SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information in our church, please visit grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading in verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: Before I start reading in verse 26, I want to go back and read the first section of Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, people are asking, what are all the chairs about?
SPEAKER_00: Clint Eastwood is going to be here at our Christmas Eve service.
SPEAKER_00: And he has a lot to say.
SPEAKER_00: So, no, actually, we have a Christmas Eve choir coming.
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you this morning about the certainty of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: The certainty as we wait, we should become more and more convinced.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a little concerned that we've kind of drifted towards indifference around some things that really matter.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to call us back.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean we as an individual church Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: I mean we as a church of uh of God, the church all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: We're kind of like, ah, does that really matter?
SPEAKER_00: Uh I had a professor in seminary that said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, when you when you when you read any book in the Bible, read the introduction because it tells you the purpose for which it was re was written, and it kind of sets the trajectory of the text.
SPEAKER_00: That's a phrase that's stuck in my head.
SPEAKER_00: Like in Romans, when we started Romans, we said, you know, we read in the first part of Romans where Paul says to all those who are in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You're loved by God and you're called to be saints.
SPEAKER_00: So everything the Bible says in Romans is kind of heard through that filter and by the same token.
SPEAKER_00: I want to just, before we start in verse 26, let's back up to chapter 1, verse 1 and read this.
SPEAKER_00: Luke is writing, he says, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you.
SPEAKER_00: See, Luke says, I followed all things closely for quite a while now.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I'm not writing to you about a secondhand Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I overheard people talking about at the beauty shop and at Starbucks, and I cobbled them together with some with some legend, some urban myths and legends.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, No.
SPEAKER_00: I I I'm writing to you out of a front row seat to what actually happened.
SPEAKER_00: He said, It seemed I should write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I want you all to refer to me that way from now on.
SPEAKER_00: Most excellent Pastor Neil.
SPEAKER_00: That's my new CB handle.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put it on my door next week.
SPEAKER_00: So just get used to saying that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: He says that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want that's why I want to talk to you back.
SPEAKER_00: Because I started reading in Luke chapter 1, verse 26, and I thought, I want to go back and see their trajectory.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke says, Hey, Theophilus, I'm writing you this letter so that you'll have certainty about the things that you've been taught.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's my concern the older we get, I'm I'm sneaking up on 50.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so I'm kind of in that old, my kids are like, Dad, you're like really old.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm like, and you're really getting nothing for Christmas, so but who's counting?
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I just want to I want to preach to myself today because let's be careful that the older we get, the more indifferent we become to things that really matter.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk to you about the certainty of Advent from Luke chapter 1, verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says this in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary, and he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great, and and and will be called the Son of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
SPEAKER_00: In his kingdom of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel departed from her.
SPEAKER_00: In the text, there's probably six or seven, but I just pared it down to just four that I want to bring before you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Four things that I want to invite you and I to be certain about on this fourth Sunday of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is found in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing around the certainty of Advent, the first point is simply this.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be certain about the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Be certain about the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Hear this greeting again in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: This angel Gabriel comes to her and said, Greetings, O favored One.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: And I just we I my concern is that we kind of take the presence of God for granted.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is great.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody texted Clyde this week and said, last week, I just wanted to just, when we sang, Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and I kept thinking, okay, this is the Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get to the course and we're gonna say, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: And then we did, and I was like, and I was like, do people know that's on purpose?
SPEAKER_00: Because we live on the right side of the coming of Christ, but people, there was a sense of longing.
SPEAKER_00: When the Old Testament closed, there's 400 years of silence between the Old and the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And people were born and lived and died, and they never knew prophetic revelation, and they never sensed the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They just were basically functioning deists.
SPEAKER_00: They just thought, well, God created the world and spun it and got it going.
SPEAKER_00: Now he remains indifferent to it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he comes during this advent season and kind of just breaks the silence with this voice.
SPEAKER_00: John 1 says, and in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_00: The word was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_00: He coexisted in heaven with God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not something that God dreamed up in that 400-year silence.
SPEAKER_00: He's always been.
SPEAKER_00: But then the Bible says this, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: That he could have never come.
SPEAKER_00: See, he was God before he came.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to the earth to prove that he is God.
SPEAKER_00: He came to the earth to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's why they called him a savior.
SPEAKER_00: And don't ever just get indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the presence of God, I get it, I get it, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The advent slows us down and reminds us, oh, let's not take this for granted.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the 23rd Psalm, when he says, Yea, though I walked to the valley in the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for you are with me.
SPEAKER_00: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrews 13, God says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus gives what we call the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28, he's kind of get the end of Matthew's gospel, and he says, Go and go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, and we forget this part of the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: This is the part that makes all of it possible.
