Something that he's been waiting for before he ever created anything. He ordained each and every one of these before the foundation of the world. He intentionally chose each and every one of these people to draw these people unto himself so that he could save them and change them in time and for all eternity.

And I do believe to the core of who I am as each person steps in this water that our God and Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ask once again for the angels of heaven to silence their worship.

Hey, Max, what's going on?

Good, man.

How are you?

I'm great.

Did you hear?

Did you hear what?

In Samuel, chapter 7, Samuel writes, After the king was settled in his palace, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, Here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent. Nathan replied to the king, Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you. But that night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go. Tell my servant David, this is what the Lord says. Are you the one to build a house for me to dwell in? I've not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I've been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I've moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?

Now then, tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says. I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I've been with you wherever you have gone, and I cut off all of your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel, and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own, and they shall no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will no longer oppress them anymore as they did at the beginning, and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people. And I shall also give you rest from all your enemies. The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I shall establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken from him, as I took it away from Saul. I removed from before you, your house and your kingdom shall endure forever.

Let's pray. Father, it's hard for us to understand this ancient prophecy, probably as much as it was hard for David to understand it. Surely it was partially fulfilled in Solomon, and that is the one for whom you were predicting his disobedience. But there's a much greater indication here, not a kingdom of Solomon, for that was not everlasting, a special kingdom, a kingdom that would fulfill great promises and would provide tremendous hope. And so, Father, I hope that as we hear what Luke has to say today, we realize it's far more than story. It's history. That there's something contained within what Luke writes and what Luke sees that is extraordinary and powerful. And, Father, on this day, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, may our heart absorb what it is you want to say. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Well, last week we talked about what it's like to actually be forgotten versus how it is to feel forgotten. And we recognize that there are definite differences between the two of those. Being forgotten, actually, I get to blame you because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Feeling forgotten is all me. It's when you begin to wrongly evaluate who you are. You feel like you're being overlooked. You feel like you're forgotten. And then you begin to evaluate your value, your quality of life, your own integrity, dignity, value, and worth. And we saw last week that God never overlooks anybody.

But in the midst of fulfilling what is the single most important event that had happened in human history up to that moment, and certainly up to this moment — we only wait for one more important event, and that's the second coming of Jesus Christ — God chose to demonstrate something more than just his power to fulfill a promise. He demonstrated that in the midst of all this incredible, epic, predictive, prophetic reality, he doesn't forget the individual people. And that in that story, we saw God both fulfill what was prophetic and personal. He didn't walk right by. He didn't walk right over the two people in the story, Zechariah and Elizabeth. God was able to fulfill his eventual with the immediate. He was able to look at two people and say, you matter, and I'm going to do what I'm going to do through you, but ultimately for you.

And as Luke continues to write his gospel, you'll see this throughout his gospel as we study it on through Easter, is that God has chosen to use people all throughout human history to accomplish his purposes. And it's often thought that it's extraordinary people who do extraordinary things. The truth of the matter is there are no extraordinary people. There was really three extraordinary people, Adam, Eve, and Jesus. Those were the only ones that were extraordinary. Adam made from a pile of dirt. Eve made from the rib of Adam and Christ, who would, with extraordinary realities, enter this world. They are the only three human beings that did not have any male participation in their creation and conception. So they're the extraordinary people.

Ordinary people do, however, accomplish extraordinary things. But people don't accomplish extraordinary things because they're extraordinary. No, it's because there's a powerful God who has purposed things to happen on this earth. And while ordinary people can do extraordinary things, that doesn't mean they're extraordinary. And that would be part of the reason Luke would write to an entire audience of people who basically had very little religious heritage, very little, in a way, of experience in Judaism. They were just a group of people who had been saved but hadn't heard the whole story. They didn't know all the details. They didn't know the inside language. They didn't know the secret handshakes and all those things. They just didn't know it. And Luke begins to tell the stories of these people that he personally interviewed. And in the beginning of his gospel, we see what he wants everybody to know is that God didn't do extraordinary things through extraordinary people. He did extraordinary things through ordinary people.

Last week, we saw that, you know, in the midst of bringing about the single most important event in human history, he chose a woman who was old and well on in her years, who was unable to have children, and a man who himself called himself very old. They were able to conceive and they would give birth to John the Baptist. Two people, probably nobody who read the gospel of Luke, his audience, ever heard their names before.

