I wanna start this morning by telling you a story of an amazing event that happened. About seven years ago, I heard the story of a young youth pastor when I was studying actually still in Brisbane doing my theological training. A young youth pastor who was also a worship pastor of a big church in Brisbane who was newly married. He'd been married for seven, eight months, something like that. Beautiful wife, beautiful bride.
And he was shocked one morning to find out that she had passed away in her sleep. Very suddenly, very unexpectedly, that there was a haemorrhage in her brain that they had no idea she had and peacefully, but definitely had passed away in her sleep. And this man, early twenties, was a widower. And he had to work through this and obviously that few days of just intense shock and pain and, you know, had rushed her to the hospital, but obviously too late. That afternoon after, you know, she had been pronounced dead, instead of going home, this young guy went to his church, this big auditorium, and went and sat behind a piano and started worshipping God.
And one of the pastors that told me this story was the one who discovered him in this huge auditorium by himself playing music and worshipping God. He just said this, told this story to, I don't know, to make a point. But for me, it was so shocking. And so it made me question how I would have reacted. Would I have worshipped God in that moment?
Could I have brought myself to that point? What motivated him to do that? There are two ways to live your life, friends. One is to start with your life and your life experiences and project them onto God. In this bottom up approach, the result is that we can have very powerful, extremely powerful emotions of how God works in our circumstances.
But it is always circumstantial. We can have very powerful moments with God, very close intimacies with Him. When life is good, God is good. He's a good God, and He's close, and He loves me, and He cares for me. But when things are hard, when things are tough, you start to wonder, is He really there?
And if He's there, is He really good? And the objection that you've probably heard before from non-Christians, non-Christian friends, or family members comes creeping in. If God is good, why do bad things happen? The result with this bottom-up view is that you start pointing everything back to your feelings, or your feelings become the starting point to everything. And it's not necessarily a bad place to start.
It's not necessarily a bad place to be because we are emotional beings. God does work in our emotions. But you must also consider that this starting point is mixed up in the brokenness of your emotions. This starting point is mixed up in the brokenness of your emotions and your experiences.
Emotions are very subjective. And they can be prone to massive change. We know that, don't we? At some point, if you were to be honest, you'll have to admit, if you approach God in this way that you are projecting your experiences of God, your experiences around you onto God and deciding whether God is right or wrong, whether He is good or bad by your standards at this very specific moment in your life. And the truth is you can be a Christian and you can have this view.
The reality is you'll have questions about God, but you'll never worship God. You'll have questions about God, but never worship Him for who He is. And the Bible indicates that the worship of God is what we were actually designed to do. It is the goal of mankind. In other words, the Bible says you will be most satisfied when you find your satisfaction in God alone, on who He is rather than on what He has done for me lately.
When our view of God is influenced by our experiences of what's around us, we're going to be in a difficult place and some of us might be there right now. The only thing that you're certain about is that your future is very uncertain. You may not even quite be certain of God at this point. Life has become very complicated, maybe because of your mistakes, but maybe because of other people's mistakes that have affected you. The other way to live is to believe that God is who He says He is, to believe that the Bible is true and that it reveals to us the character and the nature of God.
In other words, to interpret our life through what Scripture tells us about Him, to interpret our life in light of what God says and who He says He is. If that's the case, and if we go to Scripture, we come to see that God is good. Scripture tells us that God is good. That He made the world good. That it is us who have corrupted it through sin.
That sin and suffering in this world, the brokenness that we've experienced, the pain, death is a result of the rebellion of Satan and his angels, of humanity, mankind, against God. And that despite all that, God is still good, that He is altogether and always good. God has a plan for us and that He is working at unfolding this plan throughout history and that He is a redeemer, that He is a liberator, and that He is a healer. This is what the Bible says. And this is the option we have to choose to believe it or not.
But the question I wanna ask you this morning is, have you been able to let these truths, which you may have heard before, about God filter all the way down into your heart, into your soul? Does this truth make you rest easy or do you still wrestle with worry? Are you still anxious? This morning, we're going to be looking at a situation in the Bible that would have been beyond stressful, and we're going to unpack it a little bit. And I'm gonna share with you just some of the amazing insights of what happened here.
