19th December Christmas Celebration - Yasmin Chaffer - Expect the unexpected

Unexpected. Did you know that the trap to your aunts closes its jaws over

two thousand times faster than the blink of an eye? Like I said,

the title of this morning's message is expecting the unexpected, and you weren't expecting

that, were you not? There is a little over that with Dave's message

last week. But as the Lord gave me this title and the overlaps last

Saturday before I knew what Dave was speaking on, I really believe this is

the Lord's theme. So I'm just going with it. So let's turn to

our main passage for today, which is Luke one Versus twenty six to thirty

eight, and I'm reading from the New King James version. It's a very

familiar passage, but because of the Word of God. It's the Word of

God, there's always fresh revelation to be had from it. There's always something

pertinent for us today. So Luke one Verses twenty six to thirty eight.

Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to

a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed her man whose name

was Joseph of the House of David. The virgin's name was Mary, and

having come in, the Angel said to her, rejoice, highly favored one.

The Lord is with thee blessed to you among women. But when she

saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting

this was. Then the Angel said to her, do not be afraid,

Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will

conceive in your womb and bring forth son, and shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the son of a Hias.

And the Lord God God will give 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. Then Mary said to the angel, how can

this be? Since I do not know a man. I'm a virgin.

And the Angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon

you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also

that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

Now, indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son

in her old age, and this is now the sixth month of her who

was called Baron for with God nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said,

behold, the maid servant of the Lord, let it be to me according

to your word, and the Angel departed from her. Before we look at

this passage, it's worth reminding ourselves that whilst the news of Jesus' birth was

unexpected to Mary in terms of the part she suddenly learned she was to play

in it, his coming was not. God had been prophesying it literally for

centuries through various prophets, for example Isaiah seven, verse fourteen. Therefore,

the Lord himself will give you a sign. The Virgin will conceive and give

birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. This points to the

manner in which Jesus was to be born, and also to one of his

names, Immanuel, meaning God with us. This indicates both jesus human birth

and his divine nature, and it was written approximately seven hundred years before he

was born. Micah five and verse two says you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah,

though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come

for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old

from ancient times. We know Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and this verse

prophesies the place of his birth, and it was also written approximately seven hundred

years before jesus birth. And the last one I'll mention is Hosea eleven verse

one out of Egypt. I called my son warned in a dream by an

angel of the Lord. Joseph took Mary in a very young Jesus and fled

to Egypt to avoid the slaughter of Herod, of very young boys by Herod.

And this was written approximately seven hundred and fifty years before Jesus was born.

And there are many other other prophecies of Jesus' birth. Like I said,

his birth was expected for us to read these prophecies because they relate to

something, to someone, to Jesus, who we know has already been to

Earth, done what he needed to do, and gone back to Heaven to

be with his with our father. But these prophecies had been read and passed

on for centuries before they took place. For Mary to suddenly discover the part

that the Lord has assigned for her to play in his grand plan for the

whole of mankind must have been a lot to process. To say the least,

It's one thing for us to read about God's plan for his people.

It's another to realize your part in it, the part that the Lord wants

you to play in it, and he does have a part for each one

of us to play. I suspect that Mary wouldn't have chosen herself to be

jesus Mum, such a tremendous privilege and such an awesome responsibility. If the

part of parts that the Lord has chosen for you to play in his overall

plan seemed too much, that's good in one sense. It means that you

have to depend on him to do it, and as you do, you'll

have a greater degree of success at it than you could in your own strength.

As it says in two Corinthians twelve and verse nine, my grace is

sufficient for you, for my powers made perfect in weakness. It's worth noting

that nothing there's nothing stated in the Bible about Mary being chosen because of her

great skills and abilities. She was chosen because she was favored of God.

That's his choice. She was chosen because of the time and place in which

she lived for God's plan for Jesus to be carried out to fulfill all prophecies

about him it was necessary for him to be born in the time and place

that he was. Believe that Mary was also chosen because of her character.

She humbly received and accepted this awesome assignment. God would have known how she

would respond, although this in no way, in my opinion, removed her

choice from her. I'm not attempting to state every reason why Mary was chosen.

