Luke 1:39-80 // The Beginning of the Good News // Part 2 (10:30 am)

That what God had done in her life was too good and it was too important to get bitter with people. And ain't that a lesson for all of us? I mean, be honest with yourself. How often are you tempted to let what other people say and do make you bitter? Like, you let their foolishness ruin your day. What kind of what kind of sense does that even make? Don't fall for that trap. Choose joy regardless of the whispers. If they're gonna whisper, let them whisper. It don't matter because what God is doing in your life is too good and too important to let somebody else ruin it. [01:27:56] (33 seconds)  #JoyNotBitterness

It it it there there's like no room for doubt. He doesn't say he he would be called John. He doesn't even say he should be called John. He just says definitively, his name is John. And then somebody over here said it, period. Like, that's that's end of conversation. His name is John because God said so. And I don't know about you, but sometimes because God said so is enough for me. [01:32:09] (24 seconds)  #BecauseGodSaidSo

what's happening here is that even if they don't fully understand it yet, they have come to a realization, a sudden realization that the God who had been silent for four hundred years is talking again. That the God that they thought was absent and gone for four hundred years, all of a sudden is moving in the middle of their their community. Like, that's gotta be like, what do we do with that? [01:35:39] (26 seconds)  #GodSpeaksAgain

Now this word magnify, it doesn't mean to make God bigger. It actually means to make God clearer. The best illustration of that is like if you use a magnifying glass. The magnifying glass doesn't actually change the thing you're looking at. It just helps you be able to see it better. And so when we magnify the Lord, what we've got to understand is we're doing that for our benefit, not his. We need to magnify him so that we can see him better. K? [01:16:58] (27 seconds)  #MagnifyToSee

What does it look like for the hand of the Lord to be with you? And is it possible for you to live in such a way and and to share your story with others in such a way that even if they still have questions, even if they don't fully understand it, they couldn't help but look at your life and say, the hand of the Lord is on you. Hallelujah. Like, what if that became the open door for you to be able to share the gospel with your friends, with your neighbors, with your coworkers? What if they didn't understand everything, but they could see that the hand of the Lord was on your life and it made them ask questions? [01:36:29] (33 seconds)  #HandOfTheLord

You know what all our days means? Our days. Means all our days. Like like, not just some of our days, like, don't get a day off. Like, holiness and righteous is not optional on Tuesdays. Okay? In fact, he says, be just as holy and righteous on Friday night as you claim to be on Sunday morning. So, when you sit on that one for a minute. Be holy all and righteous all your days. [01:46:21] (24 seconds)  #HolinessEveryday

So more than likely, we got it wrong, and and Zechariah's punishment wasn't just that he couldn't speak. It's also that he couldn't hear, and that's why they had to make signs to him. Like, I was like, woah. I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Either way, what we do know is that God had Zechariah's complete attention. Like, his full attention. For nine months, he can't say nothing. Maybe he can't hear nothing. God's got his attention. He's just thinking about what God has said and his response to it. [01:30:12] (28 seconds)  #GodsFullAttention

So this is like the athlete who's training in in when nobody's around. This is like the musician who's practicing in the room when nobody sees. God prepares people in obscurity before he uses them publicly. And the methodology he uses more often than not is the wilderness. And so if you feel like you're in a wilderness season right now, best advice I got for you, embrace it. [01:49:43] (22 seconds)  #EmbraceTheWilderness