Untitled Sermon (38)

The

All old songs that we sing were once new songs. They were once the current, contemporary praise songs. Usually they were songs that were rejected by the masses initially, only to be discovered later, many times decades or even centuries later.

Two are better than one.

I have been burdened lately for our people…for you. I feel like I fall short—and I do. I can’t possibly minister well to every person in our congregation. You would think that it would be easier in a smaller church, but I was speaking to a pastor of a small church this past week and he has the same challenges. And it stands to reason because even Jesus had just 12 disciples, and of those twelve just 3 were part of his inner circle, and many times he had to get away from those three and be alone with God. The church was never meant to be top down and it was never meant for the pastor or pastors to be the only shepherds. That is why I am thankful for the community we have at the church. I am thankful for the small group leaders, for the Sunday school teachers, for those who minister to the youth.

We are in week two of our series, the songs of Christmas and we are exploring the earliest Christmas songs that are found in and 2 and the circumstances that surrounded their composition. We are also using Christmas songs written since that time as illustrations.

For with God nothing is impossible. If God is for us who can be against us? Think of when you have someone against you who is powerful. They can make your life miserable. Think about when you have someone who is for you. Huge difference. God is for us.

Traits that led to her being a blessing to Mary. Cracks.

Filled with holy spirit—by scriptures. She was ready to encourage and be filled with holy spirit because of her love of word of God.

Response of angel to Mary versus response of angel to Zechariah.

Jesus to John and Peter. What is it to you?

We are never treated the same way. We aren’t treated as our sins deserve.

Crack: If anyone should get to bear the Messiah it would be elizabeth and not Mary. That would have gone along with God’s track record of Abraham.

Envy. Grief at another’s success.

Relationships can turn on a dime. On the wrong word. On the wrong response.

Jealousy. Huge.

Crack—count the cost: They were BOTH righteous. Many times it is the man or woman. Before God. Righteous before men but repulsive before God.

Pharisees were righteous before men.

Crack: Didn’t talk blamelessly, but walked blamelessly.

—that the works of God may be displayed in her.

She wasn’t barren because she was sinful.

Crack: how many times did they baptise a baby--Barren yet blameless—it would have been so easy to be bitter. And here she is finally blessed with a pregnancy and it will be John taking second fiddle to a virgin who didn’t even try.

Cracks: She is pregnant and she doesn’t go on facebook and broadcast it. She hides it. She waits until she is showing.

John’s witness to Jesus began not in the waters of baptism but in amniotic fluid of pregnancy.

Mary wanted to see her—90 miles. Pregnant. She wanted to go to her because of her character and love and she knew that Elizabeth would receive the news well. Me too.

Elizabeth is humbled that Mary would visit her. She isn’t holding court. It is a priviledge to minister to young people. I love the older people in our church and the way you honor the younger people. They say that this generation of kids wants their grandparents not their parents as much.

The miracle hasn’t given way to to pride. She is blessed that Mary would visit her. No rivlarly, no resentment, no jealousy, no envy. Elizabeths son was a miracle to be celebrated by the people, to perhaps the high priest family. Mary was a girl. Shamed.

Didn’t just leap—but leaped for joy…fruit of HS because baby was filled with HS in womb.

Two women who shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant. older and younger.

People say this was an imaginative period of history.

They actually believed in miracles. No—it had been 400 years since a miracle and 500 since a series of miracles. God didn’t speak during this time.

Angel said your cousin conceived too—go see. Mary goes to see--

Gaabriel was pointing to a sign---saying this will confirm your faith. Go do this—go see this and be strengthened. We point to Christ and say go to him—believe.

Very unusual for a young girl to make this trip.

Not to hide or escape Joseph. She went immediately stayed three months.

I mean, let's try to put it in a normal context.  Your 13-year-old daughter comes in and says, "I'm pregnant."  And you say, "What?"  And she says, "An angel came to me and told me that I have been impregnated by God and I'm going to be the mother of the Savior of the world."  "Really?"

stone her or divorce her.

John the Baptist was the greatest prophet—greater than all the others and yet he pales in comparison to Jesus. Jesus towers over him. We don’t hear a lot about this guy. He is a footnote to be honest. Jesus must increase I must decrease. Like mother like son.

