Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): We begin today’s Hope From the Word with Mary’s response to God’s call on her life. "May it be to me as you have said." Whatever the Lord wants to do, whatever God says, just count me in is what she’s saying here.

Bill Luebkemann: This trust in the Lord was so complete, she wasn’t worried about a thing. She didn’t have a hundred and one questions. She didn’t say, "Well, what’s everybody going to say if I’m pregnant and not married? And who’s going to take care of me? And who’s going to pay the bills?" Whatever God says, just count me in. I am the Lord’s servant; may it be to me as you have said.

Guest (Male): Great to be back with you and welcome to Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann of Calvary Chapel of Marlton. During this time of year, you have many opportunities to serve the people around you. Are you willing to answer God’s call?

Today’s broadcast will inspire and challenge us as we continue with the Christmas story. We start with Mary’s response to God’s call along with her faith. She seemed to understand that nothing is impossible with God. Although Zachariah didn’t believe this, Mary did. What an example for us to follow. From Luke chapter one, picking up in verse 37, here’s Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: It was Zachariah who said, "I don't believe you. I don't trust you. Prove it to me," so to speak. And she just asks here, "How are you going to do that?" And yet he tells her how, and then he even offers her some proof. I guess he offered Zachariah proof. He said, "Here's the proof: you're not going to be able to talk for like a year." Is that good enough for you? I hope you like it.

But here, he actually offers her proof even though she didn't ask for it. He says, "Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God." So he says, "By the way, I'll give you that proof. Your relative Elizabeth, who everybody knows is barren."

Being barren in this day, this was a bad thing. It was a stigma. People thought, "Well, you were a sinner. You must have done something wrong. God did not approve of you because you had this barrenness, you didn't have any children." It was something that she lived with every day.

Perhaps Elizabeth and Zachariah got married young, hoping to have a whole bunch of children, and the years go by and they try and try and try and no child ever comes. And now they're old age and they've long since given up hope. And they've been stigmatized and looked down upon and maybe made fun of and called names, even.

It's not like it is today. Of course, you want a child today and you can't have one, that's also a bad thing. But there's not the stigma attached to it that there was back then. And the angel says to her, "Look, I'm even going to give you some proof. Your relative Elizabeth, who is old, she's having a baby. In fact, she's well along. She's already in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."

We could just have the whole message for a whole year just on that one sentence: for nothing is impossible with God. And we need to remember that. He can do anything. Sometimes people today say, "I'm sick. I've tried everything. Seen every doctor. Or have a relative that's sick. Seen every doctor there is. Nothing works. The only thing we have left to do is pray."

The only thing left. There's nothing else. We tried all the obvious things and the only thing we have left to do is ask the Creator of the universe who makes everything work if he can lend a hand here. Maybe you should have done that first. For nothing is impossible with God.

I got a prayer request yesterday from another Calvary pastor that somebody in his church had an emergency appendectomy and was having problems with what do you call it when you get that poison in there, sepsis or something? So he had this problem and he was in intensive care and he wasn't doing good and they're taking him back to the operating room yesterday afternoon.

They put out a prayer request nationwide and I took a couple minutes and prayed for the guy. And it was very gratifying last night before I went to bed to see another email. The guy was out of the operating room. His color came back. They cut down his meds and he was so much improved that everybody was just gratified.

I wondered, the doctors are probably taking credit for it, but I wonder about the 250 churches that were notified about that prayer request and were praying for him. For nothing is impossible. And so someone who's a virgin having a baby? No problem.

People today say, "We don't believe in the virgin birth. We don't believe in the resurrection. We don't believe he was the Son of God. We don't believe in life after death. Or we don't believe that people can be resurrected from the dead." Hey, I believe it happens today in some places and there are some testimonies about it. But if God could create us, he could certainly restart us or reboot us if we're dead.

I was reading an article online about some missionary evangelist who was an old man. I know personally a guy who knows this guy. And this guy I know personally sent me this email and he said that this missionary evangelist, I think this happened a long time ago, his wife had died and he was praying for her to be resurrected.

He said she sat up. She was dead. She sat up. She said, "Herman, I've seen God. It's beautiful in heaven. Leave me alone." And she laid back down and was dead again. And some people would say, "We don't believe that. We don't accept that." I say the Bible says for nothing is impossible with God. So what's the big deal?

