1. Mary knew God.

It’s very possible to be a full-blown religious Jew, knowing all the Law, as Mary did and still not know God.

Nicodemus was a prime example. He was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews yet when he talked to Jesus in John chapter three, Jesus challenged him with the question,

"Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" (Referring to the concept of being born again).

Paul was another example. He said of himself:

"…Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But those things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…" Phil. 3:5-8

It’s one thing to go to church, grow up in church surroundings, attend all the meals, potlucks, holiday feasts, which Mary most likely did, and another thing to know God.

Many of our lives are examples of this. My life is an example of this.

(Share example of my Lutheran church days, church camp, confirmation days, Sunday school classes and summer vacation Bible school week…. and still not knowing God)

Ray Comfort, a New Zealand evangelist, has said,

"Knowing God is moving from intellectual belief in God to an experiential relationship with Him like a little kid in front of a floor heater."

A kid was told by its parent not to touch the floor heater or else he would get burned. So the kid has now been told that the heater is hot and will burn his fingers. He has an intellectual understanding of the heater being hot and causing a burn but has not experienced the reality of this truth so he sees the shiny red hot bars on the heater, reaches out his little baby fingers and grabs the hot burning bars and… ‘Zzzzzzz’… he now feels the heater is indeed hot. The child has moved out of an intellectual understanding that the heater is hot into an experiential personal experience that the heater is hot. He NOW KNOWS the heater is hot!"

Likewise, we too, need to move out of the intellectual belief in God into an experiential knowledge of God through repenting and being born again of the Spirit. Even the Bible tells us that "the devils believe yet they tremble."

Our churches are filled with millions whose true knowledge of God and salvation is highly questionable. Those that think that by saying a little ‘salvation prayer’ and yet live in sin and think they are going to heaven, after all they’ve been taught that "once you’re saved you’re always saved", are in for a big surprise on judgment day!

Jesus said himself to the Jews, which believed, on Him in John 8:31-32,

"If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Another Scripture about the "many works in thy name, cast out devils, healed the sick and he’ll say, sorry I never knew you."

The triumph of the church is unconditionally guaranteed through the great prophecies of Scripture. Yet my final state is contingent upon whether or not I keep myself in the love of God.

Jude 20-21 says,

"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."

Someone once said, "If everybody goes to heaven that says they’re going to heaven, God will have to deputize the angels to keep order."

We are to ‘work out our own salvation with fear and trembling"—it isn’t a light matter.

Perhaps the emphasis should not even be on "Do we know God, but does God know us?

Does God know you to be faithful enough that He would make the special effort to send an angel to you to say, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

John 17:3 says,

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

Without a doubt, Mary knew God and we must be challenged to do the same. Her prayer alone in Luke 1:46-55 gives further evidence to this fact where she says,

After the angel spoke to her she asked,

"How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?"

She asked questions. She was a learner.

I know countless missionaries that have been successful because they have learned how to ask questions. Some of them will spend months, even years learning the language and culture of their host people before ever preaching their first sermon.

Rick and Betty Casey are examples of learners. When they first came to the Philippines from California in 1995, they didn’t know much about missions. Their over 40 years of combined U.S. military service had made them more American than even the average American. They had all kinds of luggage and complaints about the culture, the mosquitoes, running water, the lack of American food etc, but they were willing to learn.

After three months of tribal missions training, they moved to a tribal area 24 hours by boat and eight hours by bus on an island called Palawan. We didn’t hear from them much other than they were learning the language and building their house and doing some free medical clinics. Within three years, they planted three tribal churches in three different villages!

One of my personally best productive years in the Philippines was probably in 1996 after spending 42 days doing volunteer work with a group called Caleb Project in Littleton, CO. I felt very inferior in my understanding of unreached peoples groups, cross-cultural missions and church mobilization so I asked them if I could do anything in their ministry just to be around them just to learn and catch the vision for missions.

For 42 days, we helped the staff with their newsletters, sorted the mail, ran the copy machine, fixed the office furniture, insulated the walls and did that ‘work no body wants to do kind of work.’

But whenever I got a free moment, I would rummage threw their shelves, reading everything I could get my hands on. I’d stay later to watch their videos and sit around the cafeteria asking questions about countries that many of the staff had been to.

In just those brief 42 days I was able to form some serious partnerships and gather many ideas on church mobilization that I’ve used over and over throughout the Philippines and have been able to pass on to others as well.

Mary stayed at Elizabeth’s home for three months (Luke 1:56) after she found out she was pregnant. Guaranteed, she was a learning all she could about raising baby Jesus, feeding, changing, teaching and training him. She was hungry to learn. She asked questions.

We too need to look around us and ask ourselves, ‘Whom can I learn from?" Often it’s the elders around us seasoned through years of experience and walking with life and God.

Rather than writing them off as ‘old ‘fogies’" we need to repent and take advantage of their presence in our midst and start asking questions. Now!

Why is it that the young people of today need to learn everything the hard way rather than catching the vision early, obey the heavenly calling and follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us?

A Word of wisdom to the ‘gray haired’ wise men and wise women, "Words have power!"

I’m been surviving for years off of great quotes I’ve received personally from different respected elders in my life given at just the right times such as,

Glen Lane, a 72-year-old USS Arizona survivor we know in Washington once told me,

"Mitch, the only time SUCCESS comes before WORK is in the dictionary." I’ll never forget it.

