go.
So we’re going to look at the
most important questions of life.
In that very first Christmas
the destinies of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men and even the
innkeeper were all determined by how they each answered an important question
of life. We’re going to look at those
five questions.
Next week we’re going to look
at the question Joseph had to ask himself. And it changed his destiny. The week after that we’re going to look at
the question the shepherds had to ask and that is, who is this Jesus? The weekend after that we’re going to look at
the question that the wise men had to ask themselves that changed their destiny. And the weekend after that on Christmas Eve,
we’re going to look at the question the innkeeper had to ask. But today I want us to start with Mary. And the question that Mary had to ask herself
and it is the title of today’s message: Will
I accept God’s destiny for me?
There are a lot of misconceptions
about Mary. So let’s just clear them up
right here at the start. First, Mary was
not perfect. Number two, Mary was not
sinless. Number three, Mary was not God. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to pray to Mary. Nowhere.
Nowhere in the Bible are we told to worship Mary. Nowhere.
But the Bible does tell us about who Mary was.
What made Mary very special was
not that she was perfect or sinless, but that she was willing to accept her
destiny. And she was willing to accept
and trust God in things that she was called to do.
The Bible tells us Mary’s story
in Luke 1. The Bible says this in verse
26, “In the sixth month, God sent the
angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin engaged to be married
to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel said to Mary, ‘Greetings, you who
are highly favored! The Lord is with you!’
Mary was greatly troubled at his [the angel’s] words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”
You need to understand, Mary is
extremely young. In Bible times, because
marriages were arranged, you could be engaged at twelve and married at thirteen. One of the reasons is that people often died
in their thirties or forties from disease.
They didn’t live to be seventy, eighty, ninety years. You got married early because you had a fairly
short life.
Mary is, at the most, fifteen years
of age. She’s probably thirteen or
fourteen. She was just barely into her
teenage years. One day an angel shows up
and the angel says, “Have I got a plan
for you! You are not going to believe
this! God has got this incredible plan. And what he’s about to do is really fantastic. He’s going to send a Savior into the world. He’s going to come in human form and he’s going
to be born into this world like everybody else.
And by the way, you’re going to be the mom without having sex.”
And Mary goes, Me? That’s
a pretty fantastic story. Your destiny
is to have a baby without having sex and the baby will be God.
It says here “Mary was greatly troubled…” You might circle that. Greatly troubled. I looked up this Greek word in the Bible and
it means scared spitless! I think anybody
would be if you got that word. Mary was
greatly troubled. She doesn’t know what
to think. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know who to tell. I’m going to have a baby without having sex
and it’s going to be God. She’s thinking,
nobody’s going to believe me. My mom’s not going to believe me. My girlfriends aren’t going to believe me. I can’t believe I’m going to tell Joseph, who
I’m engaged to, I’m pregnant but you’re not the dad and I’ve never had sex. And he’s going, Right! The community is not going to believe me. If your friend told you this, would you believe
her? Not a chance!
She’s afraid. Then it says in verse 30, “The angel said, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary! You
have found favor with God. You will be
with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the
Son of the Most High. The Lord God will
give him the throne of David, [What the angel is doing here is giving her
code words that this is the Messiah. This
is the promised Savior. This is the Son
of God. Code words.] and he will reign over the house of Jacob
forever; and his kingdom will never end!’”
This is code word for the Son
of God, the Messiah, the Savior. He’s
saying this is no ordinary birth because this is no ordinary baby. This is not going to be the son of
Joseph. This is going to be the Son of
God.
In verse 34 Mary says this: “‘How will this be?’ [Good question!] Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin.’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One
to be born [the baby you’ll carry] will
be called the Son of God. [Not the
son of Joseph – the son of God] Even
Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age… and she’s
already in her sixth month. For nothing
is impossible with God.’”
Why did God choose Mary over
all the women on the planet? Why Mary?
It wasn’t because of her education. She had none.
It wasn’t because of her wealth. She
was a poor peasant girl. It wasn’t
because of her maturity. She’s barely a teenager. Why did God choose Mary?