SPEAKER_00: He says, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me just say this to you, because we kind of think this way.
SPEAKER_00: Let me bring it down to where we live.
SPEAKER_00: We think that God's with us when we're doing good.
SPEAKER_00: When we're doing the right thing, we've had a good week, we did all the things we should do and all the things we shouldn't do, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Sure we do.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of think, I've been good, God's here, God's happy.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just tell you this.
SPEAKER_00: On your worst day, when you did the wrong, when you knew the wrong thing, you knew it was wrong and did it anyway, and just by a show of hands, how many of you have had a day like that where you knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See, you're in good company.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, he was there on that day too.
SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't there kind of going, hey, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Are you don't be such an idiot.
SPEAKER_00: That's what some of your dads said to you.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you want to pull a dumb stunt like that?
SPEAKER_00: You say, How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Because I've read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Don't turn there, but in John chapter 8, there's a woman caught in the very act of adultery, and the Pharisees threw at Jesus' feet, and best we can tell, she didn't have any clothes on, and the Greek word for that is naked.
SPEAKER_00: N-E-K-E-D, naked.
SPEAKER_00: It's not naked.
SPEAKER_00: Naked is like when your babies are naked, when you give them baths, that's cute.
SPEAKER_00: When you got your clothes off and you've been doing something you shouldn't be doing, you're naked.
SPEAKER_00: That ain't good.
SPEAKER_00: She was naked.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus didn't say, Oh my goodness, what have you been doing, woman?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know any better?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He just dismisses all the religious people, and then he says, Hey, who condemned you?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What?
SPEAKER_00: Because you think God's presence is predicated on your behavior.
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
SPEAKER_00: God's presence in your life is rooted in God's nature.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you could just learn to realize that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, he's there.
SPEAKER_00: It changes where you go and what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Be certain about the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing the text invites us to be certain about is the favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where I'm gonna, I might get in a little trouble here, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: After he says in verse 28, and he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite verse in this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: The angel says, Greetings, One favorite one, the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of one of those things someone walks up to you in the mall and approaches you and talks to you, and you just kind of clutch your purse a little tighter, like, what do you want?
SPEAKER_00: I I don't give any donations to strangers.
SPEAKER_00: Back up.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was troubled.
SPEAKER_00: She was like, That's so awkward and so kind of good on a level that I don't have words for.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not real sure, so just put me down as kind of creepy.
SPEAKER_00: The favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, let me let me just read.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Greetings, O favored one.
SPEAKER_00: But she was kind of troubled.
SPEAKER_00: And look at verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid, for you have found favor.
SPEAKER_00: Now, does that mean just a couple things to think about over lunch today?
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible says you have found favor, does that mean that we should be looking for the favor of God?
SPEAKER_00: Or what does she do to get the favor of God?
SPEAKER_00: And how do you know you've got it?
SPEAKER_00: And and because it says you've found favor.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, relax, Mary.
SPEAKER_00: You found favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary's kind of like, what does that mean for me?
SPEAKER_00: And I've been asking people this week, hey, when I say favor, the favor of God, what's the first thing you think of?
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you in this room, if you're like me, the first thing you think of is late-night preachers who steal money from undiscerning old people.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you the biblical definition for favor.
SPEAKER_00: If you looked up this word in the Greek, it would say it's it's the Greek word, Horis.
SPEAKER_00: Horis.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like Kaira, C-H-A-R-I-S, but it's hardis.
SPEAKER_00: And it basically means the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in the Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.
SPEAKER_00: Now put a little star on that last part and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, causes them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in other words, favor's not a one-way deal.
SPEAKER_00: Favor is not a word that people use to say, hey, it's God's will that I be rich.
SPEAKER_00: That's nowhere in the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the Bible talks about favor.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to kind of reclaim this word from our charismatic friends and kind of say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be afraid of the favor of God being on my life.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, if you'll ask most of my friends, I use the word favor a lot and it bugs them.
SPEAKER_00: And once I know that it bugs them, I use it even more.
SPEAKER_00: And that something good will happen.
SPEAKER_00: I went, favor and fair?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I can't believe that happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not me, it's just the favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: But favor is not a one-way street.
SPEAKER_00: Favor doesn't mean God, give me, give me, give me, give me.
SPEAKER_00: That's your kids at Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Like just yesterday, my nine-year-old announced to me that she wants a kindle fire for Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you don't read, but I like, I want to hint and hint, I really want to have one.
