Good morning. Man, it's fun being together with each other and God on Sundays, isn't it? And uh and his love never has failed. And one of the many, many ways God's demonstrated that was uh sending his son to the world, sending his son to our world. You know, he he showed us what our fathers really like. Uh he showed us what love's really like, and just gave us this great opportunity to be adopted into God's own family and uh have a relationship with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And I love this time of year. You know, we're gonna get started uh with uh with Christmas time, and uh I know with Dallas and and what Susan talked about is so true that it it it can be a tough time, you know, with maybe time pressure and stress and and especially tough if uh if we're missing someone around uh Christmas time, and that's gonna be one of the great things about heaven. There's gonna be all kinds of celebrations in heaven without any heartache. And uh and man, if New York can look good at Christmas time, uh just think how heaven's gonna look all decorated. But uh it's gonna be a blast. Um but just this time of year, you know, um in such a kind of politically correct society and culture, and to hear songs about Jesus played all over the radio and in the stores. And last night we were uh on Main Street waiting for the parade, you know, and there's just all these songs just blasting about Jesus. And uh it's so cool. And it's not just just here, it's really all over the world. I mentioned uh flying to Uganda at Christmas time and going through Amsterdam and to then to Nairobi, Kenya, and then to Entebbe, and at every airport there was a uh nativity scene and and uh songs about Jesus and signs about Jesus. And so really for the next four weeks, most of the world is at least pondering uh Jesus, which is really cool. And uh I even like Santa Claus. I mean, how can you hate on a jolly old elf? But um, you know, some people feel like like Santa's a secular imposter uh for God, but but I really feel like he's uh uh a fun tradition about what's uh good in people. I mean, you may know that Santa was a real person, uh, and he loved Jesus. His name was Nicholas. He lived in uh 280 uh in a country which is now Turkey. He was a bishop of a city called uh Myra until he died in 343. Um he was a little bit of a troublemaker. Uh he got thrown in jail twice, once by the emperor for uh just outspoken uh religious statements. And then uh the other time was because he uh uh punched another bishop during a debate. And there's nothing like a good bishop fight, that is for sure. But he was best known for his his kindness that he showed to uh his neighbors, and every now and then he would drop a gold coin through one of their windows when he knew that they were in need. And then after he died, the legend kind of um grew and he became known as St. Nicholas, and and the story was told that he would drop bags of coins down chimneys, and then you know, later, he was actually a pretty physically slight guy, but his size grew with the legend, and um and so later, you know, its presence dropped down the chimney uh all over the world. But I like him, and it's not just because I'm trying to get off the naughty list, which I am, because it's it's been 11 years and that's a long time. But uh but he shows a goodness and a care for people, and especially uh children. And you know, Jesus definitely doesn't compete with Santa. You know, Santa is a tradition where he would show up once a year and delight kids, and we have Jesus every minute, you know, giving us all kinds of gifts and changing our hearts and changing um our lives. And um I say all that because I know for sure, because this is one of God's uh truths and one of his great principles is that how we decide things, how we decide to see things will greatly influence how much joy we have this year. And if we see the the what's good and we see the the best and uh mostly focus on Jesus and our loved ones and each other, we're gonna have a wonderful uh month together. And this coming Saturday uh is Help Portrait. Um it's a really national movement that Tom Melesko is leading here. But the idea is to give uh a family portrait to families who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to have one. And it's such a great uh gift at Christmas time, and uh we're gonna be doing that this Saturday uh from 10 to 4, and you could sign up in the lobby if you want to help with that, or you could sign up um if you'd like to get uh a portrait um taken of your family. And again, that's Saturday from 10 to 4. Uh then the next day, which is next Sunday, is Christmas Angels Delivery Day, and that's always a blast. Um and after we finish next Sunday, we'll line up our cars uh and then load up a bag of toys, we'll all get a map and get to deliver uh gifts to 250 or more uh children in the area. And today was the last day to bring back uh the gifts, and if you forgot, if you'll just see uh someone at the Christmas Angels table in the lobby and they'll arrange another time to uh to bring them back. And then we have the 23rd and the 24th to look forward to. We're gonna change it up uh a little bit this year. Are y'all ready for a little change? I hope so, because uh we're gonna get some this morning. But uh what we're gonna do is we're gonna do really three Christmas Eve services. Now, for the past couple years, we've only done uh one. And and the reason is because as we kind of transition to such a volunteer church and everybody helping out in so many ways, we didn't want to put anything extra on everyone at Christmas time. But I really feel like we're at a point where we can really reach out to the community and bless them and uh and invite all our friends and neighbors, and it still will not be too much, and it'll it'll be uh great for us. And I was saw uh an