thank you for being here.
Family. That was fantastic, man. The little.
Anytime you get kids up front, too, it just makes people go, oh, it a great job.
Great job.
In this in the series that we're in, I'm
introducing you every week to some of our church planters
and network leaders who plant in churches all around the world and locally in.
And this week, I want to introduce you to Pastor Freddy and Nancy.
We got a picture of them.
Pastor Freddy and Nancy, you are leading the very first church
that our church started when we were only three years old.
We started a church in the lucky 13 bar,
which was over on Ashland in 99.
And one of our staff members, John Brian Koski, and his wife,
Charity, helped lead that pastor Freddy and his wife became a part of that church.
John was called to other things.
And so, Pastor Freddy became the pastor of that church
and kind of took over, has been leading ever since.
And doing a great, great, great job.
Pastor Freddy and Nancy are dear to our hearts.
We have a long relationship with them.
And as we take this offering where I'm asking you
to give over and above your regular tithes and offering to,
by Christmas Eve, we're going to split that amongst these six
church planters and network of leaders that I've been introducing you to,
Pastor Freddy and Nancy are the ones that have been with us the longest.
And so they will be part of the recipients of that.
I'm really proud of these two.
God has delivered them.
And Freddy from, incredible,
difficulty in his life.
At every level you can imagine and done an incredible work
of rejuvenation and restoration
and renewal and giving him new life.
And he's given his life to Christ as a result of it, in the work of Christ
there in a very underserved,
part of
Fresno, deals with a lot of addiction, a lot of unhoused people,
a lot of turmoil.
And, and they just continue to be faithful to the call
to the what God's called him to in that area.
They've opened up a new outreach center that deals with, people
going through addiction and homelessness to serve them well.
All the while, Pastor
Freddie is going through his own health difficulties.
He's been on dialysis for,
a year now, and he needs a kidney
transplant, and he's just got approved to be on the list.
But that approval can take about three years.
And so in the midst of all of that
and all of the health struggles and the unknown future,
they have said, we're not backing off on the call in the work one bit.
And so he goes, he does his ministry, and then it goes to dialysis,
and then he gets back to work.
And that's just the type of man he is.
It's the type of couple they are, the type of faith that they have.
And it's tireless and it is strong and it is valiant.
And we want to bless them,
at the end of this year with that offering.
So thank you in advance for your over and above generosity.
These are some of those that is going to
pray with me.
Father, thank you for Pastor Freddie and Nancy.
Thank you for, pursuing him when he was running away from you.
And thank you that he turned his life to you and Nancy.
Thank you for delivering them.
From addiction, from violence, from homelessness, from all the things
that you were so good at to deliver them from.
And thank you for their response out of gratitude
that they've given you their lives and their future.
Thank you for their work.
Thank you for your provision for them in their call.
Thank you that they have not allowed,
difficulty to be an excuse to back off and and not
thank you that they have seen difficulty as a reason to press in harder.
Father, we collectively pray for Pastor Freddy's health,
as he
serves your kingdom as he and as serve your kingdom.
I pray that you grant health so they can continue to serve your kingdom.
And however
you work it, by your providence and your sovereignty.
I pray, protection over Pastor Fred as he goes through dialysis
and all these things as he waits and ultimately for a kidney,
for your glory, for your kingdom sake.
You know, he has said
that he wants nothing from another life.
If that life isn't first attached to you, he'd rather go be in heaven,
than for someone who doesn't know you to give him what he needs
and so honor his request. God.
And somehow, by your sovereignty
in your providence, work this together for your glory.
We love you. We trust you.
Thank you for Freddie and Nancy.
In your name I pray. Amen.
We're in this series where
we're looking at different characteristics of the Christmas story.
And we've looked at, Joy.
I know we looked at peace and
and today we're going to look at joy through the context of Mary.
And we're going to be in Luke chapter one.
And so if you have the Bible and you brought with you,
if you go to Luke chapter one,
we're going to look at the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
And, what the news of,
of the pregnancy by the Holy Spirit must have sounded like to her
what she went through
and what she committed to.
But before we get there, I want to share a little bit of background
culturally, politically, spiritually,
as far as what Mary was or what the culture of the time
and what Mary and Joseph were living in culturally.
