We're in our 19th in the series of Women of Faith. We've come to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and I'm going to read from Matthew 12, verses 46 through 50. Hear the word of God. While he was still talking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to speak with him. Then one said to him, Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you. But he answered and said to the one who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Amen. Father, what an incredible privilege it is that you give to your disciples to enter into these kinds of heights of relationship with you. Father, may you guide my preaching, keep me from stumbling or error, and enable each one of us, Father, to grow in our relationship with you as a result of looking at this marvelous model of faith that you raised up, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Bless this time of our continued worship and our continued interactions with you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the passage we just read corrects three of numerous errors that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have propagated about Mary. One error is to think that Mary had closer access to Jesus, and therefore we ought to pray to Mary. The idea is she can kind of help us to get our foot in the door when we need access to Jesus. And indeed it does seem, according to commentators, that this may have been one of the motives and actions of these brothers, they brought Mary along in order for them to be able to get access to Jesus. Well, this passage says that anyone who does the will of God, who believes in him, has equal access to Mary or his brothers. Now, related error is the belief that Jesus always answers the prayers of Mary, And therefore, if she prays on your behalf, your prayers are always going to be answered. You've got to pray through Mary. Well, both this passage and the water into wine passage in John 2, Mary receives a rebuke from Jesus and does not exactly get what she had asked for. He is helping her to move past her blood and flesh relationship. And he is helping her to recognize that her place in the kingdom is very similar to other mothers and brothers. that are believers in him. A third error that Roman Catholics have about Mary is that all grace flows through Jesus and then down to Mary to us. And yet here is a passage where people had direct access to Jesus without going through Mary. And so even this passage is a corrective to some of the errors that are out there. And so yes, Mary was highly favored by God. There could be no higher favor than burying Jesus in the womb from a human perspective. This is huge. What an awesome privilege. And yes, Mary was honored by God. And we need to honor Mary. Protestants should not neglect the honor. We are commanded to honor Mary. But making up false theology about Mary actually dishonors her. It does the exact opposite of what they were intending. And before we look at What an incredible model that Mary is to our faith and how we can follow her and imitate her. I'm going to spend the first half of the sermon really looking at what she is not and undoing some of the false assertions. By the way, Mary would be absolutely horrified at the false assertions that Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church have made about her. The first falsehood propagated by Rome is their doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This doctrine teaches that Mary was not born in sin, did not inherit a sin nature, and at the moment of her conception, she had more holiness than any other human being. That was at the time of conception. Quoting from the official catechism of the Catholic Church, they say, the most blessed Virgin Mary was from the moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. The splendor of an entirely unique holiness by which Mary is enriched from the first instant of her conception comes wholly from Christ. The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places and chose her in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love. She is the all-holy Panagia, and is free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creation." Now, the sad thing is the two scriptures that they quote to try to prove her immaculate conception, it's Ephesians 1, 3, and 4, it's written to the church, right? And the church is not exactly conceived without any sin. The other scripture they sometimes cite is Luke 1.28, where in their Latin version it says that Mary was full of grace. And they say, this is their argument, if she's full of grace, you can't fit any more grace in, which means she's perfect. There you go. She was conceived as a perfect person. Well, besides being a lousy translation, because heretou does not mean full of grace. It means highly blessed by the Lord. But besides being a lousy translation, the exact same word is used in Ephesians 1 6 of all Christians. being blessed or accepted in Christ. So there's not a shred of biblical evidence for this doctrine, nor was this doctrine the doctrine of the ancient church, you know, what people call the Catholic—they've abandoned the Catholic faith on these and many other doctrines. And I'll include notes on the web that Show this, for example, Augustine. He said that anyone who claims that anyone other than Jesus was conceived without original sin is guilty of the error of Pelagius. Read that. Augustine's basically accusing the modern Roman Catholic Church of being guilty of heresy, of the doctrine of Pelagius. And many other respected church fathers explicitly said that Mary was a sinner, and certainly the Scripture does. That's the most important thing, right? Paul said, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, not even one." The phrase, not even one, excludes Mary. Now, what makes Mary great is not a sinless conception, but the fact that she appropriated God's grace and lived by God's grace all through her life. She is a model of faith to our children because she had to fight against the same sin nature that you children have, and yet she was able to resist those sinful impulses to a greater and greater degree. So that by the time that the angel met her, this angel blessed her and said, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found grace with God. And it was by God's grace that she could believe God for impossible things. Elizabeth said, blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord. The second falsehood is stated in the Catholic catechism this way, by the grace of God, Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long. And we've already read one scripture that denied that. Here's another one. Romans 5.12 says, death spread to all men because all sinned. This is why Luke 1.30 says that Mary needed God's grace. What is grace? Grace is undeserved favor. It's undeserved. She had grace. It's undeserved because she is a sinner. That's why Mary says in verse 47, my spirit has rejoiced in God, my savior. She too needed a savior. Jesus himself said, no one is good, but one that is God. Now, of course he was God, so he was good. But that phrase, no one is good, but one, That is, God completely rules out Mary being good. In Revelation 15.4, the saints in heaven do not worship Mary. They worship God and say, for you alone are holy. To call Mary perfect throughout life contradicts the Bible, contradicts the ancient church fathers who actually submitted to the Bible. They wanted to be biblicists. And it puts Mary on a pedestal where no woman feels that we can even follow in her footsteps. Now, who in the world could follow in the footsteps of the kind of Mary that Rome paints? Nobody could. In contrast, the true Mary that I'm going to be painting for you in the second half of this sermon is a model for us that despite our sin nature, we can grow in holiness. A third falsehood about Mary is that she did not go into labor pains or deliver Jesus via natural birth. Instead, and I've got bazillions of quotes here that I'll put up on the web from the Catholic Catechism, from Popes, from the Council of Trent, they all say that what happened is that Jesus miraculously just passed through the walls of her stomach, sort of like Jesus, you know, after His resurrection and His glorified body passed through the walls and came into the room where the disciples were at. And by this means, her hymen was left intact, and she could still be a virgin after the birth of Christ. And I'll give you plenty of quotes if you want to search for this later. Sounds like a cool story. But is it true? Absolutely not. Micah 5, verses 2 through 3 prophesies the birth of Jesus in these words. But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." New Testament quotes this, absolutely says this is dealing with the birth of Jesus. And the very next word is therefore, so that's connecting this birth of Jesus with what's going to be said, it says, therefore, He shall give them up until the time that she who is in labor has given birth." Now, the word for labor is the ordinary word for painful labor, and the word for birth is the ordinary word for natural birth, right? Now, the Roman Catholics are trying to protect Mary, but in the process, they actually fail to make Mary a model for women. Point by point, Rome is robbing you of the various ways in which you can imitate Mary and follow Mary's faith. Aubrey Smith says, as a Christian who went through childbirth three times, it never occurred to me to think of Mary as an example. Perhaps if my babies had been due around Christmas, the connection might have crossed my mind. But Mary's experience of pregnancy and labor, especially her body's role in the incarnation, was the subject of many early theologians' wonderings. And she talks about them. And then she talks about how that morphed. And later theologians denied that she went through labor, had any pain whatsoever. And she says, while these Roman Catholic theologies seek to protect Jesus's divinity, from taking on human defilement within Mary's womb, they missed the point. The incarnation was the moment that Jesus fully entered into the human reality. He did not shun it or protect himself from it. So Mary did not shun the mess and the hard work of labor and birth. She went through enormous discomforts when she was riding that donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. She, you know, went through the inconvenience that many women in India and third world countries go through when in their poverty they give birth to a baby in the outside or in a shed instead of in their home. She was a woman's woman and she went through it with faith and the scripture says she pondered these things in her heart. I'll try to demonstrate that Mary was a real woman of faith that you can imitate. The next falsehood is that she was perpetually a virgin after the birth of Jesus. Now, we totally agree with the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox that she was a virgin prior to the birth of Jesus. It was a virgin birth. Matthew 1.25 affirms that. But that same verse affirms that she had sexual relations with Joseph after the birth. And by the way, if that seems wrong to you, then you need to repent of an ungodly, unbiblical view of sexuality. You need to repent of that. It says, And Joseph did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. Now, the two words translated as till imply that Joseph had sexual relations with her afterwards. But Roman Catholics, they're just appalled at that thought. They think it is blasphemy because they've been infected with this idea that sexual relations are inevitably accompanied by sin. They have taught that it would be blasphemy to affirm any defilement of the womb, the womb that held Jesus. That's got to be kept sacrificing. We say, what defilement? What defilement? God honors the marriage bed. Hebrews 13.4 denies that sexual relations defile anything. Indeed, it says, marriage is honorable among all, and the marriage bed undefiled. And the word for marriage bed there is kowitte, which really means coitus, sexual relations. They do not defile. Third, Mary would actually have been in sin if the two of them had abstained forever from intimacy because God commands all couples to be fruitful and multiply. It's a command of God. You got to try. Fourth, It wouldn't be a proper marriage if there wasn't eventual consummation. Indeed, Exodus 21 says that deliberate failure to have sexual relations is such a serious sin, it is grounds for divorce. Verses 10 through 11 say, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her sexual rights. And if he does not do those three for her, then she may go out free. She can divorce him. Why? because it's a breaking. It's a fundamental breaking of the marriage covenant. Fifth, Jesus is spoken of as Mary's firstborn son in Matthew 125 and Luke 2 verse 7. The latter verse says, and she brought forth her firstborn son. Well, that implies she had other born sons after that. If this was her first son, then there had to be at least a second. Sixth, Paul condemns the asceticism of this sort of thing. Asceticism came from the Greeks. It did not come from the Bible. He condemns this asceticism in Colossians 2 and 1 Timothy 4. And I won't read those touch not, taste not, handle not passages, but they're basically castigating this idea that those things are sinful. Seventh, in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul commands, let the husband render to his wife the affection due her. and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Eighth, the scripture explicitly says that Jesus had brothers and sisters. He had four brothers and at least two sisters. Let me read you some scriptures. Matthew 12, 46, it says his mother and brothers stood outside. Mark 3, 31, his brothers and his mother came. Luke 8, 19, then his mother and brothers came to him. John 2.12 – After this he went down to Capernaum, he, his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they did not stay there many days. John 7.3 – His brothers therefore said to him. John 7.5 – For even his brothers did not believe in him. John 7.10 – But when his brothers had gone up, Then he also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Acts 1.14, these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. Psalm 69.8 is a prophecy of Jesus. And it says, these are words of Jesus. I have become a stranger to my brothers. and an alien to my mother's children." So yes, his mother had children, plural. And there are other references to his sisters that I won't read. It is inconceivable to me that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Psalm 69 would all use the normal terms for brothers and sisters if indeed they were cousins, as the Eastern Orthodox claim that they are. There's a perfectly good word for cousins in the Bible, and it's used in the New Testament. The Roman Catholics have a different theory. They say that Joseph was married to someone else before he married Mary, and that these were children from that previous marriage. They're his children. But Psalm 69 speaks of his mother's children. D.A. Carson explains why this and a similar theory are a real stretch. He says, yet it is very doubtful whether such a meaning is valid here, for it raises insuperable problems. For instance, if brothers refers to Joseph's sons by an earlier marriage, not Jesus, but Joseph's firstborn would have been legal heir to David's throne. The second theory, that brothers refers to sons of a sister of Mary, also named Mary, faces the unlikelihood of two sisters having the same name. All things considered, the attempts to extend the meaning of brothers in this pericope, despite McHugh's best efforts, are nothing less than far-fetched exegesis in support of a dogma that originated much later than the New Testament. Now, if those eight points are true, then it means Mary is a wonderful example in another area of life, in marriage, okay? She is a godly example of self-control, and both Joseph and Mary would have had to exercise great self-control in those, because he married her quite a ways into the pregnancy, but during those months before she delivered. And there are times where husbands and wives must learn to exercise self-control. There are times to abstain, right? So she's a godly example of self-control. She's also a model of how to embrace intimacy and labor and birth and having multiple children and of being a faithful wife to a faithful husband. She's a wonderful model of faith. She knew what it meant to miss sleep because of sick babies, you know, staying up at night. She is a model to us. She's not some figment of our imagination that we have a hard time relating to. But there is a fifth falsehood that robs Mary of reality and in the process robs us of a wonderful role model. We're trying to clear away the rubbish here in the first half of the sermon. Too bad there is even rubbish, but we're trying to clear it away so we can see what a great role model Mary is. While there are some Roman Catholics who believe Mary died and was immediately resurrected, caught up to heaven before her body could decay, the official teaching of Rome denies that Mary died. For example, in 1950, Pope Pius XII stated dogmatically that Mary did not die. Now, this is an area where the Eastern Orthodox differs with the Roman Church, and they say, yeah, she died, and on the end of history, her body will be raised. Okay, that's the Eastern Orthodox. But in contrast, Pope Pius XII said that Romanists must believe that she was taken body and soul into heaven without dying. Roman Catholic Catechism says this. Finally, the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up, body and soul, into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords, and conqueror of sin and death. Let me read some scriptures that say the exact opposite. All flesh shall perish together, and man shall return again unto dust. all go to one place, all return to dust. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned, as in Adam all die. I think it's pretty clear that even after the time of Mary, the apostles said, all die. There's no exceptions because all have sinned. Roman Catholics are trying to elevate Mary by giving her these Christ-like characteristics, but in the process, they are painting an unrealistic woman that we cannot relate to. She faced the death of Jesus with pain and with faith, and she faced her own death with faith as well. She was a real woman. Falsehood number six is absolute blasphemy. Roman Catholic popes and councils have declared that Mary is a co-redeemer with Jesus, using her merits to help redeem mankind. In 1935, Pope Pius XI called her co-redemptrix. Pope John Paul II did the same in a 1985 speech. Bernard stated the false doctrine this way, Mary is called the gate of heaven. Wait a minute, I thought Jesus was the only door to heaven, but Mary is called the gate of heaven because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her. They say you cannot save without her provision of redemption. In 1997, Pope John Paul said, Mary cooperated during the event of the cross itself and in the role of mother, thus her cooperation embraces the whole of Christ's saving work. She alone was associated in this way with the redemptive sacrifice that merited the salvation of all mankind. In union with Christ and in submission to him, she collaborated in obtaining the grace of salvation for all humanity. Trusting in this maternal cooperation, let us turn to Mary, imploring her help in our needs." But more official statements have said the same thing. The Second Vatican Council stated, Rightly, therefore, the father see Mary, not merely as passively engaged by God, but as freely cooperating in the work of man's salvation through faith and obedience. Taken up to heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office." So she's got a saving office. They say she was co-redeemer in two respects. First of all, she offered up Jesus as a sacrifice. And secondly, she offered up her soul as a sacrifice, or what they call a holocaust. Let me quote them. She, it was, who immune from all sin, personal or inherited, and ever more closely united with her son, offered him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father to gather with the Holocaust of her maternal rights and motherly love. Mary suffered, as it were, nearly died with her suffering son for the salvation of mankind. She renounced her mother's rights, and as far as it depended on her, offered her son to placate divine justice, so we may well say that she with Christ redeemed mankind." Now, based on all these official pronouncements of the Church, Pope Pius XII said that Mary, in a subordinate role, had a part with him in the redemption of the human race. Wow, the church of the first many centuries would be absolutely aghast that these kind of statements are being made about Mary. In fact, they would consider the modern Pope and the Vatican, the Second Vatican Council to be Antichrist because of these kinds of statements. Humble Mary herself would have wept that her name was being used to undermine the gospel, a gospel that she herself trusted. Rather than Mary offering up Jesus as a sacrifice, Hebrews 9.14 says that Christ offered himself without blemish to God. Rather than Mary crushing the head of the serpent while she was beside Jesus at the cross, which is what Rome teaches, Genesis 3.15 says that the seed of the woman, that's Jesus, would crush the serpent's head. Rather than there being two redeemers, scripture is quite clear that there is only one. It is in God's Son that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, Colossians 1, 13-14. We are only justified through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3.24. God says, I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer. And Mary put her trust in the only Redeemer in Luke 1.47 when she says that He was God, my Savior. She is a woman of faith whom we can all imitate, not a superhuman Redeemer. She trusted in Christ alone. The seventh falsehood is the claim that Mary is a co-mediatrix of all God's grace. So where the previous point deals with her suffering as a sacrifice, this one says that all of God's graces are mediated to us through her, and all of our prayers have to be mediated through Mary to Jesus, to the Father. Okay, so the Catholic Catechism number 969 says, taken up to heaven, she did not lay aside the saving office, but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the church under the titles of advocate, helper, benefactress, and mediatrix. And if that's not bad enough, the official teaching of the church is that, quote, nothing comes to us except through Mary's mediation, unquote. If you listen to the blasphemous Our Lady of Fatima radio program, you will hear them repeatedly saying no one could be saved apart from the mediation of Mary, okay? It's just horrifying. Rome calls her quote, the most powerful mediatrix and advocate of the whole world. Mary is all powerful with her divine son. And don't think that it's only the intellectuals in Rome who believe this kind of stuff, because when the average Catholic is praying the rosary, One of the traditional endings of the rosary is Hail Holy Queen, which explicitly says that Mary is our hope, and it's to her that we turn. Now, this is all painful to hear, and you might wonder, why on earth am I inflicting these painful things that are like punches to the stomach? Well, part of the reason that I am doing this and felt led to do this is because some of you wonder why we do not accept Roman Catholic baptism. It's because they are not a true church of Jesus Christ. They are a cult. We cannot accept them as a true church. The Westminster Confession of Faith says that Rome is a synagogue of Satan and anyone who says otherwise is deviating from the Protestant Reformation. They're deviating from the Protestant Reformation. We need to understand this. And some of you, by the way, have relatives or friends who are toying with Rome. Some have already become Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. And you need to understand that this is toying with witchcraft and the demonic. And I've got plenty of evidence that there is witchcraft and demonic all through the Roman Catholic Church. It is not a true church. Let me read you some scripture that opposes this particular false teaching. 1 Timothy 2.5 says, For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. One mediator, not two, and it's one in the same sense that there is only one God. Jesus over and over invites us to come directly to Him. In John 14, verse 13, He says, Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Now, some Roman Catholics think that because Mary is a mother, she's going to be far more compassionate than God is. But Peter tells us, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. The eighth falsehood is the claim that Mary is the queen of heaven, and that, quote, Mary sitteth at the right hand of her son, and her dominion is the same as his, extending over all heaven and earth. Did you know that the Bible identifies the Queen of Heaven with a powerful demon in the Old Testament that wanted to be worshipped? Yes. The only time that the phrase Queen of Heaven occurs, it is a reference to Ishtar, and they worshipped Ishtar in exactly the same way that they venerate Mary today. In Jeremiah 44, 17, they burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, just as the Roman Catholics do today. I have five references to the Queen of Heaven in the Old Testament. They are all references to the same demonic ruler. Rome is engaged in witchcraft in their rituals. Against any supposed other human ruler of heaven, 1 Timothy 6.15 declares that there is only one potentate, not two, and he is Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. In complete contrast to her supposedly having authority over all flesh, on the cross, Jesus put her under the protection and under the authority of his friend, John the Apostle. In Acts 1, she operates under the authority of the apostles. There is not the slightest hint that she is treated as a queen. And if they want to appeal to Revelation 12 as being Mary giving birth to Jesus rather than the church, okay, they're gonna have to admit that they were absolutely wrong about her having pain, not having any pain in childbirth, because verse two says, when being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. They can't have their cake and eat it too. But in any case, Revelation 12 doesn't speak of that woman as being the queen of heaven. The ninth falsehood is that Mary is called the mother of the church. But in the passage we read at the beginning, Matthew 12, 46 through 50, Jesus minimized even her role of mother in his life, let alone in the life of the church. She was explicitly said to be outside the building that he was at, and Jesus did nothing to let her in. Now, she obviously is in the church, but she comes in on his terms, not on her terms. And she comes in to do his will, not vice versa. Okay? Jesus doesn't do Mary's will. Mary, like all believers, comes to do His will. And so Acts 1.14 shows Mary to be just one among others as members of the church who are praying to God. It shows her to be a member of the church, not the mother of church. 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 27 do the same thing. Okay. Why do I bring this up? Well, she's a model to us in this as well. God did not ordain for women to rule the Church. Mary was not a feminist. All feminism is the product of demonism. In stark contrast, Mary was a faithful servant of the Church in the book of Acts. Falsehood number 10 is stated this way in the Catholic Catechism, number 2677. It calls us, quote, to surrender the hour of our death wholly to her care, unquote. And get that word wholly. Why would they do that? Because as Pope John Paul worded it, she is our hope in death. But Philippians 1, 21 through 23 shows that Christ was Paul's only hope in death. And 1 Corinthians 15 connects the resurrection with Christ alone. There is not a single scripture that calls Christians to put their hope in Mary. But Romans 15, 12 says about Jesus, in him the Gentiles shall hope. 1 Peter 1.21 commands us to put our hope in God. 1 John 3.3 describes believers as those whose hope is in Christ. Even Mary's Magnificat shows that she put her hope wholly in God, verse 47. And looked to God for mercy, verse 50. And threw off all self-trusting pride, verses 48, 51 through 52. And we'll be singing that later on. Falsehood number 11, we're almost done here, is that we are commanded to venerate Mary and to pray to her. Now, they try to avoid the charge of worshiping a creature or, on the other hand, of deifying Mary by making three false distinctions on worship or veneration. They will say that Latria veneration or worship is only due to God. But dulia veneration, which really amounts to worship, can be done to saints, and hyperdulia veneration or prayer can be made to Mary. Now, why do they pray to Mary? Well, it's because as mother she was supposedly a woman who had far greater compassion than God. But Psalm 111 verse 4 says that God is full of compassion. If He's full of compassion, you can't get any more compassion in. And to say that Mary has more compassion than Jesus means He's not full of compassion. And far from relieving Protestant concerns about deifying Mary, for Mary to be able to hear billions of prayers around the world at any given moment, to be able to deliver those prayers to Jesus, she has to be omniscient and omnipresent. This is indeed deifying Mary. It makes her into a goddess. Actually, it makes her more than a goddess, because what goddess do you know that's omniscient and omnipresent, okay? So it is blasphemy. It is beyond blasphemy. There are many other false doctrines about Mary in Rome. In James McCarthy's book, The Gospel of Rome, that's pictured in your outlines, and I highly recommend that book, it gives extensive documentation proving that the official declarations of Rome about Mary are identical to the declarations about Jesus and the Father. I'll just give you a sample. She is called by Rome, most holy, most holy, most powerful, the seed of wisdom, The Morning Star, and as Pope Leo XIII worded it, the power in her hands is all but unlimited. I believe that Mary would be deeply pained to the root of her soul if she knew that this kind of stuff was being done in her name. So let's move on to who she was. Mary was a descendant of Judah. There are some, like Bojedar, who claim that she was of the tribe of Levi. But Hebrews 7, 11 through 14, is quite clear. Our Lord arose from Judah, and later it says was of a different tribe than Levi. Romans 1, 3 also contradicts that theory and says that Jesus was, quote, the seed of David according to the flesh. not according to adoption. So, according to the flesh would be from Mary, according to adoption would be from Joseph. And for her to be the seed, for Jesus to be the seed of David according to the flesh, that means Mary that Jesus came from. Mary had to have descended from David. Now I'm not going to delve into it, but Luke 3, 23-38 is Mary's genealogy. It starts by saying, talking about Joseph being, being as was supposed the son of David, but the idea being it's wrongly supposed. Okay, so instead of mentioning Joseph's father, Jacob, like Matthew's genealogy does, The first male mentioned in Jesus' ancestry was Heli, the father of Mary. So, some supposed Jesus to be of Joseph, but he was really of Heli. That's what Luke 3 is doing. Now, I do want to deal with something that evangelicals sometimes get nervous about if they haven't studied it much. The councils of Chalcedon and Ephesus both declared Mary to be Theotokos, or the God-bearer. They were very, very careful not to call her Mater Theou, or Mother of God. That is wrong. That's what Rome calls her, is Mother of God. Very careful not to do that. Literally, Theotokos means God-bearer. It means that the person whom Mary bore in her womb was not just a human, okay, He was already the God-man, and she didn't just bear an empty shell of a body in her body. No, she bore a person, and that person was the God-man. Protestants at the time of the Reformation had absolutely no problem affirming Theotokos, and we shouldn't either. She bore the God-man as to his manhood, which the confession is very, very clear to add. It's not as to his Godhood, but she bore the God-man as to his manhood. And even though his divinity could not hunger, thirst, or die, he was a person experienced that. And it was the one person, two natures that they were trying to defend. So enough on that. They were not worshiping Mary. That came much, much later. Now let's look at her conception. Luke 2 affirms that there was no human father. God the Spirit supernaturally created a human body and soul. And yes, you have to affirm it was body and soul that was taken from Mary. Otherwise, there's no connection to the human race. Body and soul that was taken from Mary. And not surprisingly, she was confused as to how all of this was going to happen, but she showed faith by submitting to God's will. And I think in this, she is a model to us. Luke 2, 26 through 38. Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now, indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her." So here she was. She gave submission without full understanding. I think it's beautiful. She knew enough that she knew how to submit, but she did not know exactly how God would do this, when he would do it, what the consequences would be. And we too must be ready to obey God rather than resisting his will. She's a model of sweet submission to God's will. God then formed the new life within her. She went immediately to her cousin, Elizabeth's house, verses 39 through 45. This is of Luke 1. Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste to the city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias, and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord." So blessings do flow from a submissive faith. But we're going to see shortly pain can flow from a submissive faith as well, from doing God's will. But Mary prophetically bursts into a song of trust and praise to God, verses 46 through 56. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit is rejoiced in God my Savior, for He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped a servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her house. Now, I can only imagine the excitement and the conversations that were constantly going back and forth during those three months that she was in Elizabeth's house. And I think Christian women today need godly friendships and the ability to process the things that God has laid upon their hearts. Now, what about Mary's parents? Were they disappointed in her? Or did they believe her story? We aren't told. The true story certainly didn't get to Joseph right away. Matthew 1, 18-19 says this, The birth of Jesus was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. She was found with child. Her parents found out, the neighbors found out, eventually Joseph found out. I mean, this talk about humiliation. Mary knows she's in the right, but she is immediately accused of being involved in fornication, of being in the wrong. How do I know that? Well, two reasons. Joseph believes that she's committed adultery, that this is something worthy of divorce. And secondly, the gossip chain must have been circulating during Christ's whole life that He was born out of wedlock. Even the Pharisees twice accused Him of that in John 8. In verse 19 they say, Where is your father? An idiom around the world and in every culture that means you're a bastard. You're illegitimate. Where is your father? Okay. And then in verse 41, they say, we are not born in fornication. And the Greek has an emphatic. We as a, we, as opposed to you implying Jesus was born in fornication. And this is the first of multiple painful things that both Mary and Jesus will have to endure the false charge of immorality. Now, there is no indication that Mary gets bitter over this. She trusted that if this is God's will, she's going to try to handle this by God's grace. And we, too, need to learn how to handle gossip and how to handle slander against our name without getting bent out of shape. It's hard, but it is possible. We can do it. We can cast our burdens on the Lord and thank Him for these ways. This is what I do many times when I have been slandered. Thank Him for yet another opportunity to crucify my pride. Even slander can be a gift if we use it to crucify our pride. But sadly, it wasn't just the rabble in Nazareth who believed this false rumor. Joseph did too. Indeed, he planned to divorce her. Her love turned against her. He could have had her stoned for infidelity, but talk about a stressful moment in Mary's life. Matthew 1, 19-25 gives that part of the story. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man but not wanting to make a public example, which would be execution, was minded to put her away secretly. Now, the text emphasizes the fact that he was just, which means he followed the Old Testament law. OK, and the law of God allowed for divorce or this would not be a just action. But he was also kind. He no doubt felt sorry for her and he didn't want to make a public scandal of her, so he considered filing for divorce privately. But again, God allowed Mary to face false accusations. She might have tried to defend herself, but who on Earth is going to believe her story? That seems like an incredible story, right? So God himself intervened on her behalf. Verse 20. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child. and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded, and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus." Now, if God had revealed that message to you by his mighty angel, you'd be very motivated to keep your hot hands off of her, you know, until the baby had been delivered, right? Both Joseph and Mary showed great self-control and an example to all of the young men and women in our midst. Now, they had an excuse to be intimate because they were, after all, legally married. But they feared God above all else. And in this, both of them are models to us." But Luke reveals that there were other troubles that Mary faced during the pregnancy. Caesar Augustus made one of the most disruptive decrees ever, that everyone had to go back to the town of their origin and get registered. I mean, yikes. The timing of this would have been incredibly inconvenient for Mary because she was almost due. It would have been tough. This would mean a 75-mile ride from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey. Now, that would be better than walking, but I've ridden on a donkey, and this would not be comfortable. They're bouncy, right? In your final days of pregnancy, you don't want to be on a bouncy donkey, and 75 miles is further than from here to Lincoln. And furthermore, Bethlehem was 2,300 feet above sea level, and it's going through mountainous terrain, so there's a lot of climbing with this donkey, okay? But God was in this decree since it was imperative that Jesus be born in Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy. Now, here's the point. It was God's will for her to face this discomfort and this inconvenience. And if it was God's will for her, you cannot see any of your discomforts and pains and inconveniences as outside of God's will. And yes, you can blame the tyrants for their evil actions, but God is still in it. Galatians 4 verse 4 says that this baby came in God's perfect timing. It may have seemed like it was bad timing, but it says it was perfect