I. Mean
I think. It.
May be.
Fair.
To. Go.
That is certainly the story of Christmas.
That God showed up and he moved into our neighborhood.
And he knew that world was broken and getting more so.
He had prophesied for generations that he would come.
And it's that advent that we celebrate at Christmas time.
But can you imagine
being the first one to get the news
that God was showing up?
Can you imagine what it must have been like
to be the first one to hear that God was finally fulfilling
what had been prophesied for generations?
Can you imagine being the first one
to hear from the angel?
Hey, the times come.
You imagine what it was like to be Mary.
No precedent had been set.
Only a hope
that was now being revealed.
What joy!
What joy.
I want to look at Mary's story, the first part of it in Luke chapter one.
If you have a Bible or on your smart device, if you turn to Luke chapter one
right in the middle of the chapter, starting in verse 26.
To look at Mary's story.
The angel's announcement to her and her response.
So I think there's a lot we can learn,
and I think it's
wise of us to study
this young little girl.
And the God that spoke to her and appeared Luke one verses
26 to 27, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
We'll come back to that.
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
And the virgin's name was Mary.
When the Bible says that in the sixth month
of Elizabeth's pregnancy,
this is her relative, and,
she is six months pregnant.
When Mary gets the visitation from the angel Gabriel.
Elizabeth was 88 years old,
and she'd been barren her whole life.
And so Elizabeth has her own miraculous birth story.
And though it's miraculous, it's not miraculous like Mary's.
Mary's is a virgin.
Miraculous.
Elizabeth's is an old lady.
Miraculous.
The old enough for its still miraculous,
but not quite like Mary's.
And the Bible says that
this angel Gabriel went to Nazareth to meet with Mary.
Nazareth is important
because Nazareth
was a little tiny dot on the map,
probably between two bigger cities.
It probably had about two stoplights in it,
maybe a small little Dollar General on the main street that went through it.
There were probably more cows than people.
It was the little place
that people didn't mind being from.
But you didn't go to.
There wasn't business.
There weren't businesses in Nazareth.
There were businesses in the towns around Nazareth,
but not really Nazareth so much.
It was one of those towns where
the kids growing up in Nazareth couldn't wait to grow up and get out.
Can't wait to grow up and grow up and move on to a bigger city
where they can make a name for themselves so they can follow some of their dreams.
Because it's probably not going to happen in Nazareth.
Do you know a place like that?
I love the fact
that God first shows up to the Nazareth
places,
those places that seem a little bit in the shadows, a little forgotten about
those places where
if you're really making it and set your own agenda, it's not going to be
here.
And God says no, other people might not set this as their destination.
It is my destination.
And so he shows up to Nazareth.
The angel went to her.
And these are his words.
Greetings. You who are.
What are those two words I highly favored?
Mark that.
Underline it, make a note of are going to come back to it.
The Lord is with you.
Mary was greatly troubled at his words, no doubt,
and wondered what kind of greeting
this might be.
But the angel said to her, don't be afraid, Mary.
You found favor with God.
Mary is certainly
a favorite of God, right to bear
the Son of God in the flesh.
Certainly highly favored.
Wouldn't you agree?
Nobody up to this point had men.
God chose her.
And so the angel's words, you
who are highly favored makes sense to us.
She is highly favored.
The Lord is with her.
She has been blessed.
I want you to understand something.
That when these words.
When the angel uses these words, you who are highly favored.
Those words have never been used of a human.
Up to this point in all of Scripture.
She's the first one in all of creation
and all of humanity where God takes her and says, you are my favorite.
That's what those words mean.
Highly favored.
You're my favorite.
When we agree that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the favorite of God.
None of you women got to do it.
But let me tell you something.
As special as Mary is.
If you are in Christ, so are you.
How about I prove it to you?
In all of Scripture?
This is the first time those words are used.
She is highly favored,
and they're not used again in Scripture until one other time.
Ephesians one six
Mary was God's favorite.
And then the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians one six
to the praise of his glorious grace,
with which he has what
blessed us in the beloved.
Exact same words used of Mary.
You are the highly favored of God.
She was blessed.
Paul, you.
Paul reaches back to the Mary's account,
and Luke one pulls out that phrase
and puts it on every person who is in Christ,
the highly favored of God,
that he has blessed us in the beloved.
