Christmas Moments // A Moment of Surrender

be in Luke, chapter 1 this morning.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Luke, chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

We are actually in week 2 of a series entitled Christmas Moments, seeing the pivotal moments of the very first Christmas, and last week we started this series by talking about somebody that we don't talk about a whole lot in the Christmas story.

It was the earthly father of Jesus.

Now, does somebody remember what the name of the earthly father of Jesus is, joseph you guys remember?

Awesome Joseph.

And what we saw about Joseph is God asked him to do something hard and challenging.

Think about it.

Joseph was engaged to Mary, but they had not slept together and Mary got pregnant and God said Joseph, I want you to still marry her.

Now, guys in the room, is that not hard and confusing?

And what we saw from the life of Joseph is you don't need to understand everything completely to obey God immediately.

Now, you don't need to understand everything, because Joseph didn't understand in this hard situation, but can we not forget that this is an equally, if not harder, situation for Mary?

Ladies, she's a teenager, she was a virgin and she got pregnant.

I'm not a medical expert, but I don't think that's how things typically work.

That's, that's not normal.

And Mary found out she's going to have a child.

And this is what we're going to do today.

We're going to see how she found out, the process of wrestling, that you would have had wrestling through all this, and then how Mary came to this place that that's so hard for all of us to come to.

This place where Mary surrendered to God, where Mary made this decision, where Mary surrendered her plans and her will for God's plan and God's will.

Let's just be honest, guys.

Surrender is not easy to do, is it?

It's not.

Not to mention, we don't live in a society that celebrates surrender.

Nobody's making a movie because this person surrendered.

It was amazing.

We're going to hear their story about how they surrendered and lost the war.

Let's go find out about it.

Amazing.

We're going to hear their story of how they surrendered and lost the war.

Let's go find out about it.

Now, this is what we make movies about.

This person had a dream, they had desires and they persevered.

They wouldn't let the haters stop them.

They wouldn't let the doubters stop them.

They just kept going and going and fighting and battling, and they made it to the top.

They just kept going and going and fighting and battling, and they made it to the top.

They made it to the NFL, they started the business, and then we watched the movie about them or we watched the video about them.

We're like, oh, they're so cool.

We're about to go do a workout and we watched the inspirational reel about that really strong person that gained all this muscle or lost all this weight and we're like they can do what I can't do.

Let's go.

Surrender is not something in our culture that's considered a virtue, it's not something that is celebrated, but surrender is the path of what it means to really follow Jesus.

In fact, for some of us, in our worldview, we think surrender's the last thing we ever want to do, because we don't have a kingdom of God view.

And in the kingdom of God, the way to go forward in the Christian life, the way to grow up, is to give up, to surrender.

In fact, in God's economy, the way to victory is through surrender.

The way to freedom is found in surrender.

Jesus said the way to gain your life is to give up and lose your life.

This is not the way of this world.

This is not the way of power.

No, we're talking about the kingdom of God here, and here's what some of us need this morning.

And you walked in here.

You don't even realize this.

What your greatest need in your life is to open your hands and surrender to God, and to surrender that dream and to surrender that plan and surrender that thing that you're wrestling with so much, to surrender that relationship, to surrender this over here, that thing that you're holding so tightly to, that thing that's giving you anxiety, that thing that's causing you stress.

And the difference between where you are and where God wants you to be is found in, well, surrender.

And we're going to see a story about this lady, this remarkable woman, mary, that did the very, very hard thing surrender and how the rest of the world was changed because one person chose to open their hand and surrender.

So let's pick it up in Luke 1, verse 26.

Luke 1:26

If you're ready for the word, would you say amen?

That's what it says.

It says the sixth month.

This is the sixth month of her cousin's pregnancy.

Her cousin's name was Elizabeth.

She was six months pregnant.

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth.

Everybody say Nazareth, righty Nazareth, so Galilee is like this small region that was based around this lake, this sea called the Sea of Galilee.

This is a picture of the Sea of Galilee today.

This is where Jesus did a lot of his great miracles, where he walked on water, where Peter walked on water, where all kinds of things happened.

It was right there those hills, mountains in the background, those are the exact same sight lines that Jesus would have seen 2,000 years ago.

And in the region of Galilee there's this little insignificant city that nobody wants to go to called Nazareth.

Nobody want to go to Nazareth.

Nobody's booking an Airbnb for their next weekend trip to Nazareth.

It's like Nazareth who wants to go there?