And there in a place called Nazareth
and Nazareth was a
very, very, very small, unimpressive village,
probably total population, a few hundred people.
So it was just this out of the way place that nobody thought about it.
Nobody cared about. You didn't go to Nazareth.
Nazareth?
You were always from Nazareth.
It was under Roman and Herod rule King Herod.
So God's people were were in,
a socio economically,
dilapidated place.
They were under foreign rule by people who didn't care about them.
They were taxed heavily.
The, the
the means just weren't enough.
There was always there was always more month at the end of the money.
You know how that goes.
And there was incredible political tension.
Taxes were exorbitantly high.
The political groups were fighting with each other and fighting with God's people.
It was a it was a time of unrest.
Spiritually, the climate, spiritually.
This is what we call the 400 silent years, where for the last 400 years,
God had no prophetic voice
amongst his people, like the Old Testament prophets that were calling God's people
back to the revelation of God and commitment to God and and holiness
for 400 years, it seems as though God was silent prophetically and
so they're in this time
where they're feeling incredibly forgotten.
They're feeling that God is, is is, is not paying attention to them anymore,
that God is disinterested and distant.
There's a time of spiritual dryness.
They're living in complete obscurity.
And if you've ever lived in the shadows, both social.
So in, in, in society and culture
and spiritually, you know how depressing that can be.
And this was a time where joy
would not be something that they would say, hey,
that's one of the characteristics that exemplifies my life
is very difficult,
personally for Mary.
She's a very young girl,
and she is completely vulnerable and expendable
and completely at the mercy of men in her life.
Now she's betrothed to a man named Joseph.
And in their culture, there were three elements of a wedding.
Betrothal was the middle element.
Betrothal was a legal contract, as if they were married.
But they're living together.
There was no intimacy or sexual contact between them.
This was just the stage before
the final consummation of the contract that had been established.
But to get out of betrothal.
Betrothal was illegal act of divorce.
And so this was a very permanent situation.
She was in.
She was young, she was poor.
She was from nowhere.
She had no power whatsoever.
And to be found pregnant in the middle of betrothal
was a very, very serious offense.
There was a legal issue involved, according to the Jewish
religion and Deuteronomy 22.
There was it was meant social disaster for she and her family to be found
pregnant during betrothal before the actual marriage consummation
was grounds for divorce by Joseph
because he knew it wasn't hers.
And in the unashamed culture in which they lived,
her pregnancy looked like moral failure.
There was nobody
that would look at her pregnancy of this young teenage woman and think,
oh, obviously it's a virgin birth, that that's not where they would have gone.
They would have immediately gone to sexual sin.
And so to be Mary, in this culture, in this environment,
this was a tough order from God.
And it's into this person in this place that God announces
this rule changing joy into a life that was about to look completely ruined.
And in order for her to navigate this well,
she had to be convinced of a greater reality behind her situation.
And I would say for every one of us,
in order to navigate the situations and circumstances of life
that come out of nowhere,
that hit like a ton of bricks,
where everything is uncertain and unsure
to navigate that world with any semblance of joy.
There has to be this conviction
of a greater reality behind the situation.
And so in talking about, you know, actually,
I just joy's a big deal at Christmas time is supposed to be a time of joy.
Like everybody's like, oh, it's the most joyful time of the year.
And everybody assumes that joy means a smile.
It doesn't.
Biblical joy doesn't mean a smile.
Biblical joy means literally,
a calmness,
a certainty, a calm cheerfulness in God.
That's what joy is. It's not a smile.
It's not energy.
It might manifest it that that way.
It's, it may manifest itself that way sometimes.
But biblical joy is a calm cheerfulness in God.
It doesn't look like tinsel
and Christmas lights.
I just saw something on the news, and I wrote it down
because it struck me some other news a couple days ago.
Did you know that nationwide there is
there's a great, lack of the giant Santas,
like the inflatable Santas and the big Santa decorations for a front yard.
Did you know that nationally, those can't be found anymore?
Were you aware of this?
Well, good, because, I mean, you're not putting up these big Santas in your yard.
That's great. But. But nationally, there's this huge,
vacuum of those,
and and I was I was listening to this news report report on this.
And this is what was said
about chasing after these Santas.
They said people aren't just chasing decor, they're chasing joy.
And so the idea is, in order to get joy,
they want to go back to the nostalgia of Santa.
Joy is not found in giant inflatable Santas.
Joy is in the smiles.
Joy is in the energy.
There's there's some biblical joy is different.
Joy is not the denial of reality.
You just don't put on a smile and say, no, I'm fine.
It's all good. It's all man. It's all good.
Joy comes from a confidence in a deeper reality.
And so as we talk about joy, please, I do not want you to hear me say,
just put on a smile and act like it's not okay.
Joy doesn't say it's all okay.
Joy says, I am confident in a deeper reality behind
underneath my situation.
Please don't think it's either joy or sorrow.
They're not mutually exclusive.
The Bible is full of people who love God
and yet who say, tears are my food day
and night.
Tears and joy
can live in the same heart at the same time.
Limit and sorrow can be a pathway to joy.
Psalm 13, Psalm 42 and others.
Biblically, joy is not permanent.
Height and a big smile.
It's a deep, settled confidence
in the God who is beneath
your waves of emotion.
So today is not this.
If you're in a season of feeling low, if you're in a silly season
of feeling numb, if you're in a season of depression,
it's not
that you're failing Jesus nor failing faith.
Please understand that.
Joy in Jesus is not.
It does not come that.
There should be a slide before that because.
And I don't want to miss this joy.
And Jesus is not the refusal to feel.
I don't think that being joyful means you got to,
you know, get get rid of all those those feelings of difficulty and sorrow.
And that's not what joy is.
We can experience despair and still belong to Jesus.
You have to. You have to hear that.
You have to understand that.
Joy is not at all
always a feeling.
It's found in the foundation, underneath the feeling.
And every one of us needs joy in life.
Every one of us does. But every one of us needs joy
for a different reason and in a different season.
Joy for a 58 year old man is
I need something different than a 20 year old man.
We both need joy.
But where there's different seasons
for John, for for people in their 20s and 30s, they need joy
when the relationships disappoint.
They need joy when the career is uncertain.
For those in their 40s and 50s,
they need joy because parenting gets heavy.
And in your 40s and 50s, you need joy
because the marriage is strained.
And the joy because that's the time
when the body starts changing.
In your 50s,
60s and 70s, you need joy because you realize maybe life
didn't pan out like you'd hoped it would when you were in your 20s and 30s.
You need joy because that's the that's the time in life
when you start caring for your own aging parents.
And so we all need joy.
We need it for different reasons in different seasons.
But the commodity of joy is something that's got to be present.
And it's not the denial of how I feel.
It's not the refusal to feel.
It's a firm conviction
of the God underneath the feeling.
So joyful in Jesus.
If you're in that season of of sadness and grief and depression,
joy doesn't mean throwing away
the meds and counseling the counsel, the counselor and therapist.
It doesn't mean that God can use those things,
but it means a certainty that underneath
everything is the Christ who holds everything
to understand.
It's not a smile,
it's a gentle cheerfulness in God.
And I also want to acknowledge in this,
well, we're just talking generally about joy,
the role of community in experiencing joy.
It's hard to experience continual joy in a vacuum
when you're all alone.
And it's not meant to be that way.
It's interesting.
When Mary got the news that would change her life,
she immediately went to her relative, Elizabeth,
to encourage one another to share the news with each other.
There are times that the only way you can keep joy
is to borrow it from somebody else for a season.
And that's a special role of dear friends.
It's a special role of family.
When your family knows you, they know your present.
They have faith for your future when you don't.
To borrow their joy for a moment, to get around people
that remind you of God's Word and the joy of the Lord.
This element of community is very important
when we talk about this commodity of joy.
Most people live
with what I call seasonal joy or situational joy.
And seasonal joy. Looks like this.
When the paycheck comes in, it's bigger than you thought it would be.
Then that's a good time for.
That's good stuff right there. Right?
When you realize it's two weeks before Christmas
and you got to go into River Park for some shopping,
you need to get a really good parking space right up front.
That's the time for joy.
And so most of us live
to our detriment with what I call
seasonal joy or situational joy.
And in Luke one, Mary is in the season
that is potentially devastating.
But for Mary,
Mary's joy did not come from her perfect situation.
Mary's joy came from her trust in a perfect Savior.
Some of us are waiting, praying
and begging for God to change the situation.
Where God says, I want your joy to be found in me
because I'm your perfect Savior.
So how to live with joy?
That is not situational.
Let me read for you verses 26 through 38 of Luke chapter one.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, the sixth month of what?
The sixth month of Mary's relative Elizabeth being pregnant
miraculously as an old lady.
So Elizabeth is pregnant six months, and then Gabriel
comes to Mary in Nazareth, to a virgin
betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
And the virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
That's not a bad greeting.
There's a lot of joy in that.
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern
what sort of greeting this might be.
And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for
you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb,
and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom
and of his kingdom. There will be no end.
And Mary said to the angel, how will this be, since I'm a virgin?
And the angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age has also conceived a son.
And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
For nothing will be impossible with God.
And Mary said,
behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
Let it be to me according to your word.
And the angel departed from her.
It is true that when we talk about joy and talk about Mary,
that Mary's story is very different than ours.
This little girl gets a visit, a personal visit
from the angel of God, Gabriel
is told that she will
experience a virgin.
Birth never happened before or since,
and that she will give birth to the Savior of the world.
That's not a typical Tuesday morning for us.
Yeah,
and so it's easy to look at that and say, okay, I get it, Mary.
She can be joyful.
Look at this.
It doesn't compare to my world.
I didn't get some visit by an angel.
I'm not raising the savior of the world who's going to sit on this king
throne forever. They're just different.
And while the situation is different, I agree.
Mary's call is different.
We're not raising the Messiah.
Mary's call is different for sure, but the pattern is the same.
The pattern is this
God speaks His Word into ordinary lives,
and God calls normal people
into impossible things.
And God gives His Holy Spirit to empower what God has commanded.
And so, regardless of the situation, the way God works is this God
gives and up for us to obey, but not everything
we want want to know.
He gives us enough.
This is what I'm going to do.
But he doesn't give us so much that we have all the answers.
And when we don't have the answers and life is uncertain and unsure,
we tend to be robbed of joy.
And what's replaced is anxiety and concern.
Let's walk through this passage verses 26 and 27.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, the angel Gabriel sent
from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
And the virgin's name was Mary.
Here's what I want us to understand.
Right off the bat, there's all kinds of stuff
that was going on behind the scenes.
Mary had no idea that one day the father said to Gabriel,
the angel, Gabe, come here, I got a job for you.
I'm going to deploy you to this little girl named Mary.
She has no idea what's happening, is just going to rock her world.
But you're going to bring the news.
And this is what I want you to tell her.
I've lined all of this up in my plan on my sovereignty.
This is what I want you to.
Mary has no idea what's going down.
But God was at work.
Even though she didn't know.
Let me just tell you this, friends.
Some of you, some of us, some of you are about to go
into a situation that you're not going to go into the situation.
The situation is going to happen to you.
There's going to be something that happens.
You're not going to see it coming.
You're not going to be able to get ready for it.
You're not going to be prepared
and it's going to shock you and rock you.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that God hasn't
been orchestrating behind the scenes.
To understand this.
That's why biblical joy is a gentle cheerfulness
in God.
God was at work
since time began.
Mary had no idea the same God,
same us.
Verses 28 and 29
and he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
But she is greatly troubled at the saying, try to discern
what kind of greeting this might be. Now.
Greetings, O favored one.
Joy begins with God's Word.
That's a pretty good word, O favored one.
Let me tell you a little bit about this word favored one.
It's the first time in all of Bible this word is used.
It comes from the Greek word chorus.
I've talked about this a few different times.
I want to remind you if you've forgotten or tell you for the first time.
If you've never heard me talk about this,
that word favored ones.
It's never been used by God in all of Scripture up to this point,
and it literally means O favorite one.
Mary just got the word that's never been used
of any human before, that she is God's favorite.
What happens to your
quotient level at this point?
Hey there Mary.
Guess what?
I came from God's very throne
and I'm here to tell you you are God's favorite
in all the earth.
What happens to your joy level at that moment?
You're like, well, this is good.
That's a good day.
That's a pretty good day.
Going through the roof,
I want to tell you something.
That word's never been used until, by God of any person, until this moment.
Mary,
it's not used again until the book of Ephesians.
And in the book of Ephesians it says, because of the death of Christ
and His resurrection, those who believe in him
have become God's favorite same word.