84 year old Holy Hubert Lindsey, one of the fathers of the Jesus Movement and campus preacher during the Black Panthers and Hells Angels days on Berkeley University once while visiting him at his bedside in a nursing home in Raleigh, NC when asked the question, "Hubert, what advice do you have for a young man like me, age 36 just getting started in ministry?" His reply, "Keep on!

When I was 24 years old, getting ready to leave on my ride to the airport to fly to the Philippines for the first time in 1988, Pop Kincade, former Vietnam War chaplain, now deceased, put his arms on my shoulders and said, "Stay faithful to God." It’s been my ‘word from the Lord’ for the past 12 years.

My mother used to say to me as I rushed out the door in those earlier days when I was a teenager, "Nothing good ever happens after midnight." That simple proverb kept me out of a lot of trouble.

Proverbs 16:24 says,

"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul (mind, will, intellect and emotions), and health to the bones."

Some of you might even consider making room in your own lives be ‘re-discipled’ or ‘upgraded’ or ‘refreshed’ for as much as three months or so like Mary did. Sometimes a leave of absence, from ones job, to take some seminars or training can be like honeycomb and health to the bones.

Example of Rebecca and Stewart Tankersley, an OB-GYN and a registered nurse leaving the comforts of their careers to take five months off to do a YWAM DTS in Orlando.

Billy Graham quote: "One of the greatest hindrances to world evangelization is Christian parents."

Think of Mary’s continual tests as she seen Jesus at age 14 wondering off to teach in the near the Temple. At age 30 He was gone for         sure and three years later He was dead.

Even after releasing Him. He was rejected and not well received.

We know Mary did seek Him out once during His ministry.

Where was Mary when Jesus was arrested? Did she see Him scourged? How about during Via Dolorosa?

Imagine pouring your life, energy and time into someone and then seeing them nailed to a cross!

The tunic He was wearing, that the soldiers were gambling over was probably even sewn by Mary. No doubt she made it but didn’t try taking it away.

Mary, was continually willing to pay the price to be on the cutting edge of God’s desire for the ages. Must we be any different?

Not long ago, I was visiting a family in North Carolina who had some girls at the age of 16 and 14. The 16 year old was itching to experience a short-term mission trips. The options were endless and the costs varied for these types of trips. Whether it’s a $500 one week trip to Mexico or a $2,000 one-month trip to Siberia, Russia.

As I started throwing out some options, it was like a Spirit of fear; intimidation, worry, anxiety and shock came into the room. It was as if someone came into the room wanting to take away the children from the parents into slavery.

Both parents started squirming in their seats giving every excuse why their daughters were either too young or not able to go on this type of trip. It was interesting to watch their reaction. Meanwhile, the girls were pleading with their mother, "Please, why not?"

The kids wanted to simply obey Jesus and the parents thought the great commission was meant for someone else’s kids, not mine.

Yet, in my mind, I could think of handfuls of families that have literally gone into the entire world mobilizing their entire family to be used for God’s global purposes.

One of those families is the Schreifels, now in Sweden but formally worked the streets of Hollywood preaching the gospel there in the 90’s. Nick, the father, used to mobilize all five of his kids by giving them each a stack of tracts, lining them up abreast on the sidewalk and giving them the marching orders, "No body gets past us without getting a tract. Is that understood?" "Now let’s go!" And off they would go six of them side by side passing out tracts down Hollywood Blvd.

My own daughter, Evangeline, who at the age of three was already passing out tracts to all the listeners in the crowd as I preached in front of a raunchy movie theatre in Metro-Manila, Philippines. At age 3 ½ she was already quoting entire chapters to open-air crowds of 30-200 listeners.

Tell me, which kids are most likely going to go on and bear fruit that remains? The kid involved in the hands on process of following Jesus being released by parents with a vision for the nations or the kids going to church Sunday after Sunday, waiting for prince charming to graduate for Seminary so they can pastor a church that is already 30 years old and has undergone 40 church splits and is on their 20th pastor?

I think of my own mom, bless her heart.

From 12 years ago until the present, she keeps asking me, "When are you ready to come back to the good ‘ole U.S. of A.?" Aren’t you tired of that Philippines yet?"

Isn’t one of the primary reasons we have children, as parents, is to raise up little world changers to disciple the nations in the regions beyond? Are we not simply stewards of our children until they are old enough to know who their heavenly father is and began to follow Him just as Jesus did?

Mary was a releaser. Most likely her parents were releasers and we must be releasers too. Go! Go! Go!

So there we have it.

Mary knew God. Not just and intellectual belief but and experiential belief of knowing Him like the little hand touching the burner as Ray Comfort described.

Mary was a learner. She sought to live in a constant attitude of being a learner. Asking questions. Dean Sherman, one of YWAMs teachers has said, "If you are humble enough, you can learn something from everyone you meet."

And Mary was a releaser. She didn’t try to control the up and rising world changer, and world creator for that matter but seen herself simply as a steward of God’s Son for a season of time. A releaser of the Saviour of all mankind that every tribe and tongue might come to know Him. We too, must be releasers, whether we are pastors or youth leaders, parents or employers. Let my people go! Go! Go! And Go!

After all, the first two letters of the word God are "Go" aren’t they?

Praise the Lord!

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