Did you ever wonder why Mary was so used by God, even though she was probably a late teenager and was trusted with so much? Today, her response to God's voice will tell you everything you need to know about how God wants to use you and me and actually speak to us. You don't want to miss today's broadcast. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. In just a minute, we'll pick up where we left off in our series, Peace on Earth, with part two of Chip's message, Fear Not, God Can Do Miracles. And today, he'll continue studying the life of Jesus' mother, Mary, and the meaningful lessons we can learn from her faith journey.
But before we get going, if you've missed any part of this series so far, catch up at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app. Well, if you have a Bible, go now to Luke chapter 1 as Chip begins the remainder of his talk with a sobering statistic. American Bible Society did research in the last year of Christians across America and their habits of being in God's Word on a regular basis. It's the lowest interaction with Scripture in any time in the history of America among Christians. I will tell you that if you are not in God's Word, there is no power. It's not about trying hard or wanting.
It doesn't work. The Spirit of God takes the Word of God, He digests it in your soul, He creates power and new desires, He transforms your mind, and He changes you from the inside out. And it's like a car that doesn't have any gas. No word, no power. And this isn't like some guilt trip. This is like, do you want to just keep having a form of godliness but deny its power? Mary says, be it unto me how? According to your word. And then notice she does something. Faith isn't a feeling.
Faith isn't intellectually agreeing. She didn't go, well, that's really wonderful. I guess I'll sort of sit around here and wake up one morning and find out when I'm pregnant. Remember, He gave her a sign. Elizabeth, supernaturally. She's already six months pregnant. Look what Mary does. I'm going to go find out if it's true. At this time, Mary arose, went in a hurry.
Where? To the hill country, to the city of Judah. And she entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. She's going to trust God and then confirm, that's what He wants you to do.
That's what He wants me to do. Notice what happens. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greetings, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out in a loud voice, blessed are you among women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me?
What do you think that did for Mary's faith? Now, wait a second. I got this visit from an angel.
I've been thinking about all these issues. I walk in and she declares that I'm the mother of her Lord. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Affirmation. And then it goes on, for behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped inside my womb for joy. And get this one, and blessed is she who, what did she do? Believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord. What we've gone through so far is the familiar historical record of God the Son becoming God in the flesh, so that He might come to deliver me from my sin, my selfishness and all my dysfunctions, to break the power of sin in my life and to actually pay for my sin so that whoever would believe could have eternal life now that would go on forever and ever and ever, regardless of what's happening in the world or what's happening in your world.
And with that, how one by one can we get rid of these frames? You know, I'm not saying don't watch the Warriors. I'm not saying it's wrong for your kid to get on Santa's lap. I hope you have some good food. I hope you watch a couple movies. I'll tell you, they're going to kiss at the end, and it's all going to work out. I hope you have some fun, you know, right?
I hope there's unity. But you know what? What God really wants to do. What He really wants to do.
Not for someone out there, for you. He wants you this season to believe that He does the impossible, and He wants to do the impossible for you, and He wants you to get out of all those frames and see that picture, that reality of power, supernatural, and to follow Mary's example in such a way that not only you would experience a miracle, but you would become the kind of miracle that literally people would say over time, there's no explanation for how you've changed except for Jesus. So let's look at the text. The message, there's a virgin birth.
Isaiah 7 14 says 700 years before it happened, it was predicted this child would be born of a virgin. The command, fear not, call Him Jesus. Guess what?
That's the command for us. Anybody a little concerned about the world situation? Anybody concerned about the political situation? Anybody concerned about the neo-Marxism that's invading? Anybody concerned about the disintegration of the family, the sexual confusion, the struggles and mental health?
I don't know about you, but you get past 30 trillion dollars worth of debt, you think this thing might not be too stable, right? Fear not. And the name of Jesus, she carried the name of Jesus into her world. That's our calling. The baby's identity, clearly the Messiah, wonderful counselor, eternal father, mighty warrior, Prince of Peace. That's who He is. And He lived inside of her.
And if you're a follower of Jesus and turned from your sin and received Him personally, that's who lives in you. And His agenda is not be a nice person. You know, give a couple sweatshirts and a coat and feel better about yourself.
Be a little bit nicer at work. All that stuff's fine, but it misses the point. He wants to revolutionize your life from the inside out so you could be a miracle. He wants you to come like Mary and say, I don't bring anything to the table. I've got really deep issues. I'm in desperate need of you. And whatever you want me to do, I can't. But I'm open and I'm willing.
