Elevation with Steven Furtick - You Don't Have To

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of obstacles and obligations? Shift your attention from how you’ll get through it to Who will get you through it. You’re not alone, God is with you.  Each year, we come together to stretch our faith by giving a sacrificial offering, believing that God will move in our lives and in our church in the coming year. To take part in this offering and help us in reaching more people with the gospel all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/ If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr Scripture References: Luke 1, verses 26-41 Luke 10, verses 41-42   Chapters: 0:15 - God Is With You Today5:11 - Luke 1, verses 26-419:45 - You Don't Have To13:32 - Serving A Get To God15:48 - An Important Perspective Shift18:01 - The 3 C's of Christmas20:45 - Stop Trying To Sustain That23:03 - Change Your Relationship With Praise25:43 - This Word Will Get You Ready30:44 - God Will Show Up In Unexpected Places34:03 - When God Speaks A Word37:47 - You Are Held By God's Hand40:55 - HOW?!!43:50 - Getting Answers For Your How46:09 - It's About WHO You Know48:54 - You Don't Have To Convince People50:59 - Humbled By How53:52 - Help Is Coming57:08 - You Get ToSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. God is great. Would you turn to the person next to you and tell them God is with you today? Look at them again and say, I can tell. And ask them, would you like a hug? And if they don't cuss at you, give them a big hug. I want you to turn around and give about four or five hugs all over the room. Hey, congratulations, Elevation, Columbia on your new building.

Congratulations to all of our locations. You made it to church. Congratulations to you. You made it through another week. You made it to another day. Come on, how many are grateful to be in the number? One more day. That's my section right there.

I found my section right there. Better be glad they're not on the front row. We would never get out of worship. I saw some rowliness over here too. It was weird. Because you know, Christmas season is supposed to get stuffy. Everybody gets real busy and hateful. No greater way to tell Jesus happy birthday than to run up our credit cards get stressed out and hate everything.

So we kind of try to make it countercultural. And I like to take a little extra time during worship before I preach as we lead to the holidays, just because the seed of the Word of God is always pure, but if the soil of your heart is not plowed, you can't receive it. And one thing that I do understand is that sometimes it takes us a lot to get to church. And if you're watching online, oh man, you've already had three distractions, haven't you? You already had a virus pop up on your people. And what are you going to do about that?

Well, let's just block it all out. Because all the hell that you have to go through when you get home doesn't stand a chance in this place for the next few minutes while we preach God's word. I want to bring heaven down to your heart for a few minutes. So just for the next half hour or so, half hour or so, I want to preach a thought to your heart today from the Christmas story. And I do also want to say what JJ said. I assume all of the campus pastors and our online team.

Thank you for your remarkable generosity. Of course, our year-end offering comes all the way to the end of the year, but I want to thank all of you who already stepped up and gave. Sacrificially, faithfully, man, God's going to use that in a great way. Thank you. Thank you. Always feels weird saying thank you because I know you didn't give it to me or for me. You gave it to God.

And one thing I know about God, he will not be outgiven. So be expectant for him to do things in your life over the next few weeks. I don't know who this is for. Man, I've got to get to my scripture. I'm just taking so much time doing this. But God can do something at the end of this year that will make all the hell you went through all year long irrelevant in the scope of it. And I don't even know what it's going to be. It could be a perspective.

I noticed that God has been blessing me with better perspective the last few days. I can't explain it. It's just been opening my eyes. Look at that. I woke up this morning super early to pray for you, humble brag, and saw both of the boys' vehicles still in the driveway and thought, thank you, Lord, for bringing them home safe again another day, another night. And you have to stand next to my daughter during worship today.

Y'all don't know this, but Abby was a co-writer on that song, same God. I'm not giving her any royalties. When we wrote the song originally, it was I'm calling on the God of David, I'm calling on the God of Jacob, I'm calling on the God of Moses. I always wanted to put a woman in the song, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I thought it was kind of, you know, kind of lopsided to just have all men in the song. I showed Abby the demo, and she said, I love that song. Why isn't there a woman in it?

And it was a confirmation. I didn't even tell her that I felt bad about it too. And I called my buddy Pat Barrett. We had already recorded the song. That was the bad part about it. And we decided we needed a verse about, I'm calling on the God of Mary, whose favor rest upon the lowly. And I love what it says.

I know with you all things are possible. Big things, little things, pretty things, ugly things, things seen, things unseen. All things are possible. And we're going to share from a scripture that coincides with that in Luke chapter one. I'm going to read a very lengthy part of this, verses 26 through 41, but you can handle it. I also leaned over to Abby and said, next year, me and you are singing, Oh, Holy Night together as a duet, get ready. She rolled her eyes.