SPEAKER_00: If you read every night, we got to say to you, hey, Sophie, you need to read for 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: You fall down like Lee Harvey also shot you from the Texas School Book Depository.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, What's that?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, if you read, you would know.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: That's my point.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're not getting.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, come Christmas morning, don't be disappointed, because it ain't happening.
SPEAKER_00: But I really, really want one.
SPEAKER_00: No, you just watch that idiot box TV and they convince you that you need one.
SPEAKER_00: Favor is not getting everything you want.
SPEAKER_00: See, favor is just about what we said.
SPEAKER_00: It's, hey, Mary, you've found favor.
SPEAKER_00: And then I won't, I don't have time to preach this, but just kind of notice all the time after that how many times the angel Gabriel uses the word will.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is what God will do, and he will do this, and he will do this, and he will do that.
SPEAKER_00: See, God's looking for people that he says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I want to bring the full measure of my being and blessing on this person because I can trust them.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not, they're not going to consume this.
SPEAKER_00: James says you ask and you don't receive because you asked, so you could consume it upon your lust.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_00: You've all played that game before.
SPEAKER_00: Last time the Powerball got to be 500 million.
SPEAKER_00: You all said, Lord, if you let me win that, I'd be the most generous person anybody knows.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not generous right now, you ain't gonna be generous then.
SPEAKER_00: You just got more money to be stingy with.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, if I had a lot of money, I'd be generous.
SPEAKER_00: No, you wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's not what the Bible talks about when it talks about favor.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read you a couple verses about favor.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn there, but just pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to go into all of these, but the first one's from Genesis 39.
SPEAKER_00: It's Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Joseph?
SPEAKER_00: His brothers sold him into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: They threw him in a pit, then they sold him into slavery, and he was gone, and his life just fell apart.
SPEAKER_00: And then he went to work in Potiphar's house, and Potiphar's wife was a desperate housewife, and she put the move on him, and he just took off running and left his coat in her hand, and she falsely accused him, and he went to prison, and someone had a dream, and they said, Hey man, there's this guy Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: I think he can hook you up.
SPEAKER_00: And so Joseph was like promoted like second in charge of the whole nation, and then his brothers were brought before him, and he could have just laid the wood to them.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, What you intended for evil, God intended for good.
SPEAKER_00: And they were just like, Oh my gosh, we don't deserve you for a brother.
SPEAKER_00: Something my two older brothers say all the time at our house.
SPEAKER_00: Look the way the Bible summarized Joseph's life.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 39, 3 and 4.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And so Joseph found favor in his sight.
SPEAKER_00: Job was another man.
SPEAKER_00: Job, I mean, no one says, Hey, who's your favorite Bible character?
SPEAKER_00: Job.
SPEAKER_00: He was a man that in one day he lost all his possessions, his house, all his sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: And in Job 10, verse, chapter 10, verse 12, he says, You have granted me life and favor, and your care has preserved my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 5, 12, the Bible says, For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous with favor.
SPEAKER_00: You will surround him as with a shield.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 90, verse 17, when you don't know what to pray, pray this, men and women.
SPEAKER_00: Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, establish the work of our hands.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's an exclamation point there.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Yes, establish the work of our hands, because we're not going to build a monument to ourselves, God.
SPEAKER_00: Anything that you bless us with, we're going to turn around and be a blessing with that.
SPEAKER_00: If you ever don't know what to pray, pray that.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 30, verse 5 says, For his anger is but for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: His favor is for life.
SPEAKER_00: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: See, favor doesn't mean that every day is sweeter than the day before.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have some hard days.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean God's mad at you.
SPEAKER_00: That just means you live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this little foreshadowing of the January 6th sermon.
SPEAKER_00: But the two things that distinguish the early church in the book of Acts was the gospel and the favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 2 says this of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It says, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
SPEAKER_00: The most evangelistic thing in the early church was not the preachers.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the sermons they preached.
SPEAKER_00: It was the lives that they were lived.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, What do you mean the lives that they lived?
SPEAKER_00: Their lives were stained by, marked by, characterized by the favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: So this week, when someone says, Hey man, how's it going?
SPEAKER_00: How's your year?
SPEAKER_00: Just smile and say, hey man, the favor of God is all over me.
SPEAKER_00: And prepare for people to back up like, what, what, what?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of church do you go to?
SPEAKER_00: It's not a, it's not, it's not a phrase we're we're accustomed to say.
SPEAKER_00: And even some of you, the look on your face is like, I wish you wouldn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds kind of creepy.
SPEAKER_00: Don't focus on just one part of the definition.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the latter part I said, and it kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Remember I said, that's what favor does?
SPEAKER_00: This is what it is, and this is what it does.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I was talking to my mom a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Mom, what do you want for Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: And my mom said, Oh, I want you to come and see me.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh.
SPEAKER_00: I love my mom, okay?
SPEAKER_00: My mom doesn't live in the house, she's she still owns it, but her and her husband got bored, and so now they are uh gate guards at an old drilling site.
SPEAKER_00: My mom's 72 years old, and she's like, We just pull our fifth-wheel trailer down here.
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: We're right here at the gate, we just check in, and all the rough necks that calls grandma and grandpa, and this is great.
SPEAKER_00: We love it.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you would come down here and because see, y'all think, what kind of sorry person?
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to see your mother?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of preacher are you?
SPEAKER_00: See, I know what's involved in seeing my mom.
SPEAKER_00: Because when I go see my mom, I gotta take her into town to go do her laundry because they don't have a washing machine out there.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Oh, I want you to come see me because my mom's from Minnesota.
SPEAKER_00: And she still talks like she's from Minnesota.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Mom, we live in Texas now.
SPEAKER_00: You've lived here since like 1970 something.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but I'm from Duluth.
unknown: Ah.
SPEAKER_00: So my mom called me the night before, like I would be excited, and said, I'm so glad you're coming.
SPEAKER_00: I've got eight loads of wash.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been to a laundromat lately?
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Mom, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're about 16 miles out of Cuero, Texas.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know what Cuero, Texas is, just go to hell and hang a left, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You're getting close.
SPEAKER_00: So I drive down there and it's great.
SPEAKER_00: I got the GPS in my truck, and I'm rigging down the road, listening to music, and I get there and they're off some farm to market road, load up my truck and let's go.
SPEAKER_00: My mom's like got a grocery list, like a scroll.
SPEAKER_00: She went, I want to go to the post office and I want to go to the laundromat.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, mom, let's put your clothes in.
SPEAKER_00: And then go run.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody might steal them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody wants your clothes, mom.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody steals your clothes, I'll buy you a whole new wardrobe.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I want to stay right there at the laundromat.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And so we go to the post office and then we go to the laundromat, and I'm kind of sitting there and I put up my phone, think I'm gonna make some calls.
SPEAKER_00: My mom's doing laundry, no service.
SPEAKER_00: That's how far in nowhere we are.
SPEAKER_00: The iPhone doesn't even work there.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just like, this is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: And then out of the corner of my eye, he rounds the washing machines.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you go to a laundromat, there's always some kid in there, just bored to death.
SPEAKER_00: He was four years old, his name was Michael.
SPEAKER_00: Brother rolled up on me, and within 30 seconds, clear as a bell, the Holy Spirit said, Uh, this is why you're here.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, He's looking at me and I said, Hey little buddy, what's your name?
SPEAKER_00: My name's Michael, and I'm gonna get a bicycle and a motorcycle and a radio controlled car for Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you must have been really good.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: I've been real good.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked up over the washing machines, and there was an older woman and a younger woman.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, that's grandma, that's mom.
SPEAKER_00: And then I looked over and girlfriend didn't have like a tattoo.
SPEAKER_00: She had like the Declaration of Independence tattooed on her.
SPEAKER_00: On her forearm right there.
SPEAKER_00: If you get a tattoo that big, I'm gonna ask you about it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so I just thought it's like people get like a big, like eagle or something and go, don't stare.
SPEAKER_00: Why'd you get that?
SPEAKER_00: And so I just got up and I just walked over there and I thought, hey, because by the way, what is favor?
SPEAKER_00: It kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.
SPEAKER_00: It makes you want to do things you by nature wouldn't do.
SPEAKER_00: So I just walked over because I by nature won't talk to people.
SPEAKER_00: By nature, I sit there and read a book on my phone because by nature, I'm selfish.
SPEAKER_00: Remind you of anybody.
SPEAKER_00: So I walk over and I say, that's a cute kid.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, things start just kind of going off in me.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Let me just, let me just get to the point.
SPEAKER_00: Because that little kid was right up in my world.
SPEAKER_00: He just thirsty for a man's attention.
SPEAKER_00: I said, His dad ain't in the picture, is he?
SPEAKER_00: And the mom's folding clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
SPEAKER_00: She was popping him shirt.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's not.
SPEAKER_00: And I was easy, easy.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't got a pistol to do you anything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm happily married man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not hitting on you anything.
SPEAKER_00: No, his dad is not in the picture.
SPEAKER_00: Grandma speaking Spanish.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think that's good right there.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, so uh he's not getting a bicycle and a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_00: I do my best, but you know, easy, easy, easy.
SPEAKER_00: And about that time she set something down, and I saw it wasn't a declaration of independence, it was a serenity prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And very, very the Holy Spirit just said, hey, serenity prayer is what I used to assist in a 12-step program.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and serenity prayer is when you sit in folded chairs in a circle and drink bad coffee and start the conversation by saying, Hi, my name's Bob, and I'm an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody says back to you, Oh, you've been there.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to First Baptist Church of AA.
SPEAKER_00: Bunch of lushes up in here.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Hey, where'd you learn to pray this rainy prayer?
SPEAKER_00: And she kind of, well, I said, You ain't gotta go there.
SPEAKER_00: I used to sit down and think.
SPEAKER_00: And she's getting all done.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I just just I was curious about your tattoo.
SPEAKER_00: Walked over and sat down, and in my little preacher, religious part of me, because I I think I got that person killed off, but he raised us from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: The little preacher in me sat down and said, I should probably pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: And that big voice in me, the favor of God, just kind of swole up and said, Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of a weasel are you?
SPEAKER_00: They don't need your prayers because what you don't know is about a week ago, a friend of mine sent me a check for Christmas and said, Hey, I just want to bless you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to bless you.
SPEAKER_00: And I was driving down there to Quarrel thinking, yeah, God, I lost some weight.
SPEAKER_00: I need to get some clothes that fit.
SPEAKER_00: My clothes don't fit anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't need some new work boots, and I'm just gonna take myself to Christmas because, yeah, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_00: And clear as a bell, the Holy Spirit said, I don't care about you right now.
SPEAKER_00: I want that little kid to have some Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's walking out with her baskets, leaving.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, oh Lord, Lord, if that's you, just give me a sign right now.
SPEAKER_00: And clear as a bell, he said, I'm talking to you, moron.
SPEAKER_00: That's a sign.
SPEAKER_00: What else do you need?
SPEAKER_00: I will yank the chain on you right now and leave you in this world all by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You better shut up and start speaking up.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got up, walked over, and said, Hey, hey, Michael, go outside and help grandma get the car loaded up.
SPEAKER_00: And I pulled the money out of my pocket.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you love that feeling, that thickness in your front pocket when you got some cash in there?
SPEAKER_00: I patted every once in a while to make sure no one's picked my pocket or something.
SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of like, oh, this fixing go away.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Here, I want you to get your son some Christmas, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Get him whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what you get him.
SPEAKER_00: Get him a tattoo.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Here, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Take this.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, oh my gosh, oh, why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_00: You're a total stranger.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's kind of strange, too, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you asked me, uh, you know, well, why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Because I love Johnny Cash.
SPEAKER_00: I like to say things every once in a while that mess with people's head.
SPEAKER_00: Preferably when my wife is around.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, What's he got to do with that?
SPEAKER_00: I said, I read Johnny book, a bunch of books about Johnny Cash, and I said he was on tour in his band.
SPEAKER_00: He had a guitar project named Marty Stewart.
SPEAKER_00: Marty Stewart was a guitar phenomena when he was 13.
SPEAKER_00: He had this, I think it was a red fender guitar he loved.
SPEAKER_00: Middle of a concert, they're playing along there, and the little boy in the crowd's looking at Marty's red guitar, and Johnny just stopped in the middle of the song and said, Hey boy, you like that guitar?
SPEAKER_00: It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Come back to the show, Marty will give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Picked right back up on the song.
SPEAKER_00: After the show, everyone's milling around.
SPEAKER_00: Johnny's signing autographs, walked over.
SPEAKER_00: The little boy's just standing there looking at Marty Stewart.
SPEAKER_00: Marty like, well, Johnny was just skipping.
SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: Give him the guitar.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, Johnny, give him the guitar right now.
SPEAKER_00: Marty Stewart telling the story.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm telling you, Johnny Cash has a way of telling you what to do, and it's the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard that a few times in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I handed it to him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was so mad.
SPEAKER_00: I went on the back of the bus.
SPEAKER_00: I was pouting.
SPEAKER_00: I was cussing.
SPEAKER_00: I was turning the air blue.
SPEAKER_00: Blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: Johnny walked back there and said, You mad at me?
SPEAKER_00: I hate your guts.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_00: Blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you ever be that selfish in the presence of that much need around me ever again.
SPEAKER_00: I'll kick you out of this band.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Man, I was staring out the window.
SPEAKER_00: I was so mad.
SPEAKER_00: And Johnny turned around and said, Oh, by the way, if you could have any guitar in the world, right now, what would you have?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I just read about this Gibson guitar that just came out with, most expensive guitar out there.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'd like a BR549 or Gibson, rah-rah, rah, rah.
