to gather again, to be under the ministry of your word, to be challenged through the preaching of the scriptures and also through the music we'll be able to enjoy and just focus our attention on you. I pray that you would be the center of everything that is said and done tonight. I pray that we would be spiritually encouraged and challenged and we'll thank you for that. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. All right, let's get to it. Let's open our hymn books to hymn number 193. Please stand, the words will be up on the screen. Angels from the realms of glory, we'll sing the first, second, and fourth verse. ♪ Angels from the realms of glory ♪ ♪ Wing your flight o'er all the earth ♪ ♪ Give your sanctification story now proclaim ♪ God with man is now residing. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn King. Saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear. Suddenly the Lord descending in His tent. Please be seated as we turn over to hymn 197, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, verses 1, 3, and 4. It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old, from angels bending in Harps of gold. Peace on the earth, goodwill to men, From them to gracious King. The world in solemn stillness sling, To hear the angels sing. And here beneath lies crushing load, whose forearms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and swell. Look now for glad and golden hours of sweat beyond. ♪ And hear the angels sing ♪ ♪ For though the days are hastening on ♪ ♪ Thy prophet world foretold ♪ ♪ When with the ever circling years ♪ ♪ Shall come the time foretold ♪ ♪ When the new heaven and earth shall walk ♪ ♪ The bread of peace their King ♪ And just two more pages over, 199. Hark the herald angels sing. We'll sing all three verses. Sing out this evening. Hark the herald angels sing. ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Peace on earth and mercy mild ♪ ♪ God and sinners reconciled ♪ ♪ Joyful all ye nations rise ♪ ♪ Join the triumph of the skies ♪ ♪ With angelic host proclaim ♪ ♪ Christ is born in Bethlehem ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn king ♪ ♪ Christ my highest heaven adored ♪ ♪ Christ the everlasting Lord ♪ ♪ Late in time behold him come ♪ ♪ Offspring of a virgin's womb ♪ ♪ Filled in flesh the Godhead see ♪ ♪ Filled in carnate deity ♪ ♪ Pleased as man with men to dwell ♪ ♪ Jesus our Emmanuel ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Hail the Heav'n-born Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Hail the Son of Righteousness ♪ ♪ Light and life to all He brings ♪ ♪ Risen with healing in His wings ♪ ♪ Loudly lays His glory by ♪ ♪ Born that man no more may die ♪ Born to give them second birth. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. Amen. Great singing this evening. I guess that's my cue to come up and do our testimony time. Let's do this. All right. Maya. In the handbook? All right. The 374 in the regular handbook. We're going to, we'll collect all four of them and then we'll play them. Yep. So make it easier for you. Hutchison. Handbook? All right, one more. Yes, Blair. Jesus Loves Me. Can you play that one from memory? All right. Jesus Loves Me. Chris. 162, Blue Book, I gotta watch out for you Hutchinsons, cause I gotta. You guys like to trip me up. 162, I do not. All right. Seems simple enough with the timing, so we'll give it a shot, Chris. Let's get another one just in case, though. One more. One more. Kelly. 152 in the blue book. 152 in the blue book? All right. So one of those we'll probably get. All right. Let's start with hymn number 374. Let's see what we have here. All right. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. All right, and hymn number 340. Give Him Glory. I think I know this one. Can you play it through one time? It's Christmas! All right. It must have been a good long time since I heard this one. Here we go. It was down at the feet of Jesus, o'er the happy, happy day, that my soul found peace in believing, and my sins were washed away. Let me tell the old, old story of His grace so full and free. Let my heart keep giving Him the glory for His wondrous love to me. That's a good one. Thanks. That's a ring, right? I remember singing this one many years ago, back when I was maybe seven or eight years old. Back in the day. All right, Jesus loves me. We'll sing this one. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so. It's good to see our tiny trackers singing. I saw you singing. Good job, buddy. All right, 162 in the blue book. 162. This one looks like it's at least a decent time. It's the same key signature, so we'll... Can we play it through one time, see what we can do with it? Let's give it a shot. All right, let's try it. Good. Here we go. ♪ The man of sorrow, dark and agony ♪ ♪ Sucked once by God for my iniquity ♪ ♪ He took this vine of Father's holy wrath ♪ ♪ And drank the bitter cup in my behalf ♪ ♪ Constrained by Christ's atoning sacrifice ♪ All right, and 152. Let's see what this one is here. It Was For Me. All right. Yes. Why leave a heavenly mansion? Why choose a simple stall? Why wander poor and homeless, the king and lord of all? Why hear the lonely beggar? Why cause the blind to see the light of all creation shining there for me? For me he cried, for me he died, for me he shed his blood upon a tree. It was for me he gave, for me his shame, for me all praise his name. It was for me. All right. That was quite a workout. Thank you very much. I haven't done sight reading for a long time, so that was great. Good. Hey, listen, we're going to just sing a couple songs, one song, and then Pastor's going to join us for the next one. Just to mess up the sound, guys. That'll be great. We, I like this song we're about to do for a couple of reasons. First of all, we've been practicing the last couple of weeks the Messiah at