Matthew 1: 18-25

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’

“So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us.’ Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus” (NKJV).

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the wonderful moms out there. My mom, Norma, will be 89 later this year. She has been my biggest fan for all of my life. She is suffering from Alzheimer’s now and is very weak. Nonetheless, she has been a spiritual giant in my life. She has faithfully loved the Lord, and I cannot tell you how many times I saw my mom sitting at the dining room table or in the family room reading her Bible. She has a lovely soprano voice and often sang either in the choir or solos in praise to our Lord.

My kids have a great mom as well; Marny is amazing. She loves the Lord, loves me, loves her children, and now her granddaughter. She is hard-working, a natural servant, and she helps me to be a better man than I could be without her. Truly, I am surrounded by lots of Godly women who have invested in the Lord’s kingdom, invested in me, and many who I can call mom without any embarrassment or shame, and they would call me son.

Today we will take a look at Mary, Jesus’ mom. She is an amazing character, and we can see a lot of wonderful lessons in her. It is necessary to dispel a lot of myths with her as we go ahead and set the record straight. Mary is NOT a god. There is no reason for us to pray to her; she has no power nor influence over Jesus, as He is God and she is not. Mary was a humble servant whose 23 chromosomes in her eggs God used to provide Jesus the Man (with a human body), who would die on the cross for your sins and mine.

Mary would be abhorred to think that some people, millions actually, were worshipping her and praying to her as if she was some deity. When we take a close look at the life of Mary, we see one that covers a lot of the lives that many mothers live today. We will explore them as we take a look at Mary for Mother’s Day. As we journey through, I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to you. When attending the wedding in Cana, she told the people at the wedding to do whatever Jesus said (John 2: 1-5, NKJV).

“On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Whatever He says to you, do it’” (NKJV).

She said this in reference to the water and wine, but in a broader sense, her words are as powerful today as ever – just do what Jesus says. He says to us in John 3:3, “You must be born again.” One must be born from God above to have eternal life. Jesus told us in John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father, except through Me.” Let us look at Mary together and see how her life may help us with ours.

• Mary was a Teenage Mom.

The term that is often used is ‘young woman.’ But it is properly translated as a virgin; she was a virgin, and she had never had sexual relations with a man. In Luke 1:34, we see her admit to this as she spoke with the angel.

“Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?'” (NKJV).

We can go all the way back to Genesis and see that the term ‘to know one’s wife’ often resulted in the birth of a child. In Genesis 4: 1-2, we see this:

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have acquired a man from the Lord.’ Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.” (NKJV)

We then can see clearly that Mary admitted to an angel that she had never been with a man sexually. She was a young woman who was betrothed (engaged) to a man named Joseph. As late as the early 1900s, teenage girls and boys were married. My grandmother was married and had my father at 17 in 1933. My wife is a big fan of Little House on the Prairie, and we see them marrying at 15, 16 and 17. The term young woman referred to a teenage girl of marrying age, meaning that she was able to have children. Mary was a young mother, a young wife, and she was called to do a big thing by her Lord. She was ready to be obedient and submissive to the Lord.

Sadly, many teenage moms are not in stable married relationships today. We have slowed the development of our youth so that most are not ready to handle the responsibilities of a husband or a child. That is our fault in the Lord’s churches; we have made everything else more important than the family. And as such, it has been put on the back burner by a lot of our young people, and we are suffering for it. A whopping 93% of kids born into families where the dad leads spiritually get saved. When we encourage our young people to put off marriage and childbearing, we are killing our churches and stunting their emotional and spiritual development.

• Mary was a mom to a big family (Matthew 13:55).

Matthew records this for us about Jesus’ family (chapter 13:54-56).

“When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?'” (NKJV)

There is a certain religious group that teaches that Mary remained a virgin all of her life. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Scriptures tell us that she has at least six (6) other children; 4 boys and at least 2 girls. Two of her boys, James and Jude, became believers and wrote books of the Bible.

I know some big families, some with more than ten children. My wife and I have dear friends with six children of their own. This kind of thing is often frowned upon in our modern world, but in the Bible, it would seem that the people of God took the command to be ‘fruitful and multiply’ very, very seriously.

Mary also had to manage a home that had some fighting in it. Jesus’ brothers did not always like Him. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in a family with the ultimate ‘goody two-shoes guy. He never messed up, never slipped up, never screwed up ever. It was not until later in life, after the resurrection, that Jesus’ brothers became believers.

• Mary was a young widow.