Because she trusted God completely
and she was willing to accept God’s destiny even though it meant hardship,
misunderstanding, criticism from everybody who was around her and nobody would
understand it. She was still willing to
accept God’s destiny for her.
It mentions Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Mary’s aunt. She was well up in age. She was a very old woman and she had never
had any children. She and her husband
had been unable to conceive. She’s in
the middle of her own miraculous birth where an angel had shown up to Elizabeth
and said you’re going to have a baby. You’ve
never had a baby in your life. You’re
old. You and your husband are going to
have a baby and that baby would be John the Baptist. Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins.
It’s just like God to provide Mary
with a relative who would understand her miracle. Because nobody is going to understand a
virgin birth. But Elizabeth, her aunt,
is already having her own miraculous birth, a baby at a very old age when she’s
never had children. She understands. So Mary goes to Elizabeth’s house to live
with her for a few months.
Here’s the news to Mary. What is Mary’s answer? Verse 38,
“Mary responded, [to the angel] ‘I am
the Lord’s servant, and I am willing [This is the key] to accept whatever he wants.
[I am willing to accept God’s destiny for me.] May everything you have said come true!’ And the angel left.”
Why did Mary say yes to her
destiny? It was going to be tough. It was going to be misunderstood. It was going to be challenged. Why did Mary say yes in spite of her fears,
in spite of her doubts, in spite of her questions?
Fortunately, Mary wrote a song. In that song she tells us her five reasons
for accepting God’s destiny for her life.
Mary’s song is covered in about
ten verses in Luke 1. It’s one of the
great pieces of poetry in history. It’s called
the Magnificat. Mary’s Magnificat, this
poem that she writes, this song that she sings, has been used as a basis of all
kinds of operas and oratorios and literally thousands of songs have been
written about this great piece of poetry.
Mary’s song is found in these
ten verses. In this passage, Mary’s
song, we find the five reasons why she accepted God’s destiny for her life. They are the same five reasons why you need to
accept God’s destiny for your life. Why
God’s destiny for your life is far better than anything you can think up for
your life. Why God’s destiny is far
better than anything anybody else can think up for you to do with your life. Why God’s destiny for your life is the best for
your life. She gives us five reasons.
1. Because God
made me for his purpose.
You are God’s idea. You are God’s invention. You are God’s innovation. You are God’s product. You didn’t create yourself. You were created by God. You are God’s creation. He formed you, God designed you, God crafted
you, God constructed you, God built you for his purpose. That’s your destiny. God never makes anything without a purpose
and he made you for his purpose and that’s a destiny. Who knows more about you than God does?
Not only did God make you and
create you and form you and shape you, God saved you. Because even though he has a destiny for your
life, he doesn’t force you to follow it.
And you didn’t. And you went off
and started following your own way, started doing your own thing, started going
after your own plan for your life and you’ve messed up and you’ve sinned. So he not only created you, he sent Jesus to
come and die for you, for your sins, and to save you.
This is what Mary says in the
first verse, verse 46 and 47, Mary
said, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my
spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” He
didn’t just make me. He saved me. Circle
the word “rejoices.” Mary is saying I’m
not doing this haphazardly. I’m not doing
this vision reluctantly. I’m not
following God’s plan because I have to. I’m
following it eagerly, expectantly, enthusiastically. I’m doing it rejoicing. I’m happy.
This is what I was made for. Now
I know this is why I’m here on earth. This
is my purpose and I’m doing this rejoicing.
I’m not following God’s plan, hating it the whole time. I’m following God’s plan knowing it’s the
best plan for me because it’s what I was made to do.
When it comes to life planning,
even a lot of Christians act like atheists.
They accept God for their salvation.
But then they think, “I can just go out and plan my life any way I want
to.” Really? You think God put you on earth to live for
yourself? I don’t think so. Do you think God put you on this planet
without a purpose? I don’t think so. Do you think God put you here just to waste
your life? I don’t think so. No. God
made you for his purpose. And who better
to trust with your destiny than the one who made you. That’s her first reason.