Now, today's story, they're going to know this name immediately. But here's the thing. They're going to immediately think, oh, I know this lady. Now, this is one extraordinary woman. And Luke wants to write that, no, she's pretty ordinary. In fact, she's as ordinary as you're ordinary. In fact, God's willing to do almost identical extraordinary things through you that he did through her. And a lot of people, that's not possible. I know. But it is possible. And it isn't because this person was extraordinary that God used them. No. It's actually because they were well beyond ordinary that God used them. So that he could get the glory? Mm-mm. Not at all. He doesn't need to worry about who's going to get the glory. Was it so that this person could get the credit? No, I don't think he's telling us the story for that reason either. I think Luke tells us this story so you, an ordinary person, could realize that God wants to do extraordinary things in you and through you as well. That every person who's ever read the gospel of Luke was equal in at least one category. We're unbearably ordinary. And that's the incredibly good news of the gospel of Luke.

So today, as Luke tells us a story that's extraordinarily well known, the fulfillment of God's promises are accomplished through ordinary people. You don't have to become anything. You just have to be everything that God created you to be. And you being you, being just an ordinary you, God will use your ordinariness surely to accomplish amazing things. Some people have more extraordinary accomplishments, but they're still just ordinary people who God allowed and blessed to do something extraordinary. And today you'll see in this account, it really just doesn't get any more ordinary than this.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, the same angel that he sent to Zechariah to speak to him in the temple as he was doing his once in a lifetime duty of burning incense on the day of prayer, every day of prayer. And he was chosen by Lot to do it. The sixth month is the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. So she's now six months in and angel Gabriel comes back once again to the earth. This time he doesn't go to Jerusalem in Judea. He goes to a town called Nazareth in Galilee. Nazareth was such a small town that when Luke wrote, he had to tell the people where it was. That's how small it was. Today, it probably has a half a million people in its metropolis population, believe it or not. On this day, archaeology has uncovered that they probably had a hundred people. Some people declare as low as 75. Some might say 150. But at the end of the day, we're talking about a sleepy little town, ultimately halfway between two bodies of water, two beautiful bodies of water, the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean. I don't know why you'd want to live between the two when you could live at one of these two beautiful bodies of water.

And it was just kind of one of those towns that if you were on your way from here to, say, the Gulf Coast of Florida. Say you're going to Destin and you drive all the way down to I-65 and you finally get off at Evergreen, Alabama. Anybody ever get off at Evergreen, Alabama? Evergreen, Alabama is where you get off and you make that left and you drive for about, I don't know, an hour or so. And then you go into, oh God, it begins with an A. I can't even remember the name of Florida. But Evergreen, Alabama is bigger than Nazareth and all I've ever seen is two gas stations at the interstate. It's a, just a, I've never seen a human being. The only person I've ever seen is the one who took my money for my gas. Nazareth. Pretty ordinary. Nothing extraordinary. Not Rome. Not Corinth. Not any of the power cities. A pretty country, laid back town that is so sleepy, the readers had to be told where in fact it was.

So he comes to a town in the middle of basically nowhere to a virgin. Pretty common. A virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. Now, honestly, if you were to put this on your resume and seek to be hired by God to do something extraordinary, most people would say, I don't know what you bring to the table. Look at who you are and where you're from and what you got going for you. This virgin who's now pledged is probably absolutely no older than 15, most likely closer to 13. This is when betrothals were happening in that day. She'd get betrothed, which is a legal engagement. You can only end it by divorce. And so basically, the only thing that hasn't happened is the wedding ceremony. So you got a 13-year-old girl. We really don't even get her name yet. She's so ordinary. And she's ordinarily pledged to a man, just like all teenage girls would have been pledged to a man. This guy's name is Joseph.

Now, he does have a little something going for him. He's a descendant of David. And as I read that prophecy for you, you now realize why that was so important. Because if we're going to have a king sit upon his throne forever, then whoever it is to come has to come from the line of David. But on the surface, there's really nothing extraordinary here. You and I, we've heard it now for 2,000 years. You and I, every year we go into this, we already know the characters. So it's hard for us to climb out of what we know, to climb into what the readers heard. And what Luke is first saying to the people is, did you hear what I heard? This is what I heard. I mean, this is a pretty sleepy town, a pretty small town. They're pretty typical. And to be a female virgin, you are about as powerless as you could possibly be. You couldn't own property. You couldn't live outside your dad's home. So it's about as ordinary as you get.

The virgin's name, here we go, was Mary. The angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you. So when you see the first couple of verses, I think the natural question would be, So why is she highly favored? Well, that's the question. There's no possible explanation other than the heart of God. God, he chose to favor her. What puts her in a position to do extraordinary things is not that she was extraordinary. She was unbelievably ordinary, painfully ordinary. And where she came from and where she lived and how she was raised and who she was marrying, none of that mattered. There was only one thing that mattered. God said she was highly favored.

All because God chose to move into a very ordinary girl's life and do something very extraordinary. Now, you're going to see in a moment, we got to make sure we position ourselves for this extraordinary moment. But when you bend and climb into this story, you have to understand that God is going to bestow upon her favor. That God is giving her and granting her this high favor for no other reason than he wants to use this ordinary girl to do something extraordinary in the world. And I think that's the challenge in the narrative for all of us. That when you read narrative stories of the Bible, the ultimate goal is there is a cosmic story going on, no doubt. But there's also a grassroots level story going on. And you and I have to climb into both phases of that.

Part of the cosmic reality for you is that this is God finally beginning the process of fulfilling the long-awaited promise of a Savior coming to die for your sins, to raise himself back to life so that you and I could spend eternity with God. No question about that. But there's a personal side to this as well. That you matter and that God is going in an epic moment, like the single most important moment in human history up until the second coming. He's using extraordinarily ordinary people to accomplish that. So what could God not do in and through you? And anything he chooses to do in you and through you is extraordinary. Because it's he who is the extra to your ordinary that makes it mind-blowing. It doesn't have to be that you will give birth to Messiah. In fact, truth be known, every single solitary follower of Jesus Christ is much like Mary. You are pregnant with opportunity. You can birth Christ in the life of a lost person. You, through gentleness, companionship, community, relationship, by proclaiming the gospel, you literally can birth Christ in someone. You're pregnant with the potential to alter an individual's eternity. That's why I'm never afraid to ask people to give to what God's doing. Because that's part of our capacity to give to birth Christ again anew as a person is born again in Christ Jesus the Lord.

So ordinary people in ordinary places experience the extraordinary fulfillment of God's ancient promises. The long-awaited king that would come to fulfill the covenant promise of God that David, you shall always have a king on the throne. Always. Now have they always had one? No. The kingdom got split. They got out of the monarchy. And now we're awaiting that fulfillment. And here it comes. One of the most ancient promises of scripture.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words. And she wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. See, amazingly, she's not going to be disturbed by what she's about to hear. She's disturbed by the greeting. Just the very fact that the angel is saying she's highly favored troubled her soul. She's, you know, pretty sensitive to the moving of God. She's deeply troubled at his word and wondered what kind of greeting is this. But the angel said to her, Don't be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.

Now, in the first time we see it, you are highly favored. It's only used twice in all of scripture. See the Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6 in here. It's the bestowing of something irrationally wonderful upon a human being purely because of the grace of God. But Mary found favor with God. And to find favor, this is a verb. This is an active verb. She actively pursued the right way to live. She pursued the favor of God and she found it. And when she found the favor of God, God bestowed her with favor. And what the writer Luke is telling us is that there is equal participation. Maybe not equal, but darn near equal participation. That while you can't do anything to put yourself in a position where God's going to say, I choose you because you're spectacular. We can do things that will disqualify us because of our poor choices.

See, if there's anything extraordinary maybe about Mary is that she kept looking for the favor of God, the favor of God, the favor of God, the favor of God. And guess what happens when you look for God's favor? You find it. And she found it. You have found the favor of God. God, so what are we doing? You think about the whole pursuit of being ordinary is to simply do the things that God has called you and I to do for as long as we have to do it in order for God to finally show up and do what only he can do. He said, you will be with child and give birth to a son. And you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high.