He wants you to believe what she believed, that miracles actually can happen. Again, in the whiteboard of your mind, are you ready? What is the most impossible situation in my life right now? Blank. Would you please fill that in? Right now, fill it in. What is it?
Nothing gets dynamic and so specific. Silly prayers. God make my life better.
How would you ever know if He did? What are you struggling with? What needs to change? Who do you care about?
What do you need? That's the message of the Christ child. It's miraculous. It's supernatural. It's an intervention.
There's power, real power, power to change you, power to change the world, power to take the evil aimed at you and use it for good. Mary's response is a model to follow. When she hears greetings, favorite one, you remember her response?
She's perplexed. God, you're speaking to me? Have any of you, like maybe you've been in church, but reading the scriptures in the morning or at night or sometime and you're reading something and you sense God speaking to you and you go, wow, I have no idea what this means.
Anybody? I've had that thousands of times. By the way, that's normal.
Unfortunately, my experience is when Christians open the Bible and they read something, I think God's speaking to me and it's perplexing. I don't understand it. We jump to, I guess I'll never be able to understand this. No, no, no, no, no.
This is written for us regular people. We have to keep pressing in. She's perplexed. My wife, we were talking this morning, we get up early and have coffee and nothing super spiritual, but just connect and this morning we were talking about the message because she's very generous to listen many times before you ever get it as I'm trying to figure out, Lord, exactly what do you want to say and how? And we were talking about being perplexed and she goes, you know, it reminded me this morning, we have an anniversary coming up, I think next Saturday, it'd be 45 years, kind of a big one. Well, if you know our story, you're talking about a miracle. And so because of, it's too long, I won't go into the background, but because of her situation and us trying to figure out whether it was God's will and with all the other dynamics, she just got to where, God, I've just got to know.
I'm perplexed, you know, I love Chip and I'm a single mom, I've got these two little boys and I was abandoned and I just got to know. And she sat literally, she took things literally, she would pray in her closet and she heard in her mind, you're going to marry Chip on December 16th of this year. And she got up out of her closet, went and found a calendar and found December 16th.
It was a Saturday, he said Saturday, December 16th. And, you know, you have to know her. It was like, oh, okay. I mean, that's who I am, okay, I got it. Perplexing, but God spoke. She'd never told me, by the way. And so it worked out and I was finishing my orals for grad school and the only day, that was on Friday, that Saturday, and then all the people in our ministry were heading off, I said, well, honey, I'm sorry but it's a little tight but December 16th is the only day we can do it.
Are you experiencing that? Do you understand that she's not unusual, she's not super, she's not a saint, she's a regular desperate single mom saying, God, is there any hope? I just came to know you after this guy left me for some other woman, I don't have any money and some guy named Chip comes and man, he's so up and down, he's afraid to marry him, we don't know your will. I need to know, I'm desperate. That's who God speaks to.
Are you desperate? And then she was willing and then she trusted, that's what Mary did. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip will be back in just a minute to finish today's talk. But quickly, this program is supported by the generosity of listeners like you. And right now, during our year-end match, it's a great time to partner with us. Between now and December 31st, every gift we receive will be doubled dollar for dollar.
You can give today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. Well, with that, here again is Chip to continue his message. Second, she was confused. How can this be? Okay, maybe I'm only 15 or 16, but I know enough to know, man, woman, come together, baby. How's this going to work?
Notice she didn't say if it could work, unlike Zacharias. Are you willing to be confused sometimes? I was a basketball coach, convinced I'd be a basketball coach all my life, playing ball around the world, and God tells me after college and graduate school, now I'm supposed to be in ministry, and I just confused.
I thought, hey, I don't want to go to school anymore. I'm not smart enough to be a pastor. I'm not holy enough to be a pastor. Certainly, you got a lot better people. And I think if I could have heard the Lord's voice in heaven, He would have said, I got lots of a lot better people, but a lot of them I can't get to get in the game. You may not be all that, oh, you know.
But so far, you're a pretty naive, desperate son of an alcoholic that I spoke to, and when I've told you this is what I want you to do, you stammer, you stutter, you struggle, but at the end of the day, you feel like that's the only option. And by the way, that's the Mary's of the world. It's not about smarts. It's not about gifts.
It's about I'm in. And I would have never dreamed. I would have never dreamed that this is the life. I got really confused about five or six years ago and went overseas and met with our elders. I thought I'd pastor this church till I got old and more gray and die. And God made it very clear there was another plan, but what about this? And how about we always go to how?
And because we don't know how, we freeze. Mary says, I don't know how, but notice next she surrenders. Be it unto me according to your word.
Would you get out of the trees and the pressure and the presence and the food and who's coming in town and the office parties and what movies you're going to watch and expectations and all that framing, framing, framing, framing. And would you get the picture down inside your heart and mind and realize the miraculous, all-powerful, all-knowing God has intervened in human history with supernatural power, and He wants to meet you and He wants to use you and He wants to change you and restore you and forgive you. And it all starts with, be it unto me. There's some of you that you're good church people. You intellectually believe in Jesus. You're not born again. Your life doesn't revolve around Him. By the way, this is no condemnation.
You don't read the Bible very much. You're actually nicer than most people. You're probably even pretty moral. You've got some issues and everyone has issues.
You think God grades on the curve. And you think if you come to church, it's a good feeling that somehow, some way, everything's going to be okay. And everyone thinks you're great and everyone thinks you're nice. You've got inner unresolved issues. You don't have supernatural peace. And here's the deal. There's a form of godliness.
There's no power. All I want to say is let's get rid of the frames so that some of you would say to the Lord's gracious gift, I would like the Holy Spirit to live in me. And like Mary, I confess, I fall short. I believe that you died on the cross in my place and rose from the dead. And Jesus, you said that you stand at the door of my heart and knock and if any man, any woman would open the door, you said you would come into me and forgive me and live with me forever. And if you have never done that, He brought you in this room to receive Him.
And it will not be easy, but it will be wonderful and it will be eternal. And for others of us, we've been around so long, we've made some big surrenders, but all of our stories are in the rearview mirror. You haven't taken any risks lately. You haven't stepped out a lot lately. Personal confession, I speak to lots of large groups and pastors and I know the Bible pretty well after all these years. But I recognize in terms of sitting down with someone and actually sharing the gospel in a very clear, personal way, as I was studying this and just some other things in my life, I thought, Lord, it's easy to talk to a big group of people.
That's not very threatening. And my physical therapist, who I began to build a relationship with, I said, Lord, would you cause him to ask me a question that I could really tell him about Jesus? And then my very last appointment, I said, Lord, would you allow me to tell him the real story of the gospel?
And the same thing happened on a plane just about six days ago. And I just, I literally, I got my pen out and here's what I said that I have not been doing enough of. I just turned to him and said, do you have three minutes to see a little picture that changed the entire course of my life?
And both of them said yes. And then I drew a little picture of like a cliff and a cliff and this big chasm. And I said the chasm sin, man's on this side, God's on this side.
And no matter what we do is that we can't get there on our own. And I made a picture of the cross and I just went through simply the gospel. All of sin falls short of the glory of God. What we get for our sin is death. But God's grace, why we're yet sinners, Christ died in our place.
And you must receive him personally because when you do, he gives you the power to become a child of God. And I drew the bridge and I had a little stick man and I put the pen and I said, where are you? Are you on this side, you're on this side or you're a little somewhere on that bridge? And both of them said this. I said, would you like to be on that side? Yes. I said, have you ever heard this before?
Never. He said, I go to church some. In fact, he told me what the church was, it's a good church. He said, it makes me feel good. But what you just shared, I've never heard that. He said, I have a lot to think about. I said, God put us on this plane because he loves you.
It's not a story, it's not a myth, it's not a metaphor. He's real and he loves us. And so the final thing she does is she rejoices.
And she sings this amazing song about God's faithfulness and how she'll be remembered. And as we close, I'd like you to go to the last page and I just want you to answer these questions as honestly from your heart as you possibly could. But let me ask you, what did you learn about God's sovereignty that frees you from fear?
The wars, the economy, the jobs, the downsizing, all the rest. A sovereign God has a plan for you and for the world. And he's looking for Mary's to bring about his purposes. What did you learn about God's faithfulness to his promises to give you hope? I mean, people waited for a long time. Messiah, going to come, do this, do that.
Yeah, sure, after 400 years, a lot of people said, no way. He fulfilled all 316 Old Testament promises about his first coming. Can I just give you a stern warning? Jesus is coming back. Are you ready? He will fulfill all of his promises.
He always does. And a new reality, there won't be any frames about anything, and he wants you to be with him. Third, what did you learn from Mary? You know, if you just went through and said, okay, it's okay to be perplexed, it's okay to be confused, and in the midst of it all, you don't understand, surrender. Finally, just the parallels that quiet her fears, quiet mine. God spoke to her, God spoke to us. The Holy Spirit dwelt in her.