And here's Mary's response: "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. Here a young girl, she didn't fully understand what was going to happen here. This Holy Spirit thing is going to come upon you and all this kind of overshadow you and you're going to be with child and how could she comprehend all of this stuff? Did she really understand it all?

When Abraham was told, "Leave your family behind and go on to the land I will show you." God didn't tell him where to go. He said, "Go on to the land I'll show you. I'll show you when you get there. Just get going." And you know the story. Abraham didn't leave his father behind. He hauled his father along and he stopped at another town and he stayed there for a few years and eventually his father died.

The Lord moved him on again and he still didn't know where he was going. And oftentimes the Lord will lead us in a path where we don't know where the end of it's going to take us. And that's okay. We don't have to know because we can trust in the one who's driving the car.

There's that old saying: if Jesus is your co-pilot, you're sitting in the wrong seat. And how much better could this get than this? Mary answered, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said. Whatever the Lord wants to do, whatever God says, just count me in."

This trust in the Lord was so complete, she wasn't worried about a thing. She didn't have a hundred and one questions. She didn't say, "What's everybody going to say if I'm pregnant and not married? And who's going to take care of me? And who's going to pay the bills? And the penalty for fooling around before you were married back then was that you'd be stoned to death."

Her husband was a righteous man, it says back in Matthew. He didn't want to do that. He was going to just put her out quietly to pasture. And the Lord spoke to him in a dream and said, "This is of God. Don't do that."

She didn't say, "What's Joseph going to think about this? Have you appeared to him? Can you leave me some kind of document that I can show him so I know you've been here? So when he comes back, 'Hi Joseph, I'm pregnant and an angel said it was going to be of God.' 'Right, sure. Tell me another one.'"

No questions like that. Just this humble amount of faith by somebody who's truly a believer. Maybe it takes someone at that age not to be cynical like we might be as adults. And she said, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." Whatever the Lord wants to do, get on with it.

Let's skip up to chapter two. We're going to skip the rest of chapter one here and we're just going to look at the birth of Jesus. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

So look, we skipped over the part where Joseph found out his wife was pregnant and where Joseph thought, "Well, I'm just going to divorce her quietly and put her out to pasture." And we skipped over the part where the angel spoke to Joseph in a dream or the Lord spoke to him in a dream and said, "Look, this thing is of God and you need to stick with her."

We skipped over all that part and now it's nearing the end of her pregnancy, although it's not really clear how close to the end of her pregnancy here. If you watch the Christmas movies and you get into the spirit of Christmas, it makes it sound like she rode her donkey into Bethlehem and delivered her baby that night. It doesn't quite say that, but we'll get to that in a minute.

We'll go back to verse one here. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued this decree. Now, he was the first Roman emperor, this guy Caesar. He was born with the name Octavius. His grandmother was the sister of Julius Caesar and Julius Caesar liked him and adopted him as his son.

And in the year 45 B.C., this guy Caesar Augustus, at the time named Octavius, he was made the heir to Julius Caesar. And just a year later, Julius Caesar was murdered and Octavius took over and he split up the kingdom three ways. The Roman Empire hadn't been consolidated yet.

So it was him and Mark Antony and a guy named Lepidus. And the three of them, they called it the triumvirate, they ruled the Roman Empire. And it had never been a nice place to live prior to that, but it was even worse now that the three of them were competing with each other because they divided it up, but they at the same time didn't like each other.

And Mark Antony got together with Octavius and they got rid of the third guy, Lepidus. And so it was just the two of them. And they were rivals, and I'm pretty sure Octavius's sister was maybe married to Mark Antony. But that didn't seem to matter.

Mark Antony got Cleopatra from Egypt on his side and around the year 32 or so B.C., they had a big battle. And history records that Mark Antony had 500 ships and Octavius had 400. And one of them had 100,000 horsemen and the other one had 80,000.

100,000 and 80,000 troops and a lesser number of horsemen. The armies were kind of equal. But this guy Octavius had a better strategy. He won and he consolidated the entire Roman Empire and he became the first emperor of Rome.

And he got the Roman Senate in the year 27 B.C. now to give him this title, Caesar Augustus. Augustus means, of the gods, or sacred, or holy. So he considered himself like a god. And in many ways, he did good for the kingdom. He consolidated it and there was now the Pax Romana, the Roman peace.

They were able to, they locked up the temple of their god of war. They didn't have any more need to go and pray to the god of war because they weren't having any more war because they had peace now. And if you don't like it, we'll shoot you. So we're going to have peace whether you like it or not. I don't know, I guess they shoot you with an arrow back then, not with a gun.