We do not know when Joseph died. We see him when Jesus was 12 years old, and then by the time Jesus comes on the scene at age thirty, according to Luke, there is no mention of Joseph at all. This is further reinforced when we see that Jesus leaves the care of His mom to John. We see this in John 19: 25-27.

“Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother and her sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ So, from that hour, this disciple took her into his home.” (NKJV)

There would have been no need to do this if Joseph was alive, so, since we see this, it further confirms our inference that none of his brothers were yet saved. Jesus left the care of His mom to His dearest friend. If he had a brother who would care for Mary and was a believer, the care would have naturally fallen to him.

Mary knew what it was like to lose someone that loved her dearly. Make no mistake; Joseph loved her. We often read verses and miss the inference that comes with them. Take another look at Matthew 1:19.

“Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.” (NKJV)

Joseph had every right, according to the Law of Moses, to have Mary killed in a gruesome way, like being stoned to death. One of the reasons for the yearlong engagement was to make sure that she did not come up pregnant with another man’s child. And here he was, and Mary was pregnant, and in his righteous indignation, he could have had her killed. But not Joseph; he was simply going to divorce her secretly so as not to cause her any public shame. This was an act of love; he put her needs before his need for revenge or justice.

• Mary had a husband who loved God.

Joseph took the shame, along with Mary, of raising what everyone would have thought was another man’s kid as he obeyed God. In Matthew 1:24, Joseph got up from his sleep and took Mary in her pregnant condition and claimed his bride. He, too, had to bear the shame with her, and he did so in obedience to God.

His obedience was more important than his reputation. I do not think that it was an accident that God the Father chose Joseph as well to parent His Son. God chose a man who obeyed him and loved his wife, Jesus’ mom. God chose a man of integrity and one who was more concerned with obeying God than what man thought. As I was writing this, I wondered what it must have been like for Jesus to watch Joseph die and not heal him, yet He healed so many others? What was it like for Jesus to learn carpentry from Joseph when He was the One who created wood in the first place?

• Mary was a mom who had to watch her son die (John 19:28-30).

Like many moms, Mary watched a son die. I have done my share of funerals as a Pastor, and the ones for the young people are the hardest. Parents are not supposed to bury their kids; it is supposed to be the other way around. But Mary was there that fateful afternoon when her Son, our Savior, died.

After this, knowing that everything had now been accomplished and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.’ A jar of sour wine was sitting there. So, they soaked a sponge in the wine, put it on a stalk of hyssop, and lifted it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished.’ And bowing His head, He yielded up His spirit.” (NKJV)

She watched the life seep out of Him; she saw his blood-stained body stop struggling to breathe and to live. She watched the thorn-crowned head bow as the fight was over. I cannot imagine the pain and anguish she felt. I cannot imagine that pain in her heart, the gut-wrenching cry of her sorrow. Her boy, her son, the one who was supposed to change the world and save the Jews was dead. The son that had caused so much turmoil, so much division, the one who raised the dead and solved other people’s sorrows, that son she had nursed that first night in the manger was dead. She must have been so broken.

I am sure that there are more aspects of Mary that we can take a look at. But as you can see, God chose well for us. Not only did we get a Savior, but in the process, we get this amazing Godly woman who can be an example of life to a vast array of different mothers across the 2000 years that have passed since she walked on the earth. Mary would tell you that your circumstances should not determine the level of your commitment to God. Rather, obey God and all He says no matter the cost to our pride and our reputation.

Mary was not a superwoman; she was just a woman, a young girl really, who served and still serves a Super God. That same God wants you and I to serve Him with the same gusto and commitment that Mary served with. To close, I will offer up the very powerful words of Mary to the servants at the wedding in Cana.

“His mother said to the servants, ‘Whatever He says to you, do it.'” (NKJV)

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Acts 16:16-24, 35-40, Acts 22:22-29 (NKJV)

“Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, ‘These men are the servants of the Highest God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.’ ¹⁸ And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And he came out that very hour. ¹⁹ But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.

²⁰ And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, ‘These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; ²¹ and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.’ ²² Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. ²³ And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴ Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

Acts 16:35-40 “And when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers, saying, ‘Let those men go.’ ³⁶ So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, ‘The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart, and go in peace.’ ³⁷ But Paul said to them, ‘They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.’ ³⁸ And the officers told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. ³⁹ Then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out, and asked them to depart from the city. ⁴⁰ So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.”

