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Steve Brown: Her name was Mary, and she was something else. Let's talk about her on Key Life.

Jerry Perry: This is Key Life, here to communicate the freeing truth that God's not mad at his children. Steve invited our friend Jerry Perry to teach this week. Jerry is the pastor of Christian Family Worship Center House of Grace and the author of Grace the Real Good News of the Gospel.

Steve Brown: Hi Jerry.

Jerry Perry: Hey sir, how are you?

Steve Brown: Doing great, especially now that you're here. Dr. Perry has been following up on a series he began a good while ago on the different gospel writers. And we've spent time with Matthew and now he's an old friend. And with Mark, another old friend. And this week we're talking about Luke Luke and the book that he wrote. And we're looking at some of Luke's friends too.

Jerry Perry: Yes.

Steve Brown: Yesterday we looked at Zachariah and in that first chapter the angel says to Zachariah, John's father, uh you will have great joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or alcoholic drinks. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. And he will turn many Israel lights to the Lord their God. And we spent a long time yesterday spending time with Elizabeth and Zachariah and John the Baptist.

Jerry Perry: Yes.

Steve Brown: But let's go now and look at Mary.

Jerry Perry: Yeah. Mary is of course the mother of Jesus, but the birth of Zachariah or the birth of John the Baptist. There's some similarities in that story.

Steve Brown: There really are, aren't they?

Jerry Perry: Yeah, and and that's the reason again that I love writing the writings of Luke because he he gives you the details and the backstory of what it is that that happened with John the Baptist and then Jesus' birth. And and it's really really good stuff.

Steve Brown: All right, let me read some of this to you and then we'll talk about it. Then you'll talk about it.

Jerry Perry: All right, excellent.

Steve Brown: And I'll ask questions. This is from Luke 1:26 through 34. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent an angel, Gabriel, to Nazareth to the village of Galilee to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus.

He will be very great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel for forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, But how can this happen? I'm a virgin. Uh yeah.

Jerry Perry: Yeah. That is just just

Steve Brown: That is Ooh. That sends chills up my back.

Jerry Perry: That is just good good good stuff. Here here I tell you what, reading the story, Gabriel was a uh a busy angel.

Steve Brown: He really was.

Jerry Perry: He said, You could assign some of this to some other angels. This is too much.

Steve Brown: Yeah, but I want to show you something. And when you read back to the Luke first 26, here's the details that Luke gives. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, there again he write

Jerry Perry: Only a doctor would do that.

Steve Brown: Only a doctor would do that. He goes into details so that you will have a a a real sense of this story so that you can put it together in a way that when you minister and you teach that you have a chronological way of how to teach this text. And that's the reason that Luke's writings are so important. He gets into the details more so than any other of the gospels.

Jerry Perry: Yeah. That's true. And probably probably uh it's good he does about Mary. You know, we Protestants don't make very much of Mary and the Catholics make a lot of her. And maybe we could both instruct each other a little bit. She really is favored of God.

Steve Brown: She really is. Um um and Luke shares with us that uh she was highly favored in the Lord's eyesight. And then he gives the details of how Joseph interacted with her. He then gives the details of the wise man,

Jerry Perry: Yeah.

Steve Brown: you know, and and that story um um how that they went uh to Bethlehem and there was no room in the inn, you know. And and we talked about this last week being last uh yesterday concerning John. Mary's another Mary and Joseph is another great story of how even in God's blessings there are challenges. Mary is riding a donkey to Bethlehem.

Jerry Perry: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And here she is nine months pregnant at the time. She looked like the God would had us chariot with fire or something to carry her over. But but here is God allowing the Messiah to be born. And he is being born in a stable, not a palace, showing that God reaches to the lowest to reach and touch even the lowest of us. It's just an incredible story.

Jerry Perry: It really is. It really does speak to that. And and also to normal people. You know, as you read Luke, it's kind of like a physician seeing his or her patients.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Perry: You know, there are all kinds. There are some that are rich and some that are poor.

Steve Brown: Mhm.

Jerry Perry: Some that are really sick and some that have a cold. Uh and yet the physician sees through the eyes of Jesus in and like Jesus he points out uh the common people who were touched by Jesus.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Perry: And and uh sometimes it's not a positive thing. Like yesterday we saw John the Baptist lost his head over it.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Jesus, you know, I often when I read this story I think man, Jesus ought to have been born at the Ritz Carlton. You know, or or you know, at at the palace. You know, and Jesus is born in a barn, in a manger. You know, and it says it says to me that Jesus is not only what Jesus not only care about the high class.

Jerry Perry: Yeah.

Steve Brown: He cares about those that in the barn, the lowest of us, because he came just like we did to touch just us. And and and and Luke talks about that. It's just it's amazing that story and and what Mary and and Joseph went through.

Jerry Perry: Do you think his calling as a doctor was um uh was one of the reasons for that?

Steve Brown: Yeah, I I I think so.

Jerry Perry: You know, you know some doctors that don't care, but you know, the ones I have known who have been friends and one of them is my son-in-law are people who genuinely care about people.

Steve Brown: They do.

Jerry Perry: About sick people.

Steve Brown: Yes, they do.

Jerry Perry: Does that mean that God really cares about sick people?

Steve Brown: Oh man, let me tell you. I believe that our heavenly father is so in love with his children, which is us.

Jerry Perry: Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know, uh when your child is sick, just think about when your child is sick you stop everything

Jerry Perry: Yep.

Steve Brown: to see about them. You know, you won't go to work. You you you go try to find the best medicine. You let them crawl in bed with you. You know, when your babies are sick you that the the one thing that you are concerned about is getting them well. And that's what Jesus does for us when we're sick spiritually, uh physically, mentally. He climbs in the bed with us and just nurse us back if we allow him to. You know, uh there's kids and when they're sick the mothers try to give them some medicine. I don't want the medicine.

I don't want the medicine. And and they kick and scream. But when a good mother, a good father, sometime we even force the medicine into you to make sure you're well.

Jerry Perry: You're going to take this medicine or I'll break your face. Can be the most loving thing that you can say to some kid.

Steve Brown: That's that's true. They don't understand it. They don't understand it when it's happening. And sometimes you don't understand why God is doing what he's doing, what doors he's shutting and why he shut that door. But sometimes that's God forcing medicine to make you well.

Jerry Perry: You know, we have to go and we'll do this at another time to another gospel, but uh you know, Jesus loved Mary.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Jerry Perry: You know, they had a wedding party and ran out of wine. And uh she said to him, Son, do something. And he did.

Steve Brown: Long yeah.

Jerry Perry: I mean he changed the water into wine. And when he was on the cross

Steve Brown: Oh, I was getting ready to say that.

Jerry Perry: Yeah. He thought about his mother. Let me tell you something. Jesus loves mothers. Jesus in the midst of his crucifixion said, Hey, stop the crucifixion. Stop everything. John, I need you to take care of my mother.

Steve Brown: Oh, is that good?

Jerry Perry: That is so good, because mothers are important. In fact, he uh God even said in the commandments, Honor thy mother and father, that your days may be longer. He intends for us to take care of our mothers because Mary was a great mother for him.

Steve Brown: Okay. So Luke introduces us to Mary. And when he does that he introduces us to a truth. We are loved by God. You think about that. Amen. Thank you Steve and Jerry. That was Steve Brown and Jerry Perry continuing our series for this week, a survey of the Gospel of Luke. We'll wrap things up tomorrow with Jerry's teaching about one of his all-time favorite passages found here in Luke. Do join us. By the way, have you been to keylife.org lately? We have some exciting new features that I want to make sure you know about. First, there's the Key Life Podcast Network.

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