And the Roman world's at peace for the first time ever, this guy being the first emperor, changing it from more of a republic, by the way, into more of a kingdom. And he issued this decree, and one guy could never do this any other time until now.

He issued this decree to take this census. Now this wasn't like the U.S. census, which they take every ten years so that they can figure out how many people live in each state and how many representatives you should have in the House of Representatives from each state based on the population and everything.

It wasn't like that. This was for the purpose of taxing. They want to know how many people there are so they could figure out how much tax money they can get out of you. And this whole Roman world, the whole known world then, all joined together at this point.

This was maybe in the year 4 B.C. He had been given this title in the year 27 B.C. He won his battle with Mark Antony a little bit before that. So maybe 25 years now, there's been peace and he's just been consolidating and expanding his kingdom.

And it's an amazing feat here that one guy can issue a decree that a census would be taken and that everybody would follow those instructions. It's an amazing amount of power that this guy had that he says, "We're taking a census and everybody's going to participate."

And there was a second census, by the way, in the year 5 to 7 A.D. and that's referenced in the book of Acts, I think in chapter five. That's why it says in parentheses here, "This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria."

Because Luke, who wrote the gospel, Luke here, also wrote Acts and later on he points out when the second census happened. And the job here of every person was to go to their own hometown, which would be the hometown of the man.

So Joseph went up. Now this was actually south going to Bethlehem, but it was uphill. And it was 80 miles. So it was like traveling from New York down to Philadelphia. On a donkey or by foot or whatever. This was a journey of several days. It was not an easy journey for people that were healthy and in the prime of life.

But for someone who was pregnant, how they could make that journey there, it was very, very difficult. But Joseph here, following the emperor's instructions, he went up, it says. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

So we see here a reminder. Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem. You can find that reference back in Micah, chapter five, verse two. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

And here is the prophecy being fulfilled that Jesus, even though he grew up in Nazareth and was called a Nazarene, was actually born in Bethlehem. And you know, when you think about Jesus standing before Pilate, and Pilate said to him something along the lines of, "Don't you know who I am? Don't you realize what power you have over me?"

And Jesus said, "You would have no power at all except it was given you from above." And you know, when you realize all earthly rulers are put in their positions by God, here you have this guy Caesar Augustus thinking he's a god making this command that everyone should be registered in their town and really he's just a puppet and the Lord is using him to bring about his will in moving Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem so the baby can be born there because that's where he was supposed to be born.

This whole census, this whole decree, may have just been for that single purpose, that God would work out his plan through these people that think themselves gods but really are nothing more than pawns that God can use. God can use us if we're willing to be used by him, if we follow him and we open ourselves up to him and ask him to work in our lives and use us, he will.

He'll give us things to do. There are works that are appointed for us to do. And then on the other hand, there are those people that don't believe in God, think they are God themselves, worship themselves, or say there is no God. Did you see how, I forget where, I saw it on the news, there's a manger scene set up somewhere in America and some atheist put a sign next to it?

"There is no God. There are no gods. There's no heaven. There's no hell." This big sign, it was several sentences long. "There's only the natural world that we live in." Someone stole their sign, by the way. If I was in that town, I might have done it myself, but I don't even remember what town it was, but they were going to put back a bigger sign or something and a better sign.

Look, God can use you because you want to be used by God or he can use you because you're like the emperor was in Egypt when Moses was going to lead the people out. God can use you like Mary here who says, "May it be to me as you have said," or he can use the emperor who thinks he's a god to get his will done.

The fact is the Lord can use you willingly or unwillingly, for good or for bad. The enemies of Israel for many years, they were used to keep the Israelites in line. When they weren't following the Lord, he'd raise up an enemy to come in and wipe them out. He'd use them and they'd think, "Oh, we beat the Israelites." Really, they were just puppets, pawns that the Lord was using to teach Israel a lesson.

He can use you if you're a follower of his or if you're not a follower of his, but so much better to be his follower and to allow yourself to be used like Mary did than to be like Caesar Augustus getting the Senate to declare that you're a god. It's almost like they were saying, "Here's our king now, he's the Messiah." Sound familiar?

So Joseph went up there and he went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. And again, you have to understand on the one hand you had Elizabeth being barren and being looked down upon and made fun of, she couldn't have a child, she must have done something wrong, isn't she a sinner?