For any of us who are in Christ,
God has now come to us as he did.
Mary, and he has declared over me.
Get it?
I am God's favorite.
You need to know that
I am,
and I expect you to treat me as such.
And you?
Say you're God's favorite.
That's good news.
That should make your joy go through the roof.
Same word, same God,
same favor.
And at the same time,
she was greatly troubled.
That's the Greek word for fear and dread and anxiety.
You see, there are times when God's mission for his favorite kids
causes initial anxiety.
What are you asking me to do?
What are you asking me to live through?
What is the plan?
Let me just tell you this
personally.
As your pastor, I am praying that God raises up young men and women
in this church because old men and women don't typically respond.
Who will be
radical in their pursuit
of God's missional work in the world?
Just like Mary was.
Who will say,
let it be to me as you have said.
Though it will be scary,
though it will be unknown and uncertain.
Radical young men and women.
Who are so bold and courageous
that write a blank check of their lives
to the mission of God in this world.
Unfortunately, when people get older, they have already set
the course of their life and they refuse to make course corrections.
Young people have not.
In verses 30 through 33.
And the angel said to her,
don't be afraid, Mary.
You've found favor with with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall call his name Jesus.
And he will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.
And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom of his kingdom
there will be no man. So all of a sudden you're like, okay, wait, wait.
I'm God's favorite.
Don't really understand what that means.
It's kind of weird, but my baby is going to have a throne forever.
My kids are going to be great.
Like, she gets confirmation
that every mom believes when they have a baby.
And you know what it's like when you first have a key, especially the first one.
After the second or third, you're like, oh no, I know how this goes.
I'm not so excited about them.
But like the first one, you're like, oh man, this is going to be fantastic.
You all you see in them is potential.
Are you seeing them as greatness?
Are you seeing them as goodness?
And then they get older and prove you're wrong.
But initially you're like, man, this is this good.
And this is what she gets confirmation from God himself.
Can you imagine?
She's like, well, yeah, I mean, her joy,
her joy.
It's like, this is everything a mom could ever dream of, right?
My kids going to be great.
And then it clicks.
Verse 34, how?
Because I'm a I'm a virgin.
So are you talking about, like, later after Joseph and I are actually married?
Like you're talking down the road?
She's thinking, but the language makes
it sound like right now I don't like these things.
Don't compute. God,
like what I hear you say?
But what I see in my life, it just seems they're incongruent.
They've ever been.
They're like, well, I know what God has said,
but my experience tells me something different.
Anybody?
Yeah, that's where Mary is.
And so then the gut punch.
Here it is,
the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come upon you
in the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born will be called holy. The Son of God.
Behold, your relative Elizabeth, in
her old age is conceived a son, and she's in her sixth month.
She was once called barren.
Nothing is impossible with God.
That's the gut punch.
Okay, wait,
so you say I'm your favorite,
and you say the result of this is going to be good.
But what this means for me right now,
this is the worst possible news.
So before we're married in this consummated, I'm
going to show up pregnant.
Do you know what that means for me?
Who breaks the law?
Stated that an engaged couple, betrothed couple.
If they had consensual relations with each other.
And she showed up pregnant, that the law required stoning.
So that's on the table.
Now the result.
What created this baby?
Wasn't she and Joseph?
It was the Holy Spirit. Her. But nobody was going to believe that
those stoning was on the books.
It was very, very, very rare.
And she was actually and I don't know if you've ever heard
that she was in danger of being stoned.
She was never really in danger of being stoned.
There is no way that they would have ever enacted that law.
And here's why.
Because for Jews to enact any sort of capital punishment,
they had to get permission from Rome first,
and Rome would never have approved of that.
And so it never happened.
It may have been on the books, but they were under Roman
rule and law, and so she was never in danger of stoning.
Matter of fact,
if you you know, if you know, you know your Bible, you think, well,
what about the woman who was caught in adultery
that the Pharisees brought to Jesus and were going to stone and all that stuff?
The issue behind that was never the law of stoning.
The issue behind that was trying to trick Jesus into and to trip him up to
expose him as a fraud.
She was never in danger of stoning either,
because they didn't have permission from Rome.
The first stoning that we read of in the Scripture from the by the church
on the religiously and the New Testament, is of Stephen the Martyr.