Was Mary special?
Absolutely.
If you are in Christ,
you are just as
did you realize that
nobody, I think,
would question that at this point in the story and Mary's story.
She was God's favorite.
None of us would question that.
But we have to understand that if we are in Christ,
we have to understand the favor that has been given to us.
So now,
if we assert that Mary was God's favorite
because that's what it says, we have to agree.
Then if I am in Christ, guess who else is God's favorite?
I am.
Did you know you're pastored by God's favorite?
And I have a church full
of God's favorites.
It's the exact same phrase.
It's amazing to me.
You know why God goes to Nazareth?
Places.
Because his favorites are there.
That you,
the angel says the Lord is with you.
Guess what?
He's also with us.
Some of the last words of Christ on this earth.
Teach them to obey everything I've commanded you.
And surely what
I am with you.
How long?
Always the very end of the age
was God with Mary.
You bet.
You with us? You bet.
She was uniquely blessed.
No doubt.
Guess what?
Ephesians one verse three.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has what
has blessed us in the heavenly realms
with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Yes, Mary was special.
She was God's favorite.
God's with her, and she was blessed. And if you were in Christ,
God has adopted you into that family and that position.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine
some of us walking around as the dirty
step kids of Jesus?
And then how good and how God does it.
I want that to sink in.
You are God's favorite. You.
And that's why you are so valuable.
He knit you together
in your mother's womb? Yes.
You are fearfully and wonderfully
weighed. Why?
Because he's chosen you to be his favorite.
Do you think God's going
to take his favorite and discard them?
Or ignore them? No.
Look at the angels
where you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will.
You are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and be called the son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever.
His kingdom will never end.
I want you to notice the angel's words.
You will conceive.
We don't know exactly when the conception took place.
It may have happened right then.
It may have been some we don't know.
All we know is God made a promise.
And then there was some time.
And then there was the blessing and the deliverance.
Please understand.
God's promises always precede the reward.
And sometimes when God makes a promise, there's a lag
and we wait.
But we wait with the expectation.
And in the waiting we trust.
God has made us many promises.
If God has said, listen,
I know you don't understand right now, but I am working things together for good.
You don't understand it.
But I've made you the promise before you see the reward of it.
There's going to be a lag.
Don't doubt me.
Do you understand?
Yes. Yes.
Mary responds.
Look at her response.
How will this be?
Mary asked the angel, since I'm a virgin
now, when the Bible says she was betrothed to her husband.
There were three,
three stages of a marriage.
One was the basically the proposal and the minute.
Both men and women didn't make their own proposals.
Their families decided for each other and their families.
Mom and dad got together like, we like that family.
They got a little one little girl.
My little boy.
I think we're going to connect them together.
And so the dads would make an agreement and they would arrange their marriages.
I think we need to go back to that.
Marriage was too important.
And it was it was too vital.
This is what they believe to leave up to the whims
of the emotions of kids.
And so fathers got together
and that was the this is this is this is who you're going to marry.
And you'll learn to love them later. But.
And so that was stage one.
Stage two was the was the, the what we would call the engagement. The.
And it was a legal agreement.
They had been married.
It had been quite some but it was legal.
And this was where Mary and Joseph were.
And so the man would go away and prepare everything.
When everything was ready, he would come back and pick up his bride,
and then it would be consummated with a great big feast.
And so biblical.
But during this
betrothal time, this engagement time, it was a legal contract
that they had agreed with each other, and to get out of that required a divorce.
But during that time,
the soon to be bride and groom didn't have any contact with each other.
So for her to be pregnant in man's eyes meant
she had to have contact with somebody that you understand.
And so she questions, how will this be now?
Six months earlier, this same angel, Gabriel went to her
relative Elizabeth, 88 year old barren woman, and said, hey Liz, guess what?
You're going to have a baby,
angel tells her husband, Zechariah.
And Zechariah says the exact same thing how
he says it like this, though how she's old
and so am I.
Now listen, husbands
and I don't care how old she is,
don't admit it.
And so he says
how she's old and I'm old too.
And when he expresses his question, the angel strikes him with muteness.
And tell this lady a little baby.
John, the forerunner of Christ the Baptist, is born.
Why was he cursed with muteness?
Same question.
And Mary wasn't.
Because she was his favorite.
I think there's something more going on,
but let me tell you what I think.
