Interrupted | Pastor Patrick Weikle

Morning, United City Church.

How y'all doing?

No.

Come on.

How y'all doing?

That's better.

That's better.

Hey, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter one.

Luke chapter one is where we're going to be today.

And before we get going too far, let me just say, hey, we're glad you're in the room.

Whether it's your first time or maybe first time in a long time, maybe some of you are watching online and it's your very first time.

We're excited that you've chosen to be a part of United City Church today.

But let me give a special welcome, always, my favorite welcome to the men in the Ramsey unit and the women at the Plain State Correctional Facility who are watching.

We love you a ton.

We're excited to get to meet some of you.

And a little side note, this weekend, we saw another 70-plus women baptized at a Plain State Correctional Facility.

So yeah, I don't know how you don't get excited about that, but the move of God continues to set the captives free and to bring a proclamation of freedom to those who are bound.

And so we're about the word of God, and that's what we're going to jump in today.

Listen, we're starting a new Christmas series called Prepare Him Room, and it's going to lead us over the next couple weeks, right up to Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day.

And I just um I gotta come out and write out and say it, okay?

Christmas is amazing.

Christmas is awesome.

And if you don't like Christmas, then I don't like you, okay?

And I'm only like a little bit joking.

Like Christmas, there's just so much wonder, there's so much grandeur in Christmas, you know?

And uh not that long ago, some friends were saying, Man, Christmas comes too early.

And I said, shame on you, you know?

And they're like, Christmas comes too early.

And this was their argument, you ready?

They said, bro, which I love it when people address me as bro.

Bro, at least let Thanksgiving happen first.

Well, bro, Thanksgiving is a day.

Christmas is a season.

What's up, you know?

Like, Christmas is so much.

Oh, just name me all the amazing Thanksgiving movies.

Oh, what about all the amazing Thanksgiving songs?

You can't.

There are none.

Christmas is better in every way.

I love Christmas.

All the festivities, like just the lights, the trees, the decoration, the hot chocolate with the little candy canes, you know, it's the squirrel.

Christmas Eve, like the anticipation of tomorrow we're getting presents, you know.

Like, it's just don't be fake with me.

You're you're still excited too.

Like, you're like, I know I'm 35, but this year I hope that I get that new mind or so.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, you're still hoping that Mama or somebody's getting you something for Christmas, right?

There's just so much wrapped in Christmas that's amazing.

I love Christmas movies.

I watch Christmas movies with my boo.

It's amazing.

And then presents, presents are great.

And don't for one second get me down the path about how much better Christmas dinner is than Thanksgiving lunch.

It is.

In every way, Christmas dinner reigns supreme.

Where are my honey baked ham people at?

Yeah, if turkey was so good, we would eat it more than one day a year, okay?

And so Christmas is it.

Christmas is amazing.

Although, I will admit, there is a there is one thing.

There is one thing about Christmas that brings it to the depths and ruins it.

And it's Christmas clutter.

Amen?

Christmas clutter.

It's terrible.

I mean, just go with me on a journey for a second.

It's Christmas morning.

You wake up at an ungodly hour because the kids are up.

The only day of the year they don't need an alarm to rise with the sun.

They run down the hallway, they're ecstatic for what they know to be presents under the tree.

They run.

And they begin to do what?

The rule of law is lost.

It's it's first come, first serve at this point.

We are ripping presents open and throwing paper and just opening the presents, like ripping them out of the plastic.

Or your family tries to do the whole, we're gonna go in order and someone's gonna be, you know, that never works, right?

And it always ends like after the first couple of presents get open.

And it's just crazy.

So there's paper everywhere, there's trash everywhere.

We're in our matching pajamas, and we're sipping coffee, and the thing that just gets me crazy is no one picks it up, right?

Like we're just okay to let it be.

I'm I'm on Christmas morning, I've got a trash can on my ticket up, pick it up! You know, it's like kind of like it's Christmas, it's Christmas.

And I'm, you know, so we're just sitting waist deep in trash, and we're all okay with that.

And the kids are opening their presents, and you get to open your presents, and then the real party starts when it dawns in on you.

Not that you gotta pick all this up, but you look at all the new Christmas stuff, you look at all the kids' Christmas stuff, your Christmas stuff, and you're like, oh, we have to find a place for all this because the toys that they had are still there, and guess what?

All the uh tools in your garage that you never used, they're still hanging up there too, right?

And so, like, we gotta find a place for all of this mess.

