One of you ladies tell us about a difficulty you had as a new mother. When your first kid was born, what did you struggle with? Dads, I know you struggled too but I mainly want to hear from mothers. The actual birth was extremely difficult but what happened after that?
I ask that because I was thinking about what Mary the mother of Jesus must have gone through. Can you imagine? She knew she was carrying the Child of God, so no pressure there, right? You were worried about your kid when they were born. Think about what must have been going through Mary’s mind.
She was concerned about all the things new mothers are concerned about: changing the baby, burping the baby, feeding the baby, keeping Him healthy, keeping Him safe, etc., etc. But think about all the other things going on in her mind knowing her baby was literally God’s gift to the world. All babies are special to their mothers but this baby was special to the whole world for all time.
Think about what had happened so far to Mary. Out of the blue, Gabriel the angel shows up and tells her she is going to be pregnant with a child that will reign on King David’s throne. Her cousin Elizabeth knew Mary was carrying the Christ child before Mary ever told her. A bunch of smelly old shepherds busted in on them and told Mary and Joseph that angels appeared to them and told them about the baby. She knows she has to give birth in Bethlehem because the ancient scriptures prophesied it and she sees all of this prophecy coming true in her life.
Let’s look at Luke chapter two again but this week I want to focus on just one verse, verse 19. For us, Christmas Day, has come and gone. For Mary, the birth of Jesus has come and gone. Let’s see what they have in common as we read Luke 2:19. “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
I was struck with that word “pondered” or “ponder”. What does it mean to ponder? It’s not a word we use every day. I searched my concordance and found that the word is only used here and a few times in Proverbs. In Proverbs, it is usually used as what you do to a path before you walk it. You study it. You make sure it is the right path. Is it safe? Is it wise? Is it the path you are supposed to take? You gather up all the information you have about it. You ponder the path.
Every time I hear the song, “Mary, Did You Know?” I think, yes! She knew! She had been told by several including an angel. She may not have known that Jesus would do certain miracles but she knew He was God. She knew He was capable of doing anything. Later in this chapter, after meeting Simeon and Anna in the temple, it says that Mary marveled at what was said about Jesus. Yes, she knew and she was amazed. She gathered up all the information she had been given and she pondered it. She thought about, weighed it, prayed about it and made sure she was on the right path.
Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Have you ever been on that way? I have. I’ve told you before that I became a Christian as a boy and lived that way for a long time but somewhere along the line I drifted away. I knew I had drifted and I knew I was on the wrong path and so I decided (several times) to get back on the right path. Well, let’s just say I wanted to be closer to the right path.
So, what I said was, “I’m going to turn over a new leaf. I’m going to be a better man. I’m going to start living right.” Any bets on how long that lasted? Let’s just say it didn’t last long. I knew I was on the wrong path and I didn’t want the consequences of being on that wrong path but I didn’t really want to change bad enough. But finally, when I had had enough of doing things the wrong way, I went to God, asked for forgiveness and surrendered myself to His will. I pondered my future. I pondered the path I was on and I asked God to put me on the right path. I proved that I couldn’t even be a better man by myself and I proved that what I thought was the right way was actually leading to death; spiritual death if not physical death.
Go back to Mary. Mary pondered all these things. She gathered all the information she had. She took inventory of what she knew. She gathered it all together and pondered her path from that point. Jesus was now in her life. What was going to change? Yes, any old Joe Blow baby is going to change your life but this baby was going to change the world. Can you imagine what all she pondered? I hope you can imagine because you have to do some similar pondering yourself. You will find yourself changing as well.
When you have a relationship with Jesus, one of the first things you will notice is that you truly don’t want to do some of the things you used to do. Do you know how that happens? Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Well, that’s great news, right? Because you have been desiring that new bass boat at Cabela’s.
No, that’s not what that means. That means that what you used to desire is now being replaced by what God desires. He is going to start giving you new desires. What you used to desire, you now realize may have not been what God wanted for you. Maybe what you used to desire was sinful. Maybe it was just not best for you and He wants what is best for you and now you will start to want it as well. If you haven’t noticed that happening then maybe you need to rethink your relationship with God. You need to ponder about your desires.
Now, when I say that God wants to give you new desires, you may be bummed out by that. You think, “Oh great. I used to want a bass boat and now God is going to make me want to say prayers and meditate all day as I strum a harp or something stupid.” Don’t worry. There are some cool things that God wants for you including…not to worry. In fact, it is a command to not worry. Now, some of you have said for a long time, “I’m just a worrier. It’s how I was made. It’s just who I am.” Well, I don’t believe that was ever true but even if it was, in Christ you are a new creation and I guarantee you are not something He commands you not to be.
“But, Todd, it’s hard not to worry!” Yes, but God has a plan for that. He said in 1 Peter 5:7, “cast all your anxiety (your cares, your worry) on Him because he cares for you.” And when you do that, Philippians 4:7 says God will then give you peace that even you won’t understand. If you are a worrier and you just can’t change then maybe you need to ponder your relationship with God.
Something else for you to ponder: are you wise? Do you consistently do wise things? Do people come to you for advice? When I ponder my life when I was away from God, I think about some of the things I did and think, “Well, that was dumb!” You know what I found out when I was about 20? I found out that when you want something you can’t afford, don’t worry about it. Just use a credit card. You don’t need money when you have a credit card. Right?
