Seconding The Motion | Dr. Joel Gregory

0:05 Well, this is Advent season. I want you to open the Word of God with me to Luke's Gospel. If I were to title this message, I would title it Seconding the Motion. I'm going to read from the first two words of Mary, the mother of Jesus. You may not have noted it, but Mary speaks seven times. Often we speak of the seven last words of Jesus. Mary speaks seven times. In Luke 1, I'm going to read, beginning with verse 29, these unforgettable words. When she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner, what kind of greeting this was.

1:12 the angel said to her do not be afraid Mary for you 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 he will be called son of the highest and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he'll 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. The power of the highest will overshadow you.

2:13 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. Mary's second word. Behold the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her, seconding the motion. Would you be seated in the presence of God? You know how it is with Robert's rules of order if you've ever been in a deliberative body. Robert's Rules of Order keep things on track. And one of the main things that everyone knows about Robert's Rules of Order, if someone stands and make a motion, someone else must second it or it dies for lack of a second. You don't take the time of a deliberative body unless at least one person will stand with the one making the motion. There was a sense when Gabriel came that day that his words to Mary were making God's motion. And at first she was afraid of that motion. How can this be?

3:45 But then her second word seconded the motion. He had come to her and asked her to join the circle of what God was about to do, but heaven held its breath until Mary seconded the motion. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word. I want to ask you a question this morning. How many times has God made a motion in your life, but it failed for lack of a second. I want us to understand the isness of this wasness, the nowness of the thenness, the hereness of that thereness. At Christmas time we almost leave this in a manger somewhere, thousands of miles away. But the truth is what happened to Mary happens to every one of us.

4:45 God comes to you again and again and makes a motion and waits to see if you will second the motion. let's listen to these words of Mary just a moment the first word was a word of objection did you see it? the first person to object to the virgin birth was the virgin herself you know today there are plenty of objections to it from rationalist and materialist and naturalist and empiricist when that holy one from God Gabriel came and announced to her that you are going to have God's child and 23 chromosomes of a human being for the first time are going to be united with 23 chromosomes of divinity itself and something unequaled in all creation is about to take place and of course mary said the same thing anyone would say how can this be she was a teenage jewish maiden in nazareth a village so tiny that it's not even mentioned in your old testament you You can look at all 39 books.

5:51 You won't find Nazareth. In fact, Josephus, the great geographer of the Holy Land, who was a contemporary of Jesus, thought it was so small he didn't even put it in his geography. If you'd put Nazareth in your GPS, you wouldn't have gone anywhere. that's why what was it and you'll say can anything good come out of Nazareth and yet this angel showed up there and announced this to Mary you know we are so caught up in the world of naturalism materialism rationalism and empiricism that's as if we locked God out of his own universe G.K. Chesterton had been a British agnostic who became a famous Christian And he confronts us about this when he said, we've decided the sun comes up every morning through merely physical processes. Chesterton said, the sun came up this morning because God said, get up, sun.

6:47 And then Chesterton said, I got up because God said, get up, Chesterton. And even so, God can lift the physical universe off of its hinges if he needs to. To do what he needs to do. You say, well, I don't know about that. Well, just consider how you're sitting here today in God's universe. There's a force holding you in your seat called gravity. It is actually not a strong force. It is a weak force. And no physicist can tell you what it is. It's never really been understood. It's just here. But come close to me. if it were to change one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion that's one with 60 zeros after it you wouldn't be sitting here this planet would not even be here you might say well isn't that a wonderful accident you think that's an accident take a dice you know the kind of dice that you throw someone told me that that has six sides Somebody told me that. I don't know.

8:00 It's a church member, I think. I don't know. What would you think if you threw that and it came up six, 80 times in a row? You'd think somebody had been fooling with that pair of dice, wouldn't you? That's what Fred Hoyle, agnostic professor of physics at Cambridge University in England, said as he studied the universe. He said, it looks as if it is made according to a plan. I see mind in it. I just don't know what the plan is. Hall didn't know the plan but I know the planner and the planner could come to a teenage girl in Nazareth and say God is about to do something that has never happened before and her first word was a word of objection but then look at her second word she seconded the motion that's this beautiful word in verse 38 Mary said behold the female servant the handmaid of the Lord be it unto me according to your word what if Mary had said no it would not have ended God's purpose, but it would have ended his purpose in her life.