ad a church up north did. Um, and you know how we like to copy things that are done up north. And so the um but um anyway, it they had a Christmas Eve service they were uh announcing, and it was the 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th. And so I thought, well, with Sunday the 23rd, why don't we just have uh three Christmas Eve services this year? So that's what we're gonna do on Sunday the 23rd at 10. Um we're gonna have basically our our Christmas Eve service, except we're gonna do the Lord's Supper instead of the candlelighting that day, but there'll be uh a celebration for the kids in the nursery and in uh his kids. And then the main, you know, I think for uh for most people in the in the community is gonna be is that going in and out? No? Oh my brain's just going in and out. That's scary. Um you know the bigger ones will be the will be at 4 o'clock and and 6 o'clock on uh Monday, Christmas Eve. And uh we'll just have a great time together. We're going to send some postcards out to families in the in the surrounding area. We'll have some options this year. You can sleep in on Sunday if uh if you want, or or come and help that day, and then come um on Christmas Eve, or come all three uh services, because it it's really gonna be um a blast. Got a couple other things that uh oh and those postcards, we're gonna print a bunch extra so we can have them use to hand out and and invite um our friends. Okay, so I talked about changing it up a little bit, and so today we're gonna uh do that. And uh the first thing we're gonna do is we're not gonna do a last song after the message. Um and really it's been seven years since we started, and we just don't want to get stuck in too much of a rut, you know? And so some Sundays we'll we'll do a song afterwards. Uh this morning we'll just uh pray and then go have uh have a great day. Um but then the other thing is a big one, and that's that we're gonna ask everybody to start bringing tambourines every Sunday. And so that's gonna be cool. No, actually this Sunday, for seven years we've done hands in the pile together. And and we don't want to get in a rut on that either, you know. And when we started, it was really not just a church, it's a cause in a way to get away from the religion and the rules and back to Jesus and understanding God's love and being a family together. And so that's a way of demonstrating that. You know, we're all in this together and and uh and focused on Jesus. And we're gonna do that from time to time when when you know it's appropriate, and we're and we're talking about uh doing something together. So um, but we're not gonna do it every Sunday because sometimes, you know, if you don't um you know at one point uh Ford decided not to only make black cars and it worked out pretty good for him. And and um so we're gonna still want to get stuck in a route route where something that's cool and meaningful ends up being weird 30 years from now. And um and if we don't like any of that, we'll just change back or do something else. So it'll be uh it'll be good. And uh but it'll be strange this morning. Um okay, if that wasn't enough. I got one last thing uh to uh to share, and that's about uh giving. We don't talk about giving that much. If it's your first time here, we we don't pass a plate. Um we give we had giving stations in the back and and we can give online to the the website. But again, kind of in the theme that we've been here seven years, and and uh there's some things in the building we really need to uh to get done. And even with volunteers and and manpower and offers of help, it's uh it's gonna take probably $50 or $60,000 over the next 45 days. And one thing I just firmly believe in, and I think this is just because some of my life experiences, um, but is that is that we don't ever want to have a uh building campaign or a pledge drive or any of those types of things. I think that you know, if we have needs, we just we'll share with each other and we're a family and we'll just uh figure it out. And there's so many ways to give at Christmas and so many great causes. Um but if you would uh pray and think about maybe giving a special gift here, and we'll get uh you know, this building is such uh a blessing, you know, to us, and God's using it in such wonderful ways. We just want to make sure we keep it uh in great shape and do a couple enhancements. So please think and and uh pray about that. And thanks for all your generosity in every every way. Um all right, let's uh let's pray. Father, we just praise you. Thank you for being such a great God. We do thank you for sending uh Jesus into our world. We thank you for adopting us as your very own children. And uh Holy Spirit, we thank you for teaching us and counseling us. And this morning I just ask that you would speak to every one of us, that you would just translate what I have to say, and that uh it would be a direct word from you into each of our lives. And Jesus, we do just praise you and uh thank you for being our Savior and and uh our friend. It's in your name we pray. Amen. So this morning we're gonna talk about uh four um I think exciting things that Christmas teaches us about life. And we're gonna begin in in Luke chapter one. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary. The angel told her, For you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He'll be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, How can this happen? I am a virgin. The angel replied, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God. Mary responded, I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. And then the angel left her. So I'm not going to pretend to be able to add anything new to a story that we're so familiar with. But sometimes with familiarity, we can lose a little bit of the wonderment and amazement. Here's a young Jewish girl. She lives in a very chauvinistic society. She has no status, has no money. She's living in a very small town. There's about 500 people that lived in Nazareth at that time. And later she would write a song singing about uh thanking God that he would notice such a lowly servant girl. And he did notice her. You know, and she had had plans. She was engaged. She's probably thinking about uh uh the wedding and thinking about her life uh ahead. And uh and those things would all happen, but God had even a greater plan for her life. And the first thing God told her through Gabriel was, don't be afraid. You know, that she had found favor with God. And we don't really talk that way very much, that someone finds favor with someone. Um, you know, we might say that they're one of God's favorites, you know, like a coach or a boss or uh a teacher, that uh that Mary was one of God's favorites. He then tells her that she's gonna have a role in changing uh the world, that her son is gonna be the son of God, and that he's gonna rule over a kingdom that will never end. And Mary is just a normal person. Mary is just like you and I. And her immediate response isn't great faith. Her immediate response is skepticism and doubt. How can that be? How could that possibly happen? You know, I'm a virgin. And so God explains to her through Gabriel. He says, the Holy Spirit's gonna make it happen. And it's important that it happens this way because it's part of God's eternal plan. And Gabriel even responds to her doubt. He says, You know, Mary, there's miracles happening all the time. This would this will be a miracle. But there's miracles happening all around you, even miracles you don't know. Like your relative Elizabeth, who was very old. And yet now she's six months pregnant. And Gabriel knew about that well because he's the one that went in six months earlier, went and talked to uh Elizabeth's husband and said that God had heard your prayers. Gabriel then speaks really one of the most important truths in all of God's word. For nothing is impossible with God. And so still, Mary has this amazing opportunity, you know, to hold and to nurture and to raise the Son of God. Um but she has to step forward. You know, she's got to take a step in faith. And she did. She says, I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. And that choice would bring her great joy. You know, we think of of some of the heartache she had as uh as Jesus' mom, but she had great joy as Jesus' mom as well. And I'm sure she wouldn't change that step of faith uh for anything. But even with that, she had a pretty normal life. You know, she I mean she had a husband, she had more kids, she was a mom, uh, you know, I'm sure she was active in in her town, a pretty typical life, except for this one key purpose that God um had for her. And she probably didn't even see it in her lifetime, but uh certainly she has to be the most admired and honored woman uh that has ever lived. She was one of God's favorites, and she had a role that would end up changing the world. And in some ways, this is such a unique and wonderful story, but in many ways it's actually a very common story. In fact, it can be all of our stories. You know, God surprises Mary through the angel Gabriel. He starts with a simple mess message. He basically says, hello. As you can imagine, Mary, you know, the angel Gabriel shows up and says, God is with you. And then he says, Don't be afraid, don't be scared. You know, I've got a plan I want to tell you about. And what God used uh Gabriel to communicate to Mary, Jesus says to us, to each of us. You know, Gabri said, God is with you. Jesus said, and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Gabriel said to Mary, Don't be afraid. Jesus says to us, so don't be afraid, little flock. For it gives your father great happiness to give you the kingdom. You know, we might even be like Mary. You know, not a lot of status or standing, wondering what life holds for us, thinking about our plans, you know, for the for the future. God is with us. You know, he is with you. We don't need to be afraid of him. He's not mad at us, he's not forgotten us. He hasn't given up on you. He loves you. His message to us is the same. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I'm with you. I'm for you. Gabriel then says to Mary for the second time that she is favored by God. And again, that's not an expression that we use very often in everyday speech. We we might say, You're one of my favorites, Mary. You're one of God's favorites. And this is one of the most beautiful things about God and his children, us who he's adopted as his very own kids, is that God shows no favoritism. And in fact, all of his children are his favorites. Are favored. In fact, you're in a tie for all-time favorite with God. That was one thing I liked in the book, The Shack, the character that was a metaphor for uh God the Father. Uh when she would meet someone, she would say, You're one of my favorites. And that's true, because that is how God uh is. It's one of the amazing qualities of our Abba Father, our Daddy Father. Uh in Acts 10, Peter fairly exploded with his good news. It's God's own truth. Nothing could be plainer. God plays no favorites. It makes no difference who you are or where you're from. If you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. The message he sent to the children of Israel that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again. Well, he's doing it everywhere among everyone. So if God had one favorite, who do you think it would be? Any guesses? Lisa. It's a good guess. Um probably Jesus, wouldn't you think? In uh John 17, Jesus is praying, and he's talking about you because he says, I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. And so that's us. He's praying specifically about us. And he says, I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Jesus himself says he wants the whole world to know that God loves you just as much as he loves Jesus. And he definitely sees you and cares for you the exact same way he saw Mary and cared for her. You're in a first place tie for God's all-time favorite. And so to paraphrase Gabriel, he says to Mary, you know, I know you got your life planned out, um, but uh but God has something even more for you. And it's the exact same for each of us. God has more for us than we can imagine. You know, together as a church and for each of us as individuals. You know, a plan to affect our family, to our friends, our neighbors, the world around us, and who knows, maybe like Mary, uh, the whole world. You know, and Mary's reaction was doubt. He said, How can that be? That doesn't seem right. Is that even possible? You know, so it's okay when that's our reaction. You know, can that be right? Could God really love me and favor me and have a plan and a purpose for my life that's going to impact the whole world around me? Well, Gabriel patiently showed Mary that miracles are happening all around her, even with people that she knew. And the truth is that many of us are living, breathing miracles. You know, God's done miracles in our health, he's done miracles in our relationships, he's done miracles in our family, he's given us freedom from the past. He's helped us to understand God's love and taught us how to express that to others. There are miracles all around us. And Gabriel then said some of the most powerful words in all of the Bible. For nothing is impossible with God. And what I'm hoping we can see this morning is that this is not just a one-time supernatural cosmic exception. It is, in fact, the way God is. It's the way, it's who he is, it's how he interacts and feels about each of us. It was absolutely true for Mary, and it's absolutely true for you. And so as we start this month, you know, leading up to Christmas and thinking about Jesus and reading the story together, I think God is asking us, each of us, to believe the possible. To believe the possible, because nothing is impossible with God. You know, for Mary's relative, Elizabeth, it was a prayer for a child. For Mary, God had a plan and a purpose for her that would change the world. You know, she was going to be Jesus' earthly mom. For us, it might be anything. It might be like Elizabeth, a prayer for a child, or it could be a prayer for one of our children that is struggling. It could be a prayer for a relationship. It could be a desire to get past a broken relationship and move on. It could be recovery from an addiction, a financial need, a health situation. It could be the miracle of recovering from abuse in our past and being able to have a healthy and loving relationships. It might be something specific that God is nudging us to do. But we have to step out in faith. A lot of times we think God's plan, or if he really gets a hold of us, that it's something huge, some tremendous life change, you know, like we're gonna move to Africa or whatever. Most often, and sometimes that's true, but most often God works through people in their everyday normal life, you know, with our friends and family and people that God puts us in contact with. And that was true with Mary. I mean, her life really didn't change that much. It was 30 years before Jesus even announced his ministry. She was still a mom, she was still a wife, she was still in her community, yet God had a plan for her and a purpose for her that would change the world. And like Mary, we just have to take a step. You know, it could be a small step of obedience, something God's been working on us about, something maybe he's asking us to do. It could just be a step of faith saying, God, I'm here. Whatever you say, make it come true. For Mary, it was a great step of faith, and she responded simply, I am the Lord's servant. May everything you said about me come true. And it did. It came true on Christmas Day when Jesus Christ came into the world and gave each of us that exact same opportunity to be favored of God, to have a real relationship with God, to have a role and purpose in life much greater than our circumstance. To believe the possible because nothing is impossible with God. You know, for some of us might be believing in Jesus for the first time. That might be the step. You know, that part is simple. It's really as simple as what Mary did in her own words, saying, okay, God, I'm in. You know, it's putting our trust in Jesus and in our own words, in our own way, saying, yes, I want to have a relationship with you. Yes, I want to follow you. When we do that, we're all created in God's image. You know, and we're created with the Spirit, and uh our Spirit comes alive, connects with God's Spirit, then He starts changing us first from the inside out, you know, and eventually everything around us begins to change. And you can do that this morning if you wanted to. But we all probably have one step to take with God. A life-changing, world-changing step. Isn't God great? You know, you take one of the most famous, important, impactful, revered people of all time, Mary. And her story can be our story. You know, if we simply believe. And so Mary's faith, her step, change the whole world. And uh our step can too. So let's pray. Father, we just thank you for being such a great and wonderful father. We thank you for each person here. We we know that we all need you in different ways, and God, I just ask you to meet whatever need each of us has. And we plead, we ask you to give us the faith that Mary had, that we could step into our plan and our purpose that you have for us. That through you and through your love, that we could change the world around us. Thank you for making each of us your favorites. And in Jesus' great name we pray. Amen.