Yet Mary was way ahead of Zechariah. He doubted; she believed. She believed so much that she was willing to face slander in the confidence that this was the Word of God coming to her. She may have been young, but she wasn't stupid. It was no inconsequential matter to be the mother of our Lord.

There are those today who scoff at the notion of the virgin birth. If they are still doing it today, imagine how it was then in Nazareth. She who bore in her womb the Christ Child knew what it was like to be scorned by the polite society of Nazareth. Imagine the catcalls and the hoots she got as she went to the well to draw water for her family. Imagine the conversations she and Joseph must have had as two persons who were endeavoring to go about their relationship God's way. They had all the onus upon them as if they had cut corners sexually. Imagine her fears that Joseph would disappear, with the pressure becoming too great, and she would be left a single parent in a society that had little room for illegitimacy and out-of-wedlock parenthood. Far from letting this destroy her, her response was not one of doubt, not one of objection. Her response was: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said" (Luke 1:38).

God, throughout history, has worked in the lives of young people.

Another Joseph, eighteen-hundred years earlier, was a young man when he was sold into slavery. He had every reason to cut corners, disowned as he was by his own brothers. He became a slave in a foreign land but remained true to his God, even when betrayed by Potiphar's wife. Languishing in an Egyptian prison, the months went by. How tempted he must have been to have repudiated the God of his great grandfather Abraham and his grandfather Isaac and his father Jacob. But he didn't. And God reached down into that prison, singling that young man out for significant service, both for the people of Israel and the people of Egypt.

The Apostle Paul writes to the young pastor Timothy and urges him to let no one put him down for being so young.

Check out church history, and you will find that even as God has used men and women who are His venerated, long-term saints, He has also worked through young men and women in our own day. Billy Graham was only thirty years old in that epic evangelistic crusade held here in Los Angeles. He is now seventy-one. Think of the forty years of faithfulness in which God took youth, mellowed it into middle age, and continues now to use him into what for many are the post-retirement years.

Take the example of Jesus. The God of the universe chose to flesh out His earthly ministry in the God-man who was done by age thirty-three, sixteen years younger than your pastor.

Young man, young woman, God wants to use you now. God will use you now as you are available to Him.

Second, a word to people who need and want to know more: God is willing to teach you.

Whereas Zechariah wanted a sign to prove it was God talking, Mary simply wanted to know more. She knew that virgins didn't get pregnant. She wasn't going to doubt God's power to do this. She wasn't going to run away from whatever God wanted to do. She was open and available. She simply wanted to know how this would be since she was a virgin.