2. Accepting
God’s destiny for my life is best because no one cares for me more.
No one cares more about my life
than God does. He cares about your life,
actually, more than you do. He cares
about your life!
Do you remember that old Willie
Nelson song You Were Always on My Mind? There’s a word for that: baloney! If you aren’t there when she needs you, if
you aren’t there when she has a question, if you aren’t there in the tough times
of life, it doesn’t matter. You’re not
thinking about her. Maybe I wasn’t there
in all the stages of your life but you were always on my mind. Liar! That’s
just not true. You’re just justifying
the fact that you didn’t show up in her life.
Let me tell you something. I love my wife. I love her to death. But she’s not always on my mind. I think about a lot of other things. I love my kids. I love my kids to death. But they’re not always on my mind.
But I want to tell you this: You
are always on God’s mind. He is never
not thinking about you. Because God is
love and his love is perfect and he is always thinking about you. He’s thinking about you right now. He thinks about you more than you think about
yourself.
Look at what the Bible says. I could give you hundreds of verses on this. Psalm 115:12, “The Lord is constantly thinking about us and he will surely bless us.”
There is never a moment in your life
he is not thinking about you. 1 Peter
5:7 “Give God all your worries and cares for
he is always thinking about you.” You
are always on his mind. And he is
watching everything that concerns you.
Whatever concerns me concerns
God. Whatever worries you, God’s
concerned about. Whatever makes you
afraid, God’s concerned about. Whatever
gets you uptight, God is concerned about.
There is nothing in your life that you’re concerned about that God isn’t
concerned about, because you are always on his mind.
That’s the second reason why
you ought to go with his plan not your plan for your life. First, he made you for his plan and second,
he’s always thinking about you. Whatever
concerns me, concerns God. God is always
looking out for you.
Mary accepted God’s destiny because
she knew God was always looking out for her.
It was going to be tough. It
wasn’t going to be easy. God’s destiny for
your life will have problems. God’s
destiny for your life will have criticism.
God’s destiny for your life will have things that are really tough to do. But he’s looking out for you and you’re
always on his mind.
Mary says this in Luke 1:48 “For he has been mindful of the humble state
of his servant.” Circle “mindful.” This is the second reason she says I can trust
God. Because he’s mindful of the humble
state of his servant. That’s me, Mary
says.
What does “mindful” mean? That means he’s alert. He’s attentive. He’s aware.
He’s focused. He’s paying attention. When nobody else is paying attention to you,
God’s paying attention to you. He
notices everything. In fact, Jesus said
this about your life. Matthew 10, “Not even a little sparrow can fall to the
ground without your Father noticing it. The
very hairs on your head are numbered.”
You don’t even know how many hairs on your head you’ve got. But God says, I know. That’s how much detail I pay attention to in
your life. I know how many hairs are on
your head. God knows how many hairs are
in your ear! And nose! He knows it all. There’s nothing God doesn’t know about your
life.
And Mary says I can trust God
with my destiny. I am willing to go with
his plan because first he made me for it and second he’s paying attention to
everything in my life.
3. Mary says in
her song, the Magnificat, that accepting God’s destiny for my life is best because
it is the key to blessing.
I want God’s blessing on my
life. I want God’s blessing on your
life. But the key to God’s blessing is to
go with his destiny for your life. God
isn’t going to bless your plan. If you
ignore God’s plan for your life and you go out with your plan, good luck, because
you’re on your own. God owes you nothing. If you say, forget God, I’m going to go with
my plan for my life, God owes you nothing.
God only blesses when we do what we were created to do.
Following God’s destiny is the
way I get God’s blessing on my life. And
Mary knew this. She knew that faith and obedience
to God were the keys to his blessings. She
knew that that’s what God would do in her life.
Luke 1:48 she says this, “From now on, every generation will call me
blessed! For he, the Mighty One, is holy, and he has done great things for me. He chose me and God will show his mercy…
[She says not only will God bless me, but she says…] God will show his mercy to every generation who will worship and serve
him.” God doesn’t just bless me. He’ll bless anybody who worships and serves
him, who follows God’s plan for their lives.
