Hello! It is great to see you here this morning. Thank you for coming. This is a great day. I don't know about you, but I've had a very powerful week spiritually. God has spoken and used and connected me to others and others to Him in a significant way. And so it's been a great week.
This morning, I'm going to want you to turn ultimately in your Bibles to Luke chapter 1. We're going to look at a very familiar story, if you've been a Christian for a very long time, or you've been in America for a very long time, and you've driven by and you've seen the little manger scenes. We're going to look at some great stories.
But before we do that, let's remind you of where we've been for the last couple of weeks. We've been looking at some strange births in the Bible, and it started out with Hannah. Hannah was the woman who gave birth to Samuel, the last of the great prophets, before the kings came on.
We saw that she went from mourning and deeply grieving, and she was in the temple. She was in, actually, the prayer area. Eli, the priest, saw her, and he thought she was drunk. And so she went from begging and asking God to provide her a son to a great step of faith, where she gave her son back to God in a real intangible way.
And we saw that, and I was just amazed at her faith. We were dumbfounded at Eli's lack of faith. But the sheer faith to pray and to ask God, "Give me a son." When He does, she turns him back over to Eli. And she turns him back over to be raised in the temple and to be very special. So Hannah was crying out to the Lord. That's what we looked at a couple of weeks ago.
Mary's song in Luke 1 echoes portions of Hannah's song. We saw that as well. And then last week, we looked at old man Zechariah. Old man Zechariah had a once-in-a-lifetime event. Zechariah was offering incense in the temple. You could only do that once, and it was a one-time job. And he was old. He was about ready to retire out.
Gabriel. Gabriel comes up to him. And when he meets Gabriel, when he sees Gabriel right there, he is, what's it say, shaken and overwhelmed with fear. You don't always encounter Gabriel. In fact, the last time anybody encountered him, Gabriel was Daniel. When Gabriel came and said, "I've got some things to tell you about what will happen in the future."
And Gabriel has been silent. And all of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere, God has been silent for hundreds of years in the nation of Israel. Gabriel shows up to Zechariah, old man Zechariah. So of course, Zechariah is overwhelmed with fear.
And he says to Zechariah, Gabriel says to Zechariah, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayers. Your wife, Elizabeth, she'll give you a son. And you are to name him John." And we looked at that. What an amazing prophetic word. What an amazing action that Gabriel is pronouncing to Zach.
And Zach doesn't believe it. Zach should be responding like this. He should be going, "I'm going to have a boy. Oh man, he should be celebrating. He's going, 'Hallelujah, praise the Lord. That's awesome.'" Instead, what does he do? Instead, he responds with utter doubt and unbelief. "How can that happen? Yeah, I don't believe you. That's not possible. See, I'm old. I'm old. My wife is old. It's just not possible. Thank you, Gabriel, for the message, but it's not going to happen."
And instead, so what happens as a result of that? Gabriel says, "I am Gabriel. I am Gabriel. I stand in the very presence of God. It was God. It was He who sent me to bring you this good news. But since you don't believe what I said, you've got to be silent."
And so, Gabriel, think of the power that Gabriel had. Just with a thought, just with a thought of his mind, all of a sudden, Zachariah is quiet for a year. He can't speak at all.
And then the first words, it gets through to him, because the very first words Zachariah says when they have the baby, eight days later, they have the baby, and they're going to go to circumcision. And their tradition was that you name the child eight days at the circumcision celebration. You name the child, and they're going, and they wanted to name it after a father. They want to name him after a relative.
And Elizabeth is going, "No, his name's going to be John." And so, they ask Zachariah. They give him a tablet so he can write it out. But his mouth opens up and goes, "His name is John." He heard. He believed. He understood. For the first time in his life, he understood that what Gabriel said was true.
We're going to stick with that story. We're going to come back to that story because it's really important. Because when Gabriel tells Zachariah that Elizabeth is going to become pregnant, they go home. They have marital relationships. And then for five months, when Elizabeth finds out that she's pregnant, she disappears for five months. She doesn't tell anybody. She kind of disappears and goes off and is by herself. That's important. It doesn't spread around that little community that she's pregnant. She's just gone.
So we have Hannah. Then we have Zachariah. And today, we're going to look at the very familiar story of Mary and the birth of Jesus. And our emphasis this morning will be more on Mary and the things that need to take place and how Mary's heart is done.