So Mary, you're going to give birth to a child. You're going to give him the name Savior, which is what Jesus means. And he will be great and he'll be called the son of Elion, the most exalted name of God in the Old Testament, other than Yahweh, the most exalted high above everything and control of everything. And God, that's who you're giving birth to. Not just an ordinary child. In fact, ordinary Mary is going to give birth to an extraordinary child. And this extraordinary child is going to be great. You're going to give him the name Savior. And he's going to be great and called the son of the most high God. The Lord will give him the throne of his father, David. Hence, the reason I read 2 Samuel 7. You see, there was an ancient, this probably happened, oh, I don't know, 800 years before the birth of Christ. Was that passage? Give or take a year or two around there. Yeah, right about 800, 820 years, 2 Samuel 7. And now it's being fulfilled.

And such a profound promise that there is a king come in Israel. And what was Israel looking for the most? That fulfillment. They wanted a powerful king, just like David, to come and rule and reign and destroy their enemies. Remember I read about David? You're now at peace with all your enemies. All your enemies have been defeated. There's peace within you and within your land. That's what Israel wanted. We want a dominant leader. The most extraordinary thing they wanted is going to come through one of the most ordinary women on the planet. In fact, during life's Christ, somebody will finally say, Nazareth? He came from Nazareth. What good can possibly come from Nazareth? Exactly. Exactly. An ordinary town, an ordinary person getting ready to give birth to the most extraordinary human being who has ever lived. And what positioned her for that? Was to keep seeking God's favor, God's favor, God's favor, God's favor. I want to experience God's grace. I want to chase God's grace.

And you'll see that she's more interested in how this is going to happen than who it is on earth you're talking about. I mean, you start thinking if God came to you and told you you were going to give birth to something beyond comprehension. Something that the entire world has been waiting for. For thousands and thousands of years, the first mention of his coming was Genesis 3.15. Isaiah 7.14 declares the virgin will be with child. So you got about, oh, I don't know, 4,000 years before the birth. At least 800 years before the birth. Isaiah 7 is approximately 500 years before the birth of this incredible person, the most extraordinary human being who's ever going to live. Fulfilling one of the most extraordinary promises ever given. And God chooses one of the most ordinary people on the face of the earth to do it.

See, I love my Catholic heritage. I love being raised in the Catholic faith. And I love to limit the veneration of Mary. But I think the veneration of Mary should start with how ordinary she was. She's an ordinary woman who didn't do extraordinary things. She did expected things. God would do the extraordinary. She just did the ordinary. She did what any of you can do. She did what any of you can do. She did what I'm capable of doing. What? Chase after God's favor. Seek God. You'll find him. And when you seek God's favor and then God pours his favor on you, watch out. That's probably the most extraordinary thing that will ever happen to you when you're born again.

And so he's going to reign and rule over the house of Jacob and his kingdom will never end. An ordinary person was living the life that positioned her for an extraordinary experience. Become the mother of Jesus. Now, God comes and tells you that. What are the first questions that come to mind? For me, I'd want to know who this dude is. But she asks not a single question about who. She never says, hey, tell me more about this kid. What's he going to do? Who's he going to be? Not a single question about who. Rightly, she asks, how will this be? Last week, John asked a question, but it was different. He said, how can I be certain? He was more interested in his own certainty. Like, just the angel Gabriel coming to talk to me personally is not enough evidence. I'm sorry. How do I get certainty? Mary has no problem with what's being declared. She just wants to know the most important thing. How?

And Mary has the proper order of a worldview that starts in Genesis chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It always starts with who, how, and then what. Mary has no questions at all about the who. No questions for the who. I'm good with that. You're bringing the Savior, the one who fulfills that prophecy of 800 years, who she was very schooled in. She never asked a single question about that. This is a legitimate question. How will this be, Mary has, since I'm a virgin? And is God exalting virginity to an unreasonable level? No, no, no, no. The reason, now, while virginity is a beautiful thing to offer your husbands without question, and God has that expectation for all people, the purpose of this being so significant was so that there was no doubt that there was no man involved in the conception of Christ. For then he would have been of the seed of Adam. And if he was the seed of Adam, he would have been born dead in his trespasses. So God had to do the extraordinary so that this child would not have the genes of Adam coursing through his veins. That's why the virgin birth matters deeply. It's not about sexuality, okay? It's about the significance of the absence of the curse of Adam in the life of the Christ.