And it just makes me wonder if our Christmas is too cluttered for Christ.

Like, it just honestly makes me think that in the middle of all the clutter and in the middle of all the trash and the stuff and the lights and the movies and the presents and the decoration and the tree and the festivities, if our Christmas isn't too cluttered for Jesus Christ.

Because here's the thing all the things that I just talked about that make Christmas so amazing, they're all really good things, but not one of them was a God thing.

Like all the things that we just said make Christmas so much better, so much more grandiose, so much more awe-inspiring than any other time of the year, any other holiday.

They were all really good, cool things, but none of them were God things.

And I can see the eye rolls already, and I can feel you shutting down.

Like, oh, here we go.

It's the old keep Christ in Christmas thing.

Like, of course he's in Christmas.

Like we're here today on a Sunday morning, aren't we?

Aren't we?

We're gonna do Christmas Eve, and you know, it's like, yeah, of course he's in Christmas.

Okay, yeah, like, but how much?

It's like honestly, but like how much of your time, effort, attention, energy, planning, money, Christmas commercialized over here, and then Jesus.

How much?

How much Jesus gets your Christmas?

Because for me, pastor on platform, if I'm honest, Jesus gets so little Christmas.

There's so little room for Christ in my Christmas.

The space is all cluttered.

And the scary thing is that twice in Scripture, God Himself makes this terrifying statement about his own people.

Not the Gentiles, not the non-believers, his own people, once through the prophet Isaiah, and then once through God's own mouth and Jesus Christ himself in Matthew chapter 15, verse 8, where he looks at his people, the religious, not the rebellious.

Matthew 15:8

And he says, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts, their hearts are far from me.

God himself would look at his own people and say, The people they honor me with their lips, but their heart, it is far from me.

The Christmas Eve service is there.

Maybe even the reading of the nativity story once or twice, possibly even the advent schedule, if you even know what that is, and maybe the ornaments that go on the tree that complement it.

But the tension is that so easily Christmas can just become a holiday season instead of a holy season.

Because holiness means to be set apart for a purpose.

And I'm I'm fearful in my own life as a dad now of a six-year-old and a four-year-old and a baby on the way, as a spiritual leader, as somebody who Jesus would look at me and say, Aren't you supposed to be the shepherd of the people?

And that God would look at me and say, Oh no, it's cool that you claim Christmas with your mouth.

But the time set apart to celebrate the grace of the gift of my son Jesus in your life is too cluttered for him to have a seat there.

Because there are things in our Christmas, the problem is, that there are things in our Christmas that take the seat that should be saved for Jesus.

Just follow the money trail.

Just follow the organizational chart of your time.

Our gift lists get more intentionality than our Christmas season, making room for Christ.

Our holiday schedule and plans of who we're visiting and when we're visiting them get more priority shift out of us.

Well, I guess we'll go there this year.

I guess we'll drive there.

I guess we'll spend money on plane tickets there.

Are you with me?

We will rearrange things for what we want to do.

And I just feel like in Christmas in 2022, Jesus is like, but what about me?

Like, what about what about making room for me?

And so maybe the real tension is, okay, well, how do we become, not become a people who honor God with our lips, but our hearts are far from him?

How do we make room?

How do we prepare him room this Christmas?

How do we make this holiday season a holy season?

So Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 1, where we're gonna be this morning in entirety.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

The beginning origin stories of story of Christmas, I believe, is going to unpackage and reveal to us how you and I today can leave this room fundamentally different, preparing him room in our Christmas season.

Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 38.

Luke 1:26–38

If you don't have a Bible, that's okay.

It'll be on the screens behind you.

I recommend if you don't have a Bible, download the UVersion Bible app on your phone.

You can take it with you wherever you go.

I like to call it my conceal carry, you know.

Get some every time.

Verse 26, Gospel of Luke says this.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary.

Now wait, before we get going, it's important to remind ourselves of the intertestamental period, which is simply this: that between the Old Testament and the New Testament, Luke chapter 1, God has not spoken for over 400 years.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

He's remained silent.

Through no prophet, priest, or messenger, God has not spoken to his people.

And they've been wandering in the darkness.

They've been wandering around trying to live life, and so they've been creating extra laws and new rules to stay close to God and to avoid sin.

But God decides with an angelic message through the messenger angel Gabriel to interrupt that silence.

And he's choosing to interrupt that silence by interrupting the life of an average, normal teenage virgin girl named Mary.