What’s Mary saying here? She’s going, if I accept God’s destiny for my
life, I’m going to be the most blessed woman on the planet. What God is going to do through me and
through my teenage body will never be forgotten.
You think, “Maybe that’s true of
Mary but that’s certainly not true of me.”
You’re dead wrong. Everything you
do will be remembered for eternity. It’s
not going to be remembered on earth. But
everything you do will be remembered for eternity. It’s not just Mary’s destiny. She said whatever I do is going to be remembered
forever and ever and ever. And
everything that you do is going to be remembered by God forever and ever and
ever. That’s why you better make your
life count. You better not waste it. You’d better go with God’s destiny for your
life.
Here’s the question: Could Mary
have said no to God’s destiny for her? Yes. God doesn’t ever force his plan on us. He gives us a choice because he wants us to
follow him because we love him, not because we’re forced to love him. If God had wanted to, he could have given you
no free will; you would have had to do what he wanted you to do. He could have made you a puppet, a marionette
on strings and you would have no choice.
But God says it’s only love if you choose to love. So you can choose not to love God. You can choose to not follow his destiny for
your life.
The fact is, most of the people
in the world miss their destiny. Billions
of people miss the destiny God created them for because they choose to go after
their own plan instead of God’s plan for their life.
Could Mary have missed it? Yes. Could
you? Yes. Let’s go back to our very first verse, the
theme verse of Decade of Destiny. We talked
about it probably a dozen weeks ago. It’s
our theme for the next ten years. Deuteronomy
30:19, God says this, “This day I have
set before you life or death, blessings or curses. Now choose life [He says it’s your choice. It’s your decision. I’m not going to force it on you. I’m going to let you choose. Choose life.] so that you and your children may live.” Your choice will not only affect your life,
they affect the next generation.
The Bible says this in James
4:17 “Remember, to know what you ought to
do and then not do it is sin.” It
would have been better if you had never come to Saddleback and didn’t know
about it. But God brought you here and
you know that you have a church family that says we’re going to help you grow for
the next three years. Are you going to
do anything about it? Or are you going to
miss the blessing?
4. Mary
says accepting God’s destiny for my life is best. It’s better than any plan
I can come up with because God honors
humility.
It takes humility to say, God,
I’m going to go with your plan, not my plan.
It takes humility to say, God, I’m going to go your way, not my way. That takes humility.
Pride, arrogance, says forget you,
God. I’m going to do what I want to do. I have my plans, my dreams, my ambitions. The Bible says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” The Bible says, “Before honor is humility.” The
Bible says, “Humble yourself before the
Lord and he will lift you up.”
I want God to honor you in the
next ten years. I want him to honor your
business. I want him to honor your
family. Want him to honor your life. The Bible says, “Before honor is humility.” I
want God to lift you up. I want him to
lift up your finances. I want him to
lift up your health. The Bible says, “Humble yourself before the Lord and he will
lift you up.” It starts with humility.
Mary talks about this in the
next couple of verses, verses 50-53. “Now he [God] has displayed his power with many mighty deeds but has scattered the
people who are proud and think they are the great ones. [in other words, I
don’t need God] He has brought down
mighty rulers from their thrones but has raised up the humble! He has filled the hungry with good things but
sent the rich away with nothing!” Those
people who think I don’t need God.
Notice this is the great reversal. This is an amazing piece of poetry. I wish you could hear it in the original language.
Taylor Swift. She’s a pretty amazing songwriter. She wrote her first song at age ten. By age fourteen Taylor Swift was hired by Sony
to write songs. How would you like to be
a fourteen year old being paid by Sony Corporation to write songs? That’s talent.
But I want to tell you: The
greatest teenage songwriter who ever lived was Mary. Mary is thirteen or fourteen and she’s
writing this poetry and it’s quite a song.