It's kind of like Fresno, hazareth who wants to go there?

Kind of like Fresno, um and uh, I'm sorry, just somebody in this room is from Fresno, that's why you moved up here to the Bay Area.

Um, hazareth is like a little town on a side of a hill in the region of Galilee and an angel goes to this city because God has a message for somebody.

In verse 27, it tells us who she was To a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph of the house of David.

The virgin's name was Mary.

Everybody say Mary, ready Mary.

The angel came to her and said greetings, favored woman.

The Lord is with you.

What an interesting way to begin this interaction.

Greetings favored woman.

The Lord is with you.

But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be.

Then the angel told her do not be afraid, mary, for you have found favor with God.

You know why the angel told her do not be afraid, mary, for you have found favor with God.

You know why the angel told her do not be afraid, because she was afraid.

You know why she was afraid Because she just saw an angel.

Now, when some of us think of angels, we think of like the little, like chubby, flying objects with wings that you see in a cartoon, like on somebody's shoulder.

You know, got the angels and you got the demon.

Go this way.

Okay, that's not what an angel looks like.

Scripturally, angels were majestic and towering and overwhelming, and when people saw them, it elicited fear in them, which is why the angel says do not fear, verse 31,.

It says says do not fear, verse 31,.

It says now listen, the angel says you will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus.

He will be great and he'll be called the son of the most high, and the Lord, god, will give him the throne of his father, david, son of the most high.

This is what that literally means that Jesus will be a carbon copy of his father, meaning that Jesus is God, he's the son of the most high, but he's also a baby.

Jesus is God, but he's also human, fully God, fully man.

This is who Jesus is.

It says that he will be from the throne of his father, david.

Now, when Jews heard this Mary was a Jew.

She understood what this meant.

It symbolized peace, restoration, shalom.

This is like this internal well-being that all of you wants, whether you're a Jesus follower or not.

This shalom the angel says it's going to be found in this baby and he verse 33, he's going to reign over the house of Jacob forever.

His kingdom will have no end.

This is who he is.

This is who he's going to be.

This is referring to the fact that one day, jesus will reign over all people.

When he returns back to this earth.

He's going to set up a millennial kingdom.

This is who this baby is, and Mary knew.

When the angel tells her this, she knows that baby is going to be the Messiah, the one that can forgive sin.

That angel's telling her who that baby is and, as a Jewish person she knows.

This is who this baby is going to be.

The angel tells her about his humanity, his deity, the fact that he was God, his lineage he comes from David and his power.

He's going to reign over the house of Jacob forever.

And can you imagine if you're Mary, if you're a virgin, teenage daughter, teenage girl, and you hear all this information?

It's a lot.

It's a lot to take in.

So Mary does, ladies, what you would do.

She asked the angel a question in verse 34.

She says verse 34, how can this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man, I think that's a pretty fair question to ask.

Think for a minute the situation that Mary was in.

Think for a minute the situation that Mary was in, not just being a virgin that's now pregnant and all the implications of carrying a child to term and everything that went along with this and the pain and all this, but imagine the fact that she lives in a society that if a woman is pregnant but does not have a husband, this is punishable by death.

Mary could be stoned.

Also, the man that she loves, joseph, is probably not going to understand the situation which, as we heard last week from Matthew, chapter one.

He didn't understand the situation and he probably could just say, no, I'm done with you, I don't want anything anymore, any more of you.

And then she would be go from being poor, which she was, to being completely destitute.

This is the situation that Mary's in.

Like guys, this is heavy.

Sometimes I think about the Christmas story like we think of, like the cute little nativity scene, and we're like, oh, baby Jesus in the manger, the angels, the wise men, it's okay Y'all.

The Christmas story was messy.

It was messy and it was broken.

It was all over the place.

People had doubts and questions and it was just, it was not clean and neat.

And can I just say that some of you look at your life and you're like my life is messy, it is not clean and neat.

You know, god uses messy situations for his glory.

That's what God does.

God isn't looking for you to be cleaned up.

God is just looking for you to come to him as you are, with a surrendered heart.

That's it.

Nazareth was a city that nobody, nobody would want to go to.

God said I'm going to pick somebody that lives in Nazareth.

Nobody would do that.

Some of you think you're insignificant.

You would do that Some of you think you're insignificant, you think like you have no hope, you think man, nobody even knows who I am.

Can I just say God knows who you are, god has not forgotten about you and you may be in a place in your life where you feel like you're in Nazareth and you feel like man, like I'm forgotten about, I'm forsaken.

Guess what God specializes in those people's lives.

And the angel says hey, hey, god's going to do something here.

In fact, in verse 35, how's this going to happen?

The angel says the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

Consider your relative Elizabeth.

Even she has conceived a son in her old age and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless.

And then there's the verse in verse 37.

That's on coffee cups, that's on stickers that some of y'all have a t-shirt about.

Here it is For nothing will be impossible with God.

Can we say verse 37 together, for nothing will be impossible with God.

Can we say verse 37 together?

For nothing will be impossible with God, nothing, nothing.

Mary hears this and her response in verse 38 is this See, I am the Lord's servant, said Mary.

This See, I am the Lord's servant, said Mary.

May it happen to me, as you have said.

Then the angel left her.

We cannot rush over this verse.

What is Mary doing here?

Surrendering?

You think Mary doesn't have dreams and plans and hopes and wishes?

You think her dreams and plans and hopes and wishes would have been for her, as a teenage girl, to get pregnant as a virgin.

You realize, like the optics of that, this is what Mary says here I am the Lord's servant, I'm going to serve you if I understand.

If I don't understand, I'm going to follow you if it makes.

If I don't understand, I'm going to follow you if it makes sense.

If it doesn't make sense, and then she says in verse 2 may it happen to me, as you've said.

You're asking me and you're telling me something's going to happen that I didn't anticipate, that I didn't plan for, but but if this is your will, it happened.

God had given Mary purpose in her life.

The purpose was for her to have the Son of God, and something that you need to know about your life, whether you walked in here and you've been in church your whole life or this is your first week in a church building, no matter what your background is.

This is what you need to know is that God has a purpose for you and that God gives purpose to our lives.

God gives purpose to your life.

Now you might be in a place where you feel like you don't have a lot of purpose right now, or maybe in your life you don't have a lot of satisfaction.

In fact, maybe you just have.

Life has been a disappointment after a disappointment, and the Christmas season has just caused that to be even more real.

Maybe you're in that terrible, scary place where you thought that if you would get to this point and have this relationship or have this much money or live in this place, that you would be happy and you'd be content.

And now you're at that place and you're not, and it's scary and it's terrifying.

And you're at a place right now where you climbed the ladder, but you've discovered that the ladder that you climbed is leaning against the wrong building.

And here's what you need to know is that Jesus gives purpose that the world cannot give.

And you've tried and you've gone this route and you've tried this way and you've pursued this and you know where it's left you and Jesus gives purpose.

And some of you are at a place in your life where you're just like man.

How do I know what God's purpose is for my life?

What is God's purpose for me?

What does this look like?

Well, the first thing that God wants all of us to do is trust in Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.

That's what he wants.

He wants you to realize that you're a sinner, to realize that you need Christ, and come to a place where you turn from your sin.

The biblical word is repent, to change your direction and say I'm trusting in Jesus and I'm following him.

And next week what we'll have is we'll have people baptized that have made that decision to trust and follow Jesus and they're expressing that faith through baptism, which, if you haven't been baptized, next Sunday would be a perfect Sunday to do that.

That's the first purpose for us, but also what we need to do after we trust Christ is we need to say Lord, like, what do you want me to do?

So this is what I want to do for like three minutes.

It's literally, I'm not exaggerating.

It's going to change the trajectory for some of your lives, because some of you are like what does God want me to do?

This is how you find out God's purpose for you.

It's at the intersection of three places.

One, scripture.

Two, your gifts.

Three, your passions.

What does scripture say?

How are you gifted and what are you passionate about?

That's God's purpose for you, and there can be seasons in our life where God's purpose changes.

So when you're 21 or in your 20s, you might have different passions than when you're in your 50s or 60s, and you probably should.

You're still passionate about, like playing video games all the time.

You know, whatever your passions and your gifts are going, god might use these things and these things might change and develop.

I remember when I was a teenager, I went to youth camp.

How many of you guys have been to a youth camp?

Okay, some of you guys have been to a youth camp.

I'm balcony Do camp and they would have like all these like preachers up there and some of them were short and stubby like me and some of them weren't short and stubby like me and they'd take their Bibles.

And I love youth camp, camp, and I love like strong preaching, like give it to me, like don't give me any of that sugary-coated like water.

Tell me the truth.

You know what I'm saying.

Come on, somebody tell me you know, and they would have preachers.

They'd be like you need to find God's will for your life and do God's will for your life, like amen.