He couldn’t speak—he could only jump, so that is what he did.

Smallest prophet—10 inches high.

Elizabeth’s shout is a hymn of praise—one of five. Blesses in every direction.

Honoring Mary totally goes against tradition back then-the younger always honors the older.

Wrong way to read Scripture (Mary could have easily been punished by the angel Gabriel because she responded the same way Zechariah did…why wasn’t she? Grace. Favor. She wasn’t being treated as she deserved. Why did she go to Elizabeth? To confirm the miracle. To increase her weak faith. Later on his mother and brothers didn’t believe. Later on, Mary would force him into his first miracle.

What do you want from Mary?  Just that, she's not going to hear your prayers.  She's never heard anybody's prayers.  She's not on that line.  Only God hears prayers.  She's not up there for that purpose.  Mary sets an example for us though. She shows us how believers should respond. When God speaks, you listen, you believe, you obey, then you birth force...burst forth in..., starting in verse 46, in worship.  She's a model believer.  She heard, she believed, she obeyed, she worshiped.  What else can we say?  And blessed is anybody, whoever she be, or he be, who does that.  She is a wonderful example.  She heard the truth from God, she believed it, she obeyed it and she worshiped in response.  That's the only Mary that you have any right to make a part of your life, just an example, among many, of a faithful believer.

The way he closed sermon:

This is how we are to live our lives.  We don't get messages like she got, but I'll tell you something, God speaks, doesn't He, in His Word.  And the question is: Do we, like Mary, believe there will be a fulfillment of what He has said?  Do we believe His Word?  Obey it?  And worship Him for it?  That's the issue.

She is an example in that she points to Jesus in her song. That is her example. Follow her in that. The other stuff? Come on.

Blessed is SHE WHO BELIEVED. Elizabeth says it loudly for Zechariah to hear.

Struck dumb because he didn’t believe.

Zechariah asked for a sign—here it is—dumb. We are sometimes punished as a sign of God working. Think about it. Situations that happen that are just beyond your understanding—people who hurt you, things that don’t go your way, could be a sign of God working in a far far greater way.

Zechariah’s answer was due to years of pleading in prayer, mary wasn’t asking for this.

I think it is more related to God working in different ways in different people. In God not treating any two people the same way. This is the radical and uncontrolled way of grace. We want to figure it out. Why did Zechariah get punished and Mary didn’t. If anything, an older man should be given more grace.

It’s all about God working differently in different people. But yet God using those same two people to encoruage one another and complete each other.

Hymns completing.

Some have said---the angel was having a bad day and can make moral choices.

How will I know this? I I I—not about you.

He was struck dumb because of the old preisthood being abolished and the new one ushered in.

He should have known because of Abe and Sarah. The idea of a young woman was a new idea.

When you see that God deals differently with different people that is when you get the blessing.

that I can’t possibly minister to

Each one of you has a story. Each one of you has hopes and dreams, and family issues, and health needs either for yourself or others. Many of you have young families…some of you have three or four children, each one of them is precious. Some of you are entering adulthood—I have watched you grow up---I have counseled you at times.

Kintsugi

When I was in China, I was surprised to find missionaries there not just from America and the West but missionaries from other far eastern countries. One Japanese missionary we visited reached people and built a house church through art. He was a master at the Japanese art form of Kingsugi.

Kingsugi is the craft of repairing and remaking broken pottery, broken ceramic, broken porcelain. So a customer would bring in a broken piece of pottery—perhaps a well loved heirloom that had been broken---and he would use a mix of lacquer and gold to mend the piece back together. The mended piece of pottery became even more valuable because of it’s brokenness.

SHOW PICS OF KINGSUGI—A FEW SECONDS EACH

The brokenness becomes part of the unique history of the pottery. The brokenness becomes part of the story. Larger broken spots where the artist has to use a lot of lacquer and gold are seen as desirable and valuable.

At times the artist may choose not to fix certain parts and leave it as is since not all holes can be repaired. We all have pieces of us that have been broken that can’t be replaced.

No two pieces of pottery are broken exactly in the same way.

No two pieces have their brokenness mended in the same way. But the end result is broken beauty. A popular verse is that God brings beauty from ashes. And he does. But I also think that God brings beauty in ashes. There is beauty during the brokenness. That is what we see with Zechariah.