9:26 Down the road somewhere, he would have found a young woman who would have seconded the motion, and Mary would have lived and died, and we would have never heard of her. That she seconded the motion made all the difference in the world. You see, when you submit to what God said, you never know what's in that moment. She had no idea that now these 2,000 years later and more, half a world away, on a Lord's Day, named for the one who would grow beneath her heart, we'd be talking about what happened in that humble home. You see, you never know what God's big moment is in your life. When God's about to do something big, a hand doesn't come down out of heaven and say, now hear this.

10:20 This is a big moment. God makes motions in your life every day. Every day. Speak to that person. Don't say anything right now. Sometimes just smile.

10:42 Do you second the motion? You know, everything's like that. You don't know what's in a moment. here's a young couple standing here about to say I do and I will they don't have a clue what's in that do they but the rest of their life is in that moment you want to start reading you read your first book do you know that's the most important book you ever read because if you don't read that one you'd never read the second one you study an instrument, you go to a keyboard, you start playing scales over and over, C, E, G, over and over and over.

11:26 Every other thing you play is in that moment. You wind up playing a Mozart sonata, it was in that moment. When Mary, that teenage Jewish maiden, said, behold, the female servant of the Lord. The cross was in that moment. The empty tomb was in that moment. Pentecost was in that moment. The Apostle Paul's 13 letters were in that moment. If you were a Christian, you were in that moment. You need to take real care when God makes a motion in your life that you second the motion. You never know what's in that moment.

12:10 Sister Braxton's kind enough to say I've been preaching more than 50 years. I started when I was two. No, no. No, I actually started when I was 16. I remember the night at sophomore in high school, I was sitting in a vacation Bible school for teenagers. I got up, came down the aisle and said, God is calling me to preach. I didn't have a clue what was in that moment right up to this moment. Look at her third word. It's a word of salutation. God had given her example. That example was the experience of her kinfolks, aged kinfolks, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Another, Abraham and Sarah. As old folks.

13:05 The angel had said to Zechariah, you're going to have a baby. He didn't believe it. God wouldn't let him talk until it happened. but six months into that Mary visits her kinswoman in the Judean hill country and here's her third we don't know what the word is but in verse 41 it says Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary and the babe leapt in her womb and then again in verse 44 I heard the voice of your greeting it was probably the word shalom that's how the Jews greeted one another faith sought out faith. There's something about knowing what God is about to do that will make faith seek out faith. What a moment!

13:59 The mother of the Savior visiting the mother of the forerunner. The mother of the Lamb of God visiting the one who would say 30 years later, behold the Lamb of God. Only God could arrange a moment like that. A good deal could be said about anything like this but what I want to emphasize is divine timing. Isn't it interesting how God puts timing together? My wife and I woke up this morning in Woodinville where her mother is and I still don't know where we were but we were there. 80-year-old Uber driver picked us up. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor's live here than I was. He said, I get up and run a mile and a half five days a week. He's a former Air Force pilot.

14:55 Worked for ADA in Dallas. I knew there was something different about him when he opened his mouth. His father was a Jew from Bavaria in Germany. His mother was an Irish Roman Catholic. He's come to Christ here in Seattle. a born-again believer. You know, isn't it strange that an 80-year-old born-again believer Uber driver would bring me here to preach?

15:24 You see, that's God. Knowing that I needed a word of encouragement, he put my path right in the direction of Mr. Mayer's. And on the way over here, he told me about two people he'd witnessed to to the Lord Jesus Christ. another old man he called him in his coffee group and a young woman who works at Home Depot what's the likelihood of someone about to preach the gospel getting carried there in Seattle by an 80 year old Uber driver who testified about Jesus all the way there's timing in God's greetings has anyone here ever had just the right person show up at just the right time and it encouraged you and it encouraged them come close to me just a minute here's where i wish i could sit down at your kitchen table over a cup of coffee and knew each one of you the christian faith is not a faith for isolated mavericks we're in it together one of my favorite places to visit as Muir Woods down in Marin County where those coastal redwoods grow in that beautiful copse of trees. You go in there, you never find one of them alone. They're always together.