It's a story about a young woman called Mary. You may know of Mary. Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was a moment that she was able to move from a state of worry into a state of worship, and it has some very powerful implications for us. So let's have a look at that this morning.
Luke 1. Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1:26-38, and then we'll skip ahead a little bit, and we'll read verses 46-56. So firstly, Luke 1:26. This is the Christmas story. In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favoured. The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be, but the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favour 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 His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. How will this be, 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 will be called the son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is already in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said.
Then the angel left her. Then we look ahead at Mary's song, a worship song that she sung to God. Verses 46-56. Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is His name. His mercy extends to those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with His arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but He has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as He said to our fathers. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. So far, reading this morning. At Christmas time, we hear the story, don't we?
Beautiful sentimental story of the incarnation, of Jesus coming to earth. We listen to the angels' announcements to the shepherds. We hear them praising God. We hear about the three wise men with their gifts. And apparently, a drummer boy that comes and plays his drum to Jesus.
But if we look closer at the story, you'll see that it's actually very dark. It's actually very scary. We come to understand a great deal of uncertainty and danger in this story. We see Mary in a circumstance where she would have had ample opportunity. We'll put up that slide, please.
Ample opportunity to be worrying. This young woman had so much to be worried about. For those of us who worry well, for those of us who say, yep, worry is my spiritual gift, I'll claim it. You're the ones that are exceptional worriers, health, finances, relationships, children, security. There's a lot to be concerned about.
Well, Mary is in a situation where there was plenty to be worried about. The scripture we read this morning is recording a season in her life where she was away from home firstly. She was away from home. She was in another town. She didn't exactly know what would await her when she returned after having heard this announcement.
You are going to have a child. An angel had appeared to her in a vision and told her that she was pregnant. Pregnant, but how? She was a virgin, she said. The angel said that the Holy Spirit had come and performed a miraculous power.
She knew how you had babies. She knew how you conceived. But she was to have a child. Ask yourself this question, how believable is this story to your non-Christian friend? A virgin birth, come on.
She knew what was going to wait for her when she came back. She knew what people were gonna think. Come on, let's be serious. Probably a romp while you were away, while your fiance was away, got you pregnant and now you're trying to cover up with some crazy story. You think Mary had a reason to be worried, to be concerned.
Would Joseph then actually want to marry her? After all, she had said she was a virgin, but who would believe that? Would he believe that? Would he marry her perhaps to save face because he was an honourable man, but then leave her afterwards? Maybe he would save her some shame, but after the birth, quietly divorce her, leave her as a single mother.
What about her reputation to family, with her friends? She would be called hideous things for what people thought had happened. She could tell everyone I love God and I put him first in my life, but what's happened to me is a miracle. God has made me pregnant, and surely they would all laugh. You think people today are the only ones that have trouble believing in the immaculate conception?
Who would who doesn't believe? Who wouldn't believe that? Not to mention the worry about giving birth alone. In those days, having a baby is not like having a baby at our fantastic suites here at the Gold Coast University Hospital where you can have your very own bathtub that looks like a sauna. Amazing.
It was nothing like that day. It was messy. Women died all the time during childbirth. Infection. Babies died all the time during childbirth.
Having a baby was not great. It was not fun. There was no medical care. She was poor. She was not going to have nurses and people looking after her.
And remember, all of this happened to a girl of about the age of 15 or 16. That's how old she was. Put that all together, and man, that is pressure. What a way to start. Here's God saying you're gonna be pregnant.
Thanks, God. I'll have fun with that. Can't wait to start planning the baby shower. Imagine the stress. Mary is in a season of her life where she has a lot to be worried about.
But rather than worrying, what do we find? We find her worshipping. Do you want to know what the opposite of worry is? It's worship. It's not meditation.
It's not positive thinking. It's not being distracted by other things. It's worship. And Mary said, or she's saying, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour, for He has been mindful of the humble estate of His servant. Worry denies the care of a sovereign, kingly God.
Tim Keller says that worry is sin because it denies, firstly, the wisdom of God. It says that He doesn't know what He's doing. It denies the love of God. It says He doesn't care about what's happening to me. And thirdly, it denies the power of God because it says that He isn't able to deliver me from what is causing me to worry.