Acts 22:22-29 “And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!’ ²³ Then, as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air, ²⁴ the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, and said that he should be examined under scourging, so that he might know why they shouted so against him. ²⁵ And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, ‘Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?’

²⁶ When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, ‘Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman.’ ²⁷ Then the commander came and said to him, ‘Tell me, are you a Roman?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ ²⁸ The commander answered, ‘With a large sum I obtained this citizenship.’ And Paul said, ‘But I was born a citizen.’ ²⁹ Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him; and the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.”

Sorry for the extended texts, but it was important that we get the right context. Last Tuesday night, we had our mid-week Bible study, and we looked at this topic. It is one of those things that can get missed as we go through these texts. And truthfully, when one is reading the book of Acts like I am right now, it is easy to get caught up in the amazing exploits of the new churches, starting with the one in Jerusalem. We see Paul transform into the spiritual giant from one who persecutes our brothers and sisters, and we miss these little engagements that take place.

Most of us are familiar with the Acts 16 text, the salvation of the Philippian jailer and his whole family. We have countless songs about singing in prison and rejoicing in the storms of life. We love to talk about the way that doors magically open and that supernatural transformation of the jailer from enemy to brother. I have heard many sermons about the salvation of the man and his family, heard many references to the singing in troubled times, and I have enjoyed them. But if we truly believe that God wrote the Bible, that He used mere men and women to do the physical writing but superintended the writing of the text, then we must learn to pay attention to the little parts that seem insignificant; they are not.

Twice in the book of Acts, Paul affirms his Roman citizenship. He demands that his rights as a citizen of Rome be met, and we will look at these two examples today.

• Wisdom and Discernment

We have this lovely sister in our church that regularly prays for wisdom and discernment in her life and in the life of our churches. We have a world around us that is running amok on emotions. Everyone has their feelings hurt, and this is seeping into the Lord’s churches and wrecking us. We need to seek wisdom and discernment to be able to counteract and defeat emotional outbursts. This is why we study the context of the Bible; we ask questions like who is speaking, to whom are they speaking, what did they say, why did they say it, and what did it mean at the time it was said? These are essential questions of discernment and wisdom; they help us to think rationally and not emotionally in most situations.

Now, there is nothing wrong with emotions; God is a God of emotions, and He gave us emotions. But we are not to be ruled by our emotions. Our emotions are to be ruled by the foundation and the truths of the scriptures.

God led Luke to write about Paul standing up for his rights as a Roman citizen twice, not once, and in different cities and situations. A Roman citizen was considered innocent until proven guilty in a court; he could not be punished until he had been proven guilty, and he had the right to appeal to Caesar, the Roman equivalent of the Supreme Court if he knew he was innocent. If we look at Paul, he was under house arrest in Rome for about 2 years, where he was allowed to see his friends and have fellowship with them. We find this in Acts 28: 11-16, 30-31 (NKJV):

“After three months we sailed in an Alexandrian ship whose figurehead was the Twin Brothers, which had wintered at the island. ¹² And landing at Syracuse, we stayed three days. ¹³ From there we circled round and reached Rhegium. And after one day the south wind blew; and the next day we came to Puteoli, ¹⁴ where we found brethren and were invited to stay with them seven days. And so we went toward Rome. ¹⁵ And from there, when the brethren heard about us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and Three Inns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

¹⁶ Now when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard; but Paul was permitted to dwell by himself with the soldier who guarded him…. ³⁰ Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house and received all who came to him, ³¹ preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.”

He had these rights as a Roman, and he used them openly, and God made sure that these events were recorded for our benefit and learning. Paul was a humble man, and he submitted to God, he submitted to the Jerusalem church leaders, and he led many local churches as well as established many of them. But he was a Roman citizen, and he asked and, as a matter of fact, demanded that his rights be honored and met.

• Let Them Apologize, Acts 16:35-40

In the early part of Acts 16, Paul casts out the demon or demons from a young slave girl, and her master immediately turns the whole city against him and Silas. They are arrested and beaten quickly and badly. Then they are thrown into the deepest parts of the prison and held in stock. They had not killed, robbed, or even hurt anyone. They cast out a demon and made some rich people lose their source of income, and for this, they were beaten and imprisoned.

