Bill Johnson - According to Your Word
Today, I wanna look at one part of the Christmas story that always impacts me. The only thing I don’t like about Christmas is that we tend to look at scriptures or sing songs that we only do like one time a year. And for the believer, these themes are continuous throughout the year. And Mary is one of the great heroes of scripture. We’re gonna talk a little bit about her. 'Cause I’m inspired by her example, the way she responded to an impossible challenge in front of her. So, we’ll look at that in a moment. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary. Natural, spiritual. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary the Holy Spirit comes upon the written word and Jesus is revealed. The Holy Spirit comes upon a surrendered believer and Jesus is revealed. I don’t at all want to lessen the significance of the role that Mary played. She’s called highly favored of the Lord.
So, please, don’t misunderstand that. However, the miracle of Jesus being manifest in and through you and me is the same miracle. It’s the Spirit of God coming upon the natural to manifest the eternal. Eternity is the Cornerstone of all logic and reason. Anytime we lose sight of eternity, we are bound to come to temporary and false conclusions. It’s seeing things from an eternal perspective that changes everything. For example, Mary’s called highly favored of the Lord. If you lose sight of eternal perspective, you look at her circumstances, Joseph wants to divorce her, not follow through with the wedding: Herod wants to kill her kid, her son, the scandal of her being a mother of an illegitimate child looks like anything but favor. Favor on your life will reveal issues in the people around you.
We never owe anyone an explanation, nor should you ever apologize for favor. Apology of favor is an expression of unbelief that basically says God made a bad decision by giving me favor. You never want to dishonor God with how unqualified you may feel with foreign assignment. I hope everybody in the room feels unqualified. If you feel qualified, you haven’t seen your assignment. If you feel qualified, you don’t see it clearly. Because the only possible response from seeing what God expects from our life is the overwhelming sense: I could never pull this off. And that’s the position that the Lord puts every one of us in so that he can demonstrate who he is. Good works are a critical part of the Christian life.
The overall gamut of meeting the demand of human need is a huge part of the Christian life. But if we’re honest, we’d realize that feeding the poor and all these other amazing and wonderful things can be done by people who don’t know the Lord. There has to be as aspect of our service before the Lord that only he can do in and through us. It has to cross the line into the realm of impossibility where it has not adequately given witness to the resurrection of Jesus. There is in every one of us an inbuilt appetite for the impossible, that it would bend its knee to the name Jesus through our lips. It’s critical, it’s vital that that is a regular part of our life.
If it is not, we have to come back before the Lord and find out why. Not introspection, but to learn: where do I take risks? Where do I partner? The Lord is looking for people who will come into agreement with what he has said. There’s this agreement, there’s this alignment we make with the Lord that God declares a matter. When people come into proper alignment or agreement with what he has said, there is the display of what God intends on the earth. Let’s take a look at these scriptures and then, «Now, in the sixth month». We’re gonna do about 12 verses, so just follow hard.
«Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, 'rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women'! But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, 'do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the son of the highest: and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end'. Then Mary said to the angel, 'how can this be, since I do not know a man'? And the angel answered and said to her, 'the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you: therefore, also, that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age: and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren'».
Last two verses. «'for with God nothing will be impossible'. Then Mary said, 'behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word'. And the angel departed from her». I love this story a lot. I actually will return, this is one of the places that I will sometimes return to just to be refreshed in reading something that’s out of my sequence. I like to read books of the Bible and just go through them. But, every once in a while, I’ll just go right to this and just plow, read through this 'cause it’s so encouraging to me. Mary has an angel show up and make this announcement of God’s intention. And everything that God has intended to do in and through you is absolutely impossible.
As I’ve already stated: if you’re not overwhelmed by your assignment, you don’t see your assignment. What he intends to do is absolutely impossible. It’s to put us into the place of absolute dependency so that he can work in through us to display himself as the God of the impossible. That is his intention and he has designed it so for every person who puts their faith in Christ. It is not for a select few. It is the design of God for every person. So, the angel shows up to Mary and he says, «Rejoice, highly favored one». Typically, you rejoice after the baby is born. She was commanded, «Rejoice, it’s coming». There’s not one situation that anybody in this room faces that you wouldn’t like to have a miracle for that Jesus has not already settled the issue, paid the appropriate price so that that miracle could be accomplished in his name.
