What can we learn about our faith from a devout 15-year-old girl?

Maybe we can learn whether or not we are truly Christians. 

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If someone is confident they are a Christian, but they are not truly a Christian, it might be really good to know.

On the other hand, if someone lacks assurance of their salvation, but they truly are saved, living with greater confidence not only brings peace of mind, it also brings greater effectiveness in their God-given mission and purpose. 

Who’s the devout 15-year-old girl who can teach us?

Mary, the mother of Jesus. 

Pastor and author Tim Keller offers a provocative perspective on Mary, “Mary is the first person...who gets the message that this great salvation is coming into the world through a baby who was going to be born in Bethlehem named Jesus. …She is the first person who actually hears the gospel in the form we have it today. Therefore, I like to think of her (and I think it’s perfectly warranted) as the first Christian.”

Keller continues, “I think it’s cool actually that our paradigm, the very first Christian, the first person who heard the gospel message in the form we have it now and the first person who received it in faith was a 15-year-old girl. Here we have our paradigm. A 15-year-old girl, an unwed teenage mother. She hears the message, and she receives it properly. If we look at the message she got and look at the response she made to it, we have some idea about whether we’re Christians or not.”

Christmas arrives in April this weekend at Five Oaks. 

Break out the Christmas decorations? I don’t think so. 

But we are looking at the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, his gospel message, and Mary’s response.

Mary responds in faith and is a model of obedience to God. But if you think she’s without her doubts or that she doesn’t proceed with caution, you might be surprised. 

I tend to think that faith without doubts is dead. Mary’s faith is very much alive. 

If you or a friend needs a message of the gospel and an assurance that brings peace and confidence, even a dose of doubt, you won’t want to miss this. You won’t want your friend to miss it either.

Photo by Ionut Coman Photographer on Unsplash

The Problem with the Resurrection is a Problem Worth Grappling With

There’s a problem with the resurrection that keeps a lot of folks from believing. 

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You might think it has to do with a skepticism born in science or the Enlightenment. 

You’d be partially right, but then you’d be hard-pressed to explain why there are so many accomplished scientists and philosophers all around the globe who believe Jesus rose bodily from the dead. 

There’s a bigger problem with the resurrection. 

To see it, step into the shoes of the disciples for a moment. They witnessed the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. They heard him speak with their own ears. They touched him with their own hands. 

Still, when Jesus gathered them together on a mountain to give them their marching orders, Matthew’s Gospel tells us that some of them doubted (Matthew 28:17). 

They were not scientists. The Enlightenment was centuries away into the future. But they still had a problem believing in the resurrection. 

I think their problem with believing in the resurrection is our problem, too.

Jesus spoke directly to it in the passage we’ll look at this weekend (Matthew 16:13-28). 

What’s the problem with the resurrection? Simply put...

Dying. 

Before Jesus could be resurrected, he had to die. The disciples had a big problem with that. They had such a big problem with the very idea of a dying Messiah that their unofficial leader actually castigated Jesus for mentioning it.

The disciples also had a host of theological problems with how the resurrection came down. The problem was so big that one leading historian explains that no self-respecting Jew would have made it up or could even have conceived of it. 

But Jesus also said that before we can experience a resurrection, we also have to die. And not just somewhere out there in the future. We have to die now. 

And dying’s a problem for us. 

It’s not just a problem for doubters; it’s a problem for those who believe Jesus died and rose again.

But it’s a problem worth grappling with. 

In fact, our very souls are in danger if we fail to come to terms with it and understand it and die. Yes, die. 

That’s what we’re going to grapple with this weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. 

Worship times are Saturday at 4:30pm and Sunday at 8am, 9:30am, and 11am. 

And you really won’t want to miss the Good Friday service tonight (5:30pm and 7pm)!

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash