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Mother’s Recipe for Success
By Rev John Orlando
Today is Mothers Day, a day where we can reflect on all that our Mom’s have done for us.
This is a day when we remember the comfort our mothers gave us when we were sick, the times she coddled us when we were upset, (or gave us the beatin of our lives because we got her upset!).
It is also a day when we remember Moms home-cookin! In my house, it was the Sunday Sauce! I would starve myself all day on Sunday just so I could engage in a glorious time of gluttony!
I’m sure we all have that favorite meal that Mama used to make, or maybe it was your Grand Ma. And some of us may have even written them for the recipe of our favorite dishes. We know that to have any chance of success to produce that favorite dish, we have to know what the recipe is.
Now the recipe is that list of ingredients required to make whatever it is we are trying to make. And the thing about most recipes is that they have to be followed to the “T!” Miss just one ingredient, or misuse one ingredient, and the prospect for success of our final product will diminish greatly!
Much the same could be said about success in life. There are ingredients that are absolutely critical in order to have a “successful life,” and there are two different, competing recipes: The recipe of the world, and the recipe of God. Both promise success, but only one results in success.
The recipe of the world is familiar to all of us. If you want to be successful in life…You :
- Should be the captain of your own ship. You should do what you like, whenever you like, with whomever you like. No one, including God, can tell you what to do…After all, God’s rules are to be viewed merely as suggestions rather than commands.
- Should look out for number one and be willing to do whatever it takes to get to the top
- Should have a beautiful car, clothes, children, house and if married, a beautiful spouse
- Should have all of the necessary status symbols--his and her designer bath towels with monograms - Should gratify all of your lusts and passions, because you only go around once. In short, success is all about self. The recipe of the world even comes with its own theme song: “I Did It My Way!”
Yes, this is what life is all about! This is the world’s recipe for success! This is what will bring true joy, happiness, and success in life. So why is it then that:
- You still feel overwhelmed by all of the “success” the world’s recipe has brought you?
- You still have this sense of loneliness and despair as you realize the futility of it all
- You still have a void deep within your soul that never seems to get filled, but only seems to grow?
Well, success from God’s perspective is radically different. In the passage we will examine today, I believe Mary, the mother of Jesus, gives us a sure-fire recipe for success, title of this sermon is
A Mothers Recipe For Success.
Announce Scripture: Luke 1:46 – 55, NKJV
Background of Text: Mary visited by Angel/Mary visits Elizabeth/Elizabeth praises the Lord at Mary’s visit realizing that Mary would bear the Savior of the world/Mary breaks forth into song….
Read Scripture
Pray
As we turn our attention to our text, we discover that the first ingredient in this recipe for success is:
I.
To Walk in The Fear of God: Fear: Reverential awe.
Beginning of wisdom. 2 Results:
Wonder for all God is and has done, and a life of total surrender to Him…1st Result:
A. Wonder for all God has done: He is the God WHO: is mighty
and has done great things, has scattered the proud, put down the mighty, exalted
the lowly, and helped His servant Israel
B. At the heart of it all is salvation: “Rejoiced in God my Savior”: Look at verse 49:
1. Mary focuses not only on God’s power, but on the infinite perfection of
His nature: His holiness. We fail to realize just how offensive our sin is to the mind of God, because we don’t understand the nature of God. He is of such pure eyes that He cannot even look upon sin!
2. How can a mere mortal stand in His presence? Mary tells us: His mercy is on
those who fear Him! These are those who have cried out God, “Lord, what must I do to be saved!” “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” and they bow the knee and fully submit themselves to Christ.
2d Result:
C. A Life of Total Surrender to God (V. 48) – “lowly state of His maidservant”
1. Lowly: Humble origin, to be of low rank or position. Poor in spirit.
2. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” – We know our own spiritual poverty.
Matthew
Henry: “The poor in spirit see
their want, bewail their guilt, and thirst after a Redeemer. They are emptied of
self, in order to be filled with Jesus Christ.”
Our hymn today sums up this attitude of being poor in spirit when it
says, “I stand amazed in the presence Of Jesus the Nazarene/ And I
wonder how He could love me/A sinner condemned and so unclean…”
D. This is a life that is totally abandoned to God, and it is only this kind of a life that can be said to be truly successful. All the riches of the world cannot satisfy the Holy demands of God’s Law, or assuage His wrath, or fill the emptiness of the soul, and nothing the world has to offer can compare to the only One who can. Ex: King Solomon Fear God/keep commandments because God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing whether good/evil!
To walk in the fear of the Lord is to be consumed with the Person of God and to live a life of absolute and total surrender to Him. Does this describe your experience with God?
II.
To Rest In The Sovereignty of God (V. 51 – 53): To rest in God’s
sovereignty is to first:
A. Trust in God’s power: “He has shown…strength” - Battle Belongs to the Lord! When the
enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of Lord will lift up a standard against him. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning! God will:
1.
“Scatter proud…imagination of their hearts”- The Pride of life (1
Jn 2:16-17)
In the same sense that if you strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter, so too God strikes at the heart of men’s ideas and vain philosophies and makes them nothing. Where is the wise? Where is the scholar? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world!
2. “Put down the mighty from their thrones” - The highest achievement of people, the highest rank, the highest form of majesty that the world has to offer are nothing to God. Psalm 9:7-8: “But the Lord shall endure forever; He has prepared His throne for judgment. He shall judge the world in righteousness.”
3. “And the rich He has sent away hungry” – What irony. How is it that one who is rich could ever possibly lack the most basic of necessities: food! The rich person can indulge himself in lavish banquets with enough food to feed thousands, thousands of times over, yet he himself can be sent away hungry! A person can have abundance materially, but if he is not living by God’s word, he goes hungry; he starves, and eventually dies. Ex: Rich Young Ruler (Mt 19:16-22).
Secondly,
To Rest In The Sovereignty of God is to:
B. Trust in God’s Goodness:
1. “And exalted the lowly” – God doesn’t leave the high places vacant. He puts one
down (the mighty in the world system) and exalts the lowly, i.e., the poor in spirit. He makes them joint heirs with Christ. He makes them a kingdom of priests and kings forever.
2. “He has filled the hungry with good things” – Blessed are those who hunger for
righteousness, for they shall be filled. God fills the hungry with good things: eternal life, Christ, the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water flowing from within them.
Thirdly,
To Rest In The Sovereignty of God is to:
C. Accept God’s plans and
purposes concerning you: Accept where God has you, who God has made you
to be …be comfortable in your own skin:
1.
“He has regarded…the lowly estate of His maidservant” epiblepo - to fix
the eyes
upon
with favor or partiality. Before
Mary was called to be the mother of the Lord, she was a servant of the Lord.
She was a nobody from nowhere but served God faithfully where He led her.
2. Be who God has created and called you to
be, not who the world is trying to force
you to be (Rom 12:1 – 2).
III.
To Stand on the Promises of God (V. 54 – 55)
A. Mary
knows that what is happening to her is in direct fulfillment of what God has
promised to His people. As
Elizabeth has spoken to her, “Blessed is she who believed…”
B. The Report of the Lord:
1.
The world may tell you that you can’t do certain things, but you know the
promise
that
in Christ, you can do all things.
2.
The world may tell you that living for Christ is foolishness, but you know that
God
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
IV.
To Celebrate God! (V. 46 – 47): MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD!
A. “Soul…spirit”: innermost essence/all of who you really are. Mary says all of who she is, every fiber of her being magnified the Lord and rejoiced in her Savior!
B. To magnify something is to enlarge it. Ex: The magnify glass. God Himself isn’t enlarged, rather, we enlarge God in our thinking. He increases as we decrease
John
Calvin stated, “Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of
their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of
God.” Mary contrasts herself with God and magnifies His Name!
As David said, when I consider the moon and the stars..
We believe what He says about life, circumstances, and about who we are in Christ.
We rest in who He is, and stand on all that He has said. His way is better than my way. His way is better than the world’s way, and to Him alone be all of the glory!
B. This is what we want to do! We want to enlarge God in our thinking! We Want to Praise Him:
Because He is Holy!
Because He is Sovereign!
Because He is the Great I AM
Because He is the Resurrection and the Life!
Because He IS!
V. In conclusion, The recipe for success then contains these necessary ingredients:
Walk in Godly Fear; a Reverential awe of God that results completely in the finished work of Christ.
Rest in God’s sovereignty: Trusting in His power, goodness/being who God has called us to be Stand on the promises of God, and believe what God has said about circumstances
Celebrate God.
This is what God is calling us to do.
This is what God commands us to do.
This is what success is all about! Trust and look to Christ alone.
Amen.