There’s not one situation. He did not pay for the car so you and I would leave it on the lot. Everything in our life has already been settled. The cross that Jesus suffered on was that complete in its effect and in its work. There’s not one thing anybody in this room could face that Jesus would look at and say, «Wish I would have thought of that before I died: I would have put that on the cross, too,» you know. There’s none of those things. Every single issue of life. In fact, not just in this life but throughout all of eternity has already been settled.
So, when the angel of the Lord comes to Mary and says, «Rejoice, highly favored one,» it is because this thing has already been settled in heaven. If we knew how much was already settled in heaven, joy would be the natural response, celebration before hand, because the reality is eternity defines every situation we face. I may be in the middle of a conflict here, but I’m also in the middle of a breakthrough here. I may be in the middle, I hope, in the middle of a challenge here, because it’s necessary for faith to grow. But I’m also experiencing great breakthrough here. Every person in this room was designed to invade this realm and, now, the Lord, this angel of the Lord appears to Mary and says, «Rejoice, highly favored one».
This favor would cause her to be valued and celebrated for all of eternity. Everywhere the gospel is shared, there’s celebration for this woman who said yes and the miracle produced Jesus. She is celebrated, but she was also opposed. And favor does that to our surroundings. I exhort strongly: do not make excuses for the favor of God. Simply embrace it and give him the honor and the credit I’ve shared this, even in recent weeks, but, you know, the whole point is is when somebody comes to you and they celebrate you, and they thank you, and they tell you you did such a great job, please don’t say, «It wasn’t me, it was Jesus», 'cause, you know, besides it being nauseating for the rest of us, I come to somebody and I say, «It’s a beautiful song you just sang».
And they tell me, «It wasn’t me, it was Jesus,» I’m thinkin': «Yeah, it wasn’t that good, it was, it was, it was good. But, let’s be honest, if Jesus sang that, universes would be created, you know»? With just his declared word would have, just changed everything. So, it wasn’t that, it was good, but, it wasn’t that good. When someone comes to you with a compliment, receive it. If you don’t know how to receive honor, you’ll have no crown to throw at his feet. You have to know how to receive honor. Then, when you get alone with the Lord, you just say: look what was given to me that belongs to you.
Mary is called this «Highly favored one» and she had both blessing and challenges, because of the favor. And favor will do that. The subject of favor is not our subject today, so a favor is, favor is the difference between some people fulfilling why they’re alive and others who don’t. In the issue of favor. People can have a call of God on their life, but never learn the need for favor. And so, they never increase in favor and thus never have the appropriate open doors, the support, whatever is needed to be able to accomplish what God has called them to do. Favor’s the issue. It says of Jesus: he increased in favor with God and with man. It’s amazing.
I understand why he needs to increase in favor with man. Because it’s gonna be Zacchaeus that welcomes him into his home. It’s gonna be the pharisee that invites him, you know, to his house, to where Mary washes his feet. It’s gonna be these people that give opportunity for Jesus to step in. But how is it that Jesus, the Son of God, who is absolutely perfect in every possible way, how is it he has to increase in favor with God? And I don’t know. I don’t have an answer. I just know if he did, ooh, you and I might wanna consider our need for increased favor with God, as well. And don’t think that what you have is enough, because part of what you need is what you can obtain through faithfulness with what you have.
Let’s move on down to this, verse, 32. It says, the last half of the verse, «The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David». That’s strong, because, in verse 35, it says he will be called the Son of God. But in verse 32, he’s called the son of David. This is one of the things that has marked me is to see God look at this man David, who God said, «He has a heart after my heart». The Lord looked at this man David and said: I’m gonna call my son your son, forever. How do you obtain such a place of favor with the Almighty God? It tells me he’s impressionable. It tells me it’s possible to leave a Mark on his heart. He’s not this robotic being. He’s one who has invited us into this relational journey. And we’ve got times in scripture where someone would demonstrate faith. The centurion demonstrates faith. The Syrophoenician woman, they demonstrate this faith.