SPEAKER_00: And Johnny just smiled and I thought I was like, Yeah, see there, you you don't know what that's like.
SPEAKER_00: He said, When the bus got to our next tour stop in my dressing room was two of those Gibson guitars.
SPEAKER_00: And with tears coming down, Marty Stewart is a grown man, said, I never was selfish again.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't be selfish around Johnny Cash.
SPEAKER_00: That woman was looking at me.
SPEAKER_00: Grandma's talking in Spanish.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Does grandma know who Johnny Cash is?
SPEAKER_00: Grandma goes, see, Johnny Cash.
SPEAKER_00: I'm about to have church up in here.
SPEAKER_00: I said, So I just, I can't be indifferent to the fact that your son needs a bicycle, that his dad's a jerk and ran out on him, okay?
SPEAKER_00: My dad walked out on me.
SPEAKER_00: I know what that feels like.
SPEAKER_00: That'll put a stain on you right there.
SPEAKER_00: You want to fight people all your life, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your son grow up angry.
SPEAKER_00: Get him some Christmas and say to him, God's good.
SPEAKER_00: He's for us.
SPEAKER_00: She went out, walked over, and sat down.
SPEAKER_00: My mom, that was so sweet.
SPEAKER_00: It's just favor, mom.
SPEAKER_00: It's just favor, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's just the favor of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, the Lord's been very good to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's favor.
SPEAKER_00: Can you say the word favor?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I grew up Lutheran.
SPEAKER_00: We don't use that word a lot.
SPEAKER_00: I know, you Minnesota Lutherans.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all earned it all the hard way.
SPEAKER_00: You got the stiff upper lip.
SPEAKER_00: It's just favor.
SPEAKER_00: It's undeserved, but it kindles in you.
SPEAKER_00: It causes you to live a certain way and do certain things.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to think about today.
SPEAKER_00: When you kind of take a kind of a kind of recollect your year and you think back, could you just ask yourself, hey, is the favor of God on my life?
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't mean, I might ask you, do you get everything you want?
SPEAKER_00: All of us were in circumstances and situations this year that at the moment felt overwhelming, like, what are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get that promotion.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't get that guy, didn't call me back.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what are we gonna do, that friend?
SPEAKER_00: Wow, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: But hey, you made it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna finish another year.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be something under the tree.
SPEAKER_00: Ain't gonna be no Kindle.
SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna live.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna survive.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Not because you got a Christmas bonus, not because you got a job, because you got God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: Be certain of that.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke says, hey, I'm writing to this you, Theophilus, so you can have certainty concerning things you've been taught.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing we need to have certainty about is the virgin birth of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: After the angel says, Do not be afraid, Mary.
SPEAKER_00: You have found favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, mark that in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it again.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, how will this be since I'm a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel Gabriel said, Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God and does the will of God, is sent to this little town, to this little girl, to make this profoundly big statement.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High, the power of God will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, what is natural is going to be subjected to what is supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: What are we saying?
SPEAKER_00: See, we look at the virgin birth through the lens of our own morality.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we kind of drift away from the reality of the virgin birth.
SPEAKER_00: And people say, Well, I don't think, how can a virgin get pregnant and have a baby?
SPEAKER_00: She never knew a man.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, do you really believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, you are in a deep hole, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is, if Jesus is not conceived of a virgin, and by the way, I'm not starting with the need and working back to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting with the truth.
SPEAKER_00: I believe what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that the power of the Most High will overshadow you or overcome you, and you will conceive.
SPEAKER_00: That's good enough for me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to read some biologist or some OEGYN or some pagan newspaper writer who works at a fish wrap.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to hear those people.
SPEAKER_00: What they see, what they say matters none to me.
SPEAKER_00: All I have to have is what the Bible says right here when he says, the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, because this has taken place, the child to be born will be called holy.
SPEAKER_00: Why will he be called holy?
SPEAKER_00: Because he has no sin.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he have no sin?
SPEAKER_00: Because it was not imputed to him.
SPEAKER_00: God did something he'd never been did that's never been done before to make a statement that he never wants us to forget.
SPEAKER_00: And say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give you four things about the virgin birth.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have certainty around this.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the virgin birth is revelation, not doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: The virgin birth is not God saying, oh, here's something, here's a doctrine, which is a big word for saying, here's a truth of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about believing.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's revelation.
SPEAKER_00: God's showing you something about Himself and about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You see, because the virgin birth makes a statement about the nature of God and the nature of man.
SPEAKER_00: Man needs a savior.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're sinners by nature.
