SPEAKER_00: Please turn with me to the Gospel of Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: I'll begin reading on verse in verse 39 through 45 of Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here this morning and don't have a Bible, there should be one located there on the pew in front of you, and you can find the scripture on page 856.
SPEAKER_00: I'd encourage you to turn there to page 856 and read along as I read the passage and as we study it together.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't own a Bible or you don't have ready access, please, as our gift to you, take that Bible home.
SPEAKER_00: We would love for you to have it to read, to study, and to bring it each week as we study together.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt in her womb.
SPEAKER_00: And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
SPEAKER_00: And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
SPEAKER_00: For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb left leapt for joy.
SPEAKER_00: And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was a young, uneducated, Jewish peasant girl.
SPEAKER_00: As I was reading over this passage and thinking about it, one of the things that really struck me was how much I sanitize the Bible and idealized the people in it.
SPEAKER_00: How much I look at the men and women of the Bible and see them as almost superhuman, as having a faith that is unattainable, that they're unflappable, that nothing bothers them, that nothing disturbs them or weighs on them or unsettles them.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was thinking about Mary in this, my image of her was of this quiet, faithful woman, this young teenager, honestly, probably 14 or 15 years old, that heard this announcement and with complete tranquility for the next nine months just carried on, knowing that she was in the center of God's will.
SPEAKER_00: But as I began to think about it and realize that Mary had the full range of emotions that we have, that she was a person just like us in every way.
SPEAKER_00: That there was nothing inherently different about her makeup, about her character, about her emotions.
SPEAKER_00: And I began to think, what would it be like to be Mary, 14 or 15 years old, when she hears the word from this angel that she is going to be with child?
SPEAKER_00: And she asks a question in faith.
SPEAKER_00: She says, How will this be?
SPEAKER_00: Since I'm a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't doubt that God is going to do it or that it's going to happen, but she tries to comprehend how this will come to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 35 of that chapter, the angel answers and says, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: What was it like the moments after that angel left?
SPEAKER_00: What was it like to realize that she was pregnant?
SPEAKER_00: What thoughts were going through her head, what emotions were coursing through her body?
SPEAKER_00: Mary had a deep confidence in God, and we we see that.
SPEAKER_00: She had a masterful grasp of Scripture when we look at the song of Mary in this next passage that we'll study next week.
SPEAKER_00: We see the depth of understanding and her faith in God.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to be careful that we don't turn Mary into a superhuman without struggles and temptations or doubts or deep emotions.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think when we go through the Bible, we forget that.
SPEAKER_00: These men and women were sinners just like us.
SPEAKER_00: They were sinners in need of grace, they were sinners in need of a savior, they were sinners in daily need of dependence upon God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus, half-brother James, when he was talking about prayer, he uses the example of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And there he says, and Elijah was a man just like us.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder why James have to say that?
SPEAKER_00: And then I realized, because we don't think he is.
SPEAKER_00: We think he's something else.
SPEAKER_00: We think that the people in the Bible are very different from us, and they're not.
SPEAKER_00: God is in the process of using Mary to be the conduit by which the Messiah will be born, the Savior of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The baby that she carries in her womb is God Himself wrapped in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to giving birth to Jesus, she would care for him and raise him to adulthood.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph didn't believe her.
SPEAKER_00: When Joseph heard that she was pregnant, it tells us in Matthew that in graciousness he was going to quietly divorce her.
SPEAKER_00: She went to her family.
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine what her family thought when she told them that she was pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: I think of the gossip, the talk.
SPEAKER_00: I think of what was being said behind her back, the scorn, the ridicule, the mocking, the rejection, as word got out that she was pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: People would hear of her explanation of a virgin birth and assume that there was some scandal.
SPEAKER_00: Even as an adult, we find the whiff of scandal still lingering about Jesus' uncertain birth.
SPEAKER_00: It was thrown up in his face by the Pharisees in John chapter 8, verse 41, and they say, We know where we came from.
SPEAKER_00: We know our lineage, we know our background, and so the rumors that swirled continued on through adulthood.
SPEAKER_00: In these moments, I'm sure that Mary was confused, scared, lonely, uncertain.