Though they asked the same questions.
They came from two different positions.
But we gotta be very careful the position from which we come
and we ask God questions.
Zechariah questioned God from a position of accusation.
Mary questions God from a position of expectation.
Zechariah was accusation.
God. That's not possible.
God, that can't be.
She's past the age and so am I.
God, I don't think this this is possible.
And I don't think you can.
It's very accusatory.
God, I don't think you're capable.
And you may have over spoken.
You may have overpromised.
Mary, on the other hand.
She says, God,
I don't know how, but I know you can.
How would this be?
I don't know the details, and I don't know the future.
And I'm excited about how you're going to bring this about.
I can't see it right now.
But I'm anxiously awaiting its deliverance.
We have to be very careful.
The position from which we approach God.
And it can't be from a position of God.
There's no way
I. I know you can't or don't think you will.
You know that whole thing.
Rather than God, I have no idea.
But I'm so excited to watch how it happens.
That's a position of expectation.
And in verses 35 and 36,
I don't think I put this up there.
Let me just read it to you.
The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.
Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age,
and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.
And so the angel simply tells Mary,
it's going to happen
because it's of God.
And then I think the thing that changed in Mary,
the thing that changed everything for Mary, is she believed
the very next words coming out of the mouth of Gabriel.
She believed ahead of time
what Gabriel is about to say.
And in verse 37, Gabriel says these words, I am oh, no.
Where 37 go there it is, for nothing is impossible with God.
This is what Gabriel told her.
Nothing is impossible with God
and Mary. Believe those words.
And I think it's because she believed those words that everything changed.
Nothing is impossible.
And I think that's what drove the question.
God, this I I've never we've never humans
never experienced this before.
But I know nothing's impossible with you.
Oh, I'm so excited to see how you do this.
Can you imagine if that is our attitude
in approaching every unknown?
Now look at verse 38.
This is what she says.
I am the Lord's servant.
Mary answered me, and be to me as you have said,
please enter Mary.
We don't know exactly what she is, but most people, she's somewhere
between 14 and 17 years old, 14
and 17, somewhere in there.
So the young teenage girl,
she's got this news that is.
Is is too wonderful and marvelous and scary and frightful and unknown to
to to to put any in any type of box you might have in her head.
And her first response is,
Lord, I'm your servant.
Do with me what you want.
Imagine.
Now think for a moment.
Just let's put ourselves in Mary's context
as the Jewish little girl, part of the Hebrews.
You know, Old Testament
and Old Testament religious law says sexuality and
and sexual activity was all.
It was so important.
Sexual purity.
It was not to be trifled with
and and to get pregnant out of wedlock.
Before the wedding is is
religiously was punishable by death
of the woman and the man.
And so what she's doing, she's sitting here.
And what the angel has told her. You're going to be pregnant.
That's all she said.
That's all the angel says. You're going to give birth.
Gives no.
Indication
that she's going to be okay afterwards.
And her response to this?
She has no idea what the future it.
And her response is I'm the Lord's servant.
Do with me whatever you want. Can you imagine?
When you and I.
Get the news.
Especially the news
that makes your future uncertain and unsure.
Especially the news that throws up a roadblock
on all the rest of your plans for your life.
Especially the news that changes your family forever.
God. It's okay.
Do me whatever you want.
Can you imagine?
With any of us say, yeah,
that's pretty much our response to most things.
Hey, that
difficult situation you're in, please understand
that God's already in it before you get to it.
You understand that
God's already in it before you get to it.
See, we have to learn to live according to the promise
given not just the reality we're experiencing.
When our reality
we're experiencing says God has left you, we have to know
according to the promise, I will be with you always at the very end of the age.
When the reality you're
experiencing says it's all done after we're this is it.
It's destroyed.
We have to live according to the promise that somehow God's
going to work things together.
Someone said this.
I really like it.
Like I say,
like the greater the size of your god, the smaller the size of your problems.
If you got a God
for whom all things are possible.
The problem is not quite as big
to him.
I guarantee you it works this way for all of us.
If we got a small God, we got big problems
with.
What if we got a great big God?
And so the story goes on.
If you if you look in your Bibles and you didn't print it all, but
verse 39, and at that time Mary got ready
and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea.
Where she entered Zechariah home to greet Elizabeth.
So she said she wants to go see.
She wants to go see a relative who's who's, you know, six months pregnant
with this miraculous pregnancy of her own.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby lived in her womb,
and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and a loud voice,
she exclaimed, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you bear.
But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby
in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed is she who has believed
that what the Lord has said will be accomplished.
We just unpack this a little bit.
When the when Mary left to go to Elizabeth, she made the journey
with somewhere between 80 to 100 miles.
It's a long journey.
Took days and days and days to get there.
Why did she go see Elizabeth?
Well, one,
because when you're going through something,
you want to be around other people who are going through something to.
Right?
It's the power of community.
It's the power of relationship.
And sometimes it's just comforting to know, hey, I've been there
and further down the road than you, you're going to be okay, right?
Okay.
That's part of what I think is going on.
But the other thing I think that was going on
is that when Mary got the news that Elizabeth was pregnant,
how far along was Mary?
Was Elizabeth six months.
Do you know how long Mary stayed with Elizabeth?
Read at the end of this chapter.
I tell you, she stayed with her for three months.
Six plus three is what
Mary stayed
so she could be in the middle of her own stuff
so she could be an asset and a help to someone who was going through stuff
and stay till John was born.
What an incredible young lady
who says, I got stuff going on in my life right now, and I don't know,
but I'm going to set that aside so I can be with.
What an extraordinary young woman.
And a great example.
And I love verses 4445.
I just want to come back from it.
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb
leaped for joy.
Blessed is she.
Who has believed that the Lord would fill his promises to her?
The baby leaped.
This baby
in the womb, John, who would become John the Baptist.
Here's the greeting that the Messiah,
that Jesus has entered the womb,
in the womb.
And that caused such joy
in this world, this baby in the womb that the baby.
I wonder with that
I've never experienced what it feels like moms to have the baby kick.
But can you imagine leaping
like the heartburn that would cause.
And here's what I thought.
If a baby in the wall
could leave for joy over Jesus in the womb showing up,
how much more for those of us who have a relationship
with the living Jesus, and how much more when we get to heaven?
I mean.
It's amazing how.
And I was, I was I studying this just this morning.
And what struck me as verse 45, blessed is she.
This is what Elizabeth says about Mary.
Blessed is he who has believed
that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.
God pronounced Mary as blessed.
Elizabeth says of Mary, she is blessed.
But there are two different words
when God pronounces Mary blessed, highly favored.
That's one word.
That's the word for grace.
Correct? Oh, that's grace.
Grace upon grace.
But this word, blessed is she who's believe that God's Word will come true.
That's a different group word.
That's the Greek word Makarios, which means happy.
Happy is the one who believes
that the words of God will come true.
That transcends time and generation,
and that applies to every person who will believe the words of God
that they will come to pass happy.
Listen, I just in the few minutes I have,
I want to want to go through three things that we can learn from Mary
and her response.
Now, just just three things.
And I want you to look at verses 46 and 47.
And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God.
My what
in? And God my Savior. Now.
I, for my Catholic friends,
I love you, but I just need to give you a little trigger warning, okay?
Because I want to look at Scripture and Mary
from the pages of Scripture, not from church tradition.
So I just want to look at what Scripture says
and what she says, even about herself.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
She, Mary, knew her need.
Because who needs a Savior?
Someone who needs saving?
So, like Mary, we must recognize our need.
Mary needed a Savior.
She was not perfect.
You and I need a savior
because you and I are the church.
We might be God's favorite,
but we're not perfect.
And we need a savior.
So she knew she needed saving.
You and I both.
We all have problems that we can't solve ourselves, right?
Right.
And if we can't solve all our problems, we need a problem solver.
And if I can't solve all my earthly needs,
what the world will make me think I can solve all my spiritual needs.
If you can't solve all your earthly needs,
why in the world would you think that you could solve all your spiritual needs?
You I we need a Savior.
Come.
Mary goes on verses 4849.
For he has been mindful of the humble state of his.
What servant?
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me.
Holy is what I want.
You understand something? Mary knew her place.
You and I must acknowledge our place.
What does she call herself?
I underline before you remember
a servant.
I tell you what.
If this were us and
we got the announcement from the angel, every one of us would have thought.
Man, there is something magnificent about me.
But right.
Right. Yes,
yes. Come on now,
every one of us would think you know.
