A Christmas Spirit – 1: A Spirit of Mary

Father God we just want to say thank you for today and for the opportunity to come

and to worship you and Lord as Donovan prayed earlier we just want to say thank

you for sending your son to be able to have this wonderful season of the year

and to go to parties and have presents and to have all this fun and do all these

things Lord it's it all started because of the sacrifice and the gift that you

gave so Lord we just want to say thank you this morning and as we are so grateful

for the decorations and the lights and the music and all the things that

surround the celebration of Christmas Lord it's not truly celebrating if we

leave you out of it this morning I just ask that you would help us as a body of

believers to to lift the name of Jesus high and to celebrate the amazing

sacrifice it was to just come to this earth and become one of us because this

life can be really hard and you lived in perfection you lived in the place that

we desire to go the Lord you chose to come here for us and we are so grateful

for that and this morning we ask that your Holy Spirit would be in this

place we ask that you would be in our hearts

we ask that you would work and move then for whatever reason we aren't able to

I pray that you would help us to make an altar with where we are and humble our

hearts before you and allow you to come in and work and move and to do a mighty

work within us that you would speak reveal things and Lord that you would

help us to surrender things that we've been clinging to for a long time or we

lift up our brothers and sisters who aren't here this morning we pray for

their physical needs more importantly we pray for their spiritual needs we ask

that you would touch Miss Sheila she's continuing to recover from surgery and

Lord we ask you to be with Tony and Darlene and her family today as Darlene

lost her dad this week and as they prepare for the funeral tomorrow God may

you bring comfort to their hearts and rhymes and in these next moments I pray

that we would be pleasing and honoring to you and that we would worship you

the way that you have called us to Jesus we love you we thank you we

ask all this in your precious and holy name all God's people said man you may

be seated

it's the most wonderful time of the year with the kids jingle-belling and

everyone telling you be of good cheer it's the most wonderful time of the year

last month we talked about having a spirit of thankfulness and how

important it was for the very being of who we are to be thankful and expressing

that and enjoying celebration of what Christ has done our hearts and lives and

we're gonna carry through December and talk this whole month about having a

spirit of Christmas and that's kind of weird because it's not the spirit of

Christmas that things like these songs talk about so we're not talking about

holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call or

parties for hosting marshmallows for toasting or caroling out in the snow no

scary ghost stories or tales from the glories of Christmases long long ago I

don't know about you but I've never sat around at a Christmas party and told

ghost stories before yes I was a thing back in the day sounds fun but you

know we have to be really careful because in our lives just an everyday

life the physical world can choke out the very existence of Christ and the

power and the movement of Christ in our lives if we focus on the physical world

and in Christmas is the same exact thing when you look at the songs and the

decorations are beautiful everything about Christmas I love it man our family

had a great time decorating for Christmas the other day kids had a

blast me and Hannah survived but it was a lot of fun you know those are things

you look back on and it's always fun looking back it's not fun in the

moment but um even Christmas everything about it the songs and everything it

calls us to think about it from such a worldly perspective that so many times

we can get lost in the meaning of what Christmas is supposed to be truly about

and so this month we're talking about having a spirit of Christmas and you

can't have a spirit of Christmas without being able to have a spirit

like the people who helped usher Christmas into existence for us and so

this morning we're gonna be focusing on Mary and having a spirit of Mary

because she's the one who was the vessel to bring Christ into this world

that God chose to use and her very spirit of just being willing to do this

was such an amazing thing so let's read about Mary this morning Luke

Luke 1:26–38

chapter 1 verses 26 to 38 very familiar passage but as always I pray the Lord

can speak and use a very familiar passage to show us something we've

never seen before so it says in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy God

sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth a village in Galilee to a virgin named

Mary she was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph a descendant of King

David Gabriel appeared to her and said greetings favored woman the Lord is with

you confused and disturbed now think about that Mary was not excited she

was confused and disturbed Mary tried to think what the angel can mean don't

be afraid Mary the angel told her for you have found favor with God you will

conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus he will be very

great and will be called the son of the Most High the Lord God will give him

the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever his

kingdom will never end Mary asked the angel but how can this happen I am a

virgin the angel replied the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the

Most High will overshadow you so the baby to be born will be holy and he will

be called the Son of God what's more your relative Elizabeth has become

pregnant in her old age people used to say she was barren but she has

conceived a son and is now in her sixth month for the word of God will never

fail we'll say that again the word of God will never fail and in verse 38 Mary

responded I am the Lord's servant may everything you have said about me come

true I'll repeat that once again I am the Lord's servant may everything you

have said about me come true and then the angel left her so point number one I

want us to think about this morning is is that the Lord likes to use young

people the Lord likes to use young people even babies and one of the most

fascinating things about scripture when you go digging through the Bible is of

all the times that God begins to do something amazing he's about to do

something new and significant it's almost you can guarantee he's going to

find a young person and speak and work and move through them Joseph saved a

nation and his family Samuel became a judge and a prophet and pronounced

judgment even on his teacher Eli David defeated Goliath as a young man Daniel

Shadrach Meshach and Abednego shook the empire of Babylon and their obedience

to the God and his laws Queen Esther was a young woman when she was married and

saved her people Josiah was just a boy but led Israel back to worshiping the

Lord all 12 of the disciples are thought to be teenagers or not far

removed Timothy was young and led an entire church Phillips four daughters were

young and all prophesied in the name of the Lord and then he used Mary who was

young and a virgin to bring about the Savior of the world you know it

shouldn't be shocking for us to think that God would want to use young

people to do great and amazing things I've said that for years that was one

of my favorite things about youth ministry is that while I was working

with teenagers you could see like you could literally see and feel that this

this attitude and mentality that God has placed in every young person's heart and

many of you probably used to feel this way that when you sit down and talk to a

teenager a lot of times they have no idea what they want to do all right and

that's okay and they have no idea what they're supposed to do but they want to

do something significant right the desire in every young person's heart is I

want to do something that's important something that's meaningful I feel like

I'm here and I'm supposed to do something that means something that's

the crown every young person's heart and I think God instills that in us and when

you look at people who are saved I think it's like 90% of people who come

to know Christ do so before the age of 18 and then like after the age of 18

the statistical odds of people accepting Christ like drops significantly

it's amazing at how many people are at that age where God is speaking and

working and moving in their hearts and the Lord calls us and speaks to us and

we are called to respond and so look the Lord loves to use young people and in

Joel chapter 2 verses 28 to 29 as Joel is prophesying about the coming of the

Joel 2:28–29

Holy Spirit this passage is actually repeated again in Acts 2 but it says

then after doing all these things I will pour out my spirit upon all people

your sons and daughters will prophesy your old men will dream dreams and your

young men will see visions in those days I will pour out my spirit even on

servants men and women alike it is amazing that when the Spirit of God gets

involved of how much he loves to use young people even when you're talking

about the spirit of Christmas how boring is Christmas when you're around

adults you ever been to an adult Christmas party all right Christmas is

always more fun when kids are around right but even the very spirit of

Christmas is like young people make it better like it's so much more fun and

so when you look at this idea about God using young people our attitudes and I

consider myself an older person so I'm not throwing stones to anybody this

morning like I'm one of the old people now like I get that and one of my

greatest hopes and prayers is that even today and if not today then sometime

soon that the future pastor of this church will sit in this room and

already be here or the youth pastor because I know like one day I'm already

getting old and it goes faster the older I get one day I'm gonna be too old to

relate to people anymore like I'm already getting there like I can feel it every

time I get around teenagers and young people I'm like I'm too old for this I

can't do this anymore but I know one day like I'm gonna reach a point where I

can't relate and do it anymore and I can still serve the Lord but my time as

pastor will be done somebody needs to be ready to step in when God is done with me

in this moment and that's a joy to think about like I don't cry cuz I'm sad

about that I'll actually be relieved when that day comes when I can just go

to church and don't have to get up in front of everybody anymore and in our

hopes and our passions as Christians should be to see these young people obey

the calling in their life so I remember and Greg and I used to talk about this

whole time you know there were so many other people who went to the same

services that I went to went to the same camps went to the same conferences

heard the same messages experienced the same like times where the Holy Spirit

fell on a place and what was the difference between God working and moving

in their life or the absence of that and then God working moving in my life

and other people's life who was present there and here's the thing every young

person who's here I guarantee you God has been working and moving and

speaking in your life he's been calling you he's been talking to you he's been

convicting you and more than likely if you're anything like me you're fighting it

because I fought it a lot and I'm so glad that eventually I finally surrendered

but I did find it a lot and this idea and this understanding of this filling

in your life that's there that's naturally that God places in our hearts

that we want to do something significant and meaningful in this life God has

created you to have that that desire because God wants to give you that

thing to do but it's not gonna look like what the rest of the world thinks it

should be when you look at Mary Mary's one of the most revered people in the

entire world there's not many places you could go and say the Virgin Mary and

people not know who you were talking about but I guarantee you that what she

went through in that moment in time was not cool nobody else was like oh

sign me up for that one I'll do that too like it was not what everybody else

wanted to do it's not what somebody would have been normally willing to do but it