SPEAKER_00: Why, Elizabeth?
SPEAKER_00: Why visit?
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things that I wrestled with as I was thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: What purpose does this have here?
SPEAKER_00: It gives us a little bit of background information, but notice what happens when the angel visits with Mary.
SPEAKER_00: He tells her what's going to happen, and then he says, Behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her, whom was called Baron.
SPEAKER_00: Why did God instruct the angel to tell Mary about Elizabeth?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think one of the reasons, surely, was such news of a miraculous pregnancy would have been an encouragement to her.
SPEAKER_00: She would have heard about Elizabeth, her relative, who was old in age, who was past the years of having children, and now she was pregnant, she was six months, she had the baby bump.
SPEAKER_00: And it would remind her of another promise of God fulfilled, of thinking of another old woman who was past the age of bearing and that God had done the impossible with Abraham and Sarah, and now Elizabeth was pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: And so it would encourage Mary, but I think there was something more than that.
SPEAKER_00: I think there was a very practical reason why God told the angel, instructed the angel to tell Mary about Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: What we find here is that immediately Mary leaves to go and visit Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: We find at the in verse 56, and Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home, and then John the Baptist is born.
SPEAKER_00: So almost immediately after Mary finds out that she is pregnant, she goes to be with Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: I think God told Mary about Elizabeth because God knew that Mary needed the encouragement of somebody who was older and wiser and would care for her young, tender heart.
SPEAKER_00: This was a pivotal moment in Mary's life, and she needed the encouragement and the wisdom of a godly older woman.
SPEAKER_00: Our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And what is happening here is a very beautiful picture of the grace of God ministering to the heart of this young woman.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to recognize that God cares for you even as he uses you to fulfill his purpose, just like Mary.
SPEAKER_00: Through Mary, we learn three things.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, that our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by God's grace of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see here that God also strengthens us by the filling of his spirit, and that God strengthens us by the grace of divine promise.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at the passage and let's walk through it together and think about what God is doing in this passage in the life of Mary.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by God's grace of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately, Mary goes to be with Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: And she stays with her for three months.
SPEAKER_00: This was an 80, 90, 100-mile trip.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if Mary took this trip by herself.
SPEAKER_00: It's very likely that she did.
SPEAKER_00: That she had no one, that she had told Joseph what happened.
SPEAKER_00: He still had not been visited by the angel to be told what had happened.
SPEAKER_00: She left in haste.
SPEAKER_00: She traveled this distance to be with Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: And what we find here is we need the encouragement of each other.
SPEAKER_00: God knew that Mary needed the wisdom, grace, and love of a godly older believer, and that Elizabeth needed the encouragement and grace that would come from meeting Mary and the child that she carried in her womb.
SPEAKER_00: There's an importance in human relationships that I think sometimes to our own hurt and neglect we don't recognize.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
SPEAKER_00: Quite simply, we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: I need you in my life.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other in one another's lives.
SPEAKER_00: We were never intended to make it on our own.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, at the beginning of creation, in Genesis, when God created Adam, everything that God made was very good.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the first time that God says something is not good is in chapter 2, when he says it's not good that man should be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Now, clearly, this had a direct reference to marriage, but I think God was saying something more fundamental and at the core of who we are, that we were never meant to make it on our own.
SPEAKER_00: That we were meant to be in relationship with one another, and we see that throughout the pages of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in the creation of the family, we see it through the calling out of God's people, we see it through the church.
SPEAKER_00: That God has called us into a community of interdependence with one another.
SPEAKER_00: God never intended us for be for us to be independent creatures.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God could have said to Adam, well, Adam, you have me and that's enough.
SPEAKER_00: You have a relationship with me, and I am your all in all.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing else that you need, but that isn't what God said.
SPEAKER_00: What God said when he looked at Adam and his human condition, he said, It's not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: We were never meant to be in isolation.
SPEAKER_00: We need one another.
SPEAKER_00: In Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, it says, Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.
SPEAKER_00: For if one falls, uh the other is there to lift him up.
SPEAKER_00: But woe to the one, when he falls, he has no one else to lift him up.
SPEAKER_00: God so often uses, he pours out his grace in your life through other people.
SPEAKER_00: And God pours out grace in other people's lives through you.
SPEAKER_00: And we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just share a few ways how God mediates his grace in your life through other people and in other people into your life.
SPEAKER_00: We need other people to love us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear from other people and to know that there are other people that delight in us and that and that we delight in them.
SPEAKER_00: We need the relationship of human touch, of affection, of care.
SPEAKER_00: When Mary went to Elizabeth, immediately when Mary walked in, there was this reality of love that came out, that just poured out in the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: She knew Elizabeth's delight in her.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be in a place that is safe, where we can rest, where we can know that that there's a relationship of trust.
SPEAKER_00: We need people to believe in us, to believe in God's grace that is working in us and through us.
SPEAKER_00: We need acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that that others care for us and and want us.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that that happens here in this relationship and that we see it come out is the hope and the confidence that God is in control, that that oftentimes, I don't know about you, does anyone else ever get discouraged?
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only one?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else just get like you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and your bed's up against the wall?
SPEAKER_00: You know those kind of days?
SPEAKER_00: And and and you you're going through life, you're going through the day, and then and then you begin to talk to somebody else, and and and this person begins to remind you of God's grace and his love.
SPEAKER_00: He begins to remind you not of yourself, but of the confidence that you have in the God who loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And as you begin to talk, as you begin to interact in this relationship, and this person points you back to Jesus, hope begins to fill up in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that there are people that we can be around and feel safe and feel secure and know that we can just rest and be ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We need one another to be reminded of God's grace so that we have confidence in God and what he's doing and the assurance that it'll be alright, that everything is going to work out in the end.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other to be reminded of God's enablement and to be strengthened by the encouragement that we get from one another.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Elizabeth says: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
SPEAKER_00: The words that come out of Elizabeth's mouth are words of blessing and encouragement and strengthening and a reminder of God's purpose and his plan.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
SPEAKER_00: God never intended for us to go it alone.
SPEAKER_00: In God's grace, he directed this young woman to the house of a relative who would care for her, who would be there for her, who would encourage her.
SPEAKER_00: And each of us need those very things as well.
SPEAKER_00: Mary wasn't superhuman, she wasn't super spiritual, she was a young, godly woman who needed the love and the encouragement of others during these challenging days, and God provided that.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you have in your life like that?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you have in your life that you can go to and you can tell him or her anything?
SPEAKER_00: And know that you will be loved, that you will be accepted, that you will be pointed to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you in somebody else's life like that?
SPEAKER_00: Are you pouring into somebody else's life that you are in a relationship with somebody else, that there is such a depth of relationship that people can come to you and feel safe and say, no matter what you've done, I will love you and care for you.
SPEAKER_00: I will point you to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're safe here.
SPEAKER_00: Each of us need that.
SPEAKER_00: And this is in God's grace, He directed this young, poor, uneducated, teenage, pregnant girl to Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: And our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by the grace of God in relationship.
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, we find here in this passage that our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by God's grace of his spirit, of the spirit's filling.
SPEAKER_00: If we were to take an overview of the Gospel of Luke, one of the things that would strike us over and over again is the central focus on the Holy Spirit throughout this entire book.
SPEAKER_00: People are led by the Spirit and filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They're moved by God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: God's Spirit is at work throughout all of the different details of what's happening in the Gospel of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, earlier it's it's said of John that he was filled with the Spirit even from his mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: It says that in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: It's an unusual reality that God was so at work that even in the womb, John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit, and we see that in the reaction that John has when Mary and the baby that she carries come into the room, and he rejoices in the womb over this child.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth hears Mary's greeting, and it says in verse 41 the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: To be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This term is used elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in the Gospel of Luke and throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 5 says this: do not get drunk with wine.
SPEAKER_00: That is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible doesn't say that it's inherently wrong to drink, but it does say that when a person becomes drunk, when he gives himself over to alcohol, that it is a sin.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason given in that Ephesians passage that why that is so.
SPEAKER_00: When somebody becomes drunk, they are under the controlling influence of alcohol.
SPEAKER_00: They're under the controlling influence of alcohol.