SPEAKER_00: We're not born holy.
SPEAKER_00: We're born fallen people.
SPEAKER_00: And in the past two weeks, I'm so sick and tired of hearing about gun control and school safety and blood.
SPEAKER_00: You notice no one's saying right now, oh, man's inherently good.
SPEAKER_00: This is just an anomaly.
SPEAKER_00: This is a blip on the radar.
SPEAKER_00: No, this horrible tragedy magnifies the falling, sinful, destructive nature of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot legislate redemption.
SPEAKER_00: We all need a savior.
SPEAKER_00: And he came through a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: The virgin birth is revelation, not doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: I love what Al Moeller, the president of Southern Seminary, says.
SPEAKER_00: He says the virgin birth is not standalone.
SPEAKER_00: It's a biblical doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: It is an irreducible part of the biblical revelation about the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: With it, the gospel stands or falls.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing about the virgin birth, it speaks to the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks to the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's fully God and He's fully man.
SPEAKER_00: Thus, He's able to relate to us in our sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: So when something horrible happens and everybody runs to the, well, where was God?
SPEAKER_00: The media can't seem to make up their mind.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, do you want there to be a God?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you just want someone to blame when something happens that your little finite mind cannot explain?
SPEAKER_00: The incarnation, the virgin birth testifies to the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Fully God, fully man.
SPEAKER_00: What's the big deal?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the big deal: He's able to relate to us in our afflictions.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says he was in all points tempted as we were, and yet without sin.
SPEAKER_00: He became one of us so that he could relate to us.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing about the virgin birth, it's a test of our worldview.
SPEAKER_00: It's a test of our worldview.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: If you reject the virgin birth, then why would we accept any of these other miracles?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where do you draw the line?
SPEAKER_00: If you say, well, you know, the virgin birth, I don't know that I can believe that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So where do you draw the line?
SPEAKER_00: See, if we're not careful, we start on this drift of indifference.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think that's really necessary and important.
SPEAKER_00: Sure it is.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely it is, and I'll show you why in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But we start on this drift, this unbiblical worldview in which miracles are not likely or even possible or even necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth thing about the virgin birth, to reject the virgin birth is to reject the authority of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says that he was conceived of a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says way back in Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, don't turn there.
SPEAKER_00: But but God, I mean, here's the best part.
SPEAKER_00: This is not on the Christmas card, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But the best part, God says to Ahaz, to this doubting, cynical person, hey, ask me for a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Make it as deep as sheol or as high as heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Go as low as hell or as high as heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Make it as hard as you want.
SPEAKER_00: Ask me to demonstrate to you that I am who I tell you I am, and I'm gonna be who I'm promising you I'm gonna be, and the Messiah is gonna be all that I tell you he's going to be.
SPEAKER_00: Ask me for a sign.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahaz was religious, so he said, Oh, I'm not gonna put God to the test.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Okay, I'll tell you what, save me your religious banter.
SPEAKER_00: This will be a sign for you.
SPEAKER_00: A virgin shall conceive and give birth, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
SPEAKER_00: What's that got?
SPEAKER_00: See, if there is no virgin birth, then you have a flawed Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And you shouldn't read it and you shouldn't trust it.
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't memorize it, you shouldn't build your life around it.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says in Matthew 7, he who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a man who built, who dug down deep and built his house on the rock, that's a lie too.
SPEAKER_00: See, where do you draw the line?
SPEAKER_00: Once you take the miraculous out of the Bible, all you have got is a self-help manual which explains some of your favorite TV preachers.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of this is not us just getting better marriages and more money and more obedient kids.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of this is God getting glory.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the easiest ways for God to get glory is God does what humans know to be humanly impossible.
SPEAKER_00: And God put a stake in the ground and he makes a statement with the virgin birth.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the statement?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: I won't say the word virgin again.
SPEAKER_00: You okay?
SPEAKER_00: Makes people awkward.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a neutral word.
SPEAKER_00: Just just lob that up in some Christmas party conversation and watch people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm going to get some more punch.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 36, and behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the sixth month with her, who is called barren.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: For nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: She said, by the way, if you're wondering, when the Bible says Mary found favor, how do you find the favor of God?
SPEAKER_00: How do you get the favor of God on your life?
SPEAKER_00: You just live like Mary.
SPEAKER_00: You say to God, let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden the favor of God shows up on your life like the morning dew.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: But most of us, our life is not according to God's word, it's according to our wills and wants and desires.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth thing I want you to be certain about is that nothing is impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, he right after he says, Oh, by the way, the power of the Most High God will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: That which is supernatural will trump that which is natural, and a virgin will conceive and give birth.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Oh, and by the way, Elizabeth, she's also six months pregnant, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: If you can get your mind and your intellect around the virgin birth, then you're in a great place.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's not intellectual, it's by faith.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he says, Oh, by the way, for nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary's response, oh, behold, I am your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Do you serve a God for whom all things are possible?