is exactly what God has called her to do and it's one of the most significant

things that's ever happened to this world it changed the world forever it

changed eternity forever for all of us and so there has to come a point in

our lives as young people we surrender to this calling of God and be obedient

to him so that he can use us to you to do those amazing meaningful very

powerful impactful things because God wants to use young people and don't get

a big head this morning if you're young and say well God wants to use me

it's not because of why you think and I can say this because I was a young

person I started youth ministry at 19 and I was not ready I was immature there

was a lot of spiritual inadequacies in my life that God was still working and

moving in my life and and and sifting out from me I was inexperienced I was

unprepared but who better for God to use than for somebody who literally

doesn't know what they're doing so that he can get the credit and glory so

think about that this morning the simple fact that young people would be

inexperienced and immature and incapable would be the very reason God would

love to use them because whenever they do something great and amazing it won't be

because they were able to be because God was able and he gets the credit and he

gets the honor and he gets the glory and if you're older this morning don't

let it rub you the wrong way because I'm saying this as an older person I'm

not calling you old I'm old too but don't let it rub you the wrong way

because as as we move in and out of life and in scripture when you read scripture

remind yourself of this God uses older people too it's not just God just uses

young people uses everybody and there's seasons of life there's times where when

you go back and you look at the story of Daniel God used Daniel in significant

ways multiple times throughout his life and then there was time periods in

Daniel's life where he just kind of sit back in a room and had no access to

the current king until a problem happened and then God ushered him back in to do

something great and amazing one more time so we have seasons in life we're

gonna do something very important and impactful in a season then we may not

feel very important but then we'll come back in but point number two the

Lord still uses older people and this is important to remember and I think it's

more important to remember the older that we get because I think a lot of

times people struggle with especially when you get on up into your senior years

and you really aren't able to do all the things that you used to could do you

start really doubting yourself and doubting the ability for God to use you

but never forget all of the older people who played a part in these

stories that we talked about a while ago

Joseph was guided and taught by his loving father you remember Joseph was

kind of the manager he was even leading his brothers and checking up on

them and reporting back to his father he had a father who loved him and guided

him and taught him the right way Samuel had parents who were faithful

faithful enough to give him back to God how important is that how many of us as

older people will be willing to give our child to God and faithful enough to do

that so that Samuel could be as impactful for the Lord as he was and

then he also had his priest and teacher Eli who he later pronounced judgment on

but it was Eli who taught him how to listen to the voice of the Lord because

even though God was speaking to Samuel Samuel was not yet mature enough to

understand and hear the voice of the Lord he didn't know and Eli had to teach

him how to do that David had Samuel to call him and anoint him and guide him

Daniel Shadrach Meshach and Abednego must have had loving parents who taught

them the laws of the Lord because Israelites were sent in the exile

because they had started worshiping idols and they had turned away from the

Lord but Shadrach Meshach Abednego and Daniel all believed in the laws of God

so much that they were willing to give their lives and his young men were

willing to die for what they believed in somebody instilled that in them

before they got there Queen Esther had a godly uncle who cared for her and then

encouraged her to do what was right in a time where it would cost her her own

life if she didn't do it the right way Josiah had a mother who loved God and a

high priest Hilkiah to guide him the disciples obviously had Jesus Timothy

had Paul Phillips daughters had their father Philip and Mary was eventually

surrounded by several older people who would encourage her and guide her during

this very difficult time her aunt Elizabeth and uncle Zechariah were

involved in this story and encouraged her and affirmed what God had spoken

into her life remember John the Baptist the baby leaped in his mother's womb

whenever Mary told Elizabeth that she was pregnant and told her what God had

said then you have this old man named Simeon who was at the temple and he

was faithful and prayed to the Lord every day and then whenever Mary brought

Jesus to the temple to dedicate him Simeon took him in his arms because

God had told him you won't die before you see the Messiah and because

Simeon is where he's supposed to be doing the thing that he's supposed to do

he's able to see the Messiah for himself but prophesy over him instilling and

reaffirming everything that God has said to Mary before this moment and then

immediately after you have this old lady named Anna who's widowed who had

been widowed for a long time who's living at the temple day and night she

never leaves she prays constantly which most people would say that's not the

life I would want to live be kind of creepy if we just had an old woman

around the church all the time but she's at the temple where she's supposed

to be and she sees the Messiah and she as well prophesies over Jesus reaffirming

everything that God is doing and speaking and how he's preparing Jesus to

be the Savior of the world and all these things Mary cherished and pondered

in her heart I don't know about you but I can imagine as a young woman who was a

virgin who had this baby who probably had a lot of doubt from a lot of people

questioned everything that was going on constantly and the need for these older

people to be around her and affirming and reassuring and providing this

affirmation of what God is doing behind the scenes is so vitally important for

her to continue to be faithful to the whole process and the whole journey

we should not be sad or frustrated as older people to see God use younger

people in fact we should be excited about that you know one of my proudest

moments as a youth pastor was not what I got to do but what I got to see one

of my youth do and several years ago Chloe wall graduated high school she was

valedictorian of her class and this was before kovat this was back when you

could they just packed the gym out I don't know how many people the gym can

hold it's like over a thousand people and I remember whenever she got to speak

to those people she did not use that moment to toot her own horn to talk

about how smart she was because she was really smart she didn't talk about how

great school was or anything like that but she used the opportunity to speak to

that whole gym full of people with over a thousand people there and present the

message of the gospel to them and one of the conversations that I had with my

wife as we were leaving that night is you know she got to do something I'll

probably never get to do I've never had the opportunity to speak to a crowd that

large probably never will and here she is as a teenager she got that platform

God gave her that platform and she used it to glorify and honor him and I was not

jealous over that that was like one of the proudest moments to know that

because I didn't help her get there academically she's way smarter than I

was I couldn't help her that way but to be her youth pastor and just even to

have a part in that a very distant part in that was one of the greatest

moments I had in ministry to see her do that the heart and attitude of us to be

willing to let other people serve the Lord and and to be put on a pedestal in

serving the Lord and do things that even we were not able to do should be

one the greatest joys of our life John the Baptist said I must become less and

less so he can become more and more and when you look at Jesus Jesus himself

said it is better for you that I leave because when I leave the Holy Spirit

will come and in John 14 verse 12 it says I tell you the truth anyone who

John 14:12

believes in me will do the same works I have done and even greater works

because I'm going to be with the Father and when the Holy Spirit comes it's

going to empower you to do what I've done and even more than I have done so the

very heart of Christ is for this whole process for people to have a season of

serving the Lord and not saying that there's a season we always serve the

Lord but there's going to be seasons in our life where there's like specific

moments and times and ministries and things that we do that God will use

us very powerfully in and then there's seasons where the Lord says okay take a

break step back let someone else do this let someone else move in let someone

else serve me and honor me in this and then it is our calling as adults to

support them to pray for them to pave the way to facilitate to counsel to

encourage to give and to cheer these younger people on and so we talked a while

ago about how all these young people just have this natural desire in your

life to do something significant important just give me an amen this

morning if as you are getting older if there's this like natural tendency in

your life that every time you get around young people you just start

giving them advice you get that I've got that that's how you know you getting

old when you get around young people is like this is what you should do this

is what you shouldn't do and that's what God has put in every single one of our

hearts and so this morning if you're a young person that old people are just

constantly telling you what you should and shouldn't do no they mean it the

best way possible God's put that in our life because we've made a bunch of

mistakes and we're trying to say don't do what I've done do better than I've

done and we see things better a lot of times than what you can see them

because of your age and maturity and that's not knocking you it just is you

can do a lot of things better than we can and there's some things that we can

do better than you can and God wants us to help one another to serve one

another to facilitate one another and especially as older people this

morning to know that we need to have this cheerleader spirit in our lives

especially the older we get that we're not bitter about the things that we can't

do anymore but we're joyful about the things that other people can do that

we're ready to pass it on we're ready to let them have that we're ready to let

them move and work in that way support number three down to them we talk

about having a Christmas spirit you got to have the spirit of Mary and point

number three is Mary spirit was willing she was simply willing if Mary was not

willing we would not be celebrating Christmas I don't know if you've ever

thought about that before but here you had this young teenage girl

who gets told this crazy news and her response was I am the Lord's servant and

made everything he said about me come true what an attitude to have because I

don't know about you because we got a lot of young people in here this

morning so if you had a young daughter I don't know how many young ladies this

morning would be super excited to go home and tell their mom and dad well

during the service the Lord spoke to me he says I'm gonna be having a baby but

don't worry I'm a virgin it's gonna be okay how well would that go over it's

not a message and it's not information that would be received well this is

not something that would be cool this is not something that that we look at as

saying yes this is how God operates even though you've seen it before and you

believe this to be part of the message of the gospel if your daughter came home

day said I'm pregnant I'm having a baby but it's God's you would struggle to

believe her because I would if my wife came home today and said that she is

pregnant and it was the Lord's I'd be like mmm we don't have to pray if you

think about the heart and the sacrifice that went behind this and you know I love

the Bible I took the stance a long time ago I believe the Bible to be 100% true

like just whether I understand it or not whether I can prove it or not I take it

as 100% truth and I live by it and that's that's the only place I know

where to stand but one of the things about Scripture that that we don't get a

lot of times is is it's a very condensed version of what happened you know we're

seeing this highlighted version of this story and you know it just makes it out

to be like Mary is just perfect and she's so mature for her age and she's

just like yep I'll do it sign me up I'm cool with that and to think about the

mental and spiritual struggle that had to have taken place for this young girl to

say yes I accept what God is wanting to put on me to be she could have been

stoned Joseph could have had her stoned

I mean she was putting her life on the line to agree to this she would have

been ostracized by everybody and one of the things that you don't notice in the

story is you don't really see anything mentioned about her parents we don't

know how this went over with her mom and dad we see her aunt super excited and

she's on board with it we see Simeon and Anna and Joseph eventually get

some board with it we'll talk about him next week there's all these various

people involved who's on board with it that we get to see through Scripture

but we don't get to see we don't get to see all that and there's no telling what

internal struggle she had for her to be able to say okay I don't understand

this but I'll do it and I think that's the biggest thing for us as believers

this morning is is that so many times we get so scared because we don't

understand exactly what God's asking us to do and we're afraid to even open up

the door to find out what God will ask us to do because we know there's

something in our hearts that we know right I mean like for Mary the most

valuable thing about a young woman during this time would have been her

chastity her purity it was the most valuable thing that she could give to

her family and to her husband and then it would be a child after that and God

was taking that from her asking the most valuable precious thing that you

have that you can possess because women had nothing and give that to me and let

me take it from you he asked Abraham give me your son Abraham your one and only

son sacrifice him to me on the mountain I can remember when I first got saved I

remember praying God please don't call me in the ministry please don't see

me in the mission field I got one of those prayers answered he's got a

pretty funny sense of humor there was something in me where I knew I would

never truly be able to have right standing with the Lord if I didn't fully

surrender and let him have all of me the greatest fear that we have as

believers is to really just surrender and open up that door and let God in and

to let him have control and to just simply say yes Lord I'm your servant I'll

do whatever you asked me to do because we know that whatever it is that we're

holding back that's the very thing he's gonna ask for and I can tell you

personally that being in ministry was one of the things that I prayed not to

have and even though I didn't want to do it personally it's been one of the

greatest joys that I've ever had in my life it's not something that I wake up

and I'm excited and I say oh I want to do this every day because it's a great

joy it is a great joy but it's not what I would have chosen for myself how

many of us would say Lord I'm yours I'll do whatever you want me to do when

you start talking about having a spirit of Christmas if you don't have a spirit of

willingness you can't even begin to have a spirit of Christmas you can decorate

you can sing songs you can bake cookies you can go to parties and you can do

everything that you want to do and you might take your mind off of the world

for a little while and have a little bit of joy and little individual moments

but as soon as this Christmas is over you'll be as sad and depressed as you

ever were before it all begin the spirit of Christmas is not in the parties or the

lights or the ornaments or the gifts or anything else the spirit of Christmas is

in Jesus Christ and the only way you can even begin to have that is if you

are like Mary and you have the spirit of willingness in your heart to say God

I'm yours do with me use me teach me show me whatever it is that you want to

do I'll do it because I'm your servant that's how we start with the spirit of

Christmas let's pray father God thank you for the opportunity to be here once

again well thank you for the men and women in this room in their hearts and

their lives and from the young people to the old people we all have a part

to play and Lord Jesus I ask that you would speak powerfully to us both young

and old if we have things that we've yet to surrender Lord help us to surrender

help us to become your servants and to be willing Lord if we are surrendered

and we just feel like you we want to serve you but we're just not getting

that calling maybe that we would like to have because I've talked to people who

wanted callings and it just wasn't there but Lord you have spoken to their

hearts and you've helped them to be some of my biggest cheerleaders and

supporters and I thank you for that because I need them and so Lord I pray

that no matter how old we are no matter where we are in life no matter what

we're capable of or incapable of that we would simply be faithful to you that we

would cheer one another on that we would facilitate counsel pray for one

another and Lord if you're calling us to do something we would be humble enough

and bold enough to simply say I am your servant and I'll do whatever it is that

you want me to do Lord we love you and we thank you ask all this in Jesus name

amen you're dismissed thank you