It's a voluntary offer. Pray about it. Wasn't the music beautiful today? We got the best. We got singers that sing so good. You can't even tell if they've prayed or not. They just sound so good. I think that's the Holy Spirit, or it was.

vocal cords are both, but I thank God for our team. I'm excited about the Christmas services, December 22nd through 24. That's Christmas at Elevation.com. Now it's time for the scripture. Luke chapter 1, verse 26. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee. I'm going to come back to that. You'll forget it because I'm going to read so much, but that verse is coming back. He sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee. I'm going to come back. He sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, the town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings you who are highly favored.

The Lord is with you. That's why I had you tell your neighbor, the Lord is with you. I wanted you to see how it felt to talk to an angel. In verse 29 says, I could preach that, couldn't I? Mary was greatly troubled. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought he said something that was nice and a compliment. But the Bible says Mary was greatly troubled.

Did you know you can be highly favored and greatly troubled? At the same time. Come on, nod like you know what I'm talking about. I'm going to start citing specific things in this room. You can be anointed and addicted. You can be saved and struggling. Yeah. You can be grateful.

and a gossip, you can be favored and afraid. Just because you feel afraid sometimes doesn't cancel out the favor in your life. I want to tell somebody today, the favor doesn't care about your feelings. When God has a purpose for your life, he's going to do his work, what he's going to do, no matter how you feel about it, no matter your mood about it, but you get to decide if you want to be a willing participant. So Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. You are to call him Jesus. He will be great, and will 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. What an interesting beginning for a kingdom that will never end. The virgin womb of a woman changed the world. Now watch this. She hears all that. In verse 34 says, how will this be? Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin. And the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you.

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 unable to conceive is in her six months. Watch God do stuff that people said he couldn't do. Watch God do stuff that people said he couldn't do. She who was said to be unable to conceive is in her six months for no word from God will ever fail. Well, since you put it like that, I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered.

May your word to me be fulfilled. Then the angel left her. And at that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. Last verse. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. All right, now I'm going to give you your title. I got good news for you today. This is going to be the best holiday message you ever heard in your life. Look at your neighbor and tell them my title. You don't have to. Didn't that feel good to hear that?

All the stuff you've got to do between now and December 25th. Look at your other neighbor, the one you really wanted to talk to all along, but you were just being nice to that guy and tell them, you don't have to. Let's give God praise in the place. Come on, if you want to. You don't have to. You may be seated. If I start preaching in a minute, you want to stand back up, you can, but you don't have to.

Now, the Lord was convicting me recently because I was going through a list of responsibilities. And the responsibilities I was listing were formerly prayer requests that I had prayed. It was little baby prayers that I prayed that were now full-grown jobs. And I noticed something in my language, and the Lord really checked me on it. Everything had got to in front of it. Everything. Everything. And I would love to tell you that it was just the things that I didn't want to do.

I've got to, and I'm not going to say something I don't want to do because it might offend somebody in the room. I would never say I've got to preach. But, well, sometimes it does feel like that. The people are coming and it is, you know, I got to get ready. I got to. And sometimes I want to go watch my kids play volleyball or wrestle and I say, I got to go to Grams Match. And I don't think there's anything, you know, wrong about that, the semantics of stating things. I don't ever want to be one of these vocabulary police Christians that when you say, I got lucky, I got a parking space. They say, there's no such thing as luck. You're blessed in highly favored.

It's like, no, actually, God probably wants me to get some extra walking, so he probably did not give me the parking space close to the front door at the gym. That doesn't even logically make sense. It was just a lot. But in all of the got-to's, I realize sometimes I lose my get-to spirit. And I don't know if the season and the pressures and demands thereof have stripped some of the delights for you, but I just, just found recently that everything felt like a got-to, even stuff that I love preaching to you, supporting my kids. I even said to my barber, I got to go, because I got date night with Holly, and I got to go on this date night. Got to go on date night with Holly. I would have killed 17

men to go on a date with her when we were in college. I would have slit their throats and prayed for a resurrection. But you like that? Why did you like that? That's the loudest applause we've got all day for throat-slitting imagery. Well, maybe you need this message too, because there can come a point in all of our lives where the God who has graciously given us so many good gifts begins to feel to us, either like a silent benefactor that we forget to thank, or an obligator rather than a bringer of the good news of the gospel who has set us free from the law of sin and death and has graciously given us all things richly to enjoy.

