Faith is the underpinning fabric of blessing when God speaks and a person believes what He has said. In Mary’s story, her journey to Elizabeth not only affirms the truth of God’s Word but shows how belief brings the assurance of divine fulfilment. The contrast between those who did not believe in Jesus and the one who trusted the promise reveals that the Lord’s purposes come alive through obedience and faith. Blessed indeed is the one who believes that what was spoken by the Lord will be accomplished.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] All right. Cameron was leading up for the message just exactly how one might expect him to do, given our precedent in all other years that once we get through Christmas Day, we’re looking to the new year and we’re looking to what we’re, in our faith, walk with Christ, what the new year might bring. And so he was leading our service just that way, which is good. And I have been led to say something that looks as though we’re looking back at Christmas. But there’s a purpose. If you hang on, you’ll see it. And here we have this passage about Jesus and some little statement there. If you look in verse five down the bottom, for not even his brothers believed in him. If you have one of the older versions, it reads, for not even his brethren believed in him.

[00:01:01] And it’s a proper translation of the translation that’s there. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s the proper translation to have translated brethren to be his brothers. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed the implication of there being brothers of Jesus, and the word not being taken just to mean metaphorically like we do today, and probably did back then as well, that the term brothers was used for generally a group of people who have got something in common. There is the brethren, I shouldn’t call it a denomination, but the brethren grouping of Christians, which really have that name emphasising that they’re people who have something in common in Jesus. It’s a beautiful description of what is the church.

[00:01:51] And, well, the word brothers here is that word in the Greek that means brethren, but very clearly in this passage, if you read a lot of it, means Jesus’ physical brothers. And that alerts me to one part of the Christmas story that is missing, I think. Now, I’m going by what I see of people who are mothers, and it’s a Christmas story, it’s about Mary becoming the mother of Jesus. And I’ve got a wife who is a mother, and there’s six little kids. Well, they’re not little anymore, sorry, Karen. But it’s something that I’ve always a little bit in awe of, is how much Michelle gets to do an enormous amount of things for these young ones, and these offspring, let’s call them it. And in our house recently, there’s been an awful lot of telephoning to Dallas.

[00:02:58] And it seems as though she’s been on the phone talking to Shona and Jesh, thankfully for the way our phones work these days, you hardly have to pay anything for a long-distance call. And so they’re talking for, I was going to say hours on end, but that’s not all day. But she’s busy, and then there’s other people of the family who’ve got events going on that are needing a lot of attention. And Michelle has exhausted herself again and again from all these things that she’s doing as a mother. And it suddenly caused me to wake up to something about the Christmas story that there’s something missing. Anybody want to guess what I’m beginning to hint at? What’s missing in the Christmas story? There is something actually missing.

[00:03:53] When I say missing, not because it should be there, but because we might expect it to be there, given how mothers are. And I’m curious, anybody, come on, are you just shy of saying something? What’s missing, apparently, if you just bring along our normal observation of mothers, what’s missing in the story of the birth of Jesus? Say it again? Mary? Mary? Now, Mary is the mother, and she’s right in the middle of the story. So she’s not missing, but I think you’re getting there. It’s Mary’s mother. Can you imagine there being a family, a very new family, and a birth that’s going to be rather debated about by relatives? And as a mother in the family, mother of Mary, don’t you think she’d have an awful lot of doings in it? And then we get to the storyline, and we’ve been through it in church,

[00:05:03] of what happens when the angel comes and speaks to Mary and gives some advice to her. And I think that’s in one of my early passages. Let’s see which one. In Luke. Look at Luke. I think it’s Luke. Yeah, here’s the finish of how the angel speaks to Mary. But I… No, no. Take that away. That’s about Peter. You got it. Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I’m a virgin? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am a servant of the Lord.

[00:06:12] Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Now, we don’t necessarily need to read what happens next, but Mary goes to visit her aged cousin. There’s a cousin who’s like an old lady, old-ish lady, and is suddenly become pregnant when everybody called her the barren one. And what was considered impossible for her future was that suddenly she had a pregnancy. And the angel’s telling Mary to go and visit this person in order to see that God can do miracles. And I want to suggest, and I can’t prove this, and I’d be interested in your thoughts, whether it’s a good thought or am I making too much out of something that’s not there. But how is it that Mary gets the greatest encouragement to all that’s about to happen to her from this cousin, especially one that’s in her 60s or so?

[00:07:18] Now, the actual person is John the Baptist’s mother-to-be. And when Mary goes to visit a cousin, the purpose of the Lord sending her there is so that she can see her pregnancy. She’s six months down the track, and this is to encourage Mary that what was said to be impossible is now happening. So, encouragement to Mary. And she concludes by believing. And there’s a blessing on Mary because she believed. And that’s a very good reason to have sent Mary to Elizabeth. But I’m just going to suggest, and you can tell me later whether it’s a good suggestion or just my musing too much. And was it because God knew about Mary’s cousin being pregnant? And God also knew that Mary was really mother in need as a young mother-to-be. And normally, in normal human life, I think in every generation,

[00:08:31] the girls run to their mothers. And their mothers, with all their past experience, can help them. And here’s Mary being sent into a country place to a relative that’s not her mother but as a cousin. And she’s going to be getting a demonstration model of someone who can encourage her in the only circumstance of the impossibility of what has been prophesied that Mary’s going to have a child. And it’s to another woman who’s in that circumstance. And it’s not exactly the same. Not that John the Baptist didn’t have a virgin’s birth. But the fact that the old woman was going to be an encouragement to her. Now, it’s not there in black and white in the Scriptures. And I do am aware that I’m suggesting something that you don’t have to believe is the case. It’s just a question that came into my mind

[00:09:30] that the reason why God was doing this was because that woman had a relationship to Mary that usually is one that a mother has. So it suddenly started making me think was it maybe that the mother of Mary had passed away and there was a vacuum? It just came into my mind. So I began to do a bit of research. And I thought, well, if that’s an idea, I should find out whether or not… where how do we know that there’s no mention of Mary’s mother in the whole set-up of Christmas into Gospels? Most of the information we get about the Christmas story comes from Matthew and Luke. And they just don’t mention anything of Mary’s mother. I just think that’s rather odd if there was one still alive. What do you think? Well, I decided to do a bit more research because we only have Matthew and Luke of our four Gospels,

[00:10:42] Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that give us the information for the Christmas story here. But is there any more information at a broader level? As a matter of fact, there is another document that’s turned up in the second century. And this other document that’s turned up in the second century is called the Eugenion, the Proto-Neuangelion. That’s just Greek. It means proto’s first. The first gospel. The first gospel. But it’s written in the second century. And you might say, well, that could be possible if someone in the second century did their research and wrote up and went. But how’s it called the first gospel? That’s rather ignoring Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Especially Mark was very early and certainly not written in the second century. But then the people who doubt the Bible, you know,

[00:11:43] they can make up all sorts of theories and some of them do that the Bible wasn’t written in the first century and a lot of it’s fiction that we’re reading. You know, nice fiction, but they don’t believe the scriptures. But, you know, the early church councils faced that question as to what to believe and what not to believe. I’ll tell you about the writing. It does mention the mother for Mary, but I’ll get there in a minute. But the first councils decided that they had to find those manuscripts, those writings that had won the belief in the early days of being from God. And they used a word that you’ve probably heard in another context, but they used a word to say it meant that something was absolutely believable and something not only that’s believable to be true, but something that works on you

[00:12:35] and gives you a measurement whether you’re up to the right scratch. and the actual word, you know, that they use has to do with what became something that is used across the centuries in a more and more different manner but they use the word that something was accredited or something was something that would measure it and you actually have a meaning for this let me make sure I say it right But they said that there were some things that were written that were to be recognised. And the first creeds accepted just a limited number of documents and they said that these are the ones that were true. But in the 2nd century and on there’s, well, even later on, 4th, 5th, 6th, there’s lots of creeds that come together. And they discovered other manuscripts that were supposedly written in the 1st century.