The angel answered. And isn't it powerful that the whole way that God took the substance of what could be in Genesis chapter 1, when God had darkness over the surface of the earth and the matter didn't fully yet matter the way it could completely matter until what happened, the Spirit of God descended. When the Spirit of God descended, God spoke. He cast and planted his seed into the matter. And through the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, light erupted. And that's the same thing happening. It happened in, if you will, in Elizabeth's womb. It happened in Mary's womb. That her womb didn't matter nearly as much as it was going to matter. And then the Spirit of God descended into it. And something powerful and wonderful would happen.

The only question Mary has is about how this will be and not who this son is going to be. What questions do you have about the possibility that God could take ordinary you and do extraordinary things through you? Are your questions about how can that be? Or I'm not so sure I believe who you actually are. How can you make me? I'll talk to the football players. How can you make me such a good football player? Well, I'm capable of doing anything I got to do. And he's capable of making you great football players so he can birth Christ through you in the locker room. He needs you to be great on the field so you can be godly in the locker room. He's capable of doing that. But if you wonder who he is, it ain't ever going to happen. If you know who he is, then you believe he's capable of doing whatever he wants to do. It's okay to wonder how. Just don't ever wonder who.

How is God going to make your marriage better than you ever imagined? Well, I don't know. He's going to do something specific through you or your spouse or through some friends or through church. But don't ever wonder who he is because he's the one who created marriage in the first place. You might be wondering, how are you ever going to... You have a longing for prosperity. There's nothing wrong with that as long as money is not your master. You wonder, how am I going to get there? Well, you know, the how is God's going to create certain opportunities in you. He's going to craft you so that you can take advantage of that opportunity. But if you wonder who he is, all bets are off.

What are you more focused on? How or who? How is reasonable? How is reasonable? Who is not? Because who he is is not up for debate. He's an extraordinary God who uses ordinary people to accomplish his extraordinary plans. Both cosmically, universally, and individually. Maybe Reed is going to be a catalyst of life change now for every man that he plays football with. Who knows what God might do with his children. Because he's publicly confessed he knows who Christ is. Now he's just going to live a life wondering, how is God going to do it? Right. And Luke wanted his readers to know, don't worry about the how. Well, focus on the who.

Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be barren in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible with God. How he's going to do it, I don't know. Can he do it? There's no doubt. And the reason I know he can is because I know who he is. And once you know who he is, you'll never have any doubt about what he can do. Merry Christmas.

So what do I got to do? Surrender. You got to surrender to what thing seems to be utterly impossible. Surrender to what is humanly inconceivable. You just got to surrender it. You know what? I'm the Lord's servant. Do with me as you please. May it be as you've said. Then the angel left her.

Can you surrender not to a concept? Can you surrender not to a plan? Can you surrender to a person? Can we all say, with a plan like that, I want to be with a person like you? And truly, every one of you in this room is capable of having one of, if not the, other than the self-actuated resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the second most significant miracle that's ever happened on this earth. Because the Bible doesn't say you were bad in your trespasses. It says you were dead in your trespasses when Jesus died for the ungodly. What's harder than giving birth? Raising the dead. And Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. And when he makes you alive, you're born again. And everything changes. And every promise God has ever made is yes and amen for you. Every promise he makes. And everything that awaits us is a guaranteed promise that will be fulfilled in sometimes the most extraordinary of ways through ordinary people.

So I beg you, contemplate that.

Let's pray together. Father, we love you.

Subject: God Uses Ordinary People to Fulfill Extraordinary Promises

Dear Crossland Community Church,

I hope this email finds you reflecting on how God uses ordinary people—just like Mary—to accomplish the most extraordinary things.

Last Sunday we saw from Luke that the single most important event in human history was brought about not by the elite but by unbearably ordinary people: an elderly, barren couple and a young girl from sleepy Nazareth. Mary was called “highly favored” not because she was spectacular but because she kept seeking the favor of God, and she rightly asked, “How will this be?” That favor allowed God to fulfill the ancient promises to David and to send the Savior, and Luke wants each of us to know we, too, are “pregnant with opportunity” to birth Christ into another life.

So stop wasting energy wondering who God is—know him—and instead surrender the impossible things in your life to him. Chase God’s favor in small, faithful ways: pray, serve your neighbors, be generous, and speak the gospel in your circles; God will take your ordinary and do something extraordinary through it. Let us be ready to say, “I am the Lord’s servant; do with me as you please.”

Blessings,
Crossland Community Church Team