And so Gabriel comes to Mary to interrupt the silence, to interrupt her life with a message.

Now, Mary, this young teenage girl, she's engaged, which some of y'all, you're like, I receive it, God.

Um, she's engaged, so maybe your day's coming, all right?

It's in the Bible.

And so she's engaged, and she's engaged to a man named Joseph.

Now, what's so special about Joseph?

Well, Joseph, Luke makes uh detail that Joseph is the descendant of the house of David, which means this.

She's marrying into royalty, you know?

Like he is of the lineage of King David himself.

You know, Psalms 1, 2 Kings, you with me?

Okay, yeah.

So David, big dude, big deal.

And so this is kind of like her glow-up moment, maybe.

So she's she's in love.

We know that.

We'll get into Joseph's life soon.

And there's stuff in Joseph's lives that let us know that they're really in love and they got a great thing going on.

Um and so she's marrying into royalty of the lineage of King David.

The problem is, though, there has been no king in Israel for hundreds of years.

There has been no lineage, there's been no line of kingly succession.

Matter of fact, Israel at this time is under foreign occupation.

And so not only is God interrupting the silence, not only is God interrupting Mary's life, God is about to interrupt something not just in the life of Israel, or not even just in the life of Roman rule and occupation.

He's about to do something that interrupts the life of the world.

And listen to what Gabriel says.

This is the message from God 28.

And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you found favor with God.

Hold up.

Verse 29 is so real.

I love it.

Gabriel comes to Mary.

Here's an angel.

Ha! You know, it's like this great moment.

And he says, Hey Mary, what's up?

Uh, you are favored by God.

He's shown favor on you.

And and while he's talking, Mary can't hear anything else that he's saying because it says what?

It says that she is greatly troubled and she is trying to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

Well, Pat, that doesn't make sense.

Why would that be Mary's response?

Well, not just because there's an angel showing up to her in flesh and blood, but if you know anything about the Old Testament, Gabriel doesn't carry great messages.

Like Gabriel shows up and he's like, all right, here's the deal.

God's killing half the nation.

And it's like, what?

I gotta tell that to the people?

Like Gabriel shows up and like, God wants you to lead, but he just wants you to take a stick.

Like, what?

Like, that doesn't make any sense at all.

Or, like, even worse, like, hey, God said it's not gonna rain for like, I don't know, we'll see.

And you're like, what?

I gotta take, I gotta take that to the people.

And so maybe Mary's sitting there and she's like, oh, great.

Like, I'm highly favored for this message, but maybe this message is gonna get me ostracized and maybe it's gonna get me into a bunch of trouble.

Okay, here we go.

Or maybe what Mary's wrestling with is that Gabriel says, You found favor with God.

It could be that Mary's wrestling with the fact that Gabriel might be giving her a message that's hard to hear, but it really might be the fact that this teenage girl of obsolete background that we don't get that much of a picture and a setup story on is thinking, How could I be the oh favored one?

How in the world can I have found favor with God?

I'm no one.

I'm young, I'm a teenager, I've done nothing.

I'm not even married yet.

How can God favor me?

And it's as if Gabriel knows.

It's like he can hear the inner dialogue in her head, and what does he do?

He he gently reminds her, Mary, don't be afraid.

He said, Mary, don't let your fear sabotage your faith.

God has favored you.

He is demonstrating his delight in you.

He has something for you.

And maybe in the room this morning you just need to hear this that God does not share your opinion of you.

God doesn't share your opinion of you.

Like maybe the message of God has come to you many times and you think that's too big for me to do.

That's too hard for me to do.

God, don't you know I've messed up like this?

Don't you know my past is full of this?

God, don't you know that I don't know that much about this?

But can I tell you this morning, God is confident enough in himself that he can use whoever, whenever, for whatever he wants to do.

So it doesn't matter what you think about you, it just matters if God is confident enough to use you.

And he wants to.

And he does.

And so he shows up to this teenage girl of obscurity and he says, Hey, I want to use you to interrupt the silence.

I'm gonna interrupt you, but I want to use you to interrupt the silence.

And this is what he continues to say.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

And the Lord, God will give to 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.

Mary, you're gonna have a baby.

And not only are you gonna have a baby, what does the text say?

It's not just any baby, you're gonna name him Jesus.

He's gonna be the Son of God.

Oh, and he will inherit his father's throne.

Just it's a lot more of his father in heaven's throne than it is Joseph's.

He is gonna be of the lineage of the house of David and he will rule, but not just over the house of Jacob.