[00:13:36] And one of them is the Proto-Evangelium of James. The Proto-Evangelium. Now Proto-Evangelium, that’s that word that simply means the first gospel. So the reason why this second century written Proto-Evangelium has any authority is only as if it’s the first gospel, so it has to be written by someone back then in the first century. And do you know who they pick on? It’s James. Now this is not James the brother of John. is James the Just. Who can tell me who James the Just was family-wise? Who can tell me who James the Just… Are you able still to follow? There’s a little bit of intellectual stuff here. Who was the person that is not the brother of John? James and John were brothers. Sons of Thunder, Jesus called them. But there’s another James that’s written something in your Bibles? Half-brother of Jesus.

[00:14:36] The brother of Jesus. Did you say half-brother? You might be right, but can you explain that? This is interesting. I can’t explain it. Okay, all right. Well, the reason is it was said that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a normal marriage or had a marriage to Joseph and then produced the brothers. So they were brothers of Mary and Joseph, whereas Jesus is just, sorry, they were sons of Mary and Joseph, but Jesus is just the son of Mary, so you’re right. They’re half-brothers, that’s how it gets to be so. But this saying that the mother of Mary has got a person that wrote it and he is James the Just, supposedly, and he’s someone that lived back in Jesus’ time and it’s put on this second-century document, the half-brother of Jesus having written it, James the Just.

[00:15:56] But it also has to explain how come Mary had several brothers, or Mary had several, Jesus had several brothers. And in the passage that we’re looking at today, which is in John’s Gospel, chapter 7, verse 5, we’ll put that up, John 7, verse 5, the Gospel of John, verse 7, it’s talking about Jesus and how not everybody was taking him on for who he was saying he was. And this verse is, for not even his brothers believed in him. Now, if they’re the half-brothers of Jesus, do they not swallow the storyline? But it is this book in the second century, it doesn’t say this, that’s the Gospel of John saying this, but this second century book called this prototype First Gospel. It says that Jesus’ mother, Mary, had a mother whose name was Anna. So there is a mother of Jesus’ mother. There is a grandmother of Jesus.

[00:17:20] And it paints a bit of a different story about Mary. Well, if there was such a person, here’s my point, why is she missing from the Christmas story and why is Mary needing to go and see her old cousin to get some encouragement? And these half-brothers of Jesus, they would be also the grandsons of this Anna lady. Why do they not believe Jesus? The miracle had happened. It’s too big a miracle. And what do we make of the storyline of the half-storyline of the mother of Mary, particularly when you go on reading in this document, which is called the Proto-Evangelium, written by James, and it’s even got the name, the Proto-Evangelium of James. How do we not believe it if this fellow who’s one of Jesus’ brothers writes the other things that are written in this, and it is that Mary,

[00:18:38] which must have been the mother of this fellow, supposedly writing, and someone finding out about, and it’s written up in the second century. It’s meant to be written up by James the Just, the brother of Jesus. How come he not only believes in Jesus, we know he did eventually, but he believes his mother was a perpetual virgin. And that’s the part of what that document, second century document, put out as though it was written by a first century person, says that Mary never sinned. And it says that Mary remained a virgin. But if she remained a virgin, where did the brothers of Jesus come from? That’s my big point. Now, this word brother is a word, and I looked it up in the Greek, and it’s a normal word for a brother, or delphos, it means brother. And there’s other spots in the Bible

[00:19:43] where it uses it just as a proper brother of somebody, or a word describing brotherly love, the love of one’s brother. Now, it is true in our times that we do use the word brother and the word brothers in what you call a metaphorical way. Metaphorical way means you don’t just mean you’re real brothers, but you mean that there are people who are bounded together as though they were brothers. In actual fact, the word brethren has come to mean not only someone who is your fellow children of the one family, but it’s come to mean that you are somehow bound together as a spiritual group. or some society or even a profession often uses the name brethren to mean those who are commonly held in that group, the metaphorical meaning of brothers, members of a religious group or society or profession.