God doesn't care. God doesn't love, or He's not wise, and He's not powerful. So worry in itself is practical atheism. It is forgetting God in your situation. Worry is practical atheism.
Worry gives you the delusion that you have strength and capacity through your mind or through your planning or through your actions to change the situation in some way. It's a delusion that we tell ourself that we have the strength, and it tries to keep God from working on our behalf. And therefore, both worry and worship cannot exist in the heart at the same time. You cannot worry and worship God at the same time. Not really.
Because worshipping is handing yourself over to the great truths of the Bible, laying claim of them, standing on them, and worry passes away. Worry falls off from you. And so Mary in her precarious situation worships God wholeheartedly. Why? Because worship isn't simply for God.
Worship isn't designed simply for God. In fact, God doesn't need worship at all. The Bible presents God in a trinity that is fully sufficient. The Godhead worshipping and honouring one another for eternity, from eternity past. God doesn't need human worship.
God doesn't need our worship. But worship of God changes us. Worship of God gives us strength, reminds us who we are talking to, who we are relating to, who is in charge of our life. Worship changes us. And so we when we become Christians, our hearts are made aware of God, and we radically and deeply engage with Him.
And our worship of Him is in fact powerfully, amazingly for our sake, to remind us of who God is, that will find peace and rest for our souls. In Mary's song, this poem that we just read, there are, believe it or not, 17 attributes of God that she makes or recognises. 17 characteristics of God that she praises Him for, that she thanks Him for, that she reminds herself of. We're not going to be able to work through all 17, but here's a few that she says. Firstly, she says, God is Lord.
God is Lord. What this means is that God is in charge. He is above all. He's above all kings. He's above all powers.
He's above all thrones. He's above my boss. He's above my wife. He's above the person that I really don't like right now. He's above Satan and demons and all religions.
Mary says that her God, our God, is above everyone and everything, that there is no one who holds more authority than He does. The second thing, in verses 46-47, she says God is Saviour. Some Christian traditions say that she was sinless, but she wasn't. She, in fact, notes here herself that she needed a Saviour.
She needed someone to save her, and saviour here means rescuer. It means deliverer. It means hero. Mary, like all of us, was a sinner who needed a saviour. How many of us watch a movie in the dark and it's all scary and it's all gloomy, and then all of a sudden the hero comes and it's just different.
And you're like, yes. Now the story is beginning. Now the story is gonna change. Scripture is God's story of human history and His involvement in it, to rescue, to save, to redeem, to renew, like the words we sung before, to renew His kingdom. He is Saviour.
She says also in verse 48 that God is omniscient, meaning that God is all knowing, that He knows her situation, that He knows what a precarious place she's in, a perilous place that she's in. My God, she says, knows that I'm young. He knows that I'm poor. He knows that I am in a fragile state. My God knows that my reputation is going to be seriously questioned.
He knows that my life is going to be difficult and complicated even from this day onwards. My God knows. My God knows. And that, in a funny way, if you've ever been through some of the darkest times in your life, it is one of the most interesting comforts you'd know. God knows what is happening to me.
God knows what is going on. Our God knows. But then she says in verse 49, God knows and He is mighty. God knows, and He is mighty. Meaning that there is nothing that can thwart God.
There is no circumstance as tense as it can be. There's no situation that is so deadlocked and ugly that He cannot overcome, that He cannot redeem, that He cannot breathe life into. He is mighty. There's no person that can outmanoeuvre Him, outthink Him. He is powerful.
He is the one who can do the impossible. And if you believe that, if you believe all these things, the power of worry can be broken. It can be snapped like twine. In this prayer to God, Mary reminds herself of very liberating truths of who God is, that God is personal, that God is holy, that God is merciful, God is worthy, that He is powerful, that God is sovereign, that God is gracious, that God is generous, God is just, God is humble, God is faithful, God is eternal. She says all these things.
You can go and look at it yourself. She says God is all these things. And instead of worrying about these things that could possibly go wrong, being fixated on her perilous situation, she fixes her eyes on her Saviour, on the mighty warrior God. And instead of worrying, she worships. It is such a great lesson for us.