They spend a large part of the night in prison, and at midnight they begin to sing songs and praise God. The gates are opened, and not one prisoner escapes. The jailer is saved along with his household, they are baptized, and then they tend to the wounds of Paul and Silas. In the morning, the magistrates send to simply release them, and then Paul drops a truth on them that makes them shake in their boots, I am a Roman citizen. He reminded them of their actual crimes; they had beaten and imprisoned an innocent Roman citizen, and he demanded that they come and apologize to him openly as they had beaten him openly. They did. These magistrates had committed the real crimes, and they had done so against a citizen of Rome. They were in big trouble; they were afraid.

There was a time when the elected officials in our respective countries had regard for the people and even feared the people. They understood that they served at the behest of the people who elected them and not the other way around. But somewhere in the last 10-15 years, we have allowed the central control of power to be gathered to the elected superclass, and we, the non-elected masses, have surrendered our rights and powers to them.

I am reminded of a dear fellow Pastor here in Canada, Artur Pawlowski, who was arrested multiple times by the Alberta Police for holding church during the COVID shutdowns. He had grown up in Poland in the midst of communism, and he understood the path that Canada was taking. The suspension of the freedom of assembly and the looming suspension of free speech was in real danger of being taken away. We see that not long ago, our Federal Government here made the peaceful and legal assembly of the truckers illegal because it did not fit their narrative. Many people were arrested, like Pastor Artur, and held without bail. Men and women whose only crime was that they questioned the government. They were arrested, held without bail, and assumed to be guilty without a trial or any serious investigation.

Pastor Artur was also denied bail and was held in solitary confinement for long periods of time. Yet, even murderers can apply for bail; child molesters can apply and often get bail. But this dear brother was guilty before he was ever put before a court of law. He is going to sue the Alberta Government, and I pray that God makes an example of them.

Paul refused to allow his rights as a citizen to be abused and taken away without him saying something. He demanded that these magistrates come and apologize for treating an uncondemned man like a common criminal. Sadly, the injuries and damage to his body had been inflicted already, and that could not be taken back.

What we learn from this is that it is okay to be a Christian and still demand your rights as a citizen. If you refuse to ask for your rights, do not be surprised when the Government takes them. When we keep electing arrogant and elitist leaders, do not be surprised when we get treated as the dross of society and not as the gold that we are. It is okay as a child of God to ask that our rights as parents, citizens, and free people be observed and meted out to us. If we give up our rights, what have we done to our kids, and what have we taken from them?

Benjamin Franklin said this a long time ago; it is still good today:

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

We have been told over the past 2 years that we needed to surrender our liberties for the safety of our neighbors. But we need to recall that governments rarely give back what they take. There are still sections of our governments that want to retake the freedoms that we are again enjoying. And, it is important to recall that we did not get these freedoms from the government; they are rights given to us by God. It is the government’s job to make sure that those rights are never infringed upon by anyone, especially the government.

• I was born as a Citizen, Acts 22:28

Once again, we see Paul, this time in Jerusalem, not in Philippi, standing for his citizenship. He is about to be beaten as a way of getting at the truth, and he makes those about to beat him aware that he is a citizen of Rome. The commander is also a citizen, but he paid for his. Paul’s citizenship was by birth. He demanded his rights, and what happened was that the same soldiers that were supposed to beat him became his protectors.

I am an immigrant here in Canada; I was born a Barbados. Nonetheless, I am a citizen; I took an oath in January 2006 and became a citizen. Like this soldier, I became a citizen of my own free choice, but my citizenship is no less powerful nor relevant than if I was born here.

We have certain inalienable rights as citizens of Heaven. We have a Father who will never abandon us and will always make sure we have what we need. We have an Advocate in Jesus who defends us continually, and we have eternal promises that come with the citizenship we are born into through Jesus; no one can buy their way in.

There are a lot of great lessons to be learned in the book of Acts. The preeminence of Missions and local churches, the importance of church associational work to expand and export the Gospel, and the importance of having a good ministry team and people that love you. But no less important is the need to defend our rights as citizens. If the government takes our rights by force, that is one thing, but we should not just lay down and surrender them without a fight or at least a stand.

There is a famous quote that says, ‘all it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.’

An interviewer asked pastor Artur if it was worth it to be treated this way and to be imprisoned. Pastor Artur basically said I am doing this for my kids. We need to make sure that we do not lay down and let them take our rights, thus leaving our children in a horrible world in what used to be the bastions of freedom. Christians make for good citizens, and we should never stop letting them diminish our value to society.

In every place that Christianity has flourished in history, the lives of the people have gotten better. Stop cowering; go and see how we changed history, education, science, and on we can go. But if they kill our voices and thwart our freedoms, what then?

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca