Tremble Part 2 | Mary Christmas with Jess Schlotterbeck

He is glorious.

Behold the one who has come to life.

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Good morning, good morning HCD.

Welcome.

Welcome to another great Christmas morning.

I am so happy to be joining you today.

Guys, thank you so much for worshiping with us today.

Isn't that just amazing?

Didn't the worship team do such a good job of bringing, yeah, bringing us into God's

presence.

What the Christmas season is about is worshiping our creator, worshiping the reason for the

season.

I'm just so thankful that you've taken time today to be with us, to come into the community

of faith, to bring all those presents back for Angel Tree.

I am so honored and so blessed to be able to share with you, to be able to share my

life with you in this community of faith.

I'm just so proud of everything you guys do.

All the stuff that you don't think I see, I see.

I'm a mom, I see a lot.

So yeah, I'm just so proud of you guys.

I just want you guys to like give yourself a hand for just giving and being generous

in this time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And thank you for joining us online and welcoming us into your home and your hearts.

We love you.

We love the fact that you're able to join us online and be able to be part of our community

of faith.

So thank you for welcoming us into your home.

And I am so looking forward to what God's going to do here today.

Amen.

You can always say amen and then people respond.

I don't know that.

Amen.

All right, preach it.

All right.

So we are in a Christmas series called Tremble.

This is our second message in the series.

And this series is about God delivering angelic messages to common people, right?

The God of the universe comes in and He meets people with these angelic messengers and He

promises hope for the world.

He promises hope for the world.

And we learned last year and we can learn again that God was completely silent for 400

years and then He shows up with these messages of hope.

And so we're going to rediscover Christmas through the eyes of these people and these

angelic messages.

And I am looking forward to all that God's going to do in our hearts today and our minds

today.

And so these normal people working tremble in the presence of something so miraculous

and so divine.

Last week, Chris shared a powerful message.

He opened the series with a powerful message in Zechariah the priest with the message that

the angel Gabriel delivered to him and his response to the angel.

He showed up and delivered some pretty amazing news that he was going to have a son in his

old age and his son will prepare the way for God's son.

It was an amazing message.

If you didn't get to hear it and it wasn't online, I'm sorry.

The internet got unplugged.

So anyway, if you're here, you got it.

So it's basically God's redemption plan for humanity is eminent.

So we're going to pray and get started today.

Is that good?

All right, let's pray.

Holy Spirit, guide me today as we take this precious time to worship you, God.

Let us receive today more of your word, more of your truth into our lives.

Change us from the inside out.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

So we're first talking about angels, what they are and what they aren't.

So angels literally means messenger from God.

They're God's ambassadors to people.

And so we see in the Bible, they not only send people messages, they serve people.

In Acts we can read about an angel showing up to Peter and he's in prison and he thinks

it's almost like a dreamlike state where this angel touches his side, breaks the chains

and sets him free from captivity.

So angels in the Bible are usually described as divine people.

So our idea of angels that have wings are pretty much not accurate.

There's no angels with wings in the Bible, but there are cherubim, which aren't little

fat babies with wings.

They are like God's divine creatures that guard the gates of heaven and hell and they

have wings and they're pretty fierce, crazy beast.

But angels, I'm sorry, do not have wings.

And so yeah, so yes.

But, so I think movies have really given us a stereotype, right?

We watch movies.

My kids used to love to watch Angels in the Outfield.

The angel would swoop in and change the ball, right?

But I got to watch It's a Wonderful Life a couple weeks ago and it was just so great.

But in that movie, Clarence is the angel and he appears to George, right?

And he's gonna save George so he can earn his wings.

And George's youngest daughter, Zuzu, at the Christmas tree at the end of the movie says,

Dad, listen, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings, right?

So Clarence was trying to earn his wings and George looks up at this guy and says, that'll

boy Clarence.

And it's just this perfect statement of, you know, God does send messengers to us.

They might not always have wings.

Maybe they do.

You can talk to me about it later.

I'm sure somebody is gonna negate what I'm saying, but that's okay.

It's okay.

So society might have a few flaws in the form of angels, but they do exist.

So perhaps our series poster isn't exactly accurate.

That's right behind me.

When Matt used this, Matt actually created, the artist's artificial intelligence actually

designed this.

Do you guys know that they have these programs that are artificial intelligence and you can

just put words in and they design these beautiful images?

Isn't that great?

So he took those words and we have this awesome angel.

Now I think we can get the idea of tremble from our angel, right?

Like Chris said last week, when you see that angel Gabriel flexing in the face of Zachariah,

you're gonna tremble, right?

Exerting God's authority over Zachariah.

So I think we got the theme tremble good, but we still have the wings and it's kind

of pretty cool.

So anyway, but I told you there's no wings, right?

So I think perhaps our characters that we talk about tremble because of all the thousand

years in recorded biblical history, angels really don't show up all that often, right?

When an angel shows up, God is basically, God can't come down to people, right?

But he sends these messengers, these people that are divine so that he can transcend what's

going on.

So he can actually come in and change the situation, that he can send his message.

He sent, actually he sent Gabriel to Daniel in the Old Testament and then Gabriel also

appears and tells him what's gonna happen in the New Testament.

Then he sends Gabriel again to Zachariah.

So I think this is crazy, an angel showing up is definitely like, hey, God's gonna do

something big here.

So all these angels at the same time, you can tell that the Christmas story is very

miraculous.

And I think that people also tremble in our stories here because perhaps they were in

so much in shock and awe because in their culture, they realized how they couldn't connect

with a living God.

They were so full of sin and the presence of God was so holy and divine and overwhelming

the holiness of God that they had such unmerited favor by which they were saved that they had

the trueness of what it would be like if an angel came and God's presence came to them.

So they were overwhelmed because they were a person in sin.

They couldn't go into the temple.

Chris talked about that last week.

They couldn't connect with God.

And then God appears to them and they're like, wow, you know, wow, yeah, I must either done

something right or something wrong, right?

So yes.

So I wonder today, so I'm a person who likes to ask a lot of questions, ask my husband.

He sometimes likes my questions and he sometimes doesn't appreciate all the questions because

I like a lot of communication.

So that's why he's such a good communicator with you because he has to communicate with

me.

So I wonder today if we would have the same response if this angel showed up to us or

have we created a culture where we're so we have a sense of entitlement that we believe,

hey, this angel should show up for me.

You know, we worship a God of convenience.

We can bend them to our every whim.

We demand that he fixes our problems on demand or I'm just not gonna do God anymore.

God didn't, you know, he didn't show up right.

So I'm going to slam him on social media and I'm going to see if I have a case good enough

so I can sue him so I can actually just relax the rest of my life.

Right?

We make excuses in our society.

We blame the big man upstairs.

Right?

We, we believe we used to believe in God, but you know, he didn't, he didn't fix my

marriage.

I used to believe in God, but you know, my brother died.

You know, I used to believe in God, but he didn't answer my questions right.

And the church, they were, I thought they were nice people, but you know, they didn't,

they weren't there for me when I really needed them.

So we discount God because of our situations, because of our circumstances.

Right?

So this morning, I'm just going to leave you with that question.

So this morning we're going to move to our second angelic visitation.

When the angel Gabriel shows up again to marry.

And so I get to talk about this and it's not just a bone that was thrown my way.

Okay?

So my daughter Trinity was like, Hey, you get to speak every now and then.

And of course you get the girl.

Like why did they throw you the girl?

Dad just said, Oh, you get married.

Right?

And I was like, okay.

I was like, actually Chris said I could preach on any angelic visitation I wanted, but I

chose Mary.

I chose Mary because I didn't understand Zachariah.

No, I'm just kidding.

No I was thinking Zachariah married, but no, I really felt that God wanted, had a specific

message that I needed to share about Mary.

So I am so honored that I get to share that with you today.

So I chose Mary, just like God chose Mary.

And so my question that I'm going to ask you today is, do you want to have a Merry Christmas?

Or why a Merry Christmas?

So why did God choose Mary?

M-A-R-Y.

I had it, you guys have it up on the screen.

No, you don't.

Merry Christmas, M-A-R-Y.

Why did God choose Mary to bring this miraculous story to the world?

Why did he use her?

Like what's so special about this Mary?

And so we're going to answer those questions today.

And I'm hoping that you guys get a little different picture of the Christmas story today.

So the first thing that in my mind that popped in that God used Mary is Mary's a woman.

Mary's a woman.

God chose Mary because she was a woman.

And through Mary, God restores all women.

Get this, when the angel shows up, this is what he says to Mary.

You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus.

And he will be very great and he will be called son of the most high God.

The Lord will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever.

His kingdom will never end.

God chose to use a woman for this job because only a woman could carry or birth children,

right?

Now I'm sure God could have brought his son into the world many other ways.

He didn't have to do it through a woman.

He didn't have to birth a woman.

He could have used a stork, you know, like flying over with a little blue blanket and

then popped it down in Bethlehem, right?

I still don't get the stork thing, you know, whatever.

He could have used, he could have taken the stork again or an angel with no wings and

brought the baby down and put it in a house and given it to the wisest and grandest man,

a man that was financially secure and had a great big family, great big house.

He could have done that.

But he didn't.

Because God always surprises us.

God doesn't work the way we think he should work.

God works the way God wants to work.

If you've ever known God, if you have a relationship with God, you know, man, I would have never

done it that way, God, but that's pretty cool, right?

And so that's what he does in this situation.

You know, he uses Mary because he had a plan to redeem all women.

And we know his plan back in Genesis.

So we're going to go back to Genesis and we're going to learn the story of Eve.

And so in Genesis three, six, it says the woman was convicted and she saw that or convinced

and she saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious and she wanted

the wisdom it would give her.

So she took some fruit and ate it.

And then the Lord asked women, what have you done?

Eve, Eve, what have you done?

And I will put, so he said, what have you done Eve?

So he's basically like, Eve, what did you have you done?

And so then there's consequences for action, right?

And so first he tells the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between

your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

So listen, in that statement, God is speaking to Mary about the serpent.

God is already has it in Genesis is saying, you're going to crush his head.

You're going to crush his heel, right?

God, God is going to already redeem the world through, through Mary.

He already has a plan.

So even in Eve's sin and our bad choice and our mistake, God says, I love you.

I've got you.

I'm going to get this together.

Now it takes a little while for it to happen, but God wants to restore all women because

he loves women.

He does.

He needs us.

He needs us to be life into this world.

And then he said to the woman, there are still consequences for action.

I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy and the pain in you when you give birth, you

will desire to control, to control your husband and he will rule over you.

But through Mary, this curse is broken, right?

It's not that just Mary's a woman.

It's not that God had to use a woman.

God wanted to because he wanted to break the curse that Eve brought to the world, right?

He wanted to heal his relationship with his daughters and he wanted to say, shame off,

shame off.

You have no place in my daughters.

You are not full of shame.

You are a child of God.

You are my daughter and you are loved and you are paid for with a price and I'm going

to use you to change this world.

I'm going to use you to bring life into this world.

The enemy might have used you because fruit is good and we like to eat, you know, the

enemy might have used her.

She was a little weak and she wanted wisdom, right?

Right?

But God says, no, this is what I say about you.

I'm going to use you to bring life into this world.

I'm going to use you to bring a redemptive plan to humanity for this world, right?

So shame off, God's saying.

And I don't want, and he said, I don't want women to live under this curse any longer

because I see you, I know you, I want to use you and I want you to bring life into this

world.

And as women were called to bring life into this world, that is our calling, both physical

and spiritual life.

Birthing a child is not easy, right?

I believe it's the most difficult part of birthing any child is not birthing them, but

it's raising them.

It's raising them to be who they are in Christ, to love the people around them, to look at

the world and say, what can I give to this world?

Not what can I get?

Teaching them that no, no, you have a responsibility to society.

No, you are not going to take the easy way out.

You are going to work for what you earn.

It's teaching them what life is about.

And that is a big task.

Whether you birth a child or not, you're raising children is the hardest task.

You know, and if you're a woman and you have chosen not to have children, that is an amazing

gift as well.

Or you can't have children.

I have a beautiful friend, Kelsey, Kelsey, if you guys know her, and she's chosen by,

she's chosen, I'm not going to have kids.

And that's her calling to the world, she believes.

But she brings so much life into teenagers every day.

She coaches my daughter and so many other girls, and she just tells them who they are

and how strong and powerful they can be.

And she helps our church.

She's just a gift to this world.

And that's her choice.

That's what she's chosen.

And some of you want to have children.

You haven't been able to.

Well, I have a great friend, Katie, who works in my kids department at Grow.

And she can have children.

And she's chosen to love on your kids.

She's chosen to serve you.

There's a lot of way women, we can bring life into this world.

And it doesn't necessarily happen through the physical birthing of a child, but we can

spiritually birth children, right?

And I have three daughters, right?

And I believe in this, God's reaffirming his daughters.

I have three daughters, and there's nothing their father wouldn't want to do for them.

There's nothing their dad wouldn't want to do for them.

My daughter Zoe says, yeah, dad's put us, there's no way we can ever get married because

dad is like the ultimate dad.

Like he loves us, he makes us breakfast, he takes care of us because he loves his daughters.

And so what God's saying here is I love my daughters.

I love women, I love men, I love young, I love old, I love black, I love white, I love

you if you're big or larger and smaller.

I love all sizes of people.

I love my people.

I love my people and I want to use all my people to serve me and to bring about life

into this world.

Because the father is about life.

The enemy is about death.

And we are called to bring life into this world as a woman, as a man, whoever.

We need to be able to speak life.

And this is what God does through Mary in this situation.

The second reason God chose Mary is she's from God's family, right?

You can't control the family you're born into.

Mary's family isn't popular.

Mary's family isn't rich, you know, but it's God's family, you know?

And God restores his people through Mary.

He says, I'm going to do it.

And God keeps his promises.

When God makes a promise, he fulfills it.

In Luke 1, 26 and 27, it says, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent an

angel Gabriel to Nazareth, to the village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.

She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.

God had a plan.

He was going to restore his people.

He was going to restore the covenant relationship that he made with Abraham.

You know, a covenant relationship is a binding agreement, a legal contract, a blood oath.

And God's saying, I'm for you.

I'm with you.

I'm going to use you, Mary, to restore my people.

Isaiah 7, 14 says, all right then, the Lord, all right then, the Lord himself will give

you a sign.

Look, a virgin will conceive a child.

She will birth, she will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel, which means God

is with us.

God is with us.

Micah 5, 2 says, but you, O Bethlehem, Ephraim, are only a small village.

You're only a small village.

What good could happen in Hagerstown?

Hagerstown's a small place, right?

That's what Nazareth was, right?

That's what Bethlehem was.

These small places, right?

But guess what?

Yet a ruler of Israel whose origins are in the distant past will come to you on my behalf.

You know, Mary was from a small forgotten town.

What good could happen in Nazareth?

What good could happen in Hagerstown, God?

Why have you put me here?

He sees you.

He sees you.

He loves you.

He loves Nazareth.

He loves Hagerstown.

And you never really hear about Mary's parents in the story.

You know, we don't know who her parents were.

They don't name her.

You know, they named Joseph's descendants.

But they are key in Mary being chosen, I believe, because parents who bring their kids to church,

parents who teach their children scriptures, parents who teach them, their kids, who they

are in Christ are invaluable in the kingdom of God.

She was raised in Jesus's, you know, in God's family.

So she would have gone to temple.

Her parents would have taught her scriptures at the breakfast table.

She knew the stories of God, right?

And so I was blessed as a child.

Like I got to go, I was raised in a beautiful community of faith.

And I had people in that community of faith that spoke life over me.

They loved me for who I was.

And I remember even going to a retreat a couple years ago and they said, you know, what was

your life growing up as a church?

And I said, that was the only place I was really myself.

And I really felt that those people saw me and loved me for Jessica, for who I was.

And that is a blessing.

That is such a blessing.

I believe that's the reason I'm here today.

My parents took me to church.

They took the time to bring me to the services of the church so I could be taught the ways

of life.

Yes.

Yes.

And so that's what happened to Mary.

She knew God.

She knew the scriptures and they taught her that.

And you know, Mary was only like, they say 12, Lawrence said last week she was 14 maybe,

but they say she could have been 12 to 14, right?

She's still a child, but yet she has this faith in God, right?

A child by today's standard, I'm sure back then, their children did a lot more than our

children do, but she was taught the promises of God as a child.

And so my third point is because of that, Mary knew what God could do.

She knew God, right?

And because she said yes, God not only restores his people, the descendants of Abraham, he

restores all people.

He restores all people because Mary knew what God could do.

Her faith didn't waver.

She had this faith and everybody thinks about that, but I'm like, she knew God.

She was taught his way from the early childhood and she knew what he could do.

So God restores all of humanity through Mary.

This is the miraculous story of Christmas.

Now, he didn't just use Mary, he used a lot of other people.

Don't quote me wrong on this, you know, I'm not, you know, but he used Mary and he used

Joseph and he used Zachariah and he used the angels.

He used all these people, this whole community of faith, right?

To birth his son, right?

So listen to this good news in Luke.

Luke 1 46 through 55 says, Mary responded, Oh, how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit

rejoices in God, my savior, for he took notice of this lowly servant girl.

And from now on, all generations will call me blessed for the mighty one is holy and

he has done great things for me.

He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.

His mighty arm has done tremendous things.

He has scattered the proud from the haughty ones.

He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.

He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful for he made this promise to

our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.

That's how Mary worshiped God.

You go girl.

That was an amazing worship song.

She knew the promises of God right there.

She knew it and she worshiped God through it.

She's like, yes, God, yes, you did what you said you do and you're going to do it again.

So through her faith, we can learn a lot of stuff.

When you believe what God can do, your faith rises.

Hebrews 11 one says, faith shows us the reality of what we hope for the evidence of things

we cannot see.

Faith is that confident assurance that what we think will happen is over on the other

side of that mountain.

Right?

God you said that.

Okay, God, I'm going to go in that direction.

I can't see it.

I don't know it, but God, I trust you.

I know what you can do.

So together we're going to go there.

Right?

You know, we're going to go over that mountain.

That's faith.

That's faith.

That's stepping out in faith.

And my faith has grown over the years.

I haven't, I haven't like, it didn't just start, you know, big and you take this mighty

leap right?

When I figured out how much God loved me, when he showed up in my weakness and my insecurity

and my brokenness and he poured love and grace and mercy and compassion over my heart and

my soul.

And I experienced his love for the first time.

I was like, yes, I'm in.

Everybody in the whole world needs to hear this.

I'm going to go in all the world and preach the gospel to every single person.

And so I was ready to go off on this missionary journey.

And guess what?

God called me home.

He called me to learn and to, and to go back to school and to work and to get married and

have a family.

So God calls you, right?

And it's not necessarily like you're jumping off the end of time, but you're just doing

little things, right?

Little things done with great love over time.

Okay, God, I trust you.

And I'm going to work towards this because I know you're good.

Right?

And so I think I kind of blame our cell phones or like really good GPS systems, why we don't

have faith anymore.

Right?

And so, so yeah, so let me explain.

When I was a kid, you just get in the car and your parents kind of knew where they were

going or they get directions from like the gas station attendant or they get messages.

You'd like ask a random stranger for how to get someplace.

Like they didn't take you down a dark alley or whatever.

You get directions from anybody.

Right?

Because, and they say, well, it's over the three lights past this over the left.

And you're like, okay, well, whatever, we're going to get there.

Right?

And you kind of had to faith in the driver of the car.

And I remember my mom always being like, Gary, just stop and ask for directions.

You know, like, how hard is it?

Maybe he chose Mary because Joseph didn't stop it.

I don't know.

Anyway.

But so our faith, like we had, we didn't know where we were going all the time.

We didn't know who was, if our parents were going to come and pick us up on time.

We didn't know this.

So we had a lot of faith instilled in us as a children.

Right?

We're like, okay.

And, and I, and my one friend from high school is here now.

My other friend was here first service.

But so we, I remember one time we were going to Ocean City and we're just like, okay, we're

just going to drive and we're going to find the Bay Bridge.

And one time I was coming back from Ocean City and it was like, all of a sudden I'm

in downtown DC.

I'm like, oh, okay.

You know, but I'm here, everything's good.

DC isn't that bad.

You know, God protected me.

But I remember that just having these little leaps of faith as a teenager because I didn't

have a cell phone.

You know, I didn't have directions.

Right?

And so I'm going to, I'm going to date myself too.

So when Chris and I got married, we would lead youth group and we would print off these

directions from MapQuest.

You guys remember those?

And you'd have pages of directions.

And like if you were driving and trying to read the pieces of paper and like, I'm not

organized.

I remember somebody first service that they used to have a binder to get to California

and they had them all in order.

Not me.

I like, I would get them shuffled up and I'd be like, oh, left and right.

You know, like, so I don't know if it helps us, but we took like groups of teenagers to

Michigan, you know, through MapQuest directions.

I don't know if it, there's more accidents with MapQuest or more accidents with cell

phones, but I don't know.

I guess that can be argued.

Anyway, but now my kids, they like track my location.

So if I'm like, oh yeah, I'm on my way.

I'm, I'm, I'm, and now they're like, no, you're not.

You're still at church.

See, I have a, I have a pretty healthy relationship with my husband.

We don't like track each other, right?

But my kids, they track me.

Um, yeah.

Um, it shows you didn't leave the office.

I can see this.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Thanks.

Thanks for tracking me.

I remember one time I was, I was together with a couple of my kids and my daughter calls

me and it's like, you guys are together.

She's in Florida.

You're together.

Yes, we're together.

I see your cell phones are together.

Yes, we're together.

Well, I'm not there.

Yes, I know that.

Well, I just wanted to let you know, I know you're together and I'm out there.

I was like, okay, thank you for letting me know that.

So my kids track me.

They know me.

They've got these cell phones.

They can find, you know, anything.

Right?

And so I love technology.

I am not saying technology is a bad thing.

It's helped us with hospitals and doctors and there's so many breakthroughs in technology

that are amazing.

But when we use it as a crutch, not to have faith, right?

If we don't know if we can't find out and we have to figure it out right away, you know,

if we have to Google everything right away instead of going to God for the answer or

if we're texting our friend, I'm so mad at this person, right?

And so I said, oh God, that didn't feel too good.

Let me take that relationship to you.

Let me take that hurt or that pain to you and let's see what we can do with God.

Man God, that conversation with my husband didn't go too well.

I'm not going to text him.

I'm going to go to God and say, God, hey, help me.

Let me pray through this, right?

Let me forgive.

Help me understand what's going on here, right?

We're so quick to respond.

We're so quick to snap.

We're so quick to, you know, just get on there and make a response where God, it says in

the Bible, it says people are patient.

They wait on God.

His timing is perfect, right?

And so we need to be careful as Christians to rely on the creator, not the created things,

right?

Right?

So our confidence, our insurance has weakened, but as Christians, we know that we need to

go to God first.

So through Mary's faith, God is able to birth his rescue plan for humanity.

Isn't that amazing news?

It's amazing news, right?

So John 3 16, you guys know this, but let me read it to you again.

For this is how God loved the world.

He set his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have

eternal life.

I don't know about you, but I love God so much.

My relationship with God, like that's all I want to do is spend time with God.

You know what I mean?

And I could not imagine an eternity like hell is being separated from God.

And a couple months ago, I realized like I could never, that would be awful for me because

I love God so much and I have such a relationship with God and I understand how much he loves

me.

Could I never experience that love again?

You know what I mean?

And I don't want anybody to experience that.

Being separated from God is like hell.

Okay, I guess that's why it's hell.

Anyway, but yeah, it's hell.

Like you don't want to be separated from God.

If you know how much God loves you, you would never want to be separated from him.

First John 4 9 through 10 says, God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and

only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love.

This is real love.

This is real love, not that we love God, but he loved us.

So he sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

We didn't love him first.

We weren't good people first.

He loved us.

He loved us anyway.

He loves you and me and desires that we walk in fellowship with him, just like in the Garden

of Eden, just like in the Garden of Eden.

Right?

So you too can have a Merry Christmas with this in mind, Mary M-A-R-Y M-E-R-R-Y.

I think it's both this time.

So we're going to learn how you could have a Merry Christmas.

Okay?

So the first step is to believe what God says about you.

Luke 1 28 through 29 says, Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favorite woman,

the Lord is with you.

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think, what could the angel mean?

I don't know what the angels talking about.

Highly favored one.

I am not a highly favored one, God.

You don't see my house.

You don't see the shack I live in.

You don't see my pocketbook.

You don't see my bank account, God.

You don't see, I don't have a job, God.

I am not highly favored.

I don't even like my nose.

I'm from Nazareth, right?

I'm a nobody, right?

But to God, Mary is not a nobody or somebody.

She is his masterpiece.

And you are not a nobody.

You're not a somebody.

You're God's masterpiece.

You're God's masterpiece.

And if anybody's told you any different, shame on them.

Forgive them.

Pray for them.

Right?

You are God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works that he called for

you to do long ago.

He knew that you were coming to Hagerstown in 2023 to do good works that he called you

long ago to do.

He called generations and generations and generations before you that have made sacrifices

so that you today can do the good works that God's called you to do because he sees you.

He knows you and he loves you.

And you're his masterpiece.

No artificial intelligence needed.

Just God intelligence, right?

So don't believe the lies that others tell you about yourself.

And worst of all for me, I don't know if it's like this for you, is I believe a lot of

lies I tell my own self.

Right?

I tell my own self a lot of lies.

Oh, I'm not good enough.

Oh, man, I should have done that.

Oh, I said the wrong thing.

Oh, I didn't get that right.

Right?

Right?

So we tell ourself a lot of lies.

So I want to tell you, stop it.

Stop believing the lies you tell yourself.

Stop believing the lies people tell you and believe what God says.

You got to get in the word.

You got to spend time with your creator.

You got to reflect his glory.

Don't believe the lies.

And I know that's easy to say, but if you're struggling in that, get with somebody else

who's a Christian or a believer.

Get with somebody and say, hey, I believe in some lies this week.

Can you pray for me?

Can you help me?

Can you walk me through this?

Because 1 Samuel 16, 7 says the Lord doesn't see things the way you and I see them.

People judge by outward appearance, but God looks at your heart.

God knows your heart.

And so today you got to know is my heart right?

Because that's the only thing that matters.

It doesn't matter that you didn't have anything to wear.

It doesn't matter that your bank account says zero or minus $25.

It doesn't matter that your kid threw up all over you last night.

You know, it doesn't matter because God, you want to see what God believes about you.

Right?

He looks at your heart.

Right?

He sees the real you and he loves you.

And guess what?

He not only sent his son to save you from your sin.

He also sent you to be in relationship with him.

Right?

It's not just about saving you.

It's more about being with you.

Right?

He wants relationship.

Okay?

So this Christmas, if you don't know how much you're loved by God, if you've never walked

into that relationship with Jesus, receive the gift of Jesus this Christmas.

It's the best thing ever.

It's the greatest, best thing ever.

It's even better than Santa.

According to Elf.

I know we have an Elf back there.

And number two, I want you to receive your calling today.

Receive your calling.

So the two things you need to do is receive what God says about you, believe what God

says about you, and receive your calling.

Luke 1.30 through 31 says, 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.

Mary's calling was to be Jesus' mom.

And being a mom is a high calling.

Being a father is a high calling and never, ever, ever underestimate that role.

But there was a time in my life, I love my kids, I love being a calling as mom, but God

was calling me other things and it was just so much easier as a mom to just shrink back,

right?

To use my kids as a crutch.

Oh, make excuses.

Oh, I can't do this because of this.

Or I can't do that before.

So I would be their cheerleader.

I would be their high fiber, right?

I would give them their water bottles.

But at some point after having kids, I didn't know who I was, right?

And I kind of found my identity in my kids or in my husband or in my, you might find

your identity in your job or your finances or your closet, right?

And I didn't know who I was and it was like, oh God, forgive me.

And I had to step back on that track and I needed to compete and run the race because

I wanted my daughters, I wanted my sons to see me as a healthy person.

I didn't want them to do that, right?

So I had to grow because of them.

I had to be a model for them.

So I had to step back in the race and it's not easy.

It's not easy.

And I said there was throw up last night.

There's a lot of throw up, a lot of throw up.

I'm just going to say a lot of throw up last night.

And it was like, it would have been just easy just to go to bed, but it's hard.

I had to stay up late.

These people in the worship team, they have to get up early.

They have to stay up late.

You know, they do that, but they do it to serve you and to serve the body of Christ.

The people at the door, they do it to serve you, Tracy and Christie and everyone.

We do it to serve you, right?

It's not easy, but God's, it's their call.

It's what God's telling them to.

Okay?

Because we all as a society, we can even use our jobs as our calling, right?

Because we're all called to bring light into the dark places.

We're all called to be merry this Christmas.

We're all called to bring light into the world.

So you can bring that if you're a nurse, a doctor, a teacher, if you're the checkout

person at Walmart, just smiling, right?

You have to deal with a lot.

You have to deal with a lot.

I know you guys do.

I know your lives are hard.

I know your jobs are hard sometimes, but spend time with your God.

Spend time with, in the relationship with Father God, God, first thing, and then pour

it out all day, right?

Get filled and pour it out, right?

Receive the blessing and then be the blessing, right?

Because He calls you to partner with Him in His rescue plan for all people.

So point three, another way to have a merry Christmas this year is give yourself to Jesus.

Matthew 10, 39 says, and I mean, give yourself to Jesus.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it.

But if you give up your life for me, you will find it, right?

John 13, I'm going to read from John 13.

I'm going to show you how Jesus gave up His life.

So Jesus, right before, we know that He died on the cross for us, right?

But Jesus at the Last Supper, before the Last Supper began, and He was sitting at the table

with the disciples, and He knew Judas would betray Him.

He knew that Judas was given over to Satan.

And this is what He knew.

He knew that the Father had put all things under His power.

God has all authority and all power in heaven and earth.

The enemy has no right to you, to your family, and Jesus knows that, right?

He knows that God has the main storyline, right?

And the devil's always come along with these subplots, right?

Oh, I'm going to bring Judas and I'm going to kill Jesus.

Oh, guess what?

God already knew.

You know what I mean?

God already knows the plan, right?

God has all authority in heaven and earth.

And because we have Christ living us, if we're Jesus' Father, we have that same authority.

We can walk in the authority that God's given us in our lives and in our family's life,

right?

Yes, amen.

Amen.

He knew the power He was under.

He knew God had all authority, right?

He knew He had come from God.

You have come from God.

You are His son.

You are His daughter.

You are His created being.

He knew who His Father was.

And so He could walk in that.

He knew the power that He possessed.

He knew who we came from and He knew He was returning to God.

This world is not real people.

You know, we do have to pay taxes.

We do have to live.

We do have to put gas in our tanks, right?

But what we're experiencing here, you guys know the movie The Matrix?

It's kind of like that, right?

Right?

We're only here on mission.

We're on mission from God to get His kids with Him in heaven, right?

Get with Him.

Get with people.

Get with kids.

We're part of God's rescue plan.

We're rescuing our brothers, our sisters, anyone who's believing the lie, right?

Right?

So He knew the authority He had, where He had come from, and He knew where He was going.

So guess what?

He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around His waist.

After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet, drying

them with a towel and wrapping around it.

Jesus knew what was going to happen, and He served anyway.

Serving people isn't easy.

And some of you guys have been burnt, and people have said things about you.

Loving people isn't easy.

Your family has said stuff about you.

Your friends have said stuff about you.

You've been hurt.

You've been betrayed.

But guess what?

You don't have to stay in that place, right?

I, myself, was in this place.

I just realized I went to this retreat, and I was able to just take some time for myself.

And I realized that I had been in some situations where I had been betrayed and hurt.

And I realized I had forgiven people.

I had forgiven the people.

But I realized I still had pain there, right?

And so that pain was causing me to hide and not be who God created me to be.

That pain was causing me to well back, you know what I mean?

And I was doing, like if Chris asked me to do something or somebody asked me to do something,

or of course I'm going to serve in kids because that's easy because that's what I've always

done, right?

But I was just doing what I was asked to do, but I was still hiding from who God was calling

me to be because I was believing lies that people had spoke over me.

I was believing curses that people had put over me, right?

I wasn't hearing from God.

I wasn't believing the truth that God had formed me in my mother's womb.

He had created me fearfully and wonderfully made.

And that I had a voice that I could use to bring life into others, right?

Women and children and men and women, it doesn't matter.

You know, but I believe that lie.

So I just had to break it off and I had to deal with the pain and gave it to God and

said, God, forgive me.

But guess what God said?

You're already forgiven.

And he said, guess what?

You're free.

You're free to be who I've created you to be.

So you're forgiven and you're free.

And God does not want you to walk in any bondage that anybody has put over you.

You're forgiven and you're free to be the person God's created you to be, right?

Because we know that because Jesus does it for us.

Jesus trusted God and we can trust God too.

Second Timothy 1, 7 said, for God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity, but

of power, love and self-discipline.

And this is a word I believe for the church that I have for this year.

It says in Isaiah 58, 11 through 12, it says, the Lord will guide you continually, giving

you water when you're dry, restoring your strength.

You will be like a well watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.

So God is going to guide us on this mission.

God isn't calling us to partner with him, to give our lives to him.

And he's going to just leave and not be there, right?

He's showing up with us, right?

He's going to give us water when we're dry.

He's going to restore our strength.

He's going to let us overflow from that relationship.

And guess what?

Some of you will be, will be known.

You will rebuild desert ruins of your cities.

Then you will be known as the rebuilder of walls and the restorer of homes.

Some of you will rebuild your desert ruins in your cities.

There's desert, deserted desert ruins in some of you guys' lives and some of your family's

lives in the city of Hagerstown, in the city of Martinsburg, in the city of Chambersburg

and Green Castle, right?

There's broken places and God is calling some of you guys to restore those places.

He starts with us first, right?

We restore the hope that he's given us, right?

Those people that you've trusted God, you've trusted Jesus, you've been in that relationship,

but yet your hope is, is, is missing now.

Well, God's calling to restore you first and then you're going to restore people.

You're going to restore homes.

There's a homelessness problem, right?

There's problems left and right.

God is calling you to bring life into the world.

The world needs you, your community needs you, your children need you.

And just like Mary, you can be used to have a Merry Christmas, right?

You can be used this year.

We have got so many events coming up.

We've got Angel Tree and I am so thankful, so thankful for you guys bringing in all those

gifts and presents, but we also have the night where we serve the families.

So if you want to sign up and volunteer, it just starts with little things.

You know, like Erin, who works in my kid's ministry, she just, her and her husband just

started by coming and serving the toddlers, right?

And now she's, she's on staff at the church, but it just didn't start with that.

You know, it didn't just start with like, oh, I'm going to go ahead and start this.

It just started by one little act, right?

And I believe God works in little things.

I'm going to serve, I'm going to give an hour of my time, but I'm going to be faithful and

little because God calls us when we're faithful and little, He'll reward us with much, right?

So show up at Angel Tree, show up to the donut drop in Hagerstown, serve somebody a cup of

hot chocolate, you know?

We have the Reach Cold Weather Shelter coming up right after the holidays.

El Psy needs your help with all the things that we need to do, the food and the security

and just being loved to people without homes, right?

We need everybody's help to sign up for that.

So sign up for Reach if you've never done it.

And then you can go to Team Up today.

Chris is teaching Team Up today and you can get with him and you can see all the opportunities

to serve.

I know we need van drivers, right?

People are trying to get to church and we need to help them get here, right?

Because this is where they're going to be taught the way of life.

All right.

And as we close today, you can start the music, clean the music.

I'm not really smooth at this.

Yeah.

If you've never experienced God's love, if you've never said, yes, God, Jesus, I'm in.

I don't want to leave here today with you out you saying yes to God.

So I'm going to do this a little differently in Chris, kind of the same, but we're just

going to, if you want to, you can put your hand up.

I feel like some people just want some support around them.

If you want to ask Jesus in your life today, but you need some support for others, just

put your hand up if you're praying this for the first time.

Okay.

Just pray with me.

Jesus, I believe in you.

I don't believe in myself.

I made a lot of wrong choices and mistakes, but you love me.

You love me anyway.

I believe you're God's son.

I believe the miracle of Christmas can happen in my life.

Come in, change me today.

Help me follow you the rest of my life.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

And some people today, you're holding onto a lot of hurt and pain, some lies that people

have said about you, some lies that you've been partnering with and believing, and you

know they're not true.

So what we're going to do is a whole body is we're going to just take those lies.

I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough finances.

I don't have the right education.

I don't have the right job, right?

So we're going to just, or, you know, whatever it is, and we're just going to lay it down

at God's feet right now.

So I want you to just take your hands out and lay it down at God's feet.

And we're going to say, Jesus, I give you these lies.

They're not from you.

Take them from me.

Tell me.

From my pain, from my hurt.

I give them to you because you love me.

So I just want you to take a second.

Just let those lies just fall off.

Let those chains fall off.

Some of you have put those chains on yourself.

Just take this time to do that.

And then you're going to take and you're going to open your hands up.

When you feel like you've left it all down at His feet, you're going to turn your hands

open and I believe there's some gifts that God wants to give you to you this Christmas.

So say, Jesus, what do you want to give me?

Some of you guys are just feeling, you're just sensing warmth in your spirit.

Some of you guys are feeling peace for the first time.

Some of you guys are, God's restoring your joy and your hope.

Some of you guys, God's just giving you rest.

That's a gift from God.

So God, we just receive all that you have for us in this moment, Lord.

Fill us again with you, with your spirit, with your life, with your love, with your

hope, Lord, so that we can take it to the world, so that we can have a Merry Christmas.

Yes.

Yes.

If you want to sit in this moment, feel free.

We have people up here on the side of the stage to pray for you.

If you're struggling with depression, anxiety, if you're struggling with something and you

feel like I need some support here, just feel free to come up.

We have people here.

Don't walk away today not getting prayer.

Prayer is an amazing thing and it's a gift from God.

Come up, receive prayer if you need extra support today.

Okay?

All right.

Well, have a Merry Christmas.

I love you guys.

I thank you for taking time to be with me and to be here.

And we look forward to next week learning more about angelic visitations and the miraculous

that God can do.

Go out and perform a miracle this week.

Yes, you're a miracle.

All right.

Love you guys.

Together.