Or if he gave his own son for us and did not spare him, but gave him up for us, how will he not much more give us all things? But a lot of the gifts that God gives us become prisons because our perspective is so overwhelmed by the pressure. Everybody say pressure. Because I know you got some pressure. I got some pressure. and what we're trying to establish in our time together today in my sermon,

and what I thought I would try to help you to do before you go into the next few weeks and wrap this year up and see what God has for you in 2025. Look alive in 25. Before you get all that going, I thought I would try to get you back to realizing that you've got a God who didn't have to give you anything. that he gave you. And it's not good to have a got-to spirit when you serve a get-to God. One of the things I love about the passage that we read today was the sense of privilege that Mary seemed to receive this invitation to carry the Son of God with. And I know that it must

have also felt like pressure, but somehow she was able to view the pressure of carrying the sinless son of God in her virgin womb as a privilege. And so she accepted that assignment. But one of the things that pressure will do in your life is not only turn things that you used to delight in into things that you actually dread, which I could preach a whole sermon about that. But it could also, if you're not careful,

it can turn things that you ought to praise God for into things that you feel pride about. That is often when we feel the heaviness of our responsibility. Somebody's got to put these Christmas lights up. Somebody's got to make all the plans. Somebody's got to decide whose house we're going to eat at. Somebody's got to figure out who's going to bring the macaroni. And I don't really want Susan to bring it because I don't like her macaroni.

And I think it's kind of dirty and it's kind of a little too cheesy. Somebody has to keep the cheese ratio and the macaroni together. I mean, the whole universe is kind of hinging on it, isn't it? And then we come to something like this, and it only takes one sentence to shift Mary from how in the world to let it be. And I thought that was so powerful when I read it. I thought it was so amazing and so admirable of Mary to go from, how are we going to do this, to let it be just.

like you said. And I think there is something powerful about when you get a real word from God. That you can't explain it. It's subtle. It's usually not visible to other people's eyes, but something shifts in a moment when God speaks. And you go from, I've got to, to he's got this, and you can't even explain how you got there. It's an invisible path you take, and you've been there before. You've gone from, there's no way I'm going to do this to, I don't really know how I did it, but it's done. You've been in seasons of your life where you've looked at your schedule and thought, I'll be dead at the end of this. Breathe in. Breathe out in the devil's face.

Just to let him know he was a liar for everything he said you weren't going to make it through in 2024. There were some things. Oh, I feel like preaching. that you looked that out in front of you. And when they were in front of you, you were afraid, but now they're behind you. If you were afraid when they were in front of you, shouldn't you give God praise now that they're behind you? And the truth is, you wouldn't believe what I'm standing on today, because I could have tripped over it. But somehow God turned what I could have tripped on into something that I'm standing on, and I have a testimony.

Three Pentecostal people, give God a tambourine praise. Because I'm saying that if Jesus came into the world through a virgin womb, there's nothing he can't do. Now, it's important, theoretically speaking, for Jesus to be born of a virgin. First of all, and you want to take down notes to show your friends that you actually came to church, like a doctor's excuse or something. Write down this. He came through a virgin. because he had to be clean.

He had to be clean. And if he were born with a human father, he would carry the seed of the sin of Adam. So it had to be a virgin. That's not just a Catholic thing. That's a clean thing. The unclean cannot be redeemed by the unclean. The only thing that can redeem the unclean,

that's me, that's you, is a clean thing. That's not me. That's not you. So in order for God to redeem you, he had to send a clean thing into the earth. And the only way for it to be a clean thing was for it to not come from Joseph. It had to come from God. Jesus, if he had been born through Joseph in Mary's womb, would not have been able to pay the price on the cross. So he had to be clean. And then he also had to be born of a virgin, not only because it was prophesized, that he would be, but because he wanted to come close. I mean, you do understand that Jesus could have come repelling from the staircase of heaven, gone straight to the cross, and skipped all the storms on the

Sea of Galilee. There was no rule that said God had to sin Jesus as a baby. But I think one of the reasons that he sent Jesus as a baby to a virgin womb is not only because Jesus had to be clean and because Jesus wanted to be close, but because he also wanted Jesus to get credit. Clean, close, credit. The Three Seas of Christmas. That Jesus was clean, born of a virgin, not of the seed of a man, but the seed of God, the perfect, spotless lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, the lion of the tribe of Judah, who rolled back the stone and stood up with the keys of death, hell, and the grave. He was clean. He was close. And the thing about a virgin having a baby is, she can't take any credit, and neither can the man. Why are you taking time to

explain about a virgin having a baby, Pastor Stephen on Christmas? Because obviously God thought it important enough that he started the entire gospel story with it. And I wonder if it's because he wants you to realize that this thing did not start with you, so this thing doesn't have to be sustained by you. I wonder if why you feel so much unnecessary pressure is because you're trying to sustain something that you didn't even start. I mean, how much did you have with being born the first time? Not too much.