And most people would suggest that the reason why they carried that out,
they still didn't
have permission from Rome, but there was a vacancy in the kingship
for a time, and there was no king to get authority from.
And the fact that Stephen was a little known somebody
that nobody, nobody cared about, it wasn't Jesus.
And if you remember, in order to avoid that capital punishment
against Jesus, they had to get Rome's authority.
And so Mary was probably never in danger of being so matter of fact.
The rabbis even said of their own the religious court,
that if a religious court ever enacted this law, even one time in seven years,
it was a destructive court, so she was probably never in danger of death.
But here's what she was still in severe
danger of severe consequences, because here's what it meant for her.
Not that she would die,
but that she would have to live
as a public outcast and a little tiny community
where everybody knows your stuff.
She would be financially ruined, not able to ever have a job.
She would be condemned as a beggar for the rest of her life.
And this little baby,
she would live forever in shame, completely
cut off from her family, completely cut off from any religious support.
She would have, no financial or societal support.
She would live the rest of her days,
stigmatized
and completely alone
in abject poverty, and probably die early.
It was a death sentence of destitute poverty
and never being accepted by anybody.
And if Mary only looked at her circumstances,
she would have fallen into great and grave despair.
See, joy starts.
When I let God's word frame
my situation more than my circumstances do.
And most of us let our circumstances
frame our reality.
And we languish for joy
rather than letting God's Word frame my situation.
God, you have said that I am your favorite.
You've said you're with me.
You said this is from you.
And so I'm going to let your word frame my understanding
of this situation.
And because I have that gentle,
quiet confidence and cheerfulness in you.
Even in the unknown, I can be a person of joy.
Do you understand this?
You understand this.
But she's got to imagine.
I mean, how would you. What would you think of yourself right now?
If this is all what you're looking for, your future
and you're trying to reckon with.
Okay, but what is.
So I'm God's favor.
But this is my future.
So let me let me just ask,
can you.
And I believe that we're God's favorite before those circumstances change.
That's where joy is found.
C.S. Lewis said that joy is the serious business of heaven.
What he meant is this that God is not casual about joy, but
he's more interested in our eternal joy than our temporary comfort.
So the key to joy is when you ask the questions of God.
The key to joy is where you land on the backside of those questions,
not the answer to the question,
but where you and I land on the backside of the question and where we have to land.
On the backside of the question is land on his character, not my clarity?
And most of us think
we derive joy from clarity and understanding.
That's not where joy is found.
Joy is found when I land on the backside of my question on the character of God.
Even without the clarity of understanding, you understand.
She for joy to last,
I need God's voice to cut in,
not life to calm down.
For joy last.
We have to learn to interpret our word world through God's Word.
Habakkuk three verses 17 through 18.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines,
the produce of the olive fell, and the fields yield no food.
The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls.
Though everything falls apart,
though everything is destroyed, though everything comes tumbling down.
Yet I will what?
Rejoice in what?
Not the situation and not the circumstance and not the change.
I'll rejoice in what?
In the Lord and I will take.
What joy and the God of my salvation.
What's important for lasting joy is where I land on the backside of the situation,
on the character of God.
The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary
and brought Christ in her,
and the same Holy Spirit brings Christ in us.
Galatians five.
The fruit of the spirit is love.
Then joy
and joy is not something that I manufacture.
I'm not something that you manufacture.
Joy grows in me. Joy.
Joy grows in you as we walk with him.
And as I look through my losses, through the character of God,
through the lens of the character of God.
We bring this to a close with these verses 38, 46
and 47 Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
Let it be to me according to your word.
And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
The key to joy.
Let me tell you, my dear friends, the key to joy comes from surrender.
Not in a not from understanding.
Joy doesn't come from a change of situation.
Joy comes from surrendering the situation.
Before Mary could say, May it be to me, as you have said,
God promise to be with her.
And we have to learn to look at our gains and our losses through the lens
of the God who is with us.
Mary got a word from God
regarding his presence and his plan.
She didn't get a blueprint from him.
Some of us want a blueprint.
God says, I'm not going to give you a blueprint.
I'm going to give you my word about my presence.
The most important thing I will say
today, please understand this the doorway to non
situational joy is radical surrender.
The doorway to nonsense.