school. And there's one song, see if you can fill in the blank, and it's the first part of a chorus. It says, and his name shall be Khaled. Wow, they're really good. Okay. Wonderful. Isn't that a great word? Wonderful. That's what this song talks about. God is so wonderful. The other reason I like this song is because I get to hear big macho Malachi go up in his girly voice way up high. So don't be alarmed by that when it comes. Be ready for it. God is so wonderful. God is so wonderful, I can't explain. But I can say, glory hallelujah, praise his holy name. Oh, God is so wonderful, I can't explain. But I can say, glory hallelujah, praise his holy name. It's wonderful that Jesus saved me. It's wonderful that he forgave me. It's wonderful, wonderful. So very wonderful, wonderful that He is mine. I cast on Him my every burden, lay at His feet my every care. It's wonderful, wonderful, so very wonderful, wonderful that He is mine. God is so wonderful! I can't explain! But I can say, glory hallelujah, praise his holy name. His holy name. You're going to stand right on the yellow mic. Oh, boy. Abide with me, fast falls the evening tide. The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Swift to its close, heaves out life's little day. Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away. Change and decay, ♪ In all around I see ♪ ♪ O thou who changest not, abide with me ♪ ♪ Abide with me ♪ Okay, well if you could, I'd like to ask you to take your Bibles, let's all turn together to the book of Luke, and we are in Luke chapter 1 tonight. We are continuing really looking through the entire storyline from the announcement of Christ's birth, really not just Christ's birth, but really the forerunner of the Messiah's birth. the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth, and we're going to move from that today really to how the Lord is going to tell Mary that she is going to be with child. And this child is going to be a very special child. This child is the Messiah. And I want us to see how Mary responds tonight to the announcement made by the angel. And so the topic we're looking at this evening is accepting God's disruptive purposes. And I want you to see how in this text in front of us, we're going to see both some very deep, rich theological concepts, but we're also going to see some very practical concepts as well. And so we're gonna begin in verse 26, we're gonna work our way through verse 38 to kind of understand this section very well. It says, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. to a virgin a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came unto her and said, Hail, thou art highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, bring forth a son, shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who is called barren. Now when we read this passage of Scripture, I think it's very easy for us because this is such a familiar text of Scripture. We are so familiar with the details that we sometimes stop to really think about what's going on in the text in front of us. We need to remember that when Mary received this message, she was a very young woman. And when I say very young, what I mean is she was young enough to have been amongst the teenagers, and not just the older teenagers, but amongst the younger teenagers that were here this week. In those days, women would have gotten married when they were very young teenagers. And so, when the angel comes to Mary, he's not coming to a woman who's 25 or 30 years old, who's really been very matured in life, but the reality is he's coming to a very, very young woman. not just a very young woman, but a woman who is betrothed to be married. Now, when we talk about betrothal in those days, it's a little bit different than what we call engagement in our culture. When somebody gets engaged, it's basically a promise to get married, and now they're preparing to get married, and they're putting together the details for their wedding. Well, in those days, when a person was betrothed, in the eyes of the culture, they were married. Now they were not yet married in the sense that they were living together, that they had consummated their marriage, but there was a contract between those families. And there was an absolute expectation that the man would be faithful to his betrothed's wife, and the wife would be faithful to her betrothed's husband. And while they were in that position, that situation, the young man would be at his father's home and he'd be preparing a place that he would take his bride to. And when he was done preparing that place, without any announcement of here's the day I'm coming, essentially, he would gather together his party and then they would go and they would meet this girl and basically they would begin the festivities for their wedding celebration. It would have been a huge event in the culture of their day. And let's remember that most people living in kind of the area like where we live today would not be thinking about a small town community where the entire community knows about this betrothal. The entire community is going to be involved in the festivities. This is a very different situation than the world we live in today. And so these are the events going on. This very young woman betrothed to be married, and the angel comes to her with this news that is what we could call bitter and sweet. You say, well, how could there be any bitterness to this message? She's gonna carry the Messiah. Well, she's going to carry the Messiah, but not everybody that knows this woman's gonna understand the nature of this message. this pregnancy, okay? And not everybody that's going on in this situation is going to be happy about the situation. In fact, some of the people would have been very upset about it. It was a huge, huge problem. In fact, the reality is that in this situation, a person who was found to have been unfaithful to their betrothed spouse could have been put to death in their culture. You realize it was a really big deal. It was a really serious deal. If they did not put that person to death, it would have been a divorce for certain. And what we will see is that that is the way that Joseph even contemplated dealing with the situation, putting her away privately. But how in the world do you put someone away privately in a small community like Nazareth where everybody knows everybody and everybody's grown up together and everybody's anticipating the big day of that marriage celebration? Probably don't think about that very often when you come to this text. The reality is that when we think about the passage in front of us, this would have been an unbelievably disruptive moment in the life of this very young teenage woman. So let me give you a simple purpose statement for the text in front of us. While Zacharias and Elizabeth doubted in the moment certain details about the role that they would play in God's story of redemption, I love this, Mary humbly accepted the part God chose for her. That is a really interesting thing to think about. Zacharias doubted, and Mary said, "'Behold, the handmaid of the Lord is here. Do as you have said.'" That's what Mary says to the angel. She humbly and willingly submitted to God's purposes, and God wants us to respond like she did. God wants us to see that His purposes are greater than our immediate comforts. And that's really what we're gonna look at this evening, how God's purposes are greater than our immediate comforts. And in order for us to think in this way and to embrace God's purposes for us, there are several truths we need to understand from the text in front of us. Let me give you the first truth this evening, and that is that Christ's birth would be extremely disruptive. I've kind of already laid the scene for this, but I want you to see it from the text, and I kind of wanna talk through some of the details. It says in verse 27 that the angel came to a virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary." Now, when the Scripture uses the term virgin, it means exactly that, okay? It doesn't mean that she was just a young woman, but it means that she was a young woman who had never been involved with a man. In other words, it was physically impossible for this young woman to get pregnant in the situation that she was in. And so what's going to take place, and what the angel is saying is going to happen, is 100% a miracle. There's no physical or biological explanation to what is going to take place. And the reality is that when that angel comes to her and he gives this information to her, that was really disruptive. Mary was betrothed. She was gonna face all kinds of disruption because she was gonna be pregnant. Think about some of the immediate responses. Well, we see how Joseph responds, and in Luke, we don't see that. It's not recorded for us, but in Matthew, it is recorded for us. In Matthew 1.18, it says, the birth of Jesus was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child. of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. In other words, it was essentially going to be a divorce, a legal sending away, and he was gonna try to do it as kindly and graciously as was humanly possible. He was not gonna be vindictive when he would have felt, as most men in those days would have felt to be, that this woman has been unfaithful to me, He did not want to do that. Now this is even without him understanding the explanation of why she's with child. But I want you to understand the fact that Joseph was immediately faced with this very disruptive decision to make. Do I continue on with the plan or do I send her away? And Mary knew that that would have been in his mind. But I want you to think about the ultimate purpose. The reality is there was going to be a day that Mary was gonna be kneeling at the foot of a cross. And as she knelt at the foot of the cross, she was gonna be looking up at that cross and on that cross was gonna be her son. The one that she held in her hands on the night he was born. The one that she learned how to walk and talk and play with children in the village. The one who learned how to read and write. The one who grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. The reality is that Mary would have felt the same motherly instincts that any mother would feel. She loved her son. And the reality is that God was sending his son into the world not just to live a perfect life. but to die on a cross in agony. And Mary was going to have to watch her child hang on the cross in agony. In fact, in Luke chapter two, Simeon, an old man, we'll get to this text at some point in our discussions, but Simeon, an old man who speaks really prophecy of how Mary is going to have to experience this hardship, makes this statement. He says, It blessed her and said to Mary his mother, behold, this child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel for a sign which shall be spoken again. Yea, a sword, notice what he says, shall pierce through thine own soul that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. What do you think he means by that? Do you think she understood what he meant by that? In fact, it's interesting, it says that Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart, and the reality is when she hears statements like this, she's gotta wonder, what does he mean by that? You know what he meant by that? You're gonna be at the foot of the cross one day. and you're gonna see the incredible vile hatred of the Pharisees and the religious elites. You're gonna see the Roman soldiers crucifying two robbers on other sides of Christ, and as he hangs on that cross and he says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, you're gonna be looking up at