And Jesus stops in the middle of the miracle and he says, «I’ve not seen faith like this in all of Israel». How is it that you have God stand up and go: «Wow, look at that. I’ve never seen anything like that before». See, there are certain responses that the people of God can have to him that’s it’s not apathetic. It’s unique, it’s honest, it’s real, it’s absolute surrender. And he stops and he says: «You know what? I’m gonna call my son your son. Never have I seen such great faith in all of Israel’s history». This is a relational journey. This is not a Christian routine where you jump through hoops and try to accomplish a certain regiment. I’ve been invited to know God. And in my heart of hearts, knowing him is the reason I’m alive. It’s the reason I wake up in the morning. It’s the reason I go to bed at night. It’s the reason behind everything is this invitation to actually walk with the one who created all things and to come to know him.
And there’s something about this privileged invitation that makes everything else pale in comparison. And, here, in this moment, he’s called the Son of God and he’s also called the son of David. Move down to verse 237. This is one of my favorite verses. The next two are two of my favorite verses in the whole verse 37 says: «'for with God nothing will be impossible'». Say that with me. With God nothing will be impossible. Say it again. For with God, nothing will be impossible. We’ve looked at this, oh, goodness, countless times through the years and this is how it’s broken down. The word «Nothing» is actually two different words. It’s the word «No,» but then it’s the word «Rhema». There’s «Logos» and «Rhema» in the Greek language to describe God’s word.
Logos would be more used for the written word. Rhema is that which is freshly spoken. It’s not absolute, but those are the way that it’s predominantly used in scripture. So, just think through this with me. Rhema, no rhema. No freshly speak Word of God will be impossible. The word «Impossible» actually means «Without ability». And so, this verse can be translated this way: no freshly spoken Word of God will ever come to you that does not contain its own ability to perform itself. Wow! No freshly spoken Word of God will ever come to you that does not contain its own ability to perform itself. See, in James 1, it says: «In humility, receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul». The power is not in my ability to receive: the power is in the word I receive.
And the same way the acorn produces the oak tree, the power’s in the acorn. The surroundings, the soil is it is my surrender. It is yieldedness to that which God has spoken. I have a role, but I don’t make anything grow. I create the atmosphere of absolute surrender so that his purposes can actually be fully displayed in me into any measure he intends. No freshly spoken Word of God will ever come to any one of us that does not in itself contain its own ability to make sure that what was spoken actually happens. And that’s why the next verse verse 38: «Mary said, 'behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me, according to your word'».
Let it be to me, according to your word. Jesus, in the gospel of John, the predominant feature of the gospel of John is that Jesus came to reveal the father. You know, if I keep at it, by the end of the day, we should have everyone, okay, Jesus came to reveal the father. Here’s the deal: the father is only revealed through his children. In other words, he can be revealed, but not as father. He can be revealed as Almighty God. He can be revealed as the great judge. He can be revealed as the Creator. He can be revealed as a thousand different things. But if he’s revealed as the father, it’s in connection to the Revelation of who his the point I wanna make is: your relationship with God as your father actually illustrates the quality of his fathering. And Jesus illustrated that very thing perfectly by doing what? He only said what he heard his father say. He only did what he saw his father do. He illustrated perfectly.
All through history, people have created stories that try to answer to the cry of the heart for a fulfillment of why we’re alive. And acute children’s stories, there’s fables, there’s all these things, I’m fine with all of them as stories. But they actually are all attempts to reveal what it is to be in right relationship with the father. Because you were born to demonstrate unity between a son, a daughter, and the father, and him fulfilling what you were born for. And so, she says, «Be it unto me, according to your word». That’s the amen. I can’t make that impossibility happen. How many of you are aware you cannot make what God wants out of your life, you can’t make it happen? But what I can do is I can say yes. What I can do is invite him to do what only he can do. So, say this with me: «Be it unto me according to your word».