I mean, you came on out eventually, but you didn't take much credit, did you? I don't even know why we're singing happy birthday to you. We'll be singing happy birthday to the one who pushed you out. But see, we like to take credit for stuff, and then that spills over into our Christianity. Because we didn't have anything to do with being born again either if you want to get down to it. I mean, most of us in here, we tried so hard to put. push God away. It's not like we had some awesome resume to present to the Redeemer of the universe. All the reasons why he should recruit us for his service? Now, that's not your story. The matter

of the fact is you were dead in your sin, but God. And so we come to the cradle of Christmas, realizing that the reason Jesus was born as a baby from the womb of a virgin in a place called Galilee of the Gentiles was so that when God got done doing what he was going to do through Jesus, nobody else would get the glory and nobody else would get the praise and nobody else would get the credit because I'm not clean and I wasn't close. But here came Jesus at just the right time. This is my Christmas devotion. Let me preach it like I feel it. I was lost without anyone to guide me. I was blind and couldn't see. I was nobody.

I had nothing to bring to the king that was of worth. I had no crown to place on his head, and he took a crown of thorns for me. For you see, he deserves all the credit. All the credit. By the way, if you start giving God all the credit, he'll start taking more of the stress. All right, let me really preach to y'all now. There was a group of preachers who came to visit us about a year ago, and one of them wanted to know, what do I do about critics?

What do I do about critics? What do I do about critics? I said, I have no idea. I've never had one. What are you speaking of these critics? I find people loving and generous in their interpretation of all of your... No, actually what I said is, if you want to survive criticism, you have to change your relationship with praise. He said, no, I'm not asking about praise.

I'm asking about critics. I said, yeah, but if they have the power to praise you, then they also have the power to pull you down. So when people praise you, don't take it too seriously. They just hadn't got close enough yet. When people criticize you, don't take it too personally. They just don't want you to see that big old plank sticking out of their right eye. So they're talking about a speck in yours. and either way you slice it, it's the same principle.

I thought we were talking about Christmas. We are. Remember that what started in the cradle ended on the cross. And we know so much about Mary that Mary doesn't know about Mary yet. We know that she initiated Jesus' first miracle when she said, get ready and turn this water into wine. And Jesus said, woman, my hour has not yet come. And she said, well, You don't have to. You don't have to. But she turned to the servants and said, do whatever he tells you. And man, the wine started flowing when that woman spoke.

Wow. We know about Mary that she became frustrated with Jesus' popularity because she felt that it kept him from being intimate with his family and stood outside the door saying, he's going crazy. Go in there and tell him he's going crazy. We know that although Mary was thoughtful, Frustrated, though, she would not forsake Jesus, for she was there at the foot of the cross with one disciple named John when her son died.

There are some things about Mary that Mary doesn't know yet, and yet she accepts, oh, this was beautiful for me to see the promise of God to her virgin womb. Now, I don't know what you noticed when we read, and I don't know how close you pay attention when I read the scripture. I notice sometimes we have to go back to it because when I'm reading it, the first of the first. first time you're kind of getting oriented. Go back to verse 26 for a moment. Can we study? We're going to do a lot of singing next Sunday, so I'm going to get all the study part in this Sunday, so you'll be ready. This word's going to help you get ready for everything you got coming up this week. Elbow your neighbor and say, you don't look ready yet. This word's going to get you ready, though. Now, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, verse 26,

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee. We need to talk about two things in this passage. We need to talk about who is Gabriel and what is Galilee. I'll do it in reverse order. Galilee is the place where Jesus is going to do the majority of his ministry. He will not die in Galilee. He will die in Jerusalem. But he will minister and base his operations 30 years from now out of Galilee.

out of Galilee. He will calm storms on the Sea of Galilee. He will heal the blind eyes in the region of Galilee. It's going down in Galilee in just about 30 years. And God is setting all of this up through a girl, and he sends an angel named Gabriel. Gabriel is not a minimum wage angel. There's only two angels in the whole Bible that we know the names of. Michael? Michael is the fighting angel. Michael is the MMA angel. Michael choke you out. Michael's a cauliflower ear angel. Michael's a guy you don't want to mess with. And Gabriel, he's not the fighting angel. He's the fill you in angel. He's the angel. You'll remember this, who came to Daniel and explained to him, about the prophecies. He brought him clarity in Daniel chapter 8 and 9. And then we don't see him

again for a long time, and we see him go to Galilee, which is strange. But before he goes to Galilee, he goes to Jerusalem. That's why I read you the verse where it said, it was the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. Now, Elizabeth was a relative of Mary, and her husband was named Zechariah, and Zechariah was a priest. And one day, Zechariah, the priest, who was very old, went into the temple to burn incense as it was his duty to do by the lots that were cast. And as he's there burning incense, an angel shows up right there by the altar and said, Zechariah, I know you hadn't felt like your old self in quite some time, buddy, but get ready, you're about to have a baby. And Zechariah said, but I'm old. And Gabriel said, but I'm Gabriel. Ooh, I felt that on my spine, spinal

