You Are Invited... Hope

Christmas 2020 is the year of invitation.

You are all invited to join together and seek the Lord as we learn to be obedient to Him through difficult days.

Do you like parties? How about Christmas parties? For me, if I know that the people I love are going to be there, I get very excited.

Mary recieved an assignment from God that insured the hope of all people.

READ Luke 1:26-38

1. Hope Covers Every Zip Code.

Gabriel, the angelic spokesmen for God was sent to a small town in Galilee called Nazareth to deliver the most important news that had ever been uttered on earth.

How strange!

If there was ever a more boring, non-historical city that God could have sent Gabriel, it was Nazareth.

Small and full of poor people. It was not a vacation destination or an area that anyone would have been able to foretell such an important message.

Mary, who came from the line of David, was a young and poor virgin girl engaged to a poor man named Joseph. There is nothing about Mary’s prior life that screams “blessed and high favored” from a human perspective.

On paper, Mary, and the city that she lived was simply ordinary.

And yet, Gabriel didn’t send a message that was ordinary.

“Blessed”, “Highly Favored”, “You have found favor with God”

Gabriel hadn’t come to the wrong place. He was exactly where God had sent Him.

Expectations..... They can be tough to meet.

The setting of the Christmas story ought to tell us that the hope of God is not simply meant for “important” destinations. An area that means nothing to you and me is holy to the Lord.

He cared just as much about meeting the poor girl in the country with a message as he did the holy temple in Jerusalem.

Are you able to be a recipient of hope today?

What excuses are you making?

We struggle often because our expectations keep us from seeing what the Lord is doing in our daily life. He doesn’t see success and ministry the way that you do.

He doesn’t see joy and happiness the way you do either. Christmas offers the invitation to change our motives and understanding about what the Lord is doing in our life.

2. God’s Assignment’s Are More Than We Can Handle.

Have you ever heard the saying “God won’t give you more than you can handle”? Anybody want to take that person out back?

The assignment that God gave Mary was much more than she could handle on her own. It’s more than anyone would be able to handle on their own.

The Bible is full of the same story.

Verse 28 - “The Lord is with you.”

The same greeting is used by the Lord in Judges 6:12 when he greeted Gideon.

The angel told Mary that she would be pregnant and carry the messiah in her womb until delivery. She was also charged with raising Him in her household.

All this to a teenager who was even married yet.

Have you ever said, “I’m fine with Jesus coming back, I just hope I get to do ___________ first”?

Mary was going to get the same kind of wedding she wanted, life she had asked for, or experience nothing but marital bliss.

God did this to her.

In the Western world, we have built up an idea that we can do God’s will and have what we want too.

If you want God, why do you want the world also? That’s like saying “I want freedom and slavery in my life”.

You either want all of what God wants or all of what you want. That’s your only choice.

You can’t handle all that God has for you but He can handle it if you let Him. You are invited to decide who you want this year.

3. Let Hope Arise According to God’s Will.

Gabriel explained the process. The Holy Spirit would “come upon” Mary and “power of the Most High” would overshadow her. She would become pregnant without sexual reproduction.

Mary was not a scientist but you don’t have to be one to know that this is a peculiar way for a baby to be born.

Why did God choose to do this in the life of Mary?

He would be the messiah to the world.

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

The amazing truth that we can surmise from this story is that Mary didn’t even have to understand everything Gabriel had just told her.

All that mattered was her response. “May it happen as you have said”.

She wasn’t making this situation about her. She was all about God’s purpose and plan.

I spend way too much time trying to know what God is doing when He never called me to know. He just called me to be obedient.

Why does our hope rise during the Christmas season?

Because God has a will and a purpose.

The will and purpose of God was for Jesus to be sent to a lost and broken world to make all sinners who call upon His name whole.

This isn’t your plan, my plan, but God’s plan. Instead of trying to make up our own story, let’s agree with His.