him and you're gonna realize this is why God gave me this child, because that's my Redeemer. But I want you to realize that this was disruptive for this woman. No mom wants to watch her child die before they do. No one does. No father wants to see that happen. Yet that was what Mary would have to experience in order for us to be redeemed. The second truth we see is that the nature of Christ's birth was an essential part of God's plan. I want you to realize that if it's not for the miracle of the incarnation, if it's not for the Bible teaching on the nature of who Jesus was, God in flesh, it's impossible for you and for me to be saved and to be called God's children. And so the reality is that this had to be a part of the plan. If God's going to send a Redeemer, and the Redeemer's gonna go to the cross, and He's actually gonna be born to a woman, then there's got to be one person in humanity that's gonna have to hold that child, walk with that child, and watch that child go to the cross. So Mary had to go through this, and if not Mary, someone else had to go through this. Notice what we see in verses 30 to 35. It says, the angel said unto her, fear not, Mary, thou hast found favor with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. I want you to realize that the details that are laid out in these verses are essential aspects of the gospel. In other words, you don't have a gospel without God in flesh. You do not have a gospel if you have a Jesus that falls short of what the Bible teaches in the text in front of us. And so I want you to notice that really what he's talking about is referring all the way back to Isaiah 7.14. So why don't we turn to Isaiah 7.14 so that we can see exactly what the angel is talking about. Because this text was a prophecy, a prediction, or we could even use the term promise, of what God was going to do when He sent His Savior into the world. Isaiah 7.14 says this, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. And we know that that word Immanuel means God with us. In other words, God in flesh. So notice some of the details of the verse in front of us. The first thing that we see is that he's called Jesus. You know what that word Jesus or Yeshua, we could also say Joshua, it's actually the same name. In fact, a lot of times we take a name from the Hebrew, we take it into English, we might actually say it a couple of different ways. But Jesus and Joshua is essentially Yeshua. And that word Yeshua, Jesus, means God saves or the Lord saves. We then see that He is the second person of the Godhead. He's called the Son of the Highest. And so He's talking about His relationship within the Godhead between the Father and the Spirit. And so we see that element. We see that He's called the Eternal King. He says he's the Lord God, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom, there shall be no end. So we see that he's an eternal king. We see that he's God in flesh. He says, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. So He talks about the fact that this is God, but we also talk about the fact that this is a man. He is the God-man. All of these things are the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. In fact, what's really interesting is when we read these verses, we actually see two signs that are validating what the Bible is saying about Him. I want you to think about a couple of the verses that are really communicated here. First of all, it's a fulfillment of Genesis 3.15. We know this passage. It says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and listen carefully to what it says, between thy seed and her seed. I cannot think of any other text in scripture where it talks about the seed of the woman. You never hear that kind of a way of it being communicated. Why is that? Because that's not how it happens biologically, folks. It's not how it happens biologically. In other words, through a woman, God was going to give the Savior. And he says, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Essentially what he's saying is, this child, the Messiah, who's gonna be conceived in a miraculous manner, is going to crush the serpent's head. He's gonna yield him his final death blow, and it's gonna be over. He won't be able to come back and do what he wants to do. This is a fulfillment of that text. This is a fulfillment of the Isaiah 714 passage, the one that we just mentioned, where it says that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and call his name Emmanuel. We also see that there's another sign, and that's the sign of her cousin's pregnancy. You say, well, how is that a sign? Listen to what it says in verses 36 and 37. He says, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who is called Barret. For with God nothing shall be impossible. Basically what the angel is saying is this, Mary, don't doubt this promise. In fact, I'm giving you or God is giving you kind of a validation that the message that I'm telling you is true. The validation is that your cousin, Elizabeth, who you know has been married for all these years, who is beyond the age of childbearing, she not only is gonna have a child, she's having a child right now. You know that she's pregnant, and you know that's a miracle. This is a sign to validate the message that I'm bringing to you. This is really important for us to understand. This was an essential part of the message. If this doesn't happen, then all of these texts that go through the Old Testament are not being fulfilled. It's essential. It has to happen. But we also see that these details are essential because of the uniqueness of Christ's dual He is deity robed in humanity. You might say, well, pastor, how do you explain that? You can't. You accept it by faith. You say, God said, Jesus is God in flesh, and so I accept it, it's true. It's not something I can fully wrap my