And now you have this other couple, they're not married yet. They're still engaged. They're pledged, they're betrothed. But she's pregnant with a child. And the Pharisees later on would say, "Well, at least we're not the children of fornication. At least we weren't born like that." As if that makes any difference in the light of the child they are or in the way God would use or treat that child, as if that child is any less.

Here she was, she was pledged to be married, she was expecting a child, she was pregnant. And while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born. Look, it doesn't say when they got there, she delivered that night. While they were there. She might have only been six months along when she got there and maybe they were there for a few months.

You get this picture in your mind and you've got to get rid of it because the manger scene that you have under your Christmas tree, the little hut with the thatched roof with all the little figures there, didn't quite happen that way in the Bible. While they were there, while they were in Bethlehem, everybody's coming back to Bethlehem to be registered, all of the relatives were there, people they hadn't seen in a long time.

This could have been a big family reunion. This could have gone on for quite a while. And while they were there, the time came along, the baby, the nine-month mark hit, it came time for the baby to be born. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

Look, the manger was a feeding trough that the animals ate out of. It was not the building that he was born in. It was a trough that they put the hay in that the animals ate out of. And there's a trough with hay and they took him and they wrapped him up and she laid him in there because they had no other place to lay him.

Now here's what happened. The baby was born there. She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. Look, it's very clear here. She was a virgin. She became pregnant by the power of God. This was her firstborn son. So some people say he had no brothers and sisters, she had no other children.

The Catholic Church says she was a virgin her entire life, she never had sex, never had any other kids. Look, the Bible says it was her firstborn. You don't have to say firstborn if you only had one child. You would say she gave birth to her son. You can't be first unless there's a second. She had other children and that's well-documented in the Bible.

But she was a virgin at this point and it was only important for the purposes of God that she be a virgin when the first son was born because then no one can say he had an earthly father. If she had not been a virgin at this point, someone could say, "Well, how do you know he's really the Son of God? Maybe he's really the son of Joseph."

But by showing that she was a virgin here when she conceived, she was still a virgin here when she gave birth, this was her firstborn son and her son was conceived miraculously by the power of God. There's no reason why she needed to be a virgin for the rest of her life and she wasn't.

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in this feeding trough, this manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Now, this was not a Holiday Inn. This was not a Comfort Suites or any of those places. The inn was not much of an inn in this day.

It was basically a barn where you could keep your animals if you were traveling and it had a dirty loft of some place where you could go and find a place to lay down. None of us would want to stay in their inn. But as bad as it was, there wasn't any room there.

And she had to have him out in an alley somewhere or behind somewhere where there were some other animals. In a cave possibly. And laying him down in a feeding trough. You know, he's the Son of God, he could have come, you would think if you use the earthly mind, he should come and be born at Children's Hospital where they have the best care and a clean environment.

And he deserves to have his mother have her own private birthing room there and to be called upon to have nurses and doctors to come at her beck and call. And he deserved to have the best care in the nursery and be fed the best and taken care of and be warm.

But instead, he came in this time when none of us would have wanted to be alive in these times, the way they had to live their lives without the conveniences we have today. And in spite of how bad things were for the normal person, even worse for him. God came in the lowliest possible way as a baby and in the lowliest possible place in this little town of Bethlehem and in the lowliest possible place in this town of Bethlehem in the back of an alley somewhere, laying down in the feeding trough with the animals slopping around and eating the hay next to him. He came in that way and yet he is the Son of God.

Guest (Male): We’re going through a Christmas series here on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. For a CD copy of the message, call 856-983-1662. That’s 856-983-1662. You can also replay today’s program and catch what you may have missed at ccmarlton.org.

Another great way to listen to a program you enjoy or access other teachings from Pastor Bill is through the Hope FM app. Go to ccmarlton.org to download the Hope FM app today. It’s available on all platforms and it’s free.

We want to invite you to join us here at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We have a Sunday morning service which begins at 10:00. We also have a midweek service as well on Wednesdays at 7:00. It would be great to have you here with us. Look for our directions and more information about the church online at ccmarlton.org.

And would you please send us an email sometime today? It would be nice to hear from you and learn how the Lord is using the program in your life this Christmas season. You can also email Pastor Bill from our website at ccmarlton.org or just call us if that’s preferred: 856-983-1662. We’ll have more Hope From the Word from Pastor Bill’s Christmas series next time. We’ll see you then.