God, I think you probably got it right.
I heard I was your favorite.
This proves it.
I'm gonna make sure.
Where's my Instagram?
I'm gonna put something on.
Here's what I know.
We would think it was about us.
Because when something goes wrong,
we think, what did I do to make God
great?
Because we think it's about us.
And conversely, when stuff goes really, really, really right,
we think, well, God
must be really happy with me right now.
We think it's about us all the time.
When our kids do
really well, our chest gets really big
and we don't have one big problem telling people how great,
right?
Because it's a reflection on us.
You better believe there was this in any of us.
And maybe that's why God picked her for this.
She wasn't, but her.
Now let me be clear, because I do want to acknowledge
the fact that us Protestants, we I think we do Mary a disservice most times
because we're so, so cautious about making sure.
And I think I think
Protestants do her a disservice.
And what God did through her, she is special.
But I need us to understand,
especially in the context and our context, that she was special.
But Mary is not Catholic sentiment. Special.
There's a
lot of traditional Catholic prayers that are beautiful
and Christ centered and biblical,
but some verge.
On the ground of heresy.
One of them goes like this.
Remember almost Grace's Virgin Mary.
That never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection
implored your help or sought your intercession.
The Bible says The Holy Spirit is our intercessor,
nobody and nothing else.
That's the name reserved for the Holy Spirit,
not for Mary.
That prayer goes on.
I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins.
My mother
to you do I come before you.
I stand sinful and sorrowful.
I stand before one and one only in my sin,
and is not the Virgin Mary,
which is Jesus the Christ.
The Hail Mary, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Mary was the mother
of the Christ in his humanity.
Mary was not the Mother of God.
That goes on.
Pray for us sinners now.
There's nowhere in Scripture
where the dead prays for the living,
and the only ones who intercede before the father
for us are Christ and His whole.
And the Holy Spirit.
That is it.
Hail, Holy Queen,
Mother of mercy, hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
Mary is not my hope.
Titus 213
Jesus and his return is my hope.
Turn,
then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us.
Again.
Jesus is our advocate
was a very special you bet.
Is she venerated? No.
Nor is she the greatest.
We must understand it biblically
and understand the same faith that was poured out on her
has been poured out on us.
So we don't need an intercessor other than Christ and the Holy Spirit himself.
My clear.
And Mary wraps up
that portion and says, Holy is whose name
his name.
She doesn't say, Holy is my name,
Holy is his name.
And if you were to go further in Luke chapter 11, verses 27 and 28,
right around there, Jesus is talking to the multitudes
and someone cries out, says Jesus, blessed is the mother who bore you.
And you said, no, no, no, no, no.
Blessed are rather those who hear and obey the Word of God.
And if Jesus wanted to venerate his mother, he would have done it.
Then.
She special?
Very much so.
And then God has taken that favor and placed it on
all of us who would believe in Christ.
If you read in Luke chapter one, verses
46 through 55, you read of this song that Mary sings,
and it is beautiful and powerful, and I'm not going to read it all out.
I'm going to leave it to you to read.
But Mary knew her need.
She knew her place and she knew her.
God, you and I must acknowledge our need.
We must acknowledge our place, and we must know God.
Mary's response to this incredible news
was to go right back to Scripture.
She immediately
went back to what she knew, and the scripture says she had memorized.
And she took the word of God and she put it in her heart.
She took the Word of God and she put it in her.
She searched the Word of God, and she put it in our
so that when the time came, she could withdraw it from her mind, so
that her words in the song that she repeated
are so identical to the words recorded in the first Samuel chapter two.
When Hannah prayed this prayer of thanksgiving as she dedicated her son
Samuel back to God, it's oh, it is so similar to Hannah's prayers.
Why couldn't Mary sing a song that Hannah had sang generations ago?
Because she had studied the Word of God, and she had hid it in her heart
and her prayer 45 through 55
is is is one recitation after another of Hannah's prayer
from the Old Testament and Psalm after psalm after Psalm.
Here was a little girl, 14 to 17 years old, who spent so much time
in the Word of God that when she got bumped, Bible came out.
Amazing young lady.
There are some 15 quotes
and allusions to the Old Testament and Psalms in her song.
Let me ask you this when you and I
respond to something in this world
are the first things that come out of our mouths.
Scripture.
It was for her.