column when I said it, but I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I don't care how old you are, and I don't care if you've put all the baby clothes away from all the times you try before. See, Zechariah and Elizabeth had never had a baby. Her womb was barren. She was advanced in age. Even though she was of the line of Aaron, even though she was a very significant person, as her husband stood in Jerusalem burning incense, the angel Gabriel showed up to say, you're about to have a baby. Zechariah said, it cannot be. I'm old. And he said, because you said that and because I stand in the presence of God and you don't, and because I come from heaven and you don't, shut your mouth. You're not speaking again until the baby is born. And when the baby's born,

you're going to name him John. And when everybody asks you, why John say? Because I'm Gabriel. And I came with a message from God. And Zechariah came out of the temple smelling like incense smoke, but not able to say very much. And Zechariah had you. to learn sign language real quick coming out of that temple because everybody wanted to know what happened and why were you in there so long? Kind of weird. You were in there a long time, Zechari. Don't take that long to light incense.

What was going on in there, Zechariah. But that's been six months ago, and that makes sense. Because of course the angel, Gabriel, the clarifying angel, Gabriel, the fill you in and tell you what God's about to do, angel. Of course he would show up to a priest in a place like Jerusalem. Why, Jerusalem was the center point of Jewish worship. I expect to see Gabriel at the temple in Jerusalem speaking to a priest. I expect to see Gabriel standing at the threshold of the place where the offerings and the

sacrifices were made. You expect to see Gabriel in a place like that. What I didn't expect was six months later to see that same Gabriel, one of only two angels whose names we know in Scripture, one of the archangels in Scripture. What I didn't expect was to see Gabriel show up in a place like Galilee. Let's talk about Galilee. Galilee is 70 miles from Jerusalem. Galilee is not considered very significant by the people who live in Jerusalem.

is mixed with Jews and Gentiles, so the religious customs are questionable at best. It was referred to as the land of darkness. I'm not surprised to see Gabriel show up in the temple where the priest is burning incense. That seems like something worthy of Gabriel's time. But I am surprised to see Gabriel show up six months later for a special appointment with a girl whose name would not even be known, had Gabriel not shown up to tell her what she was carrying in a place called Galilee where nobody even found worth putting on their itinerary when planning an important trip. All that I said to say this, God's going to show up in some unexpected places in your life in this season, and don't be too surprised, because God is not bound to the customs and

traditions that people are bound to, and God doesn't just show up in holy families and oh, holy nights and silent nights for the king that we serve before he went to a throne. He stopped by a manger. And I want to speak to somebody this Christmas season who is going through a Galilee in your family. I don't know exactly what that means to you, but perhaps you do. Maybe it's a Galilee in your relationship with your children. Maybe it's a Galilee in your relationship with your wife. Maybe it's a Galilee in your own emotional despondency. Galilee can be a dark place. Galilee can seem like an insignificant place. Galilee can become an insecurity so that you begin to think that no one as important as God would have time for someone as insignificant as me, which is why I read you,

Luke chapter 1, verse 26. Now God sent an angel named Gabriel to a place called Nazareth in a region called Galilee. I announced to you this day, Gabriel is coming to Galilee. You hear me at Doves Nest? You hear me? You can't be with your children this Christmas because you're in recovery. Gabriel is coming to Galilee. You hear the voice of the Lord now. Don't listen to my voice. Listen to the voice of the Lord. Some of you are bereaved this season. Gabriel is coming to your grieving. Some of you have been betrayed in this season of your life. Gabriel is coming into the betrayal because God is sending him. And when God sends Gabriel, Gabriel has got to go. See, I want you to understand that when God speaks a word, he does not consult circumstances. When God speaks a word, he does not

consult circumstances. I'm going to say it again for the lady in the back of the room. When God speaks a word over your life, when God speaks a word over your destiny, when God speaks a word over your future, when God speaks a word over your relationship, when God speaks a word over your baby. When God speaks a word over your lifespan, when God speaks a word over your generational impact, when God says Gabriel go, Gabriel doesn't get to say to God, and not go into Galilee. That's only humans that do that. That's only humans that do that. We disobey. We get stubborn. We don't want to forgive because we've been hurt. Gabriel goes where God says go. So what I'm trying to get you to see is that the miracle of Christmas is that I could not get to God.

My sin was great. Christmas is not just sentimental for me. It is salvation to me. My life is on the line. I cannot walk straight. I cannot be clean. I cannot come close. I cannot take credit.

For my righteousness was as filthy racks. So you cannot get to God. You say, how is that good news that I can't get to God? You don't have to. That's what makes it good news. And the more you realize that you're going to start praying faster when you mess up, because I don't have to get it right to come to God. I'll have to be clean.

He was clean. I don't have to be clean to come close. He was clean. He came close. He gets the glory, and I feel like giving him 24 seconds of Christmas praise with the symbol, with the organ. I give you 10 more seconds to praise him. All right? Let's practice.

Ten more seconds to praise him. Eight seconds to give him credit. Five seconds to let the stress go. Three, two, one. Five of your neighbor and say, Gabriel's come. Yeah, yeah, Gabriel's coming. Gabriel's coming. God is going to give you clarity about that thing in your darkness.

God is going to give you perspective about that thing in your darkness. God is going to give you provision for that thing in your darkness. Gabriel came to Galilee. Aren't you glad about that? It makes me think if I get a little depressed, I can call on Jesus. I can call on heaven. I can call on the angels. I can call on the light even in the darkest place.

Because Gabriel, this is it. Gabriel came to Galilee. And he came to Galilee to get it ready for somebody greater. Y'all don't like good preaching anymore? Oh, that's delicious right there. He came to Galilee to get it ready for something greater. And yet isn't it amazing of God to start something so great as the salvation of the world? Think of all the great things that would happen in Galilee.

Think of all the great things that would happen at the cross. Think of all the great things that would happen on the other side of the empty tomb. And yet, he started something so great in something so small as a baby. As a baby. Makes me think that God wanted me to know that he can hold me too. I mean, think about it. I'm going to give it to you like the Lord gave it to me this morning. Think about the fact that the angel told Mary,

not that God would descend from the skies like Thor, but will wrap himself in little baby flesh and all of the attendant idiosyncrasies of a baby. and he came like a baby. He came like a baby, which means that he had to be held by humans. Now, sometimes we need a practical sermon. Sometimes we just need to revel and marvel in the glory of God. Watch this. That heaven was held by humanity. That's amazing. And he didn't have to do it. Jesus was fully God and fully man. So the choice of that he made to be held by human hands was not of necessity. It was of love. The heavenly king,

the most high God held by human hands. Oh, I wish you could see it like I see it. Because I see that the reason that heaven had to be held by humans was so that humans could be held by heaven. The Lord wanted you to remember that you are held this season. that you are held. You're like, yeah, I've been held. Hell has been all up in my life. I have been held. No, no, I'm saying held by the hand of God. When I look back, I see it so clearly. Satan came for my soul, but the Lord said, no, I've been held by the hand of God. I've been hidden by the hand of God. And this is what we call the invitation of incarnation in theological terms. is that heaven was held by humanity so that humanity could be held by heaven.

And just to remember as you walk through your life that you are being carried, give him the credit for carrying you. Thank you. Thank you. Every step and arrival, every step and announcement that God is not through with me yet held. This Mary would hold heaven in her arms. She held heaven. But I think that the secret to Mary, and I thought about calling this sermon, I make Mary moves. And it was so dumb I shouldn't have told you that I thought about calling it that.

Might as well just let that out. But one thing she said that I thought was so powerful. And I know, Holly, your favorite verse is Luke 138, but my favorite verse is Luke 134. Her favorite, let me show you her favorite verse first, verse 38. I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled. Right, that's her favorite. Here's my favorite one, verse 34.

How? That's my verse. Don't act like you're not living with some howls in your house. How? Am I going to make it through this whole month without cussing something? somebody out in Japanese. I might learn Japanese just to cuss somebody out in Japanese acting like this. How am I going to pay for all this crap?

Go back to my earlier point, credit. Am I ever going to catch up if I keep on consuming like this? Now, Mary isn't asking that. She's not spending money at the mall. She's trying to give birth to the son of God, but I thought we'd have some common ground How? Let me ask a question. How many of you are living in a how right now? In a how right now? Anybody online, honest? I think the purpose of the Christmas story is not just in being held, but it is in being humbled, humbled. That Jesus being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

Philippians 2, 5 through 10. He emptied himself. He humbled himself, taking on the form of flesh of a servant. So Jesus humbled himself, and so did Mary, and so must you and I. How will this be? How am I going to do it without drinking again? How am I going to do it without having a nervous breakdown? How am I going to do it when I wasn't raised and taught? How am I going to do it when nobody in my family ever did?

How am I going to do it at this age and stage of life? How am I going to do it when I can't even feel God when I'm in church? How will this be Mary? Ask the angel, since I am a virgin valid question. Powerful answer. Verse 35. The angel answered. How many of you would like to have an appointment with an angel so you could get some answers for your how today?

