Let's stand together and begin our time of singing praise to the Lord with the Lord on this side. In my heart is a valley that was not found In the darkest night it soon goes on. The anvil of my God, within my heart, is a treasure that cannot be bought. When all else is faded, it will last. In the presence of my God, I could magnify the Lord. No one beside you, Lord. The honor and praise are yours forever. For your throne is the mystery that can be known. there's a majesty that you're the Lord how glorious you are you are the one who redeems the wrongs that I have done reigning over all the days to come Glorious you are, magnified the Lord. No one besides you, Lord. Honor and praise are yours forever. Honor and praise are yours forever. Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Is the Lord God Almighty. honor and praise are yours forever So the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First the believers who have died will rise from their graves, and together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth, will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 through 18. is our only and our souls to Him belong, holds our peace within His hands, or comes apart from His hand. What could keep us to the end? The love of Christ in which we stand. Oh, sing hallelujah! Our hope remains eternal Oh, sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death ♪ To help calm the troubled soul ♪ God is good, God is good ♪ Earns His grace and goodness now ♪ In our great Redeemer's love ♪ Holds our faith when fears arise ♪ Stands above the stormy cloud ♪ Stands above waves that bring us nigh To the shore, the rock of life. Oh, sing hallelujah! Our home springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. everlasting life When sin and death will be destroyed And we will feast in endless joy When Christ is ours forevermore Oh, sing hallelujah Our home's great eternal Oh, sing hallelujah Now and ever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. Oh, sing hallelujah! Our hope's great eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. Now and ever we confess Christ, our hope in life and death. I love to breathe the air of heaven. Where pain is gone and mercy fills the streets. To look upon the One who bled to save me. I walk with Him for all eternity. There will be a day when all will bow before Him. There will be a day when death will be no more. Standing face to face with He who died and rose again. Holy, holy is the Lord. Every prayer we've prayed in desperation Songs of faith we sang through doubt and fear In the end we'll see that it was worth it When He returns to wipe away our tears There will be a day when all will bow before Him. There will be a day when death will be no more. Standing face to face with Thee who died and rose again. That day we'll join the resurrection Stand beside the heroes of the faith And with one voice a thousand generations Sing worthy is the Lamb of God's name Forever ye shall reign There will be a day when death will be no more. Standing face to face with the one who died and rose again. Holy, holy is the Lord. Let it be today, we shall live again. Angels and the saints, we raise Oh Oh Oh Dear Lord, thank you for today and allowing us all to gather here and worship you. I pray that you open our ears and listen to your truth and soak in it and learn from it. I pray that you give this blessing and use it in your life. Amen. so Let's stand together once again and sing, my soul will wait, my soul will wait for you. my fears I will trust in you I will stand upon your Word. You're my Son and God, and my soul needs you. My dead friends, both at home, be shaken. My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you. My sorrow and my sin, in the midst of every check, will remain in heaven. my soul My comforter, my healer, my strength, my refuge and my sure foundation, my soul will wait, my soul will wait for you. This is God, my blessing, this is mercy unreturned, your sacrifice so good. I have peace that's undeserved For the battle that's been won And I fear no shame or loss Now the sting of death is gone You're my solid rock and my salvation My steadfast hope that won't be shaken My soul will wait, my soul will wait for you my soul a a a for you, we will trust in you. Perfect Savior, strong faith and nerve, we will trust in you. in darkest places my How could I stumble before your throne? Yet full of forgiveness is my grace I stand redeemed by grace alone I will wait for you, I will wait for you On your word I will rely I will wait for you, surely wait for you, till my soul is satisfied. So put your hope in God alone, take courage in His power to save, completely and forevermore. I will wait for you. has come to pay the price. And God Himself has paid the price that all who trust in Him today, by kneeling in His sacrifice. I will wait for you, I will wait for you. I'm your world, you're my life. I will wait for you, surely wait for you, till my soul is satisfied. I will wait for you, I will wait for you, through the storm and through the night. I will wait for you, surely wait for you, for your love is my delight. Our scripture reading this morning is in the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 26 through 38. of Elizabeth's pregnancy, 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. And he came to her and said, greetings, oh 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 have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and he shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and he 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. And Mary said to the angel, How will these things be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered her, 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, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. I'm glad you're all here to join with us today as we look into God's Word and to rejoice in our great Savior, Jesus Christ. I want to welcome our guests we have with us today. I've read of Declan's grandmother. She's here to visit with today, along with Bernard and Tracy. And I'm told that today's your birthday. And so we want to wish you a happy birthday, Declan. And actually, today is going to be the first day that Declan's going to be beginning to teach the teens. And so happy birthday. We're glad to have you with us. And we also have with us George Hawkins. I met him on the phone the other day and he's here with us today. He's from Goodrich. Before I pray, I just want to mention that there's another prayer request that I'd like to just put out right now. A couple that Marian and I know, he was my audiologist and his wife was secretary and their daughter Katie was a secretary at the audiologist we went to. and they're friends, Bill and Susie, and maybe some of the others here. But this yesterday or day before yesterday, their daughter Katie passed away in the middle of the night. And so I just need to be praying for Kevin and Margie. I butchered their last name. What did you? Nickerbocker. Nickerbocker, yeah. Pray for the Nickerbocker family and their loss of Katie this week. And her husband, he's had his own physical difficulties too. All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for allowing us to come before you today. We can only do so because of Jesus our Lord and our Savior and the Spirit of God who empowers us to have right thoughts and to think your thoughts after you, Lord, and as we look at your thoughts in your Word, may we glean from the truth, we look at this account, this biblical account of of the birth of Christ, and actually the incarnation of Christ, and the conception of Christ. Lord, we just pray that as we look at that, we might apply these principles to our life, and we might look at it, look at this situation, and just rejoice that You sent Your Son to be our Savior. And we praise You for that. And we pray that Your Spirit would open our hearts and minds to the Word of Truth, that we would enjoy this time together in the Word, as we worship you in Christ's precious name. Amen. In our bulletin, I have a scripture memory verse. Paul, writing very personally in this letter, he says, I have been crucified with Christ. And as believers, we too can say that, along with Paul, in a personal way, that we have been crucified with Christ. And then because of that, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Christ lives in me. So as a believer, you can say, Christ lives in you. Think about that for a second. Jesus Christ, the Creator, Maker, the Owner, Sustainer of the world, dwells inside of you. Me and you. That's an awesome thought to understand that. And then Paul goes on, so the life I now live in this body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God. And so he draws attention to the reason why he has this hope. the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, who lives, and Christ now lives in me, so the life I now live and the body I live because of His faithfulness through the Son of God, as the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. You hear those personal words that Paul is using. In me. He loved me. He gave himself for me. And we could take that me and say you, each one of us, who know Christ as our Savior. Christ lives in you. So as I think about that passage, and as I look into Luke chapter 1, as we think about what Luke is transpiring for us, what he's explaining to us, I mean Luke is the only one in the Gospel that talks about this this part of Jesus' birth, the conception of Christ in the Word, he's the only one that does. And he mentions it, and simply put, he comes, the angel comes, and then the Spirit comes on Mary, and Christ is in her. In a different kind of way. You think about that. We can say Christ is in us in a spiritual way, Because we've been reborn, we've got new life in us, the Spirit of God has come into us and regenerated us, made us anew, and he dwells within us, and because of that, Christ dwells in us. But in Mary, it's a little bit different. The physical baby of Jesus dwelt inside of her. Yet, spiritually speaking, Christ doth inherit. So she gets like the double blessing, I guess you might say. I mean, I can't even imagine that. That's just beyond my thoughts. So as we look into this Gospel, as we look into this account, as Luke lays it out for us, just kind of do a little bit of a review from last week, the angel Gabriel whose name is understood to be God is my hero, first appears at the temple in Jerusalem to meet Zechariah, who's a Levitical priest there, to do his work. He's been called to go there, and he's gone to light the incense in the holy place. He's in there. He's with Zechariah, Zechariah's doing it, and remember Zechariah's name, it means Yahweh remembers. And so Yahweh remembers, is in the holy place fulfilling his duties. And then Gabriel shows up. He tells him that God has remembered. It answers his prayer for a child, and we hear that. And Zechariah is questioning, like, how can this be? And, you know, we understand the whole thing. Where in his questioning, he was doing it in such a way that he was not putting faith and trust in it. He was looking at it more in a physical kind of way, in a natural kind of way. If the angel tells him that your prayers have been answered, you're going to get a child, but not only a child, he's going to be a prophet. And you'll name him John, which means grace of Yahweh, grace of God. John is the grace of God. He questions not the biology of it, but in an attitude of impossibilities, cannot happen. If we look at later on this text, remember we can see where the angel says, with God all things are possible. So we look at Zechariah and he's questioning the reality of how God works. This is impossible, yet now we come to the story and all of a sudden, He leaves, he tells what's going to happen, Gabriel leaves the temple, he goes home with