If you're a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. She was to bring salvation to the world. We're to bring salvation to the world. That's why this big event coming up is so important.
That's why, you know, one of my neighbors that I've been talking to is asking to meet and just have coffee and talk. And then surrender and obedience unleashes God's miraculous power, peace, and joy. And joy isn't from getting all the toys, going public, finally finding the right person. Joy is the byproduct of embracing God's purpose for your life.
I want to stop right now before we do anything else, before we talk about anything else, and I want to begin one by one to remove all those frames we've talked about. Christmas has come to mean so many things and so many traditions, but Christmas is about the good news that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has come to this planet to forgive the sins of whosoever would believe in Him. Would you, right now, if you have never put your faith in Christ, begin to examine where are you at in your relationship with God?
Everyone will live somewhere forever and ever. That's what the Bible teaches. But God so loved the world that whoever would believe in Him, Jesus, would not perish but have everlasting life.
It's so easy to sing a Christmas song, to go to a Christmas service, to go to a Christmas party, to try to be a nice person, but miss Jesus. He came for you, and today He would say to you, Turn to Me. You can do that right now with a very simple prayer with the intent of your heart. Lord, I admit to you that I have failed. I'm not perfect.
I'm not absolutely holy. But I believe today that you died in my place to pay for my sin, and you rose from the dead. And you promised that as many as receive you, you would give the power to become the children of God.
And so right now, I receive you. I believe on you, Lord Jesus. Come into my life. Come into my heart right now, I ask, in Jesus' name. And if you prayed that with me, can I encourage you to text or call the greatest Christian you know and tell him what you did, and then go to our website, livingontheedge.org, and we have some free resources to help you grow in your relationship with Christ.
Thanks, Chip. Quickly, you're listening to Living on the Edge and the message you just heard, Fear Not, God Can Do Miracles, is from our series, Peace on Earth. And if you prayed to receive Christ with Chip, we do have a free resource we'd like to put in your hands that was created specifically for new believers. This tool will help you understand what it means to trust in Jesus and what to do next. Request this free resource by calling us at 888-333-6003 or by visiting livingonttheedge.org, then clicking the New Believers button.
That's livingonttheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. Let us help you get started in your faith journey. Well, Chip's with me in studio still, and Chip, today you talked about how God still does miracles despite all the negativity and rampant evil in our world, and we can affirm that idea because we've witnessed God do miraculous things through the international side of our ministry. Chip, can you talk a bit more about that and give us an example of God at work?
Dave, I'd be glad to because I think it's a very hopeful picture for us in America. I know a lot of people are very discouraged, disappointed. It feels like it's getting darker and darker, but when it gets dark, God often does some of his greatest work. This started about seven years ago, and since that time, with approval, and I want to be a little bit vague, we've had the opportunity to literally help millions and millions of believers in China and millions of pastors.
And by God's grace, all I can tell you, it's a lot like the picture in my mind of when Peter was released from jail and the angels came and he just walked by everybody and the gates opened on their own. I can't go into all the details, but I do want you to know this, is that we have taught on who God really is and provided resources, books, training. We've taught on what a disciple really is, Romans 12, in the midst of the pandemic, the art of survival, and it has been a movement and an explosion like I've never seen. To people that are under such duress, we are in the midst currently and continually of training and helping pastors who are then teaching God's word, and many of them have zero theological background. And so they're taking what we give them and they are actually teaching it all across that great nation.
You know, I would remind people, China is not our enemy. There's government agencies and ideology, but there are millions, perhaps a hundred million brothers and sisters there who are reaching others. And we are a critical part of feeding those pastors and those leaders to help that church be the church in the midst of a very dire situation.
My request is, would you help us? Your generosity has allowed us to do this and your prayers and generosity will allow us to expand in China like never before. Thanks for whatever God leads you to do.
Thanks, Chip. It's so humbling to hear how God is using this ministry. And if you're already partnering with us, thank you. You're an integral part of the work that we're doing all around the globe.
But if God is moving you to co-labor with us, now is a great time to become a financial partner. Thanks to a handful of donors, every dollar we receive between now and December 31st will be doubled dollar for dollar. To send a gift, call 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org.
That's livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. App listeners, tap donate. As we close, you know an easy way to share Chip's messages is through the Chip Ingram app. With just a couple of taps, any message you choose is on its way to a friend, a family member, or social media to help others benefit and find encouragement from the truth of Scripture. And don't forget to include a quick note about how it made a difference in your life. Well, thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouie, and I hope you'll join us again next time. ...