Come on. Say, I want an appointment. I want an appointment with Gabriel so he can tell me how I'm supposed to put up with this mess. I want an appointment with Gabriel so he can tell me how I'm supposed to fix this mess. I want an appointment with Gabriel so he can tell me whether I should stay or go. I want an appointment with Gabriel so I can ask him what to do about this trauma that happened a long time ago. And it stayed in my life, even though the trial is over. I want an appointment with that angel.

And I thought it was crazy that when the angel answered, verse 35, He didn't really say how. He just said who. Thank you, Jesus. The answer to how is a who. Put the verse on the screen and let me preach us home now. The angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come. Now we got something better than Gabriel.

Now we got something better than an angel. Because I don't have an angel standing next to me today. Touch your neighbors say, you're not an angel. But I do have the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is my answer to the question called How. The Holy Spirit speaks up when the lies are raging in my mind. And the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

I read it again. The Holy Spirit will come on you. This promise is for you, baby. This promise is for you, man. This promise is for you. The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. The power of the most high will overshadow you. The power of the most high will overshadow you.

So I hear you saying, I don't know how. And I hear God saying, you don't have to. See, you do not have to know how. if you can get a glimpse of who. Everybody's saying like an owl say, who? That's what I know. That's what I hope in.

That's what I stand on. That's what I rejoice in. Help me preach, and I'll get you home in time for lunch. That's what I know. That's what I'm talking about. That's why I'm worshiping. That's why my hands are lifted. Not because I know how.

Because I know. Ooh, the Lord's bringing it back to my mind everything I studied to preach to you this week. He was telling me how sometimes in your life you get so caught up in how that you miss the power of who. And you get hung up on how. And you're going to end up like Zechariah. Oh, bad knees Zechariah, incense burning, stay in the bathroom, temple too long, Zechariah. Talking about I should have kept my mouth shut because God knows how. You don't have to.

Wouldn't that be wonderful news? Let's put ourselves in Mary's shoes for a moment. Can we just for one moment pretend that this has happened to us? We are not expecting an angelic visitation. We haven't even got our wedding registry set up yet. And God is talking about a baby. And the Lord says you're pregnant and you're going to give birth to the son of God. No pressure.

And Mary's like, I got to? No, I get to. Oh. I get to. So I appreciate you giving me these kids to raise God. I appreciate you giving me this church. I appreciate you giving me this business. I appreciate you give me this department.

I appreciate you give me this opportunity. But what do I do at the pressure? And this is so powerful, man. It's so powerful to me. Going through her mind are a million questions. Because she's already engaged to Joseph. How do you tell your fiancé? Yeah, I met this guy named Gabriel, but he's an angel.

Don't worry, he's an angel named Gabriel. How do you tell your husband that you're pregnant and he knows it wasn't him? How am I going to tell him? Well, look over in Matthew Chapter 1 when you get home. Because Mary, I know you can't figure out how you're going to tell Joseph, but you don't have to. A little bit after Gabriel got done telling Mary she was going to have a baby, another angel popped up and told Joseph, hey, believe her. You don't have to convince anybody. You don't have to prove anything to anybody.

You don't have to. Stop trying to defend yourself to people who aren't even paying attention. Stop having imaginary arguments with hypothetical opponents. You keep your heart right with God in this season. You don't have to tell them anything about red states, blue states. None of that. That doesn't even have to come up. Let me tell you something about the arguments that are going to happen around your table this holiday season, all right, this helliday holiday season around your house.

Let me tell you about the arguments that you want to win. You don't have to. You don't have to win an argument. All you got to do is complete yours. assignment. Man, I was so stressed out one day having a bunch of people over and my friend said, what do you think they're expecting when they come over to the house? I said, I don't know. They said, you have one job. Nobody drowns in the pool. I said, it's that simple? They say, yeah. You don't have to create some magical moment. But you know what it was? I figured out what it was.

I feel pressure to perform because in my job, in my line of work, you expect me to have something to say. And it needs to kind of make sense. And it needs to be something that you probably couldn't have thought of on your own or else why did you get the ice off the windshield to come hear this stuff. But wouldn't it be prideful of me to think that a good God who has angels like Gabriel would need a messenger like me to be perfect to speak his word to you? Wouldn't it be stupid? it wouldn't it be wrong wouldn't it be crushing for you to live under the debilitating weight of how when it's never been about how it's always been about who and here's what god has been doing in our lives some of us in this season we have been humbled by how that's it we've been

