May 8, 2011
Window to Wonder #2: The Imprint of a Mother's Faith
"He has brought down rulers from their thrones ..."

Sunday Morning: Daybreak & Refresh

Core Ideas:

• Mary's words in the Magnificat give us three powerful, subversive, dangrous, and revolutionary ideas ... — one of the reasons Mary was chosen was because she was passionate and believed in the God the Torah, Psalms, and Prophets revealed as Yahweh!
1. It's about God!
   God is all powerful and merciful to those who love him and he is going to act in faithfulness and deliverance for his people.
2. It's about social justice!
   God is turning things upside down and bring real justice, social justice, to the world: the poor, disenfranchised, the powerless,
3. It's about the Messiah, Jesus!
   After reading the Magnificat, there is no doubt that Mary believes that her son is going to be God's Messiah, and while she does not fully understand, she fully believes Jesus is Messiah!
• Jesus reflects many of these themes in his own teaching as does his brother James, in the book of James near the end of the N.T. — one of the reasons Mary was chosen was because her heart beat with the passions that God wanted displayed to the world in the Messiah!

  [Yes, I know many do not think about Jesus being taught or having faith incubated, but he was fully human as he lived among us and Luke 2:51-52 tells us three things about Jesus growing up: (1) Mary treasured these moments as any mother would; (2) Jesus was obedient to his parents even as a teenager; and (3) Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with both God and man.]

1. Luke 4:18-21 — Jesus' mission
2. Matthew 5:3-12 — The beattitudes, the people we should value because God does
3. Matthew 19:16-30 — The Rich Young Ruler
4. James 2:5-9, 14-17 — Don't show favoritism and help those in need
5. Luke 7:11-17; James 1:26-27 — concern for widows
6. Luke 7:36-50; John 8:1-11 — Jesus concern to redeem women with bad reputations

Key Focus:

• Mary is far from being, "Mary, mother, meek and mild!" She is instead a revolutionary at heart, believing her son was the Messiah, and as Messiah her son, Jesus, would throw off the burden of Roman oppression and free Israel from the false, corrupt leadership of the Herods!
1. Read through the Magnificat (Matthew 1:46-55) and explain the meaning and notice the past tense!
2. Lest we miss the danger here, let's remember what Herod did in Matthew 2:16-18 in trying to exterminate Jesus as a baby!
3. The language of the Magnificat is bold, powerful, full of faith and daring, and reminds us that the birth of Jesus is about the dawning of God's Kingdom and it's collision with political powers. And it is Mary, third behind only to Jesus and the Book of Revelation, that articulates clearly the clash of world order and the faithfulness of God to his oppressed people.
• Mary's passion, faith, boldness, and risk are all part of the foundational environment of faith, courage, passion, and hope in which Jesus and his brothers and sisters were raised!
1. Mary is the incubator of God's passions that are unleashed in the teaching of Jesus and the inaugaration of the Kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus and the church!
2. Mary is a reminder of the power and purpose of moms to instill faith, hope, and passionat dreams of God's great power and work through his children!
3. While Mary completely disappears from the N.T. story after the coming of the Spirit to Mary and to those other faithful ones in the upper room on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:14), her passions live on in the teaching of her boys James and Jude and in the hope of we have in the Kingdom of God fully realized in Jesus' coming and our work to see the Kingdom come in our lives! Every time we pray the Lord's prayer and say, "Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we must remember Mary and the Magnificat and the promise of God still pregnant within the church waiting to be reborn!
• While I am a firm believer in the importance of the father being the spiritual leader in the family, let's not diminish the importance of the mother whose voice a child hears before being born, who is cradle and comforted and often fed at the breast of his or her mother, and the power of this mother's words to frame hope and build into a child's heart the revolutionary hope of God's Kingdom and our Messiah, Jesus. Many of us fall to our knees in thanks for the imprint of our mother's faith etched into the fabric of our souls.

SH!FT Elements:

• LIVE_holy — helping our families know the language and have the faith of our King and his Kingdom
• READ_faithfully — Mary's language is richly textured by the language of Scripture, shouldn't ours be as well?
• MINISTER_selflessly — no one ministers more selflessly than a godly mother!

Key SoHills Emphasis:

• Mother's Day
• Graduating Senior Sunday coming soon
• ACU, McM, HSU graduation visitors over this next week

Song Emphasis:

• Magnificat (My Soul Magnifies the Lord)
• Father Hear the Prayer We Offer

Key Scriptures:

• Proverbs 1:8-9; 6:20-22; 31:1-9 suggested for use in Scripture reading
• Luke 1:46-56; 4:18-19 for use in sermon
• John 19:25-27 see focus below

Communion Focus:

• John 19:25-27 we don't often think about our mothers when we come to the Lord's Table. Seems kinda strang if you think about it, because for most of us our mothers were the ones who made sure our table was prepared and ready for us.
• As we remember Jesus' death, don't you think it is important occasionally for us to remember Jesus' loved demonstrated to his mother in this moment shortly before his death. And as we remember this moment, let's remember our responsibility to honor our moms as Jesus did! And let's remember his love for those who were left without husbands or children like Jesus did in Luke 7:11-17, and let's make a commitment to make sure the world around us knows that God has come to visit his people because of the way we care for our widows (cf. Acts 6:1-7).
• Danny Minton for early and Rick Lytle for late might be good to help lead our thoughts in this direction.

Drama, Media, & Connecting Pieces:

• Pre-video:
• Video: Video on moms leaving an imprint of faith on their kids — this would be one of Stephen Corbett's videos using our own people

Sunday Evening: Sundown

• Title: I Know a Secret Eph. 3:1-13

• Speaker: Sherwin Grottis

• Prayer & Eph. 3:1-13: Darol Bell

• Communion Devotional: Nathan Tinkle

• Song Leader: Jason Fry

• Closing Shared Reading: Romans 1:16