timing in the fullness of time, and all your circumstances are perfectly ordered by God. Now, that doesn't mean you can't pray against those tyrants who make decrees that are utterly stupid. We should pray against those kind of tyrants, but make sure that that does not carry over into complaining against God. God was over Caesar and over these troubles. Well, the troubles just kept compounding. Mary's starting to feel the baby coming, and they go from inn to inn, from house to house, and they cannot find a spare room for her to stay in. It appears that they're going to be homeless. You know, it's very easy to assume that God is not in control of your situation when you are in desperate circumstances. And yet? God is in your less-than-ideal solutions, just like he was in their less-than-ideal stable. They had to improvise on the fly, and they laid Jesus in the feeding trough for an animal. Now, Joseph appears to be a sharp guy. He was a skilled carpenter, so I doubt they were in that stable for very long. I mean, I'm sure he was working really hard. to get her into a better circumstance. By the time the wise men came to worship Jesus in Matthew 2, verse 11 says that they were living in a house. And so trusting God and doing what you can to better your situation, those are not opposites, right? They did both. And as they trusted and were responsible, God supplied them with enough finances to last them all the way through their sojourn in Egypt. Now, let's go back to being in order. The pain of Christ's circumcision on day eight was a covenant sign of their commitment to God come hell or high water. You know, I won't get into it, but the Apostle Paul calls Christ's crucifixion a circumcision. And it's just an indication that circumcision was a sign of the family's commitment to God until death. Luke 2. Verses 22-24 shows what happened 33 days after Christ's circumcision. It says, Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two pigeons. So this is one of several indications that Joseph and Mary were committed to keeping God's laws completely. And the fact that they offered two pigeons shows that they were extremely poor. The law only allowed that provision for poor people. And so that's yet another trouble. God's highly favored one was poor. Don't look down on poor people as if they are unrighteous or they're not doing something right. God's favored couple was poor. And then Joseph and Mary dedicated Jesus to the Lord, as we too must do with our children. Simeon blessed Jesus, prophesied that he would be the Messiah, and he blessed Joseph and Mary, which would have been cool, but also introduced a somber note into that blessing, saying this in verses 34-35, Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against. Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." Mary would have a sword piercing through her soul as well. Now, some interpret that as the pain she would experience in seeing her son, Jesus, mocked and persecuted and crucified. Others, because of the context here, say, no, this is the pain she's going to experience of being sidelined in Christ's ministry. Either way, a sword piercing her soul talks about inward pain, and she experienced both kinds of inward pain in the years to come. She was blessed, yes, but with blessing sometimes comes suffering. Don't think there's something wrong with you simply because you suffer. Some people wonder, where is God? What have I done wrong? No, don't assume something is wrong with you simply because you suffer. Mary, God's highly favored one, had suffering. And of course, the fleeing to Egypt was another trouble Mary had to endure. This story should probably be read in full. Matthew 2, 7 through 18 tells us what happened after the wise men from the east found out Jesus was going to be born or had been born in Bethlehem. And I'll dive into the middle of the story at verse 7. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the young child. And when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, a star, which they had seen in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I'll stop there for a bit before I keep reading. Notice that they venerated him, not Mary. And they honored Jesus with their personal presence, as well as the long trip that they made. That's one language of love. They honored him with worship. That's another language of love. They honored him with gifts. That's yet another language of love. And each of those gifts actually were symbolic. Gold represented his deity. Frankincense represented his priestly intercession, and myrrh represents his death. It's always associated with death. But here's the point in terms of God providing for Mary. These were all such costly gifts that they would be able to, little by little, barter, trade, sell these things, and it would help them through their sojourn over the next couple years in Egypt. God was good in providing for them in their poverty. Okay, picking up at verse 12. Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. And when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. Trouble dogged them their entire life because Satan hated Jesus and wanted to kill him. Revelation 12 says the moment Jesus was born, Satan tried to kill him using his tool, which was Herod. And don't think that Satan cannot manipulate unbelieving civic officers to persecute you today. He can. 1 John 5, 19 says, quote, the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. So don't be surprised when civil magistrates do satanic things. They are under the sway of the wicked one if they are unbelievers. Jesus told the leaders of Israel, you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Satan, the arch murderer, can move civic officers to murder, and he has in America with millions of murdered babies in our nation. and millions being, or at least hundreds of thousands being murdered through ungodly wars. Satan, the arch liar, can move unbelievers to lie, and he has in America, with lies permeating almost all of the actions of Congress, various agencies, and the media. But God can protect those who, like Mary and Joseph, are faithful to Him. He can protect them with guidance, like He did them, with finances, with jobs in new places, with housing, with places to flee to, with protection while you're traveling. Joseph and Mary, I think, are wonderful examples of how God can provide for us even during the toughest of times. Even finding sanctuary in another country can be a good thing. Now, when God took out Herod, Joseph had the family come back to Israel, but God warned him not to go to Judea, so he moved to Nazareth, where he set up his former business of carpentry. But let's consider why Galilee and Nazareth were also places of trouble. Wow, did she go through a lot of trouble by God's will. Galilee was the most despised of the provinces by the religious leaders. They were put down. Matthew 4.15 speaks of that province as Galilee of the Gentiles because there were so many Gentiles there. They thought of it as being defiled, and in some senses it was. In John 7.41, people were dubious about any good thing in Galilee and said, shall Messiah come out of Galilee? Galilee was despised as a place of sinners. And in Luke 13, 2, Jesus builds on that reputation and says, do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans? I mean, he's saying all of the Galileans really do have a deserved reputation. Even their speech and customs were considered uncouth and received persecution of mocking. That's another kind of trouble. It was Peter's Galilean accent that got him into trouble at Christ's trial and made others say, surely you are a Galilean too, for your speech shows it. In Acts 2, people are amazed that these Galileans can preach. Galilee did not have the best of reputations. But you know, if Galilee was bad, Nazareth was the pits. Remember Nathanael's doubtful statement that he made about Jesus. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? John 1 verse 46. Nazareth was the main Roman military garrison in Israel. And like other garrison towns, it had a great deal of prostitution and other sinful activities. And you may remember that some of the disciples were zealots. Who were the zealots? They were people who had dedicated their lives to killing as many Roman soldiers as they could. They would hide a knife up their sleeve, and at opportune times in a crowd when there was a Roman soldier, they would let that knife fall down, stab in the back, walk off as if nothing had happened. And so since Nazareth was the main Roman garrison, it became one of the main holdouts for, yeah, for zealots. And so Nazareth was a hotbed of prostitution, theft, rowdiness, and violence. And Christ came into the midst of all that. I can imagine Joseph and Mary's relatives saying, man, man, man, don't go to Nazareth. It's a bad town. But as Ron Doestler used to say, the safest place to be is in the center of God's will. But Mary experienced trouble even when Jesus moved into his teens. Jesus was a different child, and they didn't always know exactly how to deal with Him. Luke 2, beginning to read at verse 41, His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the Feast. When they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now, it was that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I sought you anxiously. Now, some of you parents, I think, can relate to their anxiety. I mean, what if he had been kidnapped? They're probably really scared. And the longer it goes, the more worried they are. And verse 49 says, he said to them, why did you seek me? Did you not know I must be about my father's business? But they did not understand the statement when she spoke to them. There were probably a lot of things about Jesus that they did not understand. This was part of the pain that Mary faced. They want him to sympathize with mom and dad over their anxiety. And he's mystified as to why they are anxious at all. We shouldn't worry. He's about his father's business, his heavenly father's business. And so they didn't get a lot of sympathy from Jesus on that point. Now, it's not as if he did not submit to them. He did. He followed their lead. He submitted to them. But verses 51 to 52 go on. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." And I'll just briefly comment on Mary's inward responses, because it gives you kind of an insight into her. So what kind of a personality she had? Verse 51 says, his mother kept all these things in her heart. Now earlier when the shepherds came to the stable and worshiped Jesus, told them about all of the things that the angels had said and done, Luke 2 19 says, Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. She does not appear to be somebody who verbalized a lot. She was not a real talkative She was a thinker, and she kept these revelations in her heart. She reviewed them. She did not let them go. Though you may have a different personality than Mary, you can imitate her in giving yourself to memorization and meditation upon God's Word. The Bible is filled with His revelations for you. Let me help you notice one other inward response. Luke 2 says that Joseph and Mary marveled at the prophecies that Simeon and Anna brought. Now, they already knew Jesus was going to be the Messiah, so there's a sense in which what Simeon and Anna prophesied is nothing new. They knew that he was doing it, but as God gives new revelations through them, it makes them marvel. It makes them marvel, and we should approach each new revelation of Scripture with the same wonder and awe, that God cares for us enough to reveal his word to us. When there's a constant freshness about God's presence in our lives, it leads us to marvel over and over again. Now, where the temple scene is one passage that gives us hints that Jesus was different, there are two other passages that hint at how his brothers had a hard time relating to Jesus. He was different, and different people are sometimes persecuted and put down. They have it rough. It's sad, but it's true to life. First passage is John 7, verse 5, which says, For even his brothers did not believe in him. Now, if they did not believe in him, then when Jesus makes claims to deity and claims to being the Messiah, they had to have thought, there's something wrong. You're crazy. to think you're Messiah. If they don't believe, there's only two options. You believe what he says, or you think that he is crazy, that he's a fool to be saying these kinds of things. And the next passage says that explicitly. Mark 3 verse 20 shows his family being concerned about him, and it says, they went out to lay hold of him, for they said, he is out of his mind. This is his brothers. He is out of his mind. In fact, many commentators say that this was probably why Mary and his brothers came in the passage that we looked at. So they have three. I'm only going to do two. But they say they were probably concerned, worried about Jesus, and they want to try to talk him into being more reserved. Don't get yourself into trouble. In any case, at least the first two passages hint that his brothers, who didn't believe in Jesus until after the resurrection, had a hard time relating to him. He was a goody two-shoes who could never do any wrong. Why is Jesus the only one that never gets a spanking, you know? They're always getting spankings, and he's a mister goody two-shoes, right? So this too would have put real stress upon Mary. Mary could relate to your family squabbles and stress. But when Jesus corrected her in John 2 and Matthew 12, she responded with a good attitude. She does not push her agenda in John 2. In fact, she tells her servants, he's the boss. Whatever Jesus says, you do what he says to you. But we're getting ahead of the outline. The next trouble that she faced was that Joseph died. That, too, is a stressful time for anybody to lose their loved one. By the time Jesus had entered ministry, the dad was nowhere to be found, and it appears that Jesus had taken over the carpentry business, and this means Jesus was acting as the head of the home. That, too, would create pressure for the siblings. He was, after all, the oldest one. Contrary to Roman Catholic theology, that's why Jesus took over. All of this illustrates the truth of Isaiah 53, verse 2, which says this. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him." This, too, would have been very painful for Mary. Jesus was not good-looking. Moms want a good-looking son, right? He wasn't good-looking. He was despised by others. He was not desired by others, even though Mary loved him dearly. And there were men who saw him with favor. Luke affirms that. But there were others who rejected him and despised him. But I especially want to focus on Isaiah's prophecy that Jesus would grow up as a root out of dry ground. That means his growth was supernatural. It was not dependent on any of the circumstances around him, nothing but dry ground around him in Nazareth. While that's true of Jesus, it was also true of Joseph and Mary. Now, the dry ground could partly explain why the brothers were not believers. But Joseph and Mary trusted in God and flourished in dry ground as well. You may have nothing good surrounding you, but like Mary, you need to make sure that you daily go to the refreshing streams that flow from Christ's throne, not looking to broken cisterns that will let you down, that do not have water. Dry ground forces us to find our life in God. Now, in the introduction, I've already discussed the fact that Mary had four other sons and at least two sisters. So Mary models having large families, having lots of kids, right? Her ministry was first and foremost to her family and secondarily a ministry to others. And we'll see she did minister outside the home. And by the way, don't judge parents who have unbelieving children. This is a heartache and they don't need more heartache put