By the way, sometimes we can question why God has chosen us to

play a particular part or parts in life, especially when we can at times

feel so inadequate to do them, so overwhelmed. It's really important to remember

that, like Mary was told in Luke one twenty nine, we are favored

of God. Also, like Mary, there is probably more than one reason

why God has chosen us to do what He's called us to do, and

we may find out what all the reasons are, and we may not.

God's choice is exactactly that he is love, as it says in one John

four sixteen, his wisdom is perfect. Proverbs two six in the classic amplified

translation, says the Lord gives skillful and godly wisdom from his mouth come knowledge

and understanding. God doesn't make mistakes. He's also big enough to handle it.

When we do, It's important that we learn to trust God's choices,

including his choice of us. Like Mary, we favored of God regardless of

our opinion of the part or parts He chooses for us to play in life.

And it's exactly that his choice and Immanuel God is with us. When

something is beyond our experience, our understanding of life, it can be difficult

for us to accept it and just take God at his word, but that's

exactly what we need to learn to do. Look what Mary's cousin Elizabeth said

to her prophetically in Luke one forty five. Blessed is she who believed for

there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.

Blessed is she who believed for there will be a fulfillment of those things

which were told her from the Lord. And so it is with us.

What if you don't know what part or parts the Lord wants you to play

in life? Pray, trust God to answer, and carry on doing what

you know to do. Whilst it sounds like an obvious and maybe simplistic answer,

Mary probably thought that she had a fair idea of what life held for

her and was going with that plan. Then God showed up or to meet

be more precise, an angel did. God is able to meet us,

to reveal himself to us in our daily routines, He's not trying to hide

his plans for us. Returning to our passage, in Luke one twenty six,

the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Lazareth.

Nazareth is in lower Galilee in northern Israel, about sixty four miles as

the crowflies north of Jerusalem. The word translated city here is town in other

translations, and have also seen it as village. Almost everything I've read about

Nazareth indicates that it was a village, So I don't know why it's translated

as it is. Neither does it really matter in my opinion, but I

thought i'd mentioned it in case others noticed it and wondered about it. Luke

won twenty seven to a Vergin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph.

According to the NIV Cultural Background Study Bible, the betrothal period was often a

year, and Jewish traditions suggest that couples in Galilee were not left and chaffering

during that time betrothal involved a financial agreement between families that could be ended only

by divorce or death. It was a much more formal arrangement than engagement in

our culture today. This helps us to understand the impact on Joseph, some

of which we can appreciate anyway, and their respective families. Of Mary becoming

pregnant during the betrothal period Luke one twenty eight, and having come in,

the Angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is

with you. Every child of God who comes to Him through faith in Jesus,

Christ has the favor of God. Psal five and verse twelve says,

Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous. You surround them with your favor,

as with this shield. It's not our own righteousness that earns us favor.

We are declared righteous through the cleansing of our sins by the blood of

Jesus, and God's favor protects us. Surely, Lord, you bless the

righteous. You surround them with your favor as with this shield. Rejoice,

highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Through faith in Jesus.

We are all favored of God, and Jesus is im Manuel God with us.

In John fifteen, verse four, Jesus said, live in me,

and I will live in you. The truth that the Lord is with us

couldn't be clearer if we live, abide, continue remain in him, which

is what the Greek here means. Basically, that means to do our best

to live God's way, loving him, others and ourselves with his help,

not to earn his approval, but in response to his love for us.

God is with us, as it says, as I have forty one verse

ten, remembering that, remembering that the one who has called us to do

whatever he's called us to do is with us and will enable us to live

ready for the unexpected. That verse means a lot to me because it helped

me to get through something that I knew I had to do, anticipated being

difficult and didn't want to do. It doesn't have to be complicated. God

is with me. You can hold on to four words of truth and keep

saying them over and over to yourself, and it blocks out other thoughts,

because no matter how many thoughts we have, we can only have one thought

in our conscious mind at a time. God is with me. Thinking on

that, meditating on that. Whatever truth in the Bible is helpful and pertinent

to you in your situation. Is a simple way of focusing on Him to

help us to do what he has called us to do, to play our

part in his grand scheme of things. I was really touched last Saturday.