That's right, some of you are seeking your own way and you need to do what, what, what god's designed you to do, amen.

Then I'm kind of thinking what's god designed me to do?

That sounds good.

And then it was almost.

This is how I received it, probably not how it was communicated, but it was almost like this mystical thing where it's like you gotta find God's purpose for your life, god's will, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

You know, like, is it under a rock?

Where can I?

Is it behind the Christmas tree?

And I wondered as a teenager like, hey, what's God's will for my life?

Like, what's God's purpose?

And sometimes here's what we do.

We make it too difficult.

That's what we do Like we make this thing so hard.

Here it is.

You want to find God's purpose for your life.

What does scripture say?

Do it.

What are your gifts, what are your passions?

Live those things out for God's kingdom, for God's glory.

There you do, there you go.

You've done God's will for your life.

It's simple, and some of you right now, some of you you've maybe been in environments, in church environments, where if you're actually enjoying serving, it's like there's something wrong, like serving should always be a sacrifice, it should always be difficult, it should always be so.

You're at a place, maybe, where you're like enjoying where you're serving and you almost feel bad.

You're like there's gotta be more to this, like I should be suffering in my place of service right now.

No, you shouldn't.

You should be living out what God has called you to do.

What are your gifts, what are your passions?

And just enjoy God and enjoy his purposes and enjoy how God's created you to be.

And do this be who God's created you to be.

Don't try to be who God's created somebody else to be.

Don't look at somebody else and be like man.

I should have their passion, I should have their gifts.

No, god's created you differently and that's okay, and we celebrate you and this is what the church is supposed to do.

Is we're a body?

So, when everybody's using their gifts and passions and how God's designed, going to be a place of love and joy and Jesus is going to be made known in great and mighty ways, that's right.

Thank you, laura.

It's true, it's true, guys, like the Christian life is a life of joy.

Mary, god has a purpose for Mary's life and God has a purpose for your life.

And sometimes, when we're wrestling through this, sometimes there will be questions Like God, like what do you want me to do?

Sometimes there's even doubts about God's purposes.

God, like what are you doing?

And can I just say to you that it's normal number two to have questions and even doubts about God's purposes.

You realize, mary had questions and doubts, and were they not fair?

Okay, angel, I'm going to have a child.

How is this going to happen?

That's a fair question.

How is this going to be?

Mary has honest doubts.

Now, when it comes to doubt, sometimes we're really scared of doubts in our life and we think doubts are unhealthy and we should never have doubts.

I want to like, I want to encourage you with something and if you're taking notes, really you should really write this down, because there's two types of doubt.

There's bad doubt and there's honest doubt.

There's a bad doubt and there's honest doubt.

There's a bad doubt and there's honest doubt.

We can get that next slide up there.

Bad doubt is proud and defiant, so it's cynical.

It looks at God's promises and it's like no, can't happen, no way, nope.

You remember when Jesus would go to places he would say he's going to do something, he'd want to do something.

People would just doubt him.

And and what?

And what jesus would say is like okay, I'm, I'm not going to do it.

Then you know why because they had this proud doubt, like there's no way you can do it.

But there's also a good doubt.

There's an honest doubt.

What does that look like?

Humble wonder, lord, I don't know how you're going to do this, but will you show me?

I want to learn.

And what the angel does is he actually shows her.

He says this is how.

Verse 37, for nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible with God.

So God gives her an answer in her humble doubt that 2,000 years later, all of us look to that verse as a place that strengthens our faith and motivates us and inspires us.

Where did that answer come from?

From a person that had humble wonder and doubt?

From a person that was like I don't really know how this is all going to work out, and sometimes what God's going to do in your life is you're going to have humble wonder.

You're like God, like how, and this is what God's going to do.

God's going to shatter your worldview and he's going to contradict your current worldview Because some of you, like you, see life this way, based on how you were raised, based on your background, based on your trauma, based on your experiences, and you see the world this way, and what's gonna happen is God's gonna say no, no, no, no.

I don't want you to see things this way.

There's a different view, a kingdom view, that you need to have about this situation in this world, and sometimes what God will do is God will shatter our current worldview because there's something different that he wants us to do, and something better and something greater, and sometimes what can happen is we can have these neat boxes of.

This is how God's going to work in this situation and this is where I'm supposed to be when I'm 47 years old, and this is what's supposed to happen in this way, and I did this this way.

So this is what the outcome should be, and none of this has come to fruition and none of it has happened.