His kingdom will know no limit.

It will never end and it will go from generation to generation.

This baby isn't just for Israel, Mary.

This baby isn't just for you.

This baby isn't just for Rome.

This baby is for the world.

And for a split second again, our sweet Mary gets caught up in the realm of possibilities.

And for a split second, our sweet Mary again begins to live more in the natural than the supernatural encounter she's having.

Except this time she she has a little bit better of a reasoning.

In verse 34, Mary said to the angel, Well, how will this be since I'm a virgin?

Great question.

And the angel answered her, Well, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy or set apart, the son of God.

And behold, your relative, Elizabeth, new character, in her old age, has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.

So Elizabeth's got a little bit of a reputation.

She couldn't have kids.

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Y'all, we just read that out loud.

Nothing will be impossible with God.

Do you believe it this morning?

Can you allow yourself to dare to hope that not one thing, nothing, no one thing will be impossible if God decides to get involved?

Which means we don't need to figure out ways to separate the secular and the sacred.

We need to invite it in.

Because the moment the Holy Spirit steps into your business, things change.

The moment the Holy Spirit steps into your marriage, things change.

It's not even in the notes.

I gotta keep going.

And Mary said, Behold, I'm the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

I can appreciate Mary here.

I really can.

And she's like, hey, you may have got the message mixed up.

I know who you are, Gabriel.

I know obviously God's bringing me a message.

Maybe I have doubts about that message, but I really have doubts with how that message is going to play out because what you need to understand is I'm engaged.

I'm not married.

Like I can't have a baby.

I'm just at the beginning of my relationship with Joseph.

I'm I'm not to this stage.

Let me just say it plainly, Gabriel.

I'm a virgin.

I've never been with a man.

So I don't know how, in fact, it is that God is going to bless me with a baby, much less make that baby the savior of the world.

And Gabriel says, Hey, let me interrupt your way of thinking.

And maybe for you, the only thing you need to hear this morning is God wants to interrupt the way you think.

Let me interrupt your way of thinking.

And then Gabriel says something amazing.

He says, the Holy Spirit will.

You could just highlight that part in your Bible.

The Holy Spirit will.

And then he fills in the details.

Mary, the Holy Spirit will make it so that way you can have a baby.

And then the shadow or the presence of God will cover you and protect you.

Oh, by the way, Mary, in case you didn't know, you know your cousin Elizabeth, who's married to the high priest?

You know how she hadn't been able to have a baby like all this time?

Well, actually, we delivered a very similar message to her, and guess what?

Her who was called barren, that was her reputation.

Everyone knew it about her.

She's actually six months pregnant.

So, what I need you to know, Mary, is that nothing is impossible with God.

What I promised to your cousin, God is promising to you too, and the Holy Spirit will make it happen.

So maybe for you in the room today, what you need to hear is whether you're at the beginning or the end or somewhere in between, nothing is impossible with God.

There is not one thing in your life that God can't do if you will just open up and allow him to do it in you and then through you.

The problem is we just want God to move through us.

And we don't want the work of God in us to overflow into our life to the things around us.

But Gabriel is telling Mary, hey, not just for you, Mary, but for all of humanity, the promise is that nothing is impossible with God.

And not only that, but that God wants to intimately step into your situation so he can work it for his glory and good pleasure, and then you're good in that order.

His glory, his good pleasure, and then if it benefits you, so be it.

That's the Christmas message.

It's the origin of Christmas.

That our God has the power to make the possible in our mind expand to what is impossible.

That once the Holy Spirit gets involved, that He can use anyone, anywhere for anything, that He is confident enough in Himself to move despite your deficiencies or your efficiencies.

So I guess the Bible's pretty clear.

That the answer to preparing him room, if you want to prepare Jesus more room this Christmas, December 2022, if you want to get rid of the clutter and make a seat for Christ in your Christmas, I guess the Bible is saying you have to do this.

You have to prepare to be interrupted.

You personally, under the sound of my voice online and in the room, you have to prepare to be interrupted, just like teenage Mary.

Prepare to be interrupted.

Prepare for God to interrupt your normal with the impossible.

Prepare for God to interrupt your vision for your life with his vision for your life.

Prepare for God to interrupt your plans with his purposes.

Prepare for God to interrupt your comfort, your comfort with his calling.

God has never been concerned with how comfortable his people are.

Ever.

I mean, Jesus is so uncomfortable in the Garden of Gethsemane before he dies that he's sweating literal drops of blood.