mind around and understand. It's like asking somebody to explain to you the Trinity, and they say, well, I've got a great illustration, and you're like, that doesn't really explain it right there. I've got another great illustration, that doesn't explain it either. You can't explain it. There is nothing in creation that you can compare to this nature between Father, Son, and Spirit. One in essence and distinct in person. You cannot illustrate it anywhere in creation. You can try to wrap your mind around it, but you can't. And the reality, this is an essential part of the gospel. In John 1.14 it says, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now every word in that text is so important. He's made flesh. Humanity, not partial humanity, full humanity. And it says He dwelt among us. We actually knew Him. We actually handled Him. We actually ate with Him. We actually communicated with Him. We knew Him personally. And we beheld His glory. In other words, on the Mount of Transfiguration, we saw His glory that was not being revealed, we saw it on display. We saw Him as He actually is. In other words, it's not that when He took on flesh, He stopped being God. Literally, He laid aside His glories, He veiled His glories, but He's still fully God 100%. And then He uses this phrase, the only begotten of the Father. You say, well, what does that mean? That means he's one of a kind. There is no comparison to him. He is the unique one. He's the one that there is none like him anywhere. This is an essential to the gospel message. And in order for you to have this happen, you have to have Mary in the story. Galatians 4.4 says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman. made under the law. Philippians 2 says, that being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and he took upon in the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Literally, Christ takes on flesh, the eternal God, the creator, the sustainer of all things. He takes on humanity. And this is an essential part of the story, folks. And the fact is that in order for us to have salvation, God has to give the Savior, and he has to do it through means. He has to do it through real people, and their real lives were affected by that story. We then come to a third and final truth I wanna mention, and that is that Mary saw that God's purpose was greater than her comfort. That's really important. She saw that God's purposes were greater than her immediate comfort. Mary recognized that God's will needed to be done. Here's what it says in verse 38, it says, Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. It's as if she bowed her knee and she said, God, I am your child and your servant, and you do what you wanna do. I'm willing, I'm trusting, and I'm gonna let you use me. That's pretty amazing, is it not? That is far more submissive than most of us, isn't it? That's the way that she responded. And I want you to realize that God calls all of us to respond like that. God calls all of us to be disciples. There was only one Mary in this story, but the reality is that God has purposes that he is accomplishing in the world right now, and your life is part of those purposes. You are the instrument, you are the means that God's going to use to accomplish those purposes. And they're bigger than you understand. They're bigger than you. The fact is God can use anybody that he wants, but he's gonna use people. And He places us where He wants us so that He can work through us. When we talk about this issue of discipleship it means this, we have to be absolutely submitted to God's purposes. Being willing to abandon our own comforts to say, your will be done. In Luke 14 it says, whoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. In other words, we need to be fully submitted to Christ as the Lord. His will becomes our desire. Luke 9, 57 says, it came to pass, there was a certain man who said, Lord, I will follow thee withersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head. In other words, Jesus is saying, are you willing to do whatever I tell you to do? Are you willing to go wherever I tell you to go? Are you willing to live through the circumstances that I'm going to call you to live through? If you're going to say, I'm willing, then understand the cost. He talks to another man and he says, follow me. But he said, Lord, first, let me go and bury my father. Jesus said, let the dead bury their dead. Go and preach the kingdom of God. A very simple way to put it is, this man said, you know, there's something waiting for me. It's called inheritance. And I'm not gonna leave my dad right now. This is coming to me. And I'm gonna do my part and I'm gonna wait for that day. And he says, so I'll follow you when I'm ready. He had no idea when that was gonna be. And there are lots and lots of people that basically say, you know, whenever this happens, then I'll follow you. And you know what happens when that happens? There's another whenever this happens, and another whenever this happens, and another whenever this happens, and it goes on the rest of their life, and one day they look back and they say, too late, too late. Jesus says to him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. In other words, Jesus said, if you're gonna follow me, you've gotta lay everything to the side, you gotta be 100% focused on me, I'm the Lord, you're the servant, what I say needs to be your desire, obey me. Folks, that's what Mary did. She obeyed God. She submitted to his ways. Notice the details, he didn't ask her permission. He simply said, this is what I'm doing. It's pretty interesting, isn't it? We tend to say, well, why didn't you ask first? Because I'm God. God doesn't have to ask us what he wants of us. He says, this is what you need to do. It's my command. It's my expectation. You need to obey. Notice how she responded. She