humbled by how because we thought it was going to turn out one way and it's going to completely different way. And it doesn't mean God isn't doing what he's going to do. He's just not doing it how you wanted. And you are being humbled by how. You need another example? Okay. Think about the nation of Israel who was standing before a giant named Goliath with swords and spears. And when it came time for God to take out Goliath, he did not use a sword or a spear. He used a slingshot. Why? So that the army would know that it is not by sword or sphere that God saves. So he used a shepherd with a slingshot to bring down a giant because God will use the how to humble you. God will put you up in front of a red sea. He will put a stick in your hand. You will be looking at a sea, hearing the clatter of chariot wheels behind you wondering like Mary one. How? How am I going to make it across? And God will speak to the insignificant thing in your hand, and He will cause you to stretch the thing in your hand over the thing that you can't go through,

because he wants to humble you in the how. Jesus could have come to the earth any way he wanted. Jesus could have come to the earth like Simba. Jesus could have come to the earth in a supernatural way. But the hands that hung the stars in space were held in a virgin womb, were held by Mary's hands, were held by the nails of the cross. Why? God humbles you by how, so that when he does it, there will be no confusion about who's doing it. Because if you do it, you've got to keep doing it. But if he began a good work in you. Help me preach now because I feel somebody's help coming.

God said I'm using the how to humble you. And that is why he came as a baby so that you would be humbled by the how. And when you are humbled by the how, now you can be helped. Yeah. I feel like help is going to come to you this Christmas season. Help that you didn't count on. Help that you forgot about. I don't know how you don't have to.

Some of you have been saying, I can't do this alone. And God is saying, you don't have to. For what the angel said to Mary, God, I feel your presence. The Holy Spirit is saying to you. Lord is with you. I have to do this alone. You don't have to make these decisions alone. The Holy Spirit will help you. The Spirit who brought Jesus to Mary is the Spirit that lives in you. And the Holy Spirit will help you. And I want to pray for people today who are hung up on how right now. That's fine. But just remember that God isn't going to show you how, because he wants to show you who.

So I want us to flip our prayer. Everybody's standing at every location. As the Lord instructed me, I have imparted to you today this great revelation of grace that you don't have to. You get to carry Christ this Christmas season. And I dare you to go back to this week with a little bit different attitude. to. I mean, don't go back quoting this sermon to your wife or your boss. Tell me the word of the Lord is, I don't have to. Well, you're going to get fired and you can't tithe and we have to shut the church down. Don't do that. There's some stuff that you are carrying, that you are not

meant to carry, and it's causing you to forget about the Christ that you are called to carry. And I love being practical, and I love breaking it down. And one of my friends asked me the other day, I love when you preach stuff. It gets me excited. You tell me about Galilee. You tell me about Gabriel, but tell me how. And see, the thing about it is, I don't have to. Because if you would get still for just one moment in the presence of God and humble your heart, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you. And the hand of God will hold you.

Now, this is optional. You don't have to give your next few weeks to God at the end of this year, but his hands are ready if you want to. You don't have to take any time over the next few weeks to thank God for the promotions that he brought in your life this year, for the friends that he brought in your life this year, for the enemies that he held back from destroying you this year, from the sickness that he lifted off of your life this year, from the way that he averted the situation this year, that it could have gone another way. You don't have to thank God for any of that.

You don't have to. But the gospel says you get to. This is our privilege to carry the presence of God. And I was just thinking about another Mary. You remember in scripture where Mary and Martha had Jesus in their home? Do you know this story? Luke chapter 10, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Martha was trying to get some work done around here.

And Jesus was teaching. and Martha was bossing and Martha thought Jesus would take her side said tell my sister Mary to help. Now this is a different Mary but look what Jesus said about this Mary in Luke 1042 and I think this would be a pretty good mission statement for you and I too.

Martha Martha you are worried and upset about many things but few things are needed. Wait a minute. Don't you see all this work I have to get done? No. You don't have to. You don't have to. 98% of your list is optional. Get to.

And watch this. He said, there's only one thing necessary, and Mary has chosen what is better, and it won't be taken away from her. So I'm just going to beg you and implore you on behalf of Christ. Do not give yourself over to things at the end of this year that can be taken away so easily. So easily. So, Lord, as we come to you today, I am aware that there are some who are under the sound of my voice, whether in person or separated by Miles, who are in a Galilee of sorts. And we thank you today. That your message knows, no bounds.

You can enter any situation. You can enter any dysfunction. You can enter any trial. But, Lord, for some of us, just running around with the spirit of obligation when we serve the God. of good news and grace. So I thank you, Lord, for the way that you are resetting our hearts in your presence. We're calling on you, God, the God of Mary, whose favor rests upon the lowly. We know with you all things are possible.

We lift our hands to heaven now. Go ahead and lift your hands to heaven right now. If you know that you are held by the hands of God. Oh, God, my God, I need you. Oh, God, my God, I need you now. How I need you now. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry.

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