It is such an imperative thing for us to know. And practically speaking, this can be done in a number of ways. I mean, we all can worship God in very different ways. So I'm gonna give us because this is a very real thing. I'm gonna give us some practical tips.
You can use it. You can ignore them. Whatever. The first thing is we have to pray more often. We have to pray more often.
We have to come to God. We have to say these things to God. We have to remind God that He is all powerful. And in that process, we remind ourselves that He is powerful. We have to come to God more often.
We have to pray to God more often. We must set aside time for worship more. Put on that music. Put on those CDs in the car. When you're alone at home, blast the YouTube channels.
We have to worship God. We have to hear those promises, those statements about Him in songs. We have to be able to focus our minds and fill our minds in the promises of God, promises of the Bible. And so we need to read the Bible more. We need to read those promises, but we can also be reading authors that talk about the Bible, that can flesh it out more.
So go to Koorong. Go to Word Bookstores. Look on eBay, whatever, and find good sources that can fill you up with reassurances. Again, those promises of God. Make sure that they're good resources.
So watch out for the Joel Osteen's and the other ones. I won't mention them because I might offend a few. If you are looking for suggestions, I'm happy to give them. Fill yourself up on good resources. All of these things I give you are practical tips to make this point.
The worship of God, the worship of God with our heart and our soul and our mind is the only lasting thing that will conquer worry in your life. Cigarettes, drink, weed, numb the nerves, numb the anxiety. But it doesn't take it away lastingly. Sleepless nights, good planning, nail biting, which are less obvious and, you know, seeing someone smoking a cigarette, you can't see someone having a sleepless night unless you're their husband or wife or something. They're just as bad.
Sleepless nights, good planning, nail biting, they keep you busy enough. They keep your mind active enough, making you believe that you're able to control these circumstances by planning it out better, but that's not gonna bring lasting peace. The only way that you can overcome worry is to worship God, to trust God with your life. And the reason we can trust God with our life, friends, the only reason, the greatest reason we know is the example summed up on the cross. Jesus was the embodiment of the warrior God who came to fight for Mary, who came to save Mary, who came to vindicate Mary and her reputation.
Jesus is the embodiment of the all knowing God who knew our greatest need, our need to be reconciled to the life giver, the God who created us and breathed life into us. He came to fix this relationship. His victory over sin. His victory over death means that He has shown Himself to be Lord and king. The resurrected God man shows that there is nothing to ever worry about because the greatest threats to our existence have been overcome.
And that puts steel in our spines. It gives us unconquerable hope. And it means that we can never go back to the idol of self-sufficiency, to the idol or the god of worry. Because if God could rescue us from such a terrifying threat, eternal death destitution, eternal punishment away from God, if God was able to do this, will He not do the little things as well? Will He not look after His children?
Will He not be able to put food on our table? Will He not be able to give us strength under the stress? Will He not also give courage in the face of severe opposition? Friends, may we sing like Mary did in our situations. May we sing by the power of the Holy Spirit like Mary did.
May we sing to Jesus, our Saviour, that our life has been vindicated by Him. Mary sung because she knew she was being prepared for something amazing to come. And we sing because we know that God is preparing us for His kingdom, and it will be beyond amazing. May we sing until the worry passes away and the peace of God takes root in our hearts. Let's pray.
Father God, we thank You for this truth that You are the God who is all knowing, all powerful, has all authority under heaven and earth. You are the God who sees, who hears, who acts. The God who is Saviour, redeemer, and liberator. Father, may these truths never wander from our minds and hearts. And, for those moments of temptation where we, Lord, wander, where we stray, where our minds start thinking of other possibilities.
Father, I pray that You will, by Your power, bring us back, that we will be so filled up in our minds, in our hearts of the promises of Your word, Lord, that we will find courage even under great strain and pressure. Lord, we know that in this life, we will not be free of it. Lord, in this life, there is trouble, but behold, You have overcome the world. Thank You, Lord, that You are making all things new. Father, for some of us undergoing some real tough stuff, I pray that You will give them strength to endure.
I pray for us as we support them, as we nurture them and love them. Lord, may Your bride shine brightly in that. Father, I pray also that for those of us who are struggling, that You will provide a way out as well as giving us peace, Lord, provide a way out. Give healing, give restoration. Give help, Lord.
We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.