So if you have your Bibles open, I see a couple of you with your Bibles open. Well done. Thanks for bringing them. We're going to turn to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. This is a great story. Remember Luke is writing to Theophilus. He's saying, "I'm going to give an orderly description of everything that happened so that you may know and understand that what you have heard is true."
And so Luke is writing about the birth of Jesus. Luke 1. Luke 1. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. Remember I told you we were going to come back? Six months. She's been gone for five months. The family really doesn't know. Mary doesn't know for sure. She's been in hiding for months.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. You need to understand that Mary had never had sexual relations. She wasn't someone who slept around. She had never had sexual relations with anybody. And that's important for the rest of the story.
Some commentators, some liberal commentators tend to think, well, this just means she's a young gal. And, you know, she could have been sexually active. No, she was a virgin. She had never had sex with another person. And that becomes important for the story to truly connect.
She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, "Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you." Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
"Don't be afraid, Mary," said Gabriel, "for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end."
Mary asked, "But how can this happen since I am a virgin?" Are you, Gabriel, telling me that I need to sleep with my fiancé and have sexual relationships before we're married? Is that what you're telling me? Are you telling me to do something I shouldn't do? That's immoral. That's wrong.
Mary is asking Gabriel, "Are you telling me I need to go do something that's not right?" And Gabriel says, "No, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son now, and she's in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail."
Gabriel is, in essence, saying, "Go check with Elizabeth. What I'm saying is absolutely true. I'm not asking you to do anything immoral. I'm asking you to go and check and verify what I'm saying is true."
Mary responded, "I am the Lord's servant." If you have your Bibles, if you have something to write with, underline that. Note that. "I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true." And Gabriel, the angel, he left her.
This is an amazing story. The more I got into it, the more amazing this story became because let's take it back. Let's put it in context. Let's put Mary in 2,000 years ago as a woman—not a woman in 2024 in Southern California. Let's go back to the qualifications that Mary had.
See, in the world's eyes, Mary had three strikes against her. She had three strikes against her. In fact, in the world's eyes, she would be disqualified for being used by God because she had some significant challenges in front of her.
What were they? Strike one: Mary was a woman in a man's world. And let's not take that for granted. Let's unpack what that means. A woman in those days in a man's world, you know what? She had restricted legal rights. A woman had restricted legal rights.
She and he, a she and a he, they didn't have the same aspect to the courts. In fact, their own writings, the Jewish own writings said that a woman could not serve in a court because her testimony was not considered valid. So you're in a courthouse, and a woman comes. She comes to testify about what had happened. They go, "No, that's just a girl. You don't have to listen to her. Her words don't mean the same as a guy."
Wow. In their own writings, they said that a woman's testimony was not considered reliable. Not only that, but in the Greco-Roman world in which they lived, they weren't even considered full citizens. They didn't have any citizen rights. They didn't have any legal rights.
She's a woman in a man's world. She had restricted educational access. So she can't, she has limited legal recall, but she has very limited educational. You know, most women in Mary's time, they were not educated. An educated woman was exceedingly rare.
I'm looking out at the educated women in this room. All of you with high school education. That would be, you'd be at the top of the class. And imagine you have college or post-graduate work. Wow. What you have today was unheard of in Jewish society. Religious education was primarily for the men. Women were not taught the Hebrew scripture.
You're not allowed to testify in court. In fact, you're not even a full citizen. You don't get to understand the Torah, the Hebrew scriptures. You're a woman in a man's world. So she was a woman in a man's world. She was restricted.
And her education—number three, the third strike—and she's done. She did not have access to the temple like a man had. She did not have access to God like a man. There were areas around the temple, and that one was a court of Gentiles and the court of women. That's as close as you could get. Women could hang out with a Gentile. Wow.
You could not access; you could not give the sacrifice. You had to give the sacrifice over to a male in your family. So in the temple, they were restricted out to the court of women. They could not enter the court of women. They could not enter the court. They could not pray to God like they could not bring the sacrifice.
She's a woman in a man's world, and that's just strike number one. So here's Mary talking to Gabriel, and the world would say, "No, no, no, you can't use her because she's a she. You can't use her." But that's only the first strike.
The world would also say you can't use her because she's poor. So she was a poor woman in a man's world. Go to the Hebrew scriptures, and the Hebrew scripture says in Deuteronomy 28 that being wealthy is a blessing. Oh, if you have wealth, it shows that God's blessings are upon you. Oh, you're great.
Go to the second half of that chapter in Deuteronomy 28, and if you're poor, that's God's judgment upon you. She's poor. We know that from her song. We know that what she gives—she's a poor woman in a man's world. Wealth was seen as honorable; poverty was seen as shameful.
Here's Mary standing in the presence of Gabriel, and the world would say, "You can't be there because you know you need to have the honorable noble people. Wealthy people, they deserve to have Gabriel visit, not Mary," because they saw poverty as being shameful.
And in an honor-shame society, that's huge. Mary, she's a woman, a poor woman in a man's world. Wealthy people were seen as superior; poor people were seen as inferior. Poor people—people without a lot of resources, people without a lot of education, people without access to the scriptures—they're considered inferior.
And so if you were to walk down middle-class Americans like we are, if you were to walk down the road and you were to see Mary, first you'd say, "Oh, she's a woman—unacceptable. Oh boy, look at her clothing. She's inferior." And all of a sudden, you start passing judgment. But that's only the second strike against Mary.
The third strike against Mary: she lived in the backwoods. So Mary is a backwoods poor woman. What's Gabriel doing visiting her? She's from Nazareth. Nazareth, they say, was a town that probably had between 200 and 500 people.
I looked on Google Maps and tried to find a community in the Inland Empire that has between 200 and 500 people. I couldn't find one until I went to a small place called Mountain Home Village. How many of y'all know where Mountain Home Village is? Exactly. That's what you would think of Nazareth.
Mountain Home Village is a place I came close to spending a lot of time to when my car broke down on the 38th. Right? And it's just a little off the beaten path, a little village up the 38th as you're heading between kind of Mentone and up the mountain. It's just a little cut off. It has about 150 people in it. Everybody knows everybody else's business because of the 150 people. You know who your neighbors are. You know who your friends are. You know what's going on with all those people. You know the strangers that come in because you can't do it from the main road. You've got to get off the main road to get to Mountain Home Village.
She, Mary, lived in Nazareth. Nothing good comes from Nazareth. That was their opinion. If they knew about Nazareth, they would say this as Nathaniel does when Philip comes and invites him to meet Jesus. "Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth? You kidding? That is out there in the backwoods."
There is something fascinating about Nazareth. The word Nazareth, the Hebrew word, is Nazar. Nazar means branch. It means little twig. The backwoods, you get it? Little backwoods area, purposefully backwoods is a branch. Yet, the prophetic word of God says this. It says, Isaiah 11:1 says, "Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot—a nazar, a branch."
And Mary is from a town that says branch. Isn't that fascinating, church? God knows what He's doing when He calls a woman—a poor woman from the middle of nowhere. Is this connecting with anybody yet? Is this saying anybody?
Mary had three strikes against her, and maybe some of you in this church feel like you can't be used by God. Feel like, "Well, you know, who am I? I'm not educated. I don't have a theology degree like Pastor Paul or use Amy. I don't have a doctorate like Amy does. You know, I'm not well educated. I'm just a poor person. I'm uneducated. I'm poor. I'm female. I'm disqualified. God, you can't use me."
So many times, church, so many times we disqualify ourselves. And why do we disqualify ourselves? Because we view ourselves, we evaluate ourselves based upon this worldly standard that's out there, and we say, "I don't meet the worldly standard; therefore, I can't do what God wants me to do. Therefore, I'm not going to get involved. I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to do anything because I'm disqualifying myself."
This is what it is, church: you are qualified. If you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are qualified. Don't let your status—your gender status, your racial status, your economic status, your educational status—don't let that disqualify you from hearing from God and responding like Mary responded: "I am the Lord's servant."
So many times we tend to disqualify ourselves. We tend to not take a step of faith because we have shame of what we've accomplished. "Oh, because I've failed so many times before," you're unwilling to take the risk to do it again. So you disqualify yourself from hearing from God, from listening to God, from acting with God because you've disqualified yourself.
Mary's story teaches us, church, that God qualifies. But yeah, because here's the truth. Ready? Let's go back to Samuel, Hannah's boy. And what does he do? He hears God say, "God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but God looks at the heart."
That's what qualifies you, church: your heart. God looks at your heart, and God says, "You can do it." It doesn't matter your educational status. It doesn't matter your social status. It doesn't matter your relational status. You can do it, church. You can be heard and seen and recognized by God as somebody qualified to be used by Him.