And if he'll put his own son through that level of discomfort, how much more might he put you?

You in an uncomfortable situation.

So that way his power can be put on display.

That's why Paul says it's in my weakness.

It's in the areas that I'm no good that I boast because that's when the power of Jesus is on display.

Which means this, for some of you, God may want you to get prepared to get uncomfortable, to do things that make you uncomfortable.

Be prepared to be interrupted.

Alright, dude, that preach is good.

Like we're almost done.

Good job.

It's been pretty entertaining.

But how do I actually do that?

Like as a real-life human being in 2022, in northeast of Houston, in the surrounding area, how do I actually prepare room to be interrupted?

How do I make myself ready for that?

I'm glad you asked.

Because I think for some of us, what you need to realize is you need to follow the example of Mary.

That the Christmas story isn't just for grandeur celebration of the holiday season.

It's meant to make you holy.

Look again at verse 38.

I'll show you what I mean.

And Mary said, after Gabriel said all these things, what did she say?

She said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

And then the angel departed her.

So if you want to prepare to be interrupted, I think there's two things you need to do that we miss in the Christmas story all the time because we read it like a holiday story instead of a holy story.

First is this you have to submit.

Oh, that preach is good.

You gotta submit.

You gotta give up the control.

Mary's response was to say, I am the servant of the Lord.

You ever stop to think about how full of interruption the life of a sermon is?

You ever heard the phrase waited on hand in foot?

Kylie and I went on vacation once and you got like free room service.

And you know, we called them all the time.

You know what their only job was?

To be prepared to be interrupted, to be available.

Their job is to sit in some room waiting on us hand in foot for that little phone to ring so they can pick it up and say, room service, and then we can say, hey, here's what we want, and not for them to go, ah, I don't feel like that, or that doesn't fit with our schedule tonight.

No, they just go, okay, and then you know what happens?

It gets delivered.

And God is saying, Okay, will you submit?

I'll show up, will you submit?

I'll speak, will you submit?

I'll prove I'll provide the power, I'll do everything that's necessary.

But will you submit to me?

Will you get available?

Will you free yourself up?

To let my way be the way.

And here's how you may need to submit to Jesus in the room tonight.

For many of you, I believe truthfully, the first way you need to submit is to surrender to Christ.

You have no relationship with Jesus.

Life has always been your way or the highway.

It's always been what you want, when you want it, how you want it done.

The truth is, though, you're a living example of how that doesn't work.

And you know that your life is a mess.

And you have real hurts and you have real pain.

And I'm sorry that that's been the product of your life.

But the truth is that God has something so much better.

And he's not been holding out on you.

You've been holding your submission out on him.

And he's been with you every step of the way, saying, if you'll just give up control, I will take over and I can do this so much better than you can.

And so for many of you, you need to just submit.

For some of you, say people in the room, though, you need to submit too.

You need to remind yourself that Jesus in Matthew 28, before he ascends back to heaven, he says, All authority has been given to who?

Not you, to me.

And we've taken that authority back from God.

Well, this is how I feel.

This is what I want to do.

This is what the Bible means to me.

I hate that phrase.

The Bible means what it means.

And so maybe for some of you, you need to surrender control of your life to Jesus, your career to Jesus, your family to Jesus, your finances to Jesus, your kids and their future to Jesus.

You've got to let go of control and trust God with your career.

That He wants to do more with your seat than just make more money.

He wants to establish the kingdom of heaven here on earth through ethical business, through loving people more than you love yourself, through servant leadership.

There are so many ways that you can submit to Jesus right where you are and let go of troll, King Troll.

Maybe some of you, that means you're finally gonna join a serve team at United City Church.

And you're gonna stop receiving the ministry of UC, and you're gonna start being the ministry of UC because the church is the gathered assembly of people, which means by default you're already the church.

The question isn't how active is the church, the question is how active are you?

And so maybe it's time to submit to the call of God on your life and say, okay, your way is better.

I'm gonna make room for that in my life.

I'm gonna be ready to receive that into my life.

I'm waiting on you, God, hand and foot, so much to the point that I will be like Mary.

And whatever it is you say, my natural response will be, Well, I'm a servant of the Lord.

It's my job to be available and to say yes.

So, yes, I'm available, and yes, I will fill in the blank to what God is asking me to do.

The second is this.

First, you have to submit submit.

Second is you have to obey.

Because submission is no good without obedience.