In these ten verses she mentions seventeen different attributes of God
and she strings together ten different verses from the Old Testament from
memory. Could you do that at thirteen? You couldn’t do it now! This is why God chooses Mary. Mary knew the Word. She wasn’t educated. You’re far better educated than Mary ever was. But she knew the Word. If you want God’s blessing you need to know
God’s Word. You need to study it and
memorize it and meditate on it and get to know it. If you want God’s blessing you need to know
the Word.
5. Accepting
God’s destiny for my life is best because God keeps his promises.
This is the fifth thing Mary
sings about. God keeps his promises. It’s a big theme of Mary’s song, that God is
faithful. God can be counted on. God is good and if he makes you a promise you
can count on it. It’s going to happen. It may take a while but it’s going to happen.
Luke 1:54-55 “And he [God] has kept the promise he has made to our ancestors,[What is that
promise? That God would send a Savior, a
Messiah.] and has come to the help of his
servant Israel. He has remembered… [God
doesn’t forget a promise he makes. I
forget promises I make. God remembers.] he has remembered to show mercy to Abraham
and to all his descendants forever!”
What in the world is she talking
about? Two thousand years before Mary,
Abraham lived. It was two thousand years
ago Mary lived; so four thousand years ago from today Abraham lived. Four thousand years ago God makes a promise to
Abraham. “I’m going to bless your family because through your line one day I’m
going to send the Savior of the world. Through
your family line I’m going to send the promised Messiah who will save everybody
from their sin.” That was a promise made
by God four thousand years ago to Abraham.
And Mary knew the story had been promised thousands of years ago and
she’s saying, “He keeps his promise!”
In fact, Mary’s story began
hundreds and hundreds of years before Mary was even born. In Isaiah 7 – this is thousands of years ago
for us – God tells Isaiah a prophecy “Therefore
the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold
a virgin shall conceive [He predicted this.
This is thousands of years ago] and
bear a Son and shall call his name Emanuel.” The destiny of Mary’s life began thousands of
years before Mary was even born.
And the same is true of
you. God planned your destiny before he
created the world. The Bible says that very
clearly. Your destiny was planned, not
the moment you took your first breath. Your
destiny was planned thousands of years before you were even born. The Bible says before he formed the earth,
God had us in his mind. And he still
gives you the choice to accept it or to miss what he planned before you were
even born.
Mary’s destiny was planned. She accepted it and the truth is the Savior did
come to earth and God did keep his promise and Jesus did come at Christmas. Then he died on the cross for us.
It’s interesting that in the Scriptures,
not one time in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Not once.
Never in the Bible are we told to celebrate Jesus’ birth. But we are told over and over and over to
celebrate his death and his resurrection.
Because if Jesus hadn’t died on the cross and been resurrected again,
Christmas wouldn’t even matter.
We’re going to celebrate Christmas. But today we’re also going to take Communion,
the Lord’s Supper, because Jesus gave two symbols to remember his death and his
burial and his resurrection. One is baptism. If you haven’t been baptized the way Jesus
was, you need to be baptized. And two is
communion. But I want us to begin with a
prayer. Would you bow your heads with me
as we pray together?
I want to pray a prayer of surrender. I’m going to invite you to pray this: Will
you accept God’s destiny for your life just as Mary did? The one that was planned for your life before
you were even born. Or are you going to
continue to go with your plan? Would you
pray this: Father, today I surrender humbly
to your plan for my life. I surrender humbly
to your plan for my life. I realize that
you made me for your purpose. I realize
that no one cares more about my life than you do. I know that going with your plan for my life
is the key to blessing. So I humble myself
before you knowing that you honor humility.
Thank you that you keep your promises.
I want to fulfill my destiny. Today
I make a faith commitment to you. Just
like Mary did. While I don’t understand
it and I don’t understand all that’s going to be involved in it, but I’m saying
yes to you Jesus, in advance. Jesus
Christ, I trust you with my life and I ask you to save me, and change me, and help
me to follow your plan from this day forward.
In your name I pray. Amen.
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