[00:20:43] They’re called the brethren of the profession or the brethren of the society. Or we know about, it’s not a denomination, but a grouping of people who meet together and are the brethren with a big B, all right? Some of you may be folk brought up in a brethren assembly. That word assembly means the coming together of the church. And the brethren assembly is that they don’t want to make a big deal of denominationalism or of any other distinctions, but everybody is an equal brother in the group. So the word is used metaphorically, and so some people come to the first verse that I put up for you, that one from John 7, that said that his brothers, even his brothers did not believe in him, that actually would be a major contradiction of something

[00:21:34] if the ones who get called brethren or brothers don’t believe in Jesus. Because the whole idea of brothers is some people who are drawn together by common belief, we are a brethren in a sense that we all believe in Jesus. and it’s that belief so strong that makes us brethren. But even his brothers did not believe in him and this is a second century writing up. No, no, that verse is written in the Bible but in the second century there’s a writing up by a so-called document written by James the Just but it wasn’t but it’s one of those pseudonym documents and there come more and more of them as the centuries roll around so the churches don’t quite know how to treat all the things that are written about Jesus when they’re later ones. That’s why our Gospels only have Matthew and Luke about the Christmas story

[00:22:37] because they’re the only ones that are written from the beginning and they don’t write anything about Mary and I’m wondering, I’m sorry, they write about Mary But they don’t write about Mary’s mother. And I think it would be the most amazing thing if there were a young girl, especially Mary was young when she was turned up pregnant. And can you imagine all the relatives hearing the news and what poor position that girl was in? If she had a mother, she’d be there. I’m either scolding her or helping her or both. But there’s absolutely no mention of the Christmas story in the Scriptures of the mother of Jesus. Her name sometimes anglicised to Jane and sometimes Anna or Anna something, you know. Anne, I think it is anglicised to Anne or leaving it as Anna. Now, I don’t doubt that Mary had a mother

[00:23:46] because that’s what humans, how they get to be in the world. But whether she was there or not, I think the reason why the Lord sent Mary to her cousin was because there was a miracle involved. And that miracle wasn’t only the birth-to-be of John the Baptist, but it also was what happened when Mary visited. So let’s turn to the recitation of the visit that comes. It’s in the Gospel of Luke where Mary goes to visit. And in chapter 1, and look at verses 34 and on. Oh, no, I think you had it right. Yeah, there it is. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be? How will this be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold,

[00:24:56] That’s a tension here, please. Behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is in the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. This is actually the statement of Mary, whereby we see she believes. Believes in what’s happened, that God is in it. Now it goes on, In those days Mary Rose went to haste into the hill country, into the town of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. I’m having us see this verse again this morning. Because of what happens now. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

[00:25:57] And she exclaimed with a loud cry. Now actually what’s here before us is a moment of prophecy, triggered by a spirit-controlled baby in the womb. And that sense of the work of the Spirit taking over the necessary controls of the baby goes through to the mother. And Elizabeth has a prophecy. And she comes out with a loud cry. This is one of the features of some of the scriptural moments of people prophesying, is that they get taken over. And it’s a loud cry in this case. Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. This is Elizabeth prophesying to Mary. And why he is granted to me that the mother of my Lord. She knew that something wonderful was happening about her own pregnancy, but she didn’t know who John the Baptist was going to be.

[00:26:57] Maybe she discovered it from the scriptures somewhere along the line, but how did she know that the one who’s coming to visit her was the mother of her Lord? Jesus’ mother, yet to be born. And the baby knows. And his mother-to-be knows. And she prophesies. And the thing about prophecy in the Bible is it’s the sign that God is there. A real prophecy. Don’t believe the phony ones. But a real prophecy proves God is in it. And this prophecy is a part of the convincing of Mary that God is in the whole thing. and why is granted to me that the mother of my Lord I don’t think either Elizabeth or Mary fully might have of their own account grasped the meaning of that that Mary’s the mother of Elizabeth’s Lord the Lord Jesus yet to be born is her Lord, her eternal Lord actually wow, for behold the sound of your greeting