That's it, church. From the disqualified to the qualified. Our world? Our world? Mary would be the last person we would pick. Mary would be, "Oh, she's from the backwoods. She doesn't know anything. She's not culturally sophisticated. She doesn't know. She has an accent. And she doesn't speak right because she's from Nazareth. You know, their educational system is horrible. Not only that, Mary doesn't have an education, so we're not going to pick her anyways. Not only that, but you've seen the clothes she wears."
We're all judgy. We're all not allowing her to serve or to be engaged or to be used by God because we judge by the world's standards. Mary, here, Gabriel's there. You are honored by God. Noble and bright. Oh, this is awesome, church.
So Gabriel talks to Mary. And when Gabriel talks to Mary, he says, "Not that you're poor. He says, not that you're uneducated. He says, not that you're from the backwoods. He says, 'Mary, greetings, favored woman. Mary, the Lord is with you.'"
Wow. And what did Mary do to earn God's favor? She had a heart. She had a heart that was willing to accept what God wanted her to hear. She had a heart that was willing to say, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be as you have said."
That's what God's asking for you. Before the end of this service, I'm going to ask you, are you willing to say—you got to be careful—"I am the Lord's servant"? Because you got to follow through.
Mary says, "So what made Mary so special in God's eyes? What made Mary so special in the world's eyes? Mary was disqualified. Three strikes: she's a woman, she's a poor woman, she's an uneducated, poor woman from the backwoods.
So what made her so special in God's eyes? First, Mary was available. She was available. Did you pick this up? She was available with her time. The angel Gabriel came up to Mary and said, "You're about ready to have the Messiah." And she didn't say, "Sorry, you know, I've got so many wedding plans that I just can't do it. You should see my calendar. I got invitations to write. I've got shopping lists to go do. We got agendas to do. My mom is just driving me crazy. My sister, I got babysitting. You know that, but I got to manage my work."
She didn't say that. She was available with her time. She was available with her time. She didn't say, "You know, I just can't do it." Gabriel said, "You're going to have a baby." And she said, "I am the Lord's servant."
Not only that, look what she did. She was available with her body. She, of all people, willingly gave her body. She gave her body. We're to love the Lord our God with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And she loved God and obeyed Him with her absolute strength. She gave her body.
Some of us are willing to say, "Yeah, God, you can have some of my time." But are you willing to physically serve God? Are you willing to physically get together and serve Him in a way that is outside of your comfort zone? In a way that you're going to say yes, and it's going to cost you some time, but it might actually cost you some energy.
Mary, she was available with her body. She was available with her heart. Have you read the story of Mary in the rest of the New Testament? In Luke chapter 2, Mary takes Jesus to be baptized, and I'm sorry, to be circumcised, and Anna sees her, and she starts to treasure all of these things. Where does she treasure them? In her heart.
She treasures them in her heart, and other events happen, and Mary was available. She willingly gave her heart. See, sometimes, church, maybe you're not a Christian, but you're a Christian, and you're a Christian, and you're a Christian, and you're a Christian. You can give your time, but not your heart, right? You can serve, you can do whatever, you can come, and you can pick up trash, or you can talk to somebody else. You can give it with your mind, you can give it with your strength, but have you given God truly your heart?
And so, God, the things you care about, I care about. The things you hate, I hate. Have my heart, God. Have my emotions. Have my thoughts. Mary didn't force a smile. "Yeah, Gabriel, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah, I'll do it." No. He gave her heart with joy.
He sings. When she goes to Elizabeth and Mary's just a week or two pregnant. We don't know how long she's been pregnant. And she walks into Elizabeth's house. Elizabeth just says, "Oh, you're not worthy to have my Lord's mom in my presence." And Mary sings a song of joy and celebration with what God is going to do.
So Mary gave her time, her body, her heart. Mary was also accepting. From one, Mary was available. Write that down. Make sure you note that. Mary was available. She was absolutely available to be used by God. Her calendar wasn't so full that she couldn't say, "God, you can have my calendar."
Her time wasn't so taken that she didn't allow God to do it. Her heart wasn't so distracted with all of the other things that distract our heart. Her heart was in it. She treasured all of these things in her heart. And Mary was accepting. She was accepting.
See, she heard and she believed. She heard. Gabriel. Gabriel said, "How's this going to happen?" He says, "The Most High God will come over top of you." And she believed. And how do you know she believed? She went to Elizabeth's house.
She went to where she went to go find Elizabeth. Three days later, she went to go find Elizabeth. "I've got to confirm." And when she found Elizabeth, she went to Elizabeth's house. She went to where she went to go find Elizabeth. Absolutely, she believed. Mary absolutely believed what Gabriel had told her to do. She believed.
And not only did she believe, what do you think the rumor mill was like when everybody found out she was pregnant? Yet not married. "God, are you sure? It's going to be hard." What do you think it was like whenever Mary is pregnant, riding a donkey, heading to Bethlehem? "God, are you sure this is the plan you have?"
What do you think it was like when Mary and Joseph, all alone, get to Bethlehem? They knock on the doors of multiple places to stay, and it's so crowded that they can't get in. They have to go to the dirty manger and put the baby Jesus, the Messiah, in a feeding trough. That's pretty trusting.
What do you think it is like when Mary hears and understands that her son, the Messiah, and how is that going to be? She has to trust Him. She has to trust the words that Gabriel had all along, and she trusted God.
And she trusted, and so when Jesus is 12 years old, she's so trusting that they have a little celebration. They go to a festival, and at the end of the festival, the family goes home, and Jesus stays in Jerusalem. They didn't know it because she trusted.
And all of a sudden, she gets home and goes, "Where's Jesus? I lost the Messiah." Now, many of you can lose your car keys; many of you can lose your wallets. But dare not ever lose the Messiah, right? The Son of God, that's a responsibility you have.
And they go back, and they find Him, and she trusts. She understands who He is. She trusts. She heard, and she trusted. At a wedding feast, He's a little older; He's about 30 years old at a wedding of the friends in Cana. They're out of wine. She trusts, and she says, "Jesus, they're out of wine."
You know what I'm saying? "I need to do something." "Mom, it's not my time." "Jesus, you need to do something. I'm trusting you to do something for them." He makes wine, and she sees Jesus now from a distance working miracles, engaging, and she trusts.
She sees Him performing miracles, and she trusts. She sees Him teaching, and she trusts. She watches her son get nailed to the cross, and can you imagine the tears this trusting mom must have as she sees her son up on the cross, bruised, beaten, battered?
She's standing next to John, and some of Jesus' last words, very last words, He looks out and He sees her, and He goes, "John, John, take care of my mom." I'm paraphrasing. Tears in Mary's eyes. I'm sure that John puts his arm around her. He says, "I will."
She watches Him take down her son. She doesn't understand—not yet. She watches Him take down her son, put Him in a tomb. Mary, trusting God, at the moment that she said, "Yes, I am the Lord's servant," she believed.
It's an amazing story. And all of a sudden, everything comes flooding through Mary's mind, and she hears and she understands and she knows that even though Simon said, "A sword will also pierce your heart," she trusts. She trusts that He was the Messiah. She trusts that He is the Messiah. She trusts that He rose from the dead.
And so, turn with me into Acts chapter 1, if you have your Bibles, Acts chapter 1, because this is an amazing story. This is Mary who said, "I am the Lord's servant." And she walked through the valleys and the painful moments because she completely trusted who God was.
And in Acts chapter 1, verse 12, it says, "Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of about a half mile. And when they arrived, they went into the upstairs room in the house where they were staying."
And so, they're gathered there, and they're going to be praying. And these are the disciples that were there: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, and James. And they're going to be praying. And they're going to be praying. And these are the disciples that were there: Matthew, James, Simon, and Judas, the son of James.
They're all gathered there. And not only that, but they were constantly united in prayer. They're constantly united in prayer. And so here are the disciples. Here are the ones that Jesus said, "Come, follow me," Peter and Simon and Andrew and Philip and Nathaniel and Matthew. And come and follow me.
And all of those guys who were there, they saw Jesus rise up, and they saw that He was risen from the dead. And not only that, but look who else is in the room with the disciples, church. Along with them, along with them, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the other women and the brother of Jesus.
She saw, she believed, she trusted. And now Mary is bowing down. Mary is praying because she's saved by faith through Jesus Christ. Isn't that an amazing church? Isn't that fantastic?
Mary was available. Mary believed. Mary trusted. And Mary saw. She was very available, and she was very accepting. But one more thing about Mary: she was aware.
She was aware that things were not going to be easy. From the start, Mary knew that the path, this journey, "I am the Lord's servant." She knew that it would be tough. They're going to circumcise baby Jesus, the prophet, old man Simeon. He prophesied these words, and he says to Mary, "And a sword will pierce your soul as well."
It's not going to be easy, Mary. "I am the Lord's servant." She willingly watched the rejection of Jesus. She willingly watched her son be crucified because she believed, and she was aware that life was not going to be easy.