The ladies who attended our women's group, the Rides and Shine Brunch were each

given a few lovely little gifts, including a coaster. I knew which one

I wanted because I'd helped we're buying the coasters, but there were many different

designs and only a few duplicates. Because of how they were given out,

I couldn't have arranged to get the one I'd wanted if I'd tried, but

I did get it. God is so kind. I was given a lovely

fishy one with Isaiah forty one ten on it. God is with you,

and that means a lot to me now too, because of something I still

have to deal with. Therefore, like the Angel said, rejoice. The

Greek viral means to be cheerful, be calmly, happy, be glad.

The Dictionary states that it's a word that can also be used as a greeting

too. There's nothing wrong with saying hi, but rejoice as a lovely way

to greet someone, isn't it. Life can be really tough sometimes, but

God's favor and presence with us aren't small things, and circumstances can't change these

truths. Thank God, we always have reasons to rejoice in Him, and

these are just two of them. Moving on to verse thirty one, and

behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and

shall call his name Jesus. Jesus was the Greek form of the Hebrew name

Yeshua that we know as Joshua, and the Hebrew roots of the name mean

the Lord is salvation. When translated from the Hebrew into the original Greek of

the New Testament, the name Yeshua becomes something which in English becomes Jesus.

God's name and salvation are combined to express that the Lord and he alone saves

his people from the curse of sin an eternal death. Praise God that he

does. When an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream to reassure him that

Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that

the angel said, you shall call his name Jesus, God saves, for

he shall save his people from their sins. It was a fairly common name

among Jews around that time. For this reason, people spoke of Jesus of

Nazareth in order to distinguish him from others with the same name. In Revelation

two seventeen, in the classic amplified translation, Jesus says that to the one

who overcomes, I will give a white stone with a new name engraved on

the stone, which no one knows or understands except he who receives it.

Think about the significance of Jesus name. Then think about that new name that

God has for each of us who overcomes, who stays faithful to the Lord

to the end. Maybe all of us who are listening right now relater to

the podcast, think about the significance of that, the significance of that new

name. God wouldn't do it if it wasn't significant. I just think that's

amazing. Luke one thirty five. And the Angel answered and said to her,

the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest

will overshadow you. Therefore, also that holy one who is to be born

will be called the Son of God. Nothing is written about what that experience

was like for Mary, and therefore we don't need to know. I imagine

that it wasn't something that you could easily put into words in our earthly languages.

But the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Highest overshadowed

her. The power of pure love, pure light, and the source of

light, of life itself overshadowed her. One way of understanding that word to

overshadow in the Greek is to envelop in a haze of brilliancy. So the

power of pure love, pure light, and the source of life itself enveloped

Mary in a haze of brilliancy. And that is how Jesus, our Savior,

whose birth we will shortly celebrate, was conceived Luke one thirty seven.

For with God, nothing will be impossible. The diction and definition of the

Greek says that the word for nothing means the absolute negative. I'd like you

to think now of something that you are having to deal with that's difficult.

Maybe it looks impossible, and you don't know how it's all going to work

out. Say this verse with me now by faith to your situation, and

I will do it to mine. For with God nothing will be impossible.

Let's create a habit of speaking this truth to our respective situations so that we

connect them in our thinking, so that we get to the stage that whenever

we think of that impossible, a very difficult looking situation, we choose to

think and say, with God, nothing will be impossible. Nothing and no

one is impossible. With God, no one is beyond redemption. Romans time

ten, verse nine in the NIV says if you declare with your mouth Jesus

is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. In John three, in Romans eight, it

says that salvation is the result of the Holy Spirit giving a person new birth

by coming to live in them. If you say Jesus's Lord, and believe

in your heart that God's raised him from the dead, and ask him to

come into your heart and give you his Holy Spirit as he promised, then

you will be saved. You can do this anytime, even right now,

and let me strongly encourage you to do so. If you haven't already,

then you can also rejoice because in Jesus you are highly favored and the Lord

is with you, and with God nothing will be impossible. Luke one thirty

eight. Mary said to the Angel, let it be to me according to

your word. That's so simple and yet so profound. I choose to submit

to the word of God, no matter how impossible it seems or the consequences,

which would have been signific for Mary on many fronts. Mary's obedience to

the Lord also had a massive impact on Joseph, as we know, taking

on a step child, so to speak, born of God. I've focused

on Mary because of the passage you've been looking at, but Joseph's role was

also huge. Your part in God's plan may be to take a supporting role

in someone else's mission, someone else's vision, to support someone else in whatever

capacity. This is no less significant than the role of the person who has

more visibility, perhaps publicly, whose role it is to lead in whatever it

is. Like Joseph, you make a difference. It's really important that you

don't undervalue your role or yourself, because you see it is less important or

unimportant. If you're doing what God's called you to do, then it matters.

Lukeron thirty eight, Let it be to me according to your word,

and the Angel departed from her. What does that mean to us? To

you? With regard to a promise or anything that God has spoken to you

through his word, maybe through a prophecy, or however he's spoken to you,

What does it mean for you to submit to that word, regardless of

your circumstances, what you see, how you feel about it, etc.

It could be a promise of healing, a promise of provision, direction about

a matter such as forgiving someone, or it may be about God's plan for

your life. It might require action on your part, or at this stage

mean lining up your thoughts with God's thoughts his word on the matter, and

choosing to think and speak accordingly. The Angel then departed from Mary, but

God did not. She and Joseph then lived with all the consequences of that

commitment to obey God. The road was rocket times, to say the least,

but God always guided and provided as he will for us, expecting the

unexpected. To summarize so far, firstly, God's plan and purpose for Mary

was unexpected to her, but his plan was prophesied for centuries. Mary was

his choice for a particular job, and she submitted to it. God's plans

and purposes for us for you may be unexpected, but we would do well

like Mary to submit to them. Number two Luke one twenty eight. Rejoice,

highly favored one, The Lord is with you. In Jesus, we

too can rejoice. We're favored of the Lord and He is with us.

Living mindful of this truth will help us to live ready for the unexpected.

Number three Luke one thirty seven. With God, nothing will be impossible.

With this truth embedded into our beings, we can live ready for the unexpected.

And lastly, Luke one thirty eight, let it be to me according

to your word. Learning to live in submission to God's word will enable us

to live ready for the unexpected. I'd like to finish by looking briefly at

something that Dave also touched on last week. It's worth reminding ourselves that Jesus'

birth, while so worthwhile celebrating, is not the end. Jesus death on

the cross to pay the price for our sins all the times have ever broken

or will break, the law of love. Love the Lord your God with

all your heart, your mind, and soul, and love your neighbors yourself.

Jesus death is not the end. Jesus resurrection from the dead him one

of his many names, the firstborn of many, so that all who will

receive the truth of what he did for us and ask him to be lord

of their lives. Is not the end. Jesus is coming back. Revelation

one seven says, Look, he's coming with the clouds, and every eye

will see him, even those who pierced him. And this is what he

looks like, as described by the apostle John in Revelation one thirteen to eighteen,

like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his

feet, and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his

head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were

like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and

his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he

held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double

edged sword. His face was like the sun, shining in all its brilliance.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet, as though dead.

Then he placed his right hand on me and said, do not be

afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one.

I was dead, and now look I am alive forever and ever.

Whilst expecting the unexpected is the title of today's sermon, Jesus return is expected.

Scripture is very clear about that. As we live expectant of jesus return,

it's good to know what it will look like. The apostle John clearly

found it a scary experience, falling at Jesus' feet as though dead. But

what was Jesus' immediate response? Do not be afraid? Then he gives John

the reason why, the first and the last, I am the living one.

I was dead, and now look I am alive, forever and ever,

and he is the reason we live. Now that is a reason to

rejoice. Even Jesus doesn't know when he's coming back. As we were reminded

by a memory verse this week, I'm helping you out here, guys,

Mark thirteen thirty two. But of that day and now, no one knows,

not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the

Father. It's so important that we live ready, expectingly expected, because it

will happen. We prepare to celebrate Jesus' birth in so many different ways,

Let's also remember to be prepared for the unexpected as well as the expected.

Let's keep reading the word of God, Let's keep learning and practicing what it

means to stay tuned into the holy space, to live like Jesus, who

said he only did what he saw his father doing and said what he heard

his father saying, so that we're ready for his return. Thank you right,