[00:28:06] came to my ears and the baby in my womb left for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord there is in that moment an illustrative formula of how someone gets blessed of God and how someone can know it is a blessing from God that formula is that the Spirit of God moves and there is something that is more than just human ideas it’s something that is Scripture something that has come from God the very nature of the Word of God is there in the prophecy and blessed is the person who believes what was spoken to her from the Lord do you know there’s a formula there it’s not sort of stated this is my doing to use the word formula but there’s a formula there for how you get in to the blessing of the Lord it is through his word

[00:29:10] and not just the propositions intellectually understood of the word but it is through when God speaks to you it gets through to you when you are in receipt of the call of God or the statement of God or the teaching of God when God does what he does so well and he speaks to you or his word instructs you and you know that it’s the Lord that’s getting through to you and then it says blessed is she, it probably says, blessed is where is it now, let me see, blessed is she, that’s Mary in this instance, who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her. the Lord. And do you know that what makes a person get in with God, a person who gets the fulfilment of God’s blessings, it comes when he speaks and you just believe. There is down through the centuries,

[00:30:15] there are down through the centuries, occasion and occasion of some person hearing from God and obeying, believing. And it’s when the blessing is cemented. And Mary she was going to have the baby Jesus and she is being now told by the prophecy that your blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Do you know that statement was especially true in the birth of Jesus and Mary accepting what was happening to her? But it’s generally true in dealings that God has with you and me. When he says something and you believe it, you’re doing something that you could be proven wrong, it could turn out to be you made it up in your own head. But there’s some experimental moment when you put your rest in what has come to you as the word of God.

[00:31:27] And that’s when people become Christians. Sometimes there’s a physical response involved with it. You’ve heard my story, it was this leg. That’s how I tell it anyway, because I was sitting next to my brother at the Billy Graham crusade. The rain was coming down. We were in raincoats. And while Billy Graham finished his call at the end, in my mind, I don’t know how to explain what happened or how much is this in my mind, but Billy Graham disappeared off the platform. And Christ was there. And he was wanting me to come. It burned, it boiled down to this leg. Because my brother went. I usually followed him, but I wasn’t following this step yet. And I decided to go to the call. My raincoat caught in the aisle. Some of you heard me tell this story. I can’t stop telling it. And I ripped it free to get out and to go.

[00:32:32] And in the going, believing something happened. And this is a spiritual principle. We started the service. We’ve been in the service talking about the new year that’s coming. Let me ask you a question. Do you have any promises? You don’t always get God giving you promises, but do you have any promises? Sometimes we don’t get many promises. One, because we don’t read the Word of God enough. If you make a practice of always being in the Word, it won’t happen every day. It won’t necessarily happen every week. But when God wants something to happen, he’ll use, if you have a habit of being in the Word in a regular way. Sometimes it happens in some circumstance and you know it’s him. Because God’s Word is a living Word. He can use the Bible to make you aware of it or it can be, the Word of God is always the Word of God,

[00:33:43] but he can use it in a special sense. Or he can simply give you a conviction, an awareness. You have to test it. Maybe that’s what Mary needed to go and see her cousin to give her more evidence. But at the end of all the evidence, she believed that there would be fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And God is a God who never fails to keep his Word. A bit different from us, but he never fails. And blessed is any person who believes that there will be a fulfilment for what was spoken from the Lord. And that’s what we learn. And I’m bringing all this to our attention, not just to have a final message from Christmas, which I wouldn’t want to do anyway because there’s such an enormous truth in this, but to help us to look for the next year. Enter it by looking to the Lord as to what he wants from you and that he will give you

[00:34:57] the strength to do it in his power. Let’s pray. Father, for the truth of the storyline, what a beautiful storyline. I don’t know whether there was still alive then the mother of Mary. I somehow doubt that there is this proto-euangelium of James, of James the Just writing a gospel, but I doubt because of all the funny things that’s written in it and the things that are not in line with the other gospels. And Lord, you don’t tell us about the mother of Mary, whether she was still alive, whether her name was Anna or something else. Father, we thank you for the word that you have given us and help us to find you in it. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.