Mary says, this teenage girl, this 12 to 16 year old girl who says, I'm the servant of the Lord, and then she says, Let it be to me according to your word.

And Mary was ready to be obedient.

Let me ask you this.

When was the last time that the message of God came to you in such clarity that your natural response was obedience?

When was the last time the word of God came to you and you did something?

And you moved.

And you made a decision.

And you gave God your obedience, not just your acknowledgement.

I agree with that.

You know that we can agree sitting.

You can agree sitting.

But you can't obey sitting.

You gotta go, you gotta move, you gotta act.

That's why James says, Don't deceive yourself and just be hearers of the word only and submit to the word through hearing it.

You gotta prove your faith by doing it and showing that it's worth something inside of you.

And this teenage girl, scared as she can be, says, Okay, I'm a servant first, and I don't know how this is gonna happen.

And it doesn't make sense, but I'll do it.

I'll obey.

So maybe the question we gotta ask is what is God asking us to do that we're dragging our feet on?

Like, what is God asking you to do that you're actively dragging your feet on?

For some of you, you know, the statistic is like 83% of Christians are gonna die and never lead anyone to Christ.

What?

Like some of you, the obedience factor is the go and tell, go therefore.

Like it's time to share your story.

That coworker you sit to next to every day, the lady who cuts your hair, the the same Starbucks barista who knows you enough to say, hey, here you are, and they don't even have to write your name on the cup, right?

The person you do business with all the time, like your friends and family who don't know Jesus, they need to hear.

And Paul would say in Romans when we jump back in, how are they gonna hear unless someone tells them?

And so maybe we need to obey and we need to start telling our story.

But it could be other hard stuff like giving.

God's word says, trust me with 10%.

The first 10%.

I want that.

I want it.

Not because I need it, but I need you to prove that you trust me.

God's word says other hard things like, hey, you gotta forgive the people who've wronged you.

If they slap you on the cheek, turn the other one and say, You want that side too?

Anyone who has anger in their heart has commit has committed murder to a brother.

He says other hard things like you gotta confess your sin to one another, James.

You gotta confess your sins to one another so you may be healed.

Because the powerful prayer of a righteous person has great effect and it's working.

And so you gotta confess your sins to one another.

He says other things like you gotta love your enemies and you gotta pray for those who persecute you.

You have to take on the servant mentality and lead from that position instead of garnishing power and authority.

You gotta give up your life.

I've I've not come to be served, but to serve and give my life as a ransom for many.

You gotta do that same thing.

I didn't come for the healthy, I came for the sick.

You better be around sick people.

You you gotta put up with the weaknesses of others.

Maybe their faith hasn't caught up to yours.

Give them a little grace.

It doesn't matter how they think the world's gonna end or about the COVID vaccine.

It just matters do they know Jesus?

Are they reading their Bible?

Do they know how to pray?

Like there are hard things that God is asking us to do in Scripture.

And we're submitted in acknowledgement that it's good, but now we gotta get to a place like Mary, like Teenage Mary, where we actually gotta obey, we gotta do it.

And that's why we read our Bible.

Not to be religious, but to be open to the design that God has for our life, and to submit to it and acknowledge his way is better, and then to live that out, powered by the Holy Spirit.

So you want to prepare in room?

It's time to get submitted, and it's time to get obedient.

Because here's what my pastor taught me this week as I was preparing for this message.

He hit me with this line, and I was like, Oh my god.

That's good.

He said, Pat, God rarely works on a schedule, but he always works on an interruption.

God rarely works on a schedule.

I mean, when has God ever done anything according to your schedule?

It'd always be feeling like God's never on time.

The difference is he's just not on my time.

And that might oftentimes feel like he's late, but what about the times it feels like he's early?

What about the time where he's come when you're not ready?

We love to talk about God not being on our timing and being super spiritual about it when we can look at the past and say, oh, I see how it works out now.

But what about when God shows up early?

Hey, sell your house now.

Retire now.

Cash out to 401k and let me do something with it with missions now.

Hey, start serving now.

No, I know that you had a bad church experience, but start serving now.

Hey, share your faith now.

I don't feel like I've known enough stuff.

I gotta do the three serving.

No, share it now.

Share it now.

What about when God shows up early?

And maybe this is the thing.

Maybe the thing we haven't talked about, and I've been trying to skirt around it, maybe you feel the tension because I feel it too.

I've been trying to hide it, is this interruptions suck.

I mean, if I was preaching right now and you just shouted something out, and this is like, great job, hallelujah, amen.