16:46 I thought they were together, maybe for other reasons, but I found out the way they stand is not because their roots are so extraordinarily deep as that they're wound up with one another and they hold one another up for a thousand years in storms and fires and invasions of insects. And so it is, faith seeks out faith. And that teenage Jewish maiden sought out this lady, which leads us to her fourth word, a word of celebration.

17:18 If you have news this good, it's hard to keep. so she breaks out into what the church is called the Magnificat that's a Latin Vulgate translation the Catholic translation of scripture my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior here's this celebration let me tell you what it's a celebration of it's a celebration of a quiet revolution What do I mean by a quiet revolution? It is that God is turning everything upside down. People just don't know it yet.

18:01 Look at verse 51 of her song. He's shown strength with his arm. He's scattered the proud in the imagination of the arts. He's put down the mighty from their thrones. He's exalted the lowly. He fills the hungry with good things. The rich he's sent away empty. before I'm finished, God says, I'm going to turn everything upside down. The proud are going to be humble.

18:26 The everybody's are going to become nobodies, and the nobodies are going to become somebodies because of what I'm doing. You know the proof of the pudding is in the eating. 2,000 years later, go out here on the avenue with a $100 bill and ask people, define for me who Augustus was. Unless you run into a student of ancient history, they may think he was a linebacker for Detroit or somebody.

18:59 They're not going to tell you who Augustus was. Take another $100 bill and say, tell me who Tiberius was. your money would be safe. The Caesars who ruled the world when Jesus was born and when he was crucified were Augustus and Tiberius. They're only a footnote in history books because they were reigning when he was born and when he was crucified. But go out and ask anyone who is Jesus and they'll give you some answer of recognition. and the people who were everybody's became nobodies. And the people who were nobodies became everybody's. What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 1? God has not chosen many mighty, many nobles. He's chosen the things that the world calls nothing and made them his people. She's singing about a revolution.

19:56 What did they say when the Christians came to town? The people who've turned what? The world upside down have come here too. I wish we could have churches like that today. J.R.W. Stopp, the great Anglican preacher, said, When Paul preached in Ephesus, there was a riot. When I preached, they asked me over for tea. There was a revolution. And she recognized the beginning of it in wanted him. Have you ever heard of feral children? Feral children are amazing. It's the story of children, more than 100 stories. You can Google it, not right now. And you can find out that these are children that are raised by animals. Most famous in psychology textbooks is the wolf boy of India A boy raised by a she-wolf He was finally found by humans Cleaned up, dressed, given human food And it killed him he lived at a wolf level for so long that he was given what humans eat he couldn't take it in this magnificent this fourth word to Mary is a reminder that we've lived so long at a wolf level that we don't understand real life when we see it This is the life that Jesus comes to give.

21:32 And he says, come walk with me. And that's something Mary celebrated. But then she's quiet for 12 years. Wouldn't you like to know what happened to that carpenter shop in Nazareth? We know that Jesus had at least four brothers. They're named. Two unnamed sisters. He grew up with six younger half-siblings. they probably wore hand-me-downs from Jesus. Must have been hard to be as Brother James, can you imagine? Why can't you be more like your older brother, Jesus? It was a real home. But then when he's 12, they go up to Jerusalem, maybe for his bar mitzvah to become a son of the covenant. And this is where you get into Mary's word of confusion.

22:27 You remember it? They leave. They think he's with the company, somebody in the extended family. They all march down. Sometimes, Josephus said, a million people came to Jerusalem. And after three days, they looked for him and found him. And here's her next word. Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have sought you anxiously. Isn't that interesting? She'd been visited by an angel.

22:59 She'd given birth as a virgin. You might think he'd be something special, but she's confused. There he is in the center of the city, the capital, Jerusalem, in the center of its temple, amazing, the THDs and the PHDs. And he says, don't you know, I must be about my father's business. Do you know what? Come close to me. Mary's not the only person who has encountered him. known him who's sometime been confused about what he's doing.