You know what I found out at 40 as I was still paying off that stupid stuff I bought at 20? Yep, that’s right. But God wants you to have wisdom. He wants you to be wise and so He said in James 1:5 that if you want wisdom, do you know what you have to do? How much money do you think it costs? How many good things do you think you have to do or what kind of hoops do you have to jump through? No. He says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” That’s all you have to do is ask God and He promises to give it. That’s a pretty sweet deal. If in pondering your life, you don’t seem to be making wise choices then maybe you need to ponder your relationship with God and see what is wrong.
Okay, again going back to using Mary as our guide, think about how she must have felt as Jesus was growing up in her house and she did something to displease God. Some people put Mary on too high of a pedestal and consider her to be some sort of divinity but she was all human. There had to be times when she did something wrong or had a wrong thought or worried about something or coveted something. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a mass murdering, bank robbing president of the Nazareth Branch of the Hell’s Angels but she sinned like we all do sometimes. How do you think she felt when she sinned knowing that her Son…was God?
Isaiah 59:2 would have been a verse that Mary was familiar with and it says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Do you remember when you were a kid and you would do something wrong and sometimes your mother would just give you that look that showed how disappointed she was in you? Now, flip those roles and imagine what Mary saw in the face of Jesus. How can you choose to sin knowing that the sacrifice that will someday pay for your sin is looking you in the face? Yeah, I think Mary had to know that about her Son.
The question for us to ponder today is, how can you choose to sin knowing that Jesus, the sacrifice for our sin, is watching? How do you just look Him in the eye and say, “I know what I am about to do is part of what put you on the cross but I’m going to do it anyway.”? Mary’s life changed when Jesus was born in more ways than just having a baby. If you are a true believer in Jesus, your life has changed too and sin is now the exception instead of the rule. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are slaves to Jesus and you need to ponder if that is the case in your life.
Another thing that I know Mary pondered was the scriptures. Now, we don’t know for sure that Mary could even read. It was not uncommon for a girl in her status to not be able to but we know they went to the temple and she had to hear all those scriptures that prophesied about her precious Son. Genesis, Isaiah, Malachi, Micah, Psalms, Hosea, Zechariah and more all have passages that would have been just mind-blowing to Mary because she could see her Son being prophesied about and she could see how it was all coming true in her life. How exciting that must have been for young Mary! She had a lot to ponder.
For us, we need to ponder the role of scripture in our lives. When was the last time your mind was blown reading the Bible? Has it ever happened? A man in Kansas City was severely injured in an explosion. Evangelist Robert L. Sumner tells about him in his book The Wonders of the Word of God. The victim's face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new Christian, and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in braille. Much to his dismay, however, he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion. One day, as he brought one of the braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them. Like a flash he thought, I can read the Bible using my tongue. At the time Robert Sumner wrote his book, the man had "read" through the entire Bible four times.
That sounds like a Gideon story doesn’t it? But it’s true and it goes to show the power of scripture in a person’s life. If reading the Bible is only ever a boring chore for you then maybe you need to ponder on your relationship with the Person the Bible is written about. Mary had a relationship with her Son and loved to read about Him. We have a relationship with Him too and scripture should be exciting.
One last thing I believe Mary had to ponder. Can you imagine, as Jesus grew older, being able to just sit and talk to Him as Mary did? I’ve always wondered when Jesus Himself came to truly understand that He was God. I wonder this because He was also all man as well as all God and as a man, He started life as a baby and grew up into a child and into a teenager and into a man. When did He realize that He was God? As God, He could’ve known as an infant, I guess, but who knows?
Anyway, my point to ponder here is that Mary was able to have long conversations with Jesus. How cool was that? You know, I guess she could have made Him go clean His room and while in there, just sit and talk. I assume that Mary was like most mothers and enjoyed just spending time with her Son and talking with Him all the time. I can’t imagine that. Can you? Of course you can because we have the same privilege!
Look, I’m going to cut right to the chase. I am preaching all this this morning because I am afraid there are people sitting in churches all around the world thinking they are saved because they walked the aisle or prayed a prayer, maybe even got baptized and now they have some kind of fire insurance to keep them out of hell but nothing in their lives has really changed. That’s not how it works at all!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” That doesn’t mean that good works prove your salvation. It means that your heart has changed. Your mind has changed. Your “wanter” has changed and all these things I have been talking about WILL be a big part of your life. You will want what God wants. Worry, like all sins, will be a rarity. You will make wise decisions. It will pain you to sin. Scripture will be a pleasure and prayer will be constant.
If that is not how it is in your life right now then today is the day of salvation as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6:2. If you aren’t sure about your salvation after hearing this, then let’s make sure! It doesn’t cost you anything to know for sure but if you aren’t it will cost you everything. There is a real Heaven and there is a real Hell. Romans 3:23 says we are all sinners. That’s bad news. Romans 6:23 says what we deserve for that sin is eternal death in Hell. That’s really bad news. The good news is that John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That Son was born and we celebrate that on Christmas. He lived a sinless life and grew up to die on the cross to pay for our sins but He rose again after three days and went back to Heaven and we can have a relationship with Him by His grace. We don’t deserve it and all we can do is accept it and allow Him to move into our lives and start to change us and make us more like Him. Mary’s life was changed, not just because she had a baby, but because she had a relationship with Jesus. If you don’t have that relationship, come down right now as the music plays and let’s pray.
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