If it was like, you're wrong, I'd be like, ah, that's weird, you know, like that interruption's not great.

My kids, they run up all the time.

I'll be in a conversation.

Dad, dad, dad.

What do I always say?

Hey, don't what?

Don't interrupt me.

In classrooms, they raise their hand.

Some of y'all still gotta catch up on the mute yourself on a Zoom call, right?

Nobody wants to be interrupted by your dog barking in the background.

But here's the thing interruptions rarely are seen as a good thing.

Because it's not convenient to be interrupted.

It doesn't feel good to have your progress stopped.

It's not comfortable to have your hard work redirected and say, oh, actually, that was good, but no, we're gonna go.

We don't like that because at the end of the day, interruptions release us of control.

And we love to be in control.

Gabriel speaks to Mary and after receiving the message.

I love I love what Mary does.

She's such a good biblical picture of faithfulness.

She gets the message from Gabriel and she runs to confirm the call of God.

She goes to Elizabeth.

She says, I mean, God has promised me this baby.

I don't understand how that could happen.

That should be impossible for me.

So I'll run to Elizabeth and confirm the call there and see if God can really do what He needs what He said He's doing.

Which is for some of you, plug for groups there, plug for sharing your testimony there.

Your testimony is someone else's faith fuel.

I'm telling you.

And so Mary shows up and she sees Elizabeth, her older cousin, and she turns and boom.

She's like, oh my gosh.

And they have this like, I can I can read it.

I got a pregnant wife right now.

She celebrates with other pregnant people, and I can just see it in the story.

Oh, you know, like, oh, it's so true, it's amazing.

And they're like in the kitchen, excited, which is great.

I love it.

And it's just like, you're pregnant.

How did that happen?

She's like, you're never gonna believe it.

A messenger angel showed up to me and said, I'm gonna have a baby.

She's like, Oh, I bet I can.

You're never gonna believe it.

I got the same message.

Only thing is my baby's like the savior of the world, so he's a little bit better than yours.

So we gotta navigate that family tension at the get-togethers.

Like, John, oh, messenger for the savior?

Savior.

You know, got him right here.

But it's these two women of God who are just celebrating the faithfulness of God, and they're celebrating how the Holy Spirit has worked the impossible to become possible in their situation.

And then in Luke chapter 1, buried under a Christmas story that never gets any play because we're so familiar, comes one of the most encouraging passages of scripture, and it's just one verse.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

In Luke chapter 1, verse 45, it says this.

Luke 1:45

This is Elizabeth talking to her younger cousin Mary.

She says, and blessed is she who believed.

Blessed is she who gave belief that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

You know what that means?

You know what that says.

She's saying, Man, it is so much better to be interrupted by God than to be so planned out that you got no room for his plan.

She said, Man, you know why you're blessed?

You know why I'm blessed?

Because we believed that God wasn't promising us something empty, that the interruption was actually full of power and purpose and a miracle beyond our understanding.

So blessed are the men and women who believe in the power of the interruption because it makes space for the move of God in their life.

And this older woman is instructing a younger woman, and we get to sit in on that and realize that the great news about being interrupted by God is that his plan is always better than what you had planned.

God doesn't interrupt us with empty promises, he interrupts us with power and purpose.

And can I just tell you, United City Church, I found it to be that God's interruption is always better than your intention.

God's interruption has always been better than my intentions for my life.

And I believe the truth is this is that God is trying to interrupt every single one of you under the sound of my voice today.

And the irony of the interruption is that he's trying to get you to make room for what Christmas is all about.

The irony of the interruption is that he's asking you to prepare him room.

Because the holy season that was created to make that happen has become cluttered, has become junked up, and has lost its ability to lead us to wholehearted submission and quick obedience.

So the question is this morning will you prepare him room?

And you can do that right now.

But that's a really personal thing, and we're live streaming this.

Thousands of people may be watching, and this is an impersonal room.

So here's what I want you to do.

I just want you to close your eyes right where you are.

You don't have to move to close your eyes, you don't have to close up your Bible and your notes to close your eyes, you just have to close your eyes.

Because right now, the only thing left is you and me.

It's my voice in your head.

Well, I guess there's one other thing, and that other thing is the call to prepare him room.

And your response to that call.

Will you submit?

For many of you in the room, the truth is it's time for you to submit and to give your life to Jesus.