upon them by you. Mary's children were unbelieving." We don't always know the circumstances for these things, but for at least a period of time, God allowed this most blessed woman, highly favored by God, to have unbelieving children. And if you're a perfectionist, you do need to think about that. And don't give up hope on your believing children. If you've got unbelieving children or other relatives, you've got friends who have unbelieving children, appoint them to marry. It was only after these brothers had been adults for some time that they came to faith. So don't allow your negative thinking to kill your faith in covenant succession. Keep pestering the Lord like the unfortunate widow. your children. But let's look at how Jesus helped Mary to transition from family relationships to being primarily spiritual relationships, being primary as she grew up. We've already looked at how 12-year-old Jesus was helping his mother to remember that he had come into the world to serve his heavenly Father's purpose and she needed to be good with that. It does appear that Jesus took over the carpentry business. In this, he was being the provider for his mother. He must have left the carpentry business to the care of one of his brothers. So Mary, no doubt, continued to do whatever needed to be done to help that business prosper. No reason to doubt that Mary helped with the family business. And let's read the story in John 2 of the wedding at Cana, because this also shows Jesus transitioning her. John 2, verse 1. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now, both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Now, this shows to many commentaries that Mary must have been hosting this wedding. And then they conclude, well, if she was hosting it, this must have been some family member's wedding. I'm not sure you have to assume that. There's no reason why this could not have been a side business that she had to supplement the family's income. Point is, when kids are grown, there is no reason why women cannot do more things outside the home. Now, she's stressed. She's not used to running out of wine, I guess. She is stressed. She wants Jesus to help. He has helped so many times in the past, but verse 4 shows a mild rebuke. Jesus said to her, Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Now, he could have called her mother, but he called her woman. Though she will always be his mother in one sense, her role of mother is going to disappear. He could have been solicitous about her concerns, but he wants her to realize her concerns must now be subservient to his concerns. His kingdom will now dictate all requests, not vice versa. One commentator worded it this way. Thus, family relationships were not to be the determining factors in Jesus's life. As his brothers later could not force Jesus's timing of his destiny, John 7, 3 through 9, so his mother here was not to govern his activity. Although a Jewish mother might normally be able to exercise pressure on her children, it was not to be the case with Jesus. And so this is not only a correction of Mary, it's a correction of Roman Catholic theology. And Mary gets it. She no longer even bosses her own servants around. She says, Jesus is the Lord. Verse 5. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. And the servants obeyed Jesus, even when it seems foolish to do so. And then it's discovered, oh, he's turned water into wine. Verse 12. After this, he went down to Capernaum, he, his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they did not stay there many days. I want you to notice from now on, Mary and his family are called to follow Jesus. And so it appears that they left their family business, at least for a time. Now, the brothers probably went back to it, but this put additional pressures, especially since the brothers try to push Jesus around in John 7, even though that same chapter says they did not believe in him. But stresses didn't keep Mary from following Jesus. We've dealt with the who is my mother passage, another critical transition passage. Let me skip ahead to Luke 11, 27 through 28. And it happened as he spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which nursed you. But he said, more than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Now the new King James interprets the grammar correctly here. There are three ways of taking the grammar. One way is that Mary is not blessed. That's an impossible translation. The second way is that both are blessed. But the third way is more consistent with the way that Luke uses this grammar throughout the book of Luke and Acts. And that is that, yes, Mary was indeed blessed for bearing Jesus, but there is a far greater blessing for those who simply hear God's words and keep God's words. Okay? Now, since Mary also heard God's word and kept God's word, she's got both blessings, and that way she's more blessed, right? But the point is, Jesus is emphasizing that the blessing that any believer can have through obedience is greater blessing than being the mother of Jesus. That's exactly what the text says. And I don't know about you, but for me, this is a huge motivator to pursue after holiness, you know? Holiness brings even greater blessing than being the mother of Jesus. Now, there's one last transition that Jesus made for his mother, and it's seen in John 19. while Jesus was dying on the cross. His mother was nearby, as was the Apostle John. And the passage says this, when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, woman, behold, your son. And he said to the disciple, behold, your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. Notice that he, once again, does not call her mother, even though he obviously is related. It's true that she's a mother, and John says that she was his mother. But Jesus is deliberately de-emphasizing her role of being mother, and he is giving her to be John's mother. From now on, as far as role is concerned, she is John's mother. There is a transition here, and this too is a rebuke to the Mariolatry of Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy that makes Mary the key to our relationship with Jesus. And Jesus says, no, her motherhood does not factor into your prayers being answered, your relationship with Jesus, or anything else in heaven. But on the other hand, this passage shows that Jesus loved his mother, just like he loves other mothers, right? He loved his mother. He took care of her in her old age. After all, he's making sure that she will be physically provided for after he dies. He puts her under the protective care of his best friend, John. And so that's a financial and a protective transition. But calling her relationship to him as woman and calling her relationship to John as mother shows yet another transition. In heaven, her motherhood of Jesus will have no spiritual value or role. Yet even at the cross, Mary is a model of courage to all of us. She did not run when other men ran. She was not ashamed of Jesus when others were. But she did not drink His blood at the cross like some Romanist mystics claim. And she did not have a super-saint relationship to the Church. As we read earlier, she was a prayer warrior and a servant of the Church in Acts, opening up her home to other believers. But I hope I've demonstrated that Mary, above all, is a wonderful model that we can imitate, not a goddess that we venerate. Amen. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that your grace raised up people like Mary, who more and more learned what it meant to live by grace and to make you the focus of their lives. And I pray that You would bring the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church to repentance for making Mary the center of their veneration and their prayers. Help us, Father, like Mary, to see You and Your Son Jesus as the center of our lives. Help us to fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith. In His name we pray, amen.