SPEAKER_00: Are you tossed just to and fro by every circumstance?
SPEAKER_00: I just, this was my meditation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not very social on Saturday nights.
SPEAKER_00: About 8:30, 9 o'clock, I go in my office, get my notes out, look over them, pray, listen, ask the Holy Spirit, is this what I'm supposed to preach?
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to do something different.
SPEAKER_00: And last night, I was, I was just meditating on this nothing is impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded that on my 30th birthday, my wife is one of the most thoughtful people I've ever known in my life.
SPEAKER_00: It is humbling and convicting for me.
SPEAKER_00: But on my 30th birthday, she had written a bunch of my friends and told them, hey, I want you to write Neil a letter and just tell him things that you admire about him, like about him, notice about him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had all these letters, and they most of them listed out 30 things.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, one of them was my mom.
SPEAKER_00: And last night I was reading in there, and my mom wrote, my mom struggled with chronic depression.
SPEAKER_00: And my mom wrote, Neil could tell whenever I was down, and he would walk into a room and he would just announce, My God is a great God.
SPEAKER_00: And I started reading all these things that my mom wrote, and all my friends wrote, and I was like, what happened to that guy?
SPEAKER_00: Where did he go?
SPEAKER_00: Because I remember that.
SPEAKER_00: I remember my mom saying, Hey, son, we don't have any food.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna just eat, open up some canned vegetables, and that's gonna be supper.
SPEAKER_00: And I would smile and go, man, our God's a great God, Mom.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00: I get paid tomorrow and I go to the store and buy whatever we need.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm like, oh, oh, we gotta, I got people coming like, hey, we wanna, we we want to improve the the media in our sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take those verses down and people, oh, those verses, I like having those verses.
SPEAKER_00: They're in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Read them there.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, are we gonna talk to a committee about that?
SPEAKER_00: Do we have to?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: What is it's everything just, I mean, do you do I mean, can you say like Mary, hey, let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: Not unless you believe that with your God, uh everything is possible.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean name it and claim it, gab it and grab it or whatever you call it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean just this disposition that says, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: The favor of God is upon me.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen what God can do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: I've never been with a man, and I'm pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, tomorrow on Christmas Eve, and I can't say this because there'll be little kids in the room.
SPEAKER_00: She's going back to her hometown.
SPEAKER_00: She's pregnant out of wedlock.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't put that on the Christmas card.
SPEAKER_00: And here comes the girl everyone's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Had such high hopes for her, and look what she turned out.
SPEAKER_00: I told her she should have stayed away from that Joseph boy.
SPEAKER_00: He's trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: For nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the text says.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will be, having seen this, having tasted and experienced this, nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that you need to see God do in order to believe that nothing will be impossible for God?
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask that again.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that you need to see God do in order to believe that nothing will be impossible with God?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that doesn't mean, oh, now I'm gonna start getting.
SPEAKER_00: No, what'll happen is you'll start responding differently in the circumstances that you're in right now.
SPEAKER_00: You won't all of a sudden have a new house, and you all of a sudden won't win the lottery, and you all of a sudden won't have a husband that's an intentional spiritual leader.
SPEAKER_00: You'll just respond differently to all the mundane realities in your life, and you'll find yourself in a laundromat in Cuero, Texas, walking over and saying, Hey, tell me about your tattoo.
SPEAKER_00: Is that like a declaration of independence?
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, you're in a situation and you respond in a way, the power of the Most High overwhelms you, and you find yourself subjecting the natural to the supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you're driving home after being in the laundromat and going to Walmart and some restaurant that I know the health department doesn't know exist.
SPEAKER_00: Like, mom, are you sure they're running extension cords from across the street?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that looks awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, I got a tetanus shot.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: What is it you need to see?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've already seen it.
SPEAKER_00: What does God have to do for you to just go, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will be impossible for God.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet if you will.
SPEAKER_00: Let me speak a blessing of you, and we'll be dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, at the conclusion of our service, myself and some of our elders will be available down front.
SPEAKER_00: If we can talk with you, answer any questions you may have, or just pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: We'd be glad to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: You serve a God.
SPEAKER_00: And you know a God.
SPEAKER_00: And you are loved by a God who came into this world through the womb of a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: He's always exceeded what's natural.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you, you dismiss.