It's time to give up control, and it's time to believe in a God who believed in you so much that he stepped out of heaven and stepped onto earth and lived a life you couldn't live, and died the death that you deserve to die, that he rose in power over sin and death, and then he turned, and the first thing he did is he offered that power to you.

If you would receive it through Jesus.

There are people in this room right now that you need to submit your life to Jesus for the first time, not for the first time in a long time, for the very first time.

I I want to submit my life to Jesus, and if that's you all over this room, I want you to look up at me and stay looking at me.

I need to submit my life to Jesus.

If that's you, look up at me and stay looking all over.

I see ya.

I see ya.

Yeah, I see you all over this room.

The second group of people in the room, and stay looking at me if you are, just if you're submitting.

The second group of people in the room that need to submit is the truth is you've submitted your life to Jesus.

But you've not gone public with that submission through baptism.

It's the first thing Jesus asks you to do, and so your faith life feels gunked up because your obedience is gunked up.

And so you've submitted, but now it's time to obey, it's time to step out in obedience and be baptized.

And if that's you in the room, say, Pat, that's me.

I know that's me.

I've submitted to Jesus, but I've never gotten public with that by obeying in baptism after my salvation.

And if that's you, I want you to look up at me.

I see you in the back, I see you in the middle, I see you, I see you all over the place.

The third group of people is this.

You're a follower of Jesus, you've submitted your life to Him, and maybe you've even gone public in obedience and baptism.

But the truth is, somewhere along the way, the clutter has crept in.

And for some reason, your your quick submission and your quick obedience has been lost.

And there are so many things you're dragging your feet on that the Lord is calling you to do.

And if that's you, and today you need to get back to a lifestyle of submitting and obeying, I want you to look at me right now.

Pat, that's me.

I need to do that.

Yeah, I see you all over the room.

Well, here's the deal: our staff team is coming down front right now.

And if you looked up at me, I want you to stay looking up at me.

Because I'm not gonna offer you an opportunity today, I'm gonna issue a challenge.

I'm gonna create an environment that makes it easy for you to do the things by looking up at me you just said I want to do, and that is to submit and to obey.

So right now, with no one looking, the challenge is this.

If it's true in your life that you need to submit and give your life to Jesus, if it's true that you need to submit and obey and to run after baptism, if it's true that you need to submit and obey and gain that back as a follower of Christ because you've lost it along the way, then what you need to do right now is to submit to God and show them you mean it by obeying and coming and grabbing one of these staff members and say, Hey, I need to submit or I need to obey.

And explain to them the thing that you need in your life.

You can do that right now.

Right now, under the sound of my voice, if you're looking at me, you can stand up, you can't go alone.

Fear has a hold of your faith, just tap the person next to you and say, Hey, I need you to move with me.

Because it'll never be easier than right now in a room full of followers of Jesus who want nothing more for you than to submit and obey, to take that step on top of it while no one is looking.

And so if you need to submit and give your life to Christ, then you move.

If you need to get baptized and say, Hey, I need that in my life, I want you to move right now.

If you need to recover a lifestyle of submitting and obeying to Jesus quickly, then do that.

Move right now.

Show yourself and show your God that you are ready to break the habit of being stale.

I'm gonna pray.

And when I pray, if you need to move, we're gonna sing a few chorses of a song.

And we're gonna build in some extra time.

And if you need to do that, you move.

Jesus, thank you for moving towards us and stepping out of heaven and stepping on the earth.

God, I pray for the people who've already moved in the room.

God, would their faith give faith and courage to those who haven't moved yet?

God, would you help us be a people who submit and who obey?

God, help us be a people whose mouths don't claim you and our hearts are far from you.

God, quite the opposite.

Would our hearts be near you and so near you that our mouths proclaim the excellencies of the work of the one who's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light?

God, would you work a revival inside of United City Church and break us of our staleness, break us of our our demeanor of refusing to submit and obey and God through the movement of people in this room today?

Would you start a new thing this holy season of Christmas?

It's in your name we pray and ask it all.

And God's people said amen.

What an incredible message.

Hey, if you made a decision today to give your life to Jesus, we'd love to know about it.

We'd love to celebrate with you, we'd even love to pray with you.

And so if you made that decision, would you text next to 55498?

And someone from our team would love to follow up with you.

In the meantime, I would love to pray with you even right now as God continues to do things in your heart.

And so, Jesus, we love you so much.

We say thank you for the truth of your word.

Thank you for still showing up in people's lives.

Jesus, I bring you to you with your hearts in your lives.

I bring peace to mind.

Oh my god.