She agreed and submitted to God's plan
with no guarantee that that plan was going to go good for her.
Listen,
I you
we must remind ourselves of what I know of God.
When I don't know my future.
Some of you, some of us are looking right now
at a future, and we don't know how it's going to go.
And we're not allowed
control of it completely.
And in those times when the future is unknown,
we have to remind ourselves of what we do know about God.
I think if we were honest,
some of us would admit to being control freaks.
Right.
And the thing about control is, is if I can know what's going on
and how it's going to go down, then I can control it,
right?
Right.
And that's why we have such a hard time with God.
Because God doesn't tell us all the details.
He gives us indication
of the end result, but not the details of the middle.
And so we don't know.
And if I don't know, I can't control.
And when, when you and I are in those situations when we don't know
and we can't control, we have to remind ourselves about what
we do know about God.
And what Mary knew about God
was not from her own experiences, because she spent time in the Word of God.
There are very few like her.
Very few, especially teenage
young men and women that are so tuned in spiritually,
so attuned to the Spirit of God.
So in dwelt with His Word and His Spirit,
whose passion is is God's Word,
who study it, then, who rely on it.
So few are young people like her.
So few are old people like her.
And parents.
Let me just talk to people.
This ought to be our greatest prayer for our children.
Not their happiness, but their holiness
that they would so desire with every fiber of their being,
to know and to seek and to pursue
God and His Word.
Not only ought that be every parent's greatest prayer,
it ought to be their greatest example to their children. Yes.
Yeah,
you can pray all you want,
but if they don't see it,
they're not going to catch it.
Mirror
is a beautiful example of the goal and the pursuit
and the submission and the trust
in God.
I hinted to this early.
I just want to end with this. This is. This is what.
This is what I see in Mary in her life
was absolutely overturned.
And what came out of her was a trust and a submission.
What came out of her was, is is the anchor of the Word of God.
And so I thought about like this
when you bump a bucket, what comes out
is what's already in you.
You understand that?
What comes out of you when you're bumped?
You're.
When you're bumped by people.
When you're bumped by life
near.
Bumped by tragedy.
When you're bound by difficulty.
When you're bumped by your dreams.
Crashing down around you.
When you're bumped.
Excuses.
Anger. Disappointment. Grief.
Sadness.
Disillusionment.
Or I'm the Lord servant.
Do with me what you will.
What I know of Scripture
and what I know of my God's heart.
I will not worry.
I will not be dismayed.
For the Lord my God is with.
Well she's special.
Yeah.
Only because the God she followed
was special.
The Christmas story
certainly produces joy.
And it should.
But it also ought to call us to something deeper.
So for a moment, let's think past Mary,
and let's think to Jesus.
Jesus was bumped by my sin.
And rather than condemnation coming out,
love came out.
My place
on the cross.
He traded his righteousness for my sin and my sin for his righteousness.
He traded his life for my life and
you know what's interesting?
Jesus never asked us to remember his birth.
He never said,
man disciples.
This thing 33 years ago
that was miraculous.
If you if I just want you to remember
the announcement,
the little trough and late in.
I want you to remember the shepherds.
Boy, they were stinky. I want
I want you to remember.
The innkeeper said he had no room.
I want you to remember my birth.
He never said that.
What did he ask his church down through
the eons to remember?
His death.
The cross,
the resurrection, the assurance of his coming again.
And that's why he gave us these elements.
At Christmas, we remember his birth.
And we should,
because his birth meant that salvation
was at the doorstep.
But he asked us to remember
the crucifixion and the cross.
And he gave us two elements
to remember his body and his blood.
And that's what we remember every Sunday,
because it's important.
And so I want you to join me
as we take the birth narrative and set it aside for just a moment,
and we draw our attention to the memory
of what it led to.
And we do this with this caveat.
That if you don't yet
have a relationship with Jesus,
a right relationship with the father
through faith in his Son.
Though Jesus has made the way,
that is not your experience.
And the only way
that eternal life and salvation is your experiences.
If you come to the father through faith in the son,
in agreement with His Word that says,
we all, like sinners, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.
All of us.
And there is none that is worthy.
No, not one.
And that the name of Jesus is the only name given
to men under heaven by which we must be saved.
And I invite you
to acknowledge that and accept that
not to worry about this.
To agree with God.