said, here I am, use me. Folks, that's the way we need to be. Like Mary, we need to humbly accept God's purposes for our lives. God's purposes are greater than our immediate comforts. And let me tell you something, God is not cruel. He's really not, he's good. God's purposes are good. He's wise. He knows what's best for us. You know, this morning when Willie talked about God's chastening hand, I've always thought of chastening in a very negative sense throughout my lifetime until I began to study that and I realized what he means by chastening is this is the training of God. This is him putting us through difficulty and strengthening us in the midst of it and telling us here's everything that you need and I'm doing it because I want to make you something. And I want to use you for something. And the reality is that God's commandments are not grievous. He's good. He is so good. And the truth is even though Mary experienced tremendous hardship, she also stood in one of the most blessed positions a person could have ever stood in. She watched the Lord Jesus Christ go from the cradle to the cross, and she went to an empty tomb. And the reality is that she is in the presence of God today, her Savior, enjoying Him forever. And because of her willingness, God used her. I wanna encourage you to respond like her. God wants us to see his purposes as greater than our immediate comforts. Let's bow together for prayer and really ask the Lord to help us to do that. Father, we are so grateful that there's a Redeemer, that there's a Savior, that Christ went to the cross, he paid the penalty for our sin in full, He bore the full wrath of your justice against our sin. He satisfied your wrath fully. And we are so grateful that He conquered sin and death in the grave and that we serve a Savior who is risen and calls us to embrace the gospel and then to follow Him. Help us to be obedient and diligent to your purposes. Help us not to be resistant and stubborn. Help us not to be unwilling to trust you. I ask that you use this passage of scripture to really bless us both as we think about it theologically and also as we think about it practically. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. The song that we'll be singing in our closing is the song, How Can It Be? And I know we sang this last week, but I really love this song, and I think that actually, I think it's a really appropriate song for us to sing as we think about the story of God sending his son into the world. And just like God used Mary, a very simple woman from Nazareth, God can use you. A simple person from Glen Burnie, or Millersville, or Severna Park, or Severn, wherever you live, Odenton, God can use you, and he wants to use you. And so we should be overwhelmed by how good he is that he does use us. So let's stand together, we're gonna sing hymn 156, How Can It Be, and we're gonna sing the first, second, and the third together, please. O Savior, as my eyes behold the wonders of thy might untold, the heavens in glorious light arrayed, the vast creation thou hast made, and yet to think thou lovest me, My heart cries out, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love a soul like me? Oh, how can it be? As at the cross I humbly bow and gaze upon thy thorn-crowned brow, and view the precious bleeding form, thy cruel nails so bruised and torn. to know thy suffering was for me. In grief I cry, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be that God should love a soul like me? Oh, how can it be? Sing it out on the last. How can it be? How can it be? Was ever grace so full and free from heights of bliss to depths of woe? Loving kindness thou didst go. From sin and shame to rescue me, O love divine, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be that God should love a soul Oh, how can it be? That's a good song. That's a really good song. Well, let's remember that tonight we have a business meeting, so I'll give you a couple of minutes to kind of fellowship amongst yourselves. I'll set up for the meeting. If you don't have the information that we need, that would be the financials. Please make sure that you get that. I think that Lisa has those, or Bruce has, one of you guys has, oh, they're on the back, I'm sorry. I hope that you were able to review those this afternoon so that we can really move through that material quickly. But let's go ahead and bow together for a prayer. and then we will take a few minutes to get ourselves situated for our business meeting. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the time we spent together this weekend in your word. Thank you for the Lit Conference on Saturday and all the preaching and teaching that we were able to, that our teenagers were able to be exposed to and also church members and churches from around the area, I thank you for the wonderful spirit that we had amongst the teenagers and those who came. Thank you for the opportunity we had this morning to just be reminded of how you comfort us And we think about the passage in Hebrews 12, how we need to be strengthened in the midst of running this race with patience. Pray that you'd help us this week to patiently endure under the weight of the challenges we face. And I pray that we would draw daily upon the grace that's available to us at your throne room. And then I thank you for the example of Mary, a faithful young woman who was willing to submit to your purposes and how you brought our Savior into the world through her as an instrument and we thank you for that. Bless the meeting that we'll have here in the next few moments and the fellowship we'll enjoy together. Thank you for the folks from Maranatha being able to be here and to minister to us in song and we thank you for the fellowship we've enjoyed with them. Please give them safety as they head back, and we ask it in Christ's name, amen.