She was aware it was going to take everything. Some of you can go through the motions and just give Him your time, but you never give God your heart. Some of you can give God your heart, but you never give Him your time, your talents, your treasures. Therefore, you actually never give Him your heart.
There are a lot of people who say that they're believers in Jesus Christ, and yet they always withhold because they don't want to be hurt. Are you willing to give God the pain and to walk through the pain of being a faith-filled, obedient follower? Because you need to be aware it's going to take everything.
Three things about Mary's faith I want you to know. We're going to conclude with three points because we're talking about the strange birth. Next week, we got a fantastic birth coming up. Got a fantastic opportunity. It's just going to—my mind's going to explode, but you've got to wait until next week to see this, okay?
But this week, three things about Mary's faith you probably haven't thought about. Mary's faith eliminates our excuses. A woman from the sticks, and she said yes. What about you? What's your excuse for not sharing your faith with that person? What's your excuse for not living in obedience? Is it greater than Mary's excuse?
No. Mary was engaged. She should have said, "No, I can't do that because I'm engaged. It's going to ruin my relationship." Oh, gave that up as well. She gave up everything, church. Are you willing to do the same?
What's your excuse for not giving up everything? For not saying, "Trust me, you've got to be careful. I am the Lord's servant." What's your excuse for not?
Mary's faith eliminates or erases our judgmentalism. Who are you judging? They can't be used by God. They can't. They're not equipped right. They're not smart enough. They're not educated enough. They're not the right color. They're not the right gender. They're not whatever.
How do you judge other people? Because if you're absolutely honest, not one person here would have picked Mary. No one here would have picked her. She's from Nazareth. She's from the sticks. She's uneducated. God should have chosen somebody else—somebody who's more educated, more beautiful, more attractive, got all the right qualifications.
And if you're honest, you wouldn't have picked her. You wouldn't have picked Mary. Is that true about God picking you, though? Oh, thank you, God, for picking me. I don't have a lot to offer. I was just some poor kid in San Bernardino when God called me.
I didn't know what He was going to do with my life. Now look at me. I still don't know what He's going to do with my life. And I've lived a lot of it. You know, God, you still got a big dream for me. You still got a big purpose. And I'm just some poor schmuck from San Bernardino. But God can use me. Man, what about you?
You might actually be from Colton. Woo-hoo! Step up. Okay. Erases our judgmentalism. Who are you saying can't that God says that they can? And how can you help convert a can't to a can? Think about that in people that serve with you.
And number three, Mary exemplifies obedience. She exemplifies obedience. "I am the Lord's servant." Today I give you my body. Today I give you my calendar. Today I give you my heart. Today I give you my emotions, my thoughts, my words, my actions. Today I give you my life as you have said.
And she goes and she checks it out. Sure enough, Elizabeth says, "I'm pregnant. I didn't tell anybody. How'd you know? Celebrate together." Mary has John. Mary comes home. Probably a lot of conflict at home because Mary's pregnant. Never slept with Joseph.
Joseph decides, "Well, I'm just going to give her up for divorce." Angel says, "No, no, no. Don't do that. Take her as your wife." Their families don't like it; that's why they ride to Bethlehem alone. Their families weren't going to Bethlehem.
What is the cost of obedience? Maybe for some of you, you have to separate yourself from your family because your family is dragging you down. Your family is preventing you from doing what God has asked you to do.
Church, trust God, His word first, and follow His word. And then from there, watch Him work.
Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for today. Thank you, first of all, for your scriptures, and thank you for the example that Mary had. You gave us, Lord. Thank you for her faith. Thank you for her obedience. Thank you, Lord, for the joy that she accepted your word.
I pray specifically for anyone in this room who has never truly given their heart to you, who have never said to you, "Lord, that they are your servant." Lord, maybe they've walked on the edge of faith. Maybe they've been involved in church for a long time, but they've never given their heart in complete surrender to you.
So, Lord, if that is true, will you talk to them? Will you convince them and convict them of how they are still operating on their side of the flesh instead of their side of faith? Thank you, Jesus, for the saints you have spoken to right now. Thank you for leading them to this great, wonderful gift of the season.
Thank you, Lord, for speaking to them. Now, Lord, I pray that you would use those who have said that they're going to be your servants. Use them in profound boldness, holy way to extend your kingdom for your good and your glory.
In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
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on Dec 17, 2024