God, I am a sinner and I need your forgiveness.
And I accept it by what your son did for me on the cross.
I'd like to invite you
to jump into this family.
If you have done that,
then we all we're doing is exactly what
Jesus asked us to do 2000 years ago and remember it.
And so those of us who believe
we remember Jesus's words as he took the bread and lifted up to heaven and gave
thanks and broken, said,
this is my body, which I'm giving for you of my own accord.
Do this as often as you eat it, and remember me.
Very similar way
we remember him.
Not just his birth,
but what his birth led to the cross and the shedding of his blood.
I want you to understand something.
Jesus wasn't murdered
because murder has to do with someone
having power over your life.
Jesus said, I lay my life down,
and if I lay it down, I can pick it up.
His blood wasn't spilled.
There was no accident behind it.
It was poured out and shed
on purpose
so our sin could be forgiven.
It's important that we understand these distinctions.
And because Jesus was about to pour out his blood on the cross
for our forgiveness,
he said this is the sign of the new covenant in my blood
shed for you, for the forgiveness and remission of your sin.
Every time you drink this, remember me.
So we're joyful this Christmas season,
and we're called to something deeper.
I'm the Lord's servant.
May it be to me, as you have said.
Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for your word.
Thank you that you love me.
You love us.
Thank you that because of your son, we are your favorites.
And we sit here before you this morning as your favorites.
Knowing
that you are good, knowing
that you love us, knowing that you work things together
for your good.
Sit here this morning,
willing to submit.
And willing to say, as Mary did,
I am the Lord's servant.
May it be to me, God, as you have said,
do with me what you will.
God, that takes so much trust to say, wow.
Okay.
God, I pray with you to hear those hearts.
I would say that right now. Yes.
I'm the Lord's servant.
Father, do with me what you will.
Father, you said that those who put their trust in you will never be put to shame.
We just put our trust in you.
Every one of us who said, do with me what you will.
Put our trust in you.
And we're going to live.
I'm going to. I'm on behalf of us.
I'm going to speak it over us, that we're going to live with that promise
that we will not be put to shame
because we put our trust in you.
Even if the lag time is long, we know.
We know that we will not be put to shame.
We trust you to
do with us what you will.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
Listen,
we have two more.
Two more messages in this series.
This Christmas series.
One next Sunday we're going to look at, Luke chapter two
and the announcement to the shepherds and them showing up and the birth.
And then two days later on Christmas Eve, we're going to look at,
Matthew chapter two, when the Wise men actually show up.
And it's
interesting, with the wise men, they bring gifts.
And so in preparation, read Luke two
and Matthew two, and we'll unpack it together.
But in preparation of Christmas Eve, as the wise men did, so will we.
And there's two gifts I'm going to, I'm going to ask you to pray
about your presentation to the to Jesus.
One is your life.
Where you say, God,
the best gift I have to bring is my life
off of your body.
Is this living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God,
which is pleasing to God, for this is your spiritual act of worship.
The Bible says.
The second gift is this
Jesus came
to establish the kingdom of God on the earth.
That happens through the church.
And so I'm going to ask you to consider
giving to our church planting work around the world.
One take, one big offering.
And I would love for you to participate with us in planting churches.
The offering is not going to go to us.
It's going to go to planting churches around the world because that is
God's plan.
A there is no plan B,
it's not to build our little kingdom and our little castle.
It's to build churches
towards that.
And I'll tell you this, I don't sure I was going to say anything.
Oh well,
you know, the war that's going on in Ukraine
and right now God is
people are turning to Christ in the Ukraine like never before.
It's a huge revival going on, a huge revival
in evil always prompts revival.
And that's what's happening.
And we have pastors there,
some that are in prison still.
Some have been killed, some are still doing it.
And if we had the pastors and the funding,
we could start 400 churches right now in Ukraine
and a war torn country.
And so in the middle of May,
I am headed there
to carry out our training program for church pastor, for church planters.
There.
And I will run the the event there,
and we will train a bunch of pastors to plant churches.
And I am so excited.
This is what we're about.
Do you understand this?
This is what we're about.
Do with me what you will.
We are the Lord's servant.
God, you're a good God.
We love the opportunity.
We get to be together with you and with each other.
Continue doing what only you can do.
And thank you that we get to be a part of it.
And your name I pray. Amen.