23:37 I expect if we had a testimony time here this morning, people who've walked with him for decades would say, I don't understand what he's up to. That's why we sing in that hymn, when darkness seems to hide his face, I'll rest on his unchanging grace. or someone else said when you can't trace him you can trust him someone this morning wrestling with what God is doing you don't understand in your life you don't understand what he's doing why he's doing where he isn't where he's supposed to be in your life he's the mystical master of every situation and you have to trust him about that.

24:35 Well, now, 18 years of silence before Mary says anything again. Wouldn't you like to have heard a word from her? Here he is after 12 years old, 18 more years in that carpenter shop. De La Tour, the great artist, painted a painting that hangs in the Louvre in Paris. It's one of my favorite pieces of art there. It's Jesus. He's a little boy. He's in the door of the carpenter's shop. His arms are stretched out on either side of the door like this on the door frame. A light from inside is casting his shadow on the wall behind him while Joseph is working with something on the floor. and it projects the shadow of a cross.

25:31 whatever was happening those days, he was getting ready for his destiny. I don't know how the day was. I can imagine it. He took off his leather carpenter's apron, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter, that's what he was called, folded it up carefully and set it aside, brushed the wood chips off of himself, went in and sat down at the table, maybe with a cup of strong Arabic coffee and said, Mother, it's time for me to go. and that carpenter from Nazareth walked down to John the Baptist, Riverside Baptist. Remember him? That man who dressed like yesterday and sounded like tomorrow, John the Baptist.

26:31 And then Jesus began his ministry, and that's the last two times Mary said something, not in Luke. She said it in John's Gospel. It was at a wedding in another tiny town, Cana. And there's a word of intercession in John chapter 2. Isn't it strange? All she says is four words. They have no wine. She hasn't said anything in 18 years. and she says they have no why you know what a strange thing to say well it was more than that does jesus care yes he cares in the little village of galilee a wedding tested seven days the father of the bride the family was supposed to supply a feast and the part of that feast was the wedding wine. And they'd run out. Jesus had shown up with 12 of his disciples. Maybe he was one of the reasons they ran out. But they had run out. And Mary, after 18 years, gives this word of intercession to her son. She knew enough about him to turn to him when there was an insufficiency.

27:54 they have no one she knows that he's the mystical master of every situation she learned a lesson that all of us need to learn that in his presence there's always abundance not insufficiency all of us wake up every morning with one of two senses the abundance of God good gift or with a sense of insufficiency and we meet life that way she knew in this mystical master of every situation she didn't know what he would do but she said they have no why he cared for the situation really a strange place for him to do his first miracle to take six huge pots full of water and turned them into wine.

28:55 But he cared. He cares for you too. Do you know I read the other day in the Bible, he said the very hairs of your head are what? Numbered. Average human has 150,000 of them. Some of us more, some of us less. He says they're numbered. Not a sparrow falls to the ground that he doesn't know it. He doesn't say sparrows don't fall.

29:24 Average sparrow lives for three years, weighs an ounce and a half. There's a billion of them on this planet. And yet not one of them falls that he doesn't know about it. I was preaching at the First Baptist Church of Raleigh, North Carolina, while back, close to Duke University. They sent me out to dinner with a Duke University astronomer. And I have to tell you, I was a little bit intimidated. Going to eat with an astronomer, what do you talk about? Twinkle, twinkle, little star? I didn't know what to say. So I asked him, how big do you people at Duke think the universe is? And he didn't even hesitate. He said 14 billion light years. I was eating a piece of pulled pork sandwich, trying to take that in. He saw confusion on my face. He said, what's that?

30:18 And he said, well, if you could harness a beam of light and ride it at 180,000 miles an hour a second, 186,000 miles a second, it would take you that long to get to the end of the created universe. Now think about that.

30:43 14 billion years going 186,000 miles a second. that long to get to the end. Now there's two things you can do with that. You can think, look how tiny I am, or look how big God is. Bigness doesn't challenge God. He can make a universe on Saturday afternoon if he wants to. and there in that tiny town, the God of that huge universe, a tiny town in a country the size of New Jersey, that's how big Israel is, the size of New Jersey, on a planet that's 25,000 miles around the circumference. My car has four times that many miles on it. In that little planet, in that little town, all of his power turned water into wine.