And we say God in humble wonder, not in a proud, defiant way, like God, I can't believe, like.

Why did that happen?

I was like God, like why God?

I just don't understand.

And this is what God does.

God meets you at that place and God shows you something that you wouldn't learn any other way, and God starts shattering worldviews and boxes and all these things that we put God into.

And God says I'm gonna show you what I can do, but it's gonna be different than what you thought I'm gonna do, what only I can do in your life, in this situation, but here's what's gonna happen.

I situation, but here's what's going to happen.

I'm going to shatter what you think, you think this world, all you want to do in your life is have more money and have more power.

That's not how you're going to find fulfillment.

It's through humility and generosity.

You think life is about you and you making a name for yourself.

That's not going to work.

It's by you humbling yourself and taking on the form of a servant.

That's what that means.

And sometimes in our life listen, we're going to have doubts and it's okay.

This is my question to you this morning, friends.

Is your doubt proud and defiant?

God, how could you?

God, I don't trust you, god, I don't believe you.

Or is it humble wonder, lord?

I don't understand, I don't get it.

Lord, would you show me, would you show me the blind spot in my life, because I'm kind of hard-headed right now.

Please show me, show me.

You realize one other thing.

You realize that people doubted all the time in scripture.

Have you ever like wondered, like, how come God, how come he responded with grace and mercy to some people without, and other people he was like, what are you doing?

Jesus was like the chapter four, zachariah, he's like you doubted me.

Okay, you're not gonna be able to talk for months.

Why?

What's the difference?

Was proud doubt, honest doubt.

And Mary had honest doubt and she came to this place.

That my heart in prayer would be that all of us come to today, where Mary number three surrendered to God's plan and moved forward intentionally following God's plan.

We don't have time to get into it, but what Mary did is Mary, after she surrendered, she goes on and she tells her cousin Elizabeth about everything that just happened.

She surrendered and she said, lord, I'm going to follow your plan, I'm going to do this.

And some of you right now are in a place where there's something you need to surrender, where there's something in your life that you're just like holding on to, and you know what it is.

Some of you have talked yourself into doing some things that you shouldn't be talking yourself into.

Some of you are afraid to surrender that relationship that you know is keeping you away from Christ and preventing you from following him fully.

Some of you are holding on to a sin, a stronghold, a something in your life and you're holding tight to it, and maybe everybody else is doing it.

Maybe it's become socially acceptable and it's just part of your.

You just functionally live like this with this area of your life.

And I know why we do this because surrender is hard, surrender is difficult.

This is a lot easier to live than this.

This gives us this false sense of control that this doesn't give us.

This makes us feel good, this is pretty comfortable and we don't know what's gonna happen if we live like this.

And you may wonder if I surrender, what is that gonna look like?

It's a fair question.

I want Mary to answer that question for you, because eight verses later, this is what Mary says on the other side of her surrender, the other side of the wrestling, on the other side of her deciding to surrender.

This is what she says in verse 46, if we can get up on the screen.

Mary says my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God's favor.

God my savior, she says, because he's looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant.

And surely from now on all generations will call me blessed because the mighty one has done great and mighty things for me.

In his name is holy.

Mary said yeah, I had questions.

Yeah, I had.

I wondered about some things.

I didn't know how this was going to come to fruition, but I'm so glad I surrendered because God's done great things for me.

God has worked in ways I can't even imagine.

So my soul magnifies the Lord because of his goodness, and some of you want to worship and some of you want to magnifies the Lord because of his goodness, and some of you want to worship and some of you want to magnify the Lord and some of you want God's name to go forward in your life.

But here's the deal You've got to surrender to get to this place.

Here's what I'm asking you to do to surrender whatever you're holding on to.

And when you have a moment of surrender in your life and when you have a moment of surrender in your life, it can become a movement of surrender.

When we do this together on the lower floor, on the balcony, today can be the day December 15th where, man, there was this thing that I was holding onto and I just opened my hand and gave it to God.

This is an old song.

I grew up in the church and there's an old song we used to sing.

It's called All to Jesus I Surrender.

Who's ever heard that song?

You heard that song All to Jesus I Surrender.

Man, it's a good one.

It goes like this.

You may have heard it All to Jesus, I surrender All to him.

I freely give.

I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily.

Live.

I surrender all.

I surrender all the places I understand, the places I don't, the sin that I'm holding onto my dreams.

I just surrender all.

And this is what we're gonna do this morning.

We're gonna end our service a little different.