SPEAKER_00: But in a similar way, when a person is filled with the Spirit, he has submitted himself and he's under the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the key components of being filled with the Spirit is submitting, of yielding ourselves to God's control in our lives in the person of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Paradoxically, when a person is under the influence, under the controlling influence of alcohol, he loses all self-control.
SPEAKER_00: But when a person is under the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit, one of the fruits of that is self-control.
SPEAKER_00: And so to be filled with the Spirit in part carries the idea of being under the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It also carries the idea of being empowered by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 4, verse 31, it says, They were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: And there the filling, the empowering, the enabling of the Holy Spirit, the strengthening of the Holy Spirit gave them boldness to continue their ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And it isn't that you have more of the Holy Spirit when you're filled with the Spirit, because you have all of the Holy Spirit that God is giving you at the moment that you come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But in a very real sense, when you're filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit has more of you.
SPEAKER_00: That you have yielded your life, yielded your heart, yielded control to the Holy Spirit's work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see in this passage is God's grace of the Holy Spirit working through the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It's through the Holy Spirit that Elizabeth says, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
SPEAKER_00: And why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit's influence that Elizabeth says something that she couldn't possibly have known on her own.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was only a few days pregnant at this point, maybe a week or two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: The moment that Mary walks into the room, John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb leapt, and Mary says these words, and what she says is is amazingly profound.
SPEAKER_00: She recognizes that this baby is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the words of what she's saying.
SPEAKER_00: She is the first person to recognize that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, is the Savior that's going to come.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit working in her heart moved her to recognize who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: More than that moved in the baby to recognize who Jesus was, that this child is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth's womb.
SPEAKER_00: This was no mere kick.
SPEAKER_00: This was no mere moving around or unsettling.
SPEAKER_00: The word here for leapt literally means a triple backflip with a twist.
SPEAKER_00: Just checking to see if you're awake.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, I mean, this was an amazing movement of this baby, unlike anything Elizabeth had ever felt.
SPEAKER_00: And it says that John the Baptist leapt with joy.
SPEAKER_00: This was the first encounter of John the Baptist and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus the Messiah, the promised one.
SPEAKER_00: Why did John leap with joy?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus was the promised one to come.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was and is Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has come to save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: He was, as John would say later, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who came to die on the cross to pay the penalty for all of our sins so that we could be forgiven, so that we could have a relationship with God forever.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who breaks the reigning power of sin in every believer's life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who one day will come back, and because of Jesus, all sin and sadness and sickness and death will be done forever.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone who encounters Jesus should leap for joy.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist recognized who Jesus was because of the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And our weak hearts, we need relationship, but we need the empowering work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: The example that we see of Elizabeth and of John the Baptist, of the people in the Bible, remind us not of how strong they were, but of how weak they were and how dependent on God's strength to get through every day.
SPEAKER_00: The story unfolds the way it does, not because of who they were, but because of who God was in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And we need the Holy Spirit in our lives in the very way that they did.
SPEAKER_00: Our weak hearts need the grace of relationship, and our weak hearts need the grace of God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we find in this passage that our weak hearts continually need to be strengthened by the grace of divine promise.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Elizabeth says at the end of this passage in verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: She gives this blessing, this song, as it were, just flowing from her heart, moved by the Spirit to say these things, things she never could have known on her own.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 45 she says, And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see next time when we look at Mary's song how steeped in Scripture she was.
SPEAKER_00: This young woman was saturated with Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: She knew the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: She knew what God had said.
SPEAKER_00: She believed the promises of God and she lived out the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: She who believed that they would be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: God's word strengthened Mary.
SPEAKER_00: At the moment of her most trying days, she looked at God's word and she believed the promises of God, and God's word gave her the strength to continue to move forward, glorifying Him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you cling to the promises of God?
SPEAKER_00: God's words are life.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I find myself um I like going into Chinese restaurants and and I always think it's fun to have fortune cookies.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't put any real stock in it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't put any trust in it.
SPEAKER_00: It might happen, it might not happen.
SPEAKER_00: If it does happen, it was going to happen anyway.
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't happen, I'm not disappointed because I didn't believe it in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And God's word is the exact opposite of that.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is indestructible.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is the indestructible word of an all-powerful God applied directly to you in the circumstances of your life.