31:43 Now let me ask you this question. If his mother could intercede and say they have no wine, what does it mean in the book of Hebrews when it says, our great high priest has passed through the heavens and ever lives to make intercession for you? I don't know what you're facing this morning, but I can tell you there's nothing too small for his attention and nothing too great for his power. Minister friend I knew had an aquarium in his office. The fish were dying in the aquarium. They tried everything. New filters. They tried changing the pH of the water, fish, food, everything. And then one day he said, why don't we pray for the fish?

32:30 And they stopped dying. nothing too small for his attention nothing too great for his power what do you face an insufficiency she took it to him well here's her last word here she's looking straight out at you her last word is a word of commendation do you see it there in John 2 his mother said to the servants whatever he says to you do it. There's no accident that that's the last word she spoke. She spoke that at a wedding in Cana but she spoke it for all the ages. She spoke it to some servants waiting to put water in those pots but she's saying it to you.

33:26 Whatever he says to you Do it. And then she never says another word. here are these nameless incognito unknown servants at a tiny wedding in a little village and yet we're talking about them this morning because they obeyed this whatever he says to you do it let me tell you this come close obedience always lifts you up some people think if I obey the Lord it will handcuff me it will manacle it will shackle me no these servants belong to the ages because he says whatever in fact I dare to say this is without any question the most famous wedding in all of history more people know about this wedding and have read about it in more languages in more places than any wedding that ever happened you say well what about royal weddings no no no people have been reading about this one 2000 years whatever he says to you do it oh there's life in that What's he saying to you?

35:00 how long has it been since he called your name and he says do it I have it in mind there's someone sitting here this very morning who that self same spirit that came to Mary the eternal Holy Spirit of the living trinity of the triune God is saying something to you right now Mary doesn't say anything else but you see her two other places and I know some of our friends and their friends and their well meaning our Catholic friends have called her the queen of heaven but Luke really makes her the model disciple and the last two places you see her are in under the cross of her son standing there with some other women and John, looking up as he dies, there she is, the same place every believer must come to.

36:06 So that the one the Holy Spirit conceived within her was dying on the cross to become her Savior too. And then you see her in the Pentecost in the upper room, gathered with 120, waiting for the same Spirit that conceived him within her to fall upon her. so she could bear witness to him along with the church. I wonder this morning if someone in this place by his Spirit's presence has been wrestling with something. Whatever he says to you, do it. the last two places you see Mary is where you need to go if you want to be a Christian and if you want the hope of heaven under the cross and then receiving his spirit.

37:10 If you've never one time stood up and stepped out in a public way and made the Christian confession whatever he says to you, do it. one of his great followers Paul said the words near to you it's even in your mouth if you'll confess Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you'll be saved those were to abide the ages and it says it's not far off it's right here somebody here this morning is right here Mary's looking out at you from that wedding in Canaan saying whatever he says to you do it you need under his cross and receiving his spirit Paul said his spirit bears witness with your spirit that you're a child of God is that a reality to you or does that sound like a strange statement it says the love of God is shed abroad by his spirit in your heart is that reality or is that a strange statement I'm not talking about just being in a church you can be in a church and just be in a church standing in a chicken house won't make you a chicken standing in a garage won't make you a car and just sitting in this building doesn't make you a Christian To be a Jesus follower means to be a Christian.

38:39 somebody else here today used to be on the main line you know what I mean but you've been on the sideline he's the great restorer even Mary had a confused time Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and what all the king's horses all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again with the king could. maybe this Christmas time finds you off the main line and on the sideline you want to come back what a good time to do so or you're here in Seattle in this area you don't have a church home it's amazing when people come to town they'll find a school they'll find a barber shop a beauty shop a grocery store a doctor a dentist even find a club somewhere and not have a church home you need to be under the powerful preaching of a shepherd like Dr. Braxton He's calling you.

39:54 Whatever He says to you, do it. The ministry's going to come. This altar's open. Let Mary look out at this passage this moment. God's making a motion for you. Who's going to second?