The joy that is present regardless of the situation, regardless
of the circumstance, is a radical surrender.
May be to me, as you have said, radical surrender.
The way God works, as I see in Scripture, is this
he gives us enough revelation to invite us to surrender,
but not so much detail that he gives us
control.
God will give you.
He will give me enough information
to invite, surrender, but not so much.
That we think we can control.
And so the question,
what is it you need to surrender radically?
Do you need to surrender
the outcome that you're still waiting on?
Do you need to surrender the timeline
that you think God should work in?
Do you need to surrender
the need to understand before you obey?
Do you need a surrender?
The dream?
Do you need to surrender the hope that you had, that it would go this way?
Not that.
Radical surrender.
It was like signing the contract without reading the fine print.
Because you trust the one who wrote the contract.
You don't have to read it.
Some people
have tried to manufacture joy without surrender.
First.
And that's why it's eluded you.
It's got to be surrender
before the joy.
You see, joy
that is not situational requires a yes.
That is not situational.
It sounds like this.
Yes, Lord.
Even if the diagnosis doesn't change. Yes.
Or even if the difficulty isn't resolved as quickly as I wanted.
Yes, Lord.
Even if I don't get the answer,
even if I don't get the relationship,
even if I don't get the future, I want it.
Yes, Lord.
Radical surrender
me. It be to me.
As you've said.
Friends, I do not want you to hear me
say today that if you had more faith, you had fear, more joy.
That's not what I'm saying.
But I want you to hear me say.
This.
Even when I don't feel better, I'll still say yes.
Because in the yes is where joy begins to grow.
Joy often grows slowly.
It's not microwaved,
and some of us are in
that seed in the soil stage of joy,
not the harvest stage.
Yet I know my God
and He is still working,
and I have a cheerful confidence in him,
which is joy.
The only reason we can talk about joy
that is not situational, is because something in history happened.
King Jesus was born.
We call it Christmas,
and he brought great joy.
We call it salvation
to all who would believe.
In a follow.
He died and he was raised and he defeated sin and death.
And now he lives in his people by the Holy Spirit.
Joy is not optimism.
Joy is not positivity.
It's not simply putting on a smile.
Joy is rooted in a manger and in an empty tomb.
In this time, for
God's people to be people of joy.
A quiet, gentle confidence
in God.
So as we close,
the question is what do you need to surrender?
How would you do that? Now?
I want you to pray with me.
Some of you have not just surrendered your life yet.
You're sure you're trying hard to manufacture joy,
but you don't have it.
It's not lasting
if you're not surrendered your life to Jesus yet.
And I invite you in this moment
to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart
that Jesus died and God raised him from the grave
to pay the sin penalty that you cannot pay on your own.
I invite you to surrender your life right now
in prayer to the father.
Say, father, I accept your son and the word.
Jesus died on the cross
to pay my sin penalty.
That I don't want to even try to pay.
Some of you need to surrender life right now and say, Jesus,
I accept you as a leader of my life and I give myself to you.
Thank you for forgiveness.
I accept it and I receive it today.
Make me a new person.
Others of you have done that,
but there's that thing that you still have not surrendered
and joy eludes you.
Is it the dream?
Is it the agenda?
Is it the timeline?
It's.
Is this the desire to control?
Is it the hurt?
Is it the grudge?
It's just the double mindedness.
Joy comes when you say, father,
I surrender all of that.
I get my hands off it.
Whatever you've determined, my response is.
May it be to me. As you have said,
I know your character
and I trust it.
Oh my God, may it be to me, as you've said,
father, for those who will say that, for those of us who.
Father, may it be to me, as you said, would you give us
that quiet, gentle cheerfulness in you?
Would you give us joy?
You're a good God.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
Friends, I'm proud of you.
I love you as we go through these next two times together.
Next Sunday, I think we're talking about love
and Christmas Eve the 24th.
I think we're probably going to talk about Jesus.
Someone asked me just this week.
They said, hey, what are you talking about on Christmas Eve?
And I said, I think I'm going to go with Jesus this year.
But, you know, people who don't know joy
and, you know, people who haven't experienced radical,
transformative love and, you know, people that don't know Jesus,
you got two services left to invite them next Sunday and Christmas Eve,
invite them.
You got it.
Proud of you I love you.
You got one more song. Let's sing it.