SPEAKER_00: When you turn to God's word and you read it and you believe the promises of what He said, there is a certainty in it and a stability in it that God's word gives us faith.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And God's word generates faith in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and it strengthens our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And God calls us to rest in and trust in and believe in the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what it says of Mary.
SPEAKER_00: She believed that there would be a fulfillment of what God, of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She heard God's word and she believed it and she rested in it.
SPEAKER_00: How different between John the Baptist's father Zacharias and Mary.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier, when the angel appeared to Zacharias and told him that he and Elizabeth were going to have a baby, that they were going to have a baby, John the Baptist's father Zacharias says to the angel, How shall I know this?
SPEAKER_00: For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: And in essence, what he was saying is, I don't believe it, prove it.
SPEAKER_00: His response, and we see by the interaction between he and the angel, that his response was one of doubt.
SPEAKER_00: The angel visits him and tells him what's going to happen, and he says, Well, prove it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe you, God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that you're going to do what you said you're going to do.
SPEAKER_00: How are you going to do this?
SPEAKER_00: Prove it.
SPEAKER_00: When Mary's told that she's going to be with child, she doesn't ask a question from a position of skepticism and doubt.
SPEAKER_00: What she says is, how will this be since I'm a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't say, Well, are you really going to do this?
SPEAKER_00: She says, God, I know you're going to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Just help me understand how it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand how.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you'll do exactly what you said you're going to do.
SPEAKER_00: What made the difference between Zacharias and Mary?
SPEAKER_00: Mary believed that God was going to fulfill everything that he had said in his word.
SPEAKER_00: And she rested in that.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a beautiful interchange here if we stop to think about it between the gift of relationship and the gift of God's Spirit and the gift of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We need one another to speak into our lives the truth of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We just talked about that recently.
SPEAKER_00: About the need to hear from one another, to speak into other people's lives and to have them speak into our lives the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We need the working of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit takes the word and impresses it upon our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So the true weight and intent of it impacts us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need God's word and we need God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so often God's Spirit uses his word through other people in our lives and uses us in other people's lives to speak the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: So our faith is strengthened, so that our confidence is in God.
SPEAKER_00: Mary and Elizabeth were flesh and blood people just like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: No different.
SPEAKER_00: They had their doubts, they had their fears, they had their insecurities, they had their uncertainties, they didn't have shiny halos over their heads, their feet didn't hover inches off the ground.
SPEAKER_00: They were flesh and blood human beings with the full range of emotions, just like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And God in his grace gave them deep relationships, gave them the empowering presence of his Holy Spirit, and gave them the enduring confidence of his word at this very critical time in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: I read an article recently, and one of the comments struck me.
SPEAKER_00: This author was writing, and he talked about in seminary his professor, he was going into ministry, and his professor said to the class, you need to be kind to everybody you meet because everybody's going through something.
SPEAKER_00: We're all broken people.
SPEAKER_00: We're all people in need of God's grace who are who are struggling with fears and doubts, who are dealing with family situations, dealing with insecurities, going through things in our own lives and things around us.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's going through something.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be pointed to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear God's word and to share God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be reminded of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The one who is Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: The one who came to die for your sins, to remove the penalty of your sins and the shame of your sins, to give you new life, to give you hope and confidence for today and for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: God is using each one of us today and He's giving us what we need to bring Him glory.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of relationship, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of his word.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we sit here today, there are several things that we know for sure.
SPEAKER_00: That we are sinners struggling with temptation, struggling with circumstances and relationships, perhaps marriage relationships, perhaps relationships with children or parents, with neighbors and friends.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we can come with certainty that each one here is hurting in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And in need of your grace.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're needy people that we're never meant to make it on our own.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be pointed to Jesus, to hear that from others, to receive a hug and a word of encouragement, to receive a challenge and sometimes even a rebuke.
SPEAKER_00: But we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: We need the power of your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and fill us.
SPEAKER_00: That we yield ourselves to your control.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear your word and to believe the promises.
SPEAKER_00: Most of all, we need Jesus, the one who was and is and is to come.
SPEAKER_00: May we worship Him now.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.