Elizabeth, he loves his wife, they have a child, and they have John, and he's John the Baptist. Six months later, Gabriel shows up again. But this time, rather than going to Jerusalem, rather than going to the temple, rather than going to someone of high status, rather than going to the place where the power brokers are, rather than going to the palace of King Herod the Great, rather than going to the Sanhedrin and making an announcement, he goes to Nazareth. Flies all the way over and lands in Nazareth. the little airport at their house, you might say. Five months of seclusion, the sixth month of public announcement, she's rejoicing, contemplating what God is doing, the word goes out, he's working, God's working, what next? Gabriel reappears. He's got a message to Mary. Let's look at the text again. Verse 26, in the sixth month. the angel Gabriel, was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth. If you know anything about Nazareth, we know that it's a small town, but it's on the King's Highway, you might call. It's right along the pathway between Tyre and Sidon, all the way into the region of Galilee. It's a Roman road. There are Romans there, it's filled with Gentiles, and it is what the Jews would consider an unholy city. Remember what Nathaniel said? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? He's looking at that because he's looking at the nature of what's going on in that city, and it's got a city of a bad reputation. And that's where Gabriel goes, to visit a woman, a young woman, a virgin. She's betrothed. That means that she's engaged to a man whose name is Joseph. And they're in this roughly one year betrothal period of time. She's committed to him. He's paid his dowry to her father. And the virgin's name is Mary. The virgin's name is Mary. The name Mary comes from the word Miriam or also the word Mara. Do you remember the word Mara in the scriptures? Remember when Naomi said, don't call me Naomi, call me what? Mara, which means bitter. Mary's name is in essence means bitter. It's not that she's bitter in character, but she's in a very tough situation. Her family's there just trying to eke out a living and there has got to be some bitterness. Yet, God remembered. He had a promise to fulfill and he came to her. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at this 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 have found favor with God. You have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. How is this gonna happen? Mary, that's her question. How can this be? How is it possible for me, who've never been with a man, how is it possible for me to bear a child? Good question. How is it? Gabriel has an answer. He tells it directly. It's not going to be through the normal means. It's going to be through the Holy Spirit. Verse 20-35, And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, kind of in the same idea, when in the book of Genesis, at the beginning, at the creation, the Spirit of God hovered over creation. He was in control of it. The Holy Spirit is going to hover over you and you will have a child. I don't know how it happened. I can't tell you. I don't know the biology of it and how it all happened, but I do believe it, that the Holy Spirit came upon her and took Her seed and the Spirit of God placed within her the Son of God. The Son of God joined with humanity. And there we have the first God-man together. The enfleshment of God, we call it the incarnation. What is that word incarnation? It means that there's something we talk about the indwelling of the Spirit and Christ in us. There's this indwelling of Christ. The incarnation has the idea that in that body of Jesus was and is the Son of God. It is God made flesh. The word carn in there has the idea of carnal, but not carnal in a sinful way. It just simply means flesh. It is the enfleshment of God. And what we see is the Holy Spirit working in this young country maiden to bring into existence our Savior Jesus Christ, the God-man. It is the Holy Spirit who's doing His work. One of the commentators says, it's the work of the Spirit in a quiet and unobtrusive work. In Christ's incarnation, the Holy Spirit was quietly doing what needed to be done to put forward Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of man. That's how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit's work in the church in all time is to promote and push forward the Son of God in the Old Testament and in the New. That's the Holy Spirit's work. The commentator also says, devote yourself to seeing and feeling the grandeur of the love of God in Jesus Christ and you will be so in harmony with the Holy Spirit that His power will flow mightily in your life. Christian spiritual experience is not a vague religious emotion. It is an emotion with objective content. When the Spirit of God is working, He's going to be pushing forward Jesus Christ. If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then seek Jesus Christ. And when you do, the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ to you. The Holy Spirit, as some people will call Him, is the shy person of the Trinity. You ever heard of that? He's the shy person of the Trinity. He's the one that stays behind. and always pushing forward the work of Christ, always pushing forward the work of God in the Son of God, never taking the limelight, always stepping back. And we see this in this particular case, that in the privacy with Mary, she becomes impregnated with the Son of God. We see that it happened in the sixth month after Elizabeth, and the Spirit of God affirms that to Mary in order to encourage her that God can do this. He can accomplish whatever He wants to do. Just look at Elizabeth. She's pregnant. She's in her old age. She's beyond the time period and time frame that she can have children, and God is working in her. He wants Mary to understand this. He wants her to be encouraged in this. So what are the two things we can see about Mary? Number one, she's a virgin, which means that she is sexually pure. And number two, she's not pregnant already, and that she's from David's lineage. She's from the line of David. She, through Joseph, the legal representative of Jesus, putting him in the line of David, which enabled him to fulfill all the promises that God made to David, who was the king. Through Joseph, David, as his legal representative, would become the Son of God. And in that, we see that. Back in the text. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child will be born, will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth is of old age and has conceived a son. And this is in the sixth month, for with her who is called barren, for nothing is impossible. We see that Mary was a virgin, as prophesied in the Old Testament. We see that Jesus is in the lineage of David, which was told to David and promised throughout his seed that he would be the one, the one that would become through him. And the angel says, don't be afraid, for you have found favor with God. You have found favor with God. You know, that's an interesting phrase, that we have found favor with God. She's found favor with God. And so that tells us about something about her. She needs grace from God. That tells me something about her nature and character. Some people would say she's sinless. She was born sinless so she could have a sinless son. That's what the Holy Spirit was for. The Holy Spirit coming upon her, protecting her, protecting this child so that he would be without sin, yet be fully man. She is the recipient of God's grace. She needs grace. She needed grace. And actually, if we were to look at her song, we could see that she needed a savior. And we will see that in the near future, that she is the recipient of grace in need of God's grace. She needed to be saved too. And that's exactly who was inside of her, her savior, who would come. Grace, we all need grace. Actually, Ephesians chapter one, verse six, talks about this. This same particular word is used in there about the necessity of grace. We need God's grace. We need God's grace to be poured out. We need God's favor on us so that we can have a right relationship with Him. Like Paul, when he said, I've been crucified with Christ, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. How does that happen? It happens through grace. And that's what the Spirit is telling her. That you are the recipient of grace. You have found favor with God, verse 30. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. And we have five different descriptions in here. His name will be Jesus. We see that in the English. In the Hebrew, it's the word Yahshua. It's interesting, that name Yahshua. It's a combination, it's a compound name, you might say. Yahshua. Where did it come from? If we go all the way back to Numbers chapter 13, we would see a relationship that Moses had with a man by the name of Hosea. You know Hosea? He was renamed. He was renamed Joshua, Yahshua. The same name. Moses saw something in him that God was using him, that he would be the one that would deliver the nation to the land. and He renamed Him Yahshua, Deliverer, Salvation. It's a forerunning of the work of God in the life of Christ, who would become our Deliverer, not to the land of Israel, but to the land of eternity. He's Yahshua, Hoshia, Yahweh together, which means salvation. He will be named Jesus. He will be named Yahshua. Number two, He will be great. He will be great. We think about people who are great. You know, think about how humanity thinks of greatness. We can look at a great leader, or we can look at somebody that's great in different kind of different avenues in our life. Somebody we look at as great. Yesterday I was looking in my Bible, and I came across a little card that I've had in here for a couple years. It's from one of my grandkids. It says, Dear Grandpa, thank you for being a great pastor. I read that like, I mean, it's been in my Bible for a long time. And then I came across this, he will be called great. I mean, we like to have this idea of being great, you know? But am I great? No, Jesus is great. He's the one who's going to rule and reign over the universe. He's the one that upholds the universe. He is the one who upholds everything by the word of his power. He puts his stamp on nature and nature obeys what he says and does. If we were to look at Colossians chapter 1, we would see all the different things that describe His greatness. Through Him all things hold together. Through Him all things were made. That's great. How do you measure greatness? How do you measure greatness? One word. Yeshua. Jesus. That's how we measure greatness. God is great. Jesus is great. Number two, number three, he will be called the Son of the Most High. He will be called the Son of the Most High. That's a title. That's not necessarily a description of what he is. That's a title. And actually, later on in the book of Luke, we will see that he refers to that in Luke chapter eight. There's another time he's called the term Son of the Most High. It's when the demon cries out and says, what have you to do with me, son of God, son of the most high? I beseech you, don't torment me. Even the demons recognize that he is the son of the most high. It's a title. It goes, dates back all the way to creation. They know exactly who he is. He's the son of the most high. You might say he's the warrior, he's the Lord of Heaven's armies. You ever hear that before? The Old Testament, the Lord of Heaven armies. That's who Jesus is. He's the commander-in-chief. He's the commander-in-chief of the world. We look around the world, we see all the power brokers doing all these things in the world and giving money here and doing that and just, you know, all the different things that are going on in the world that cause everybody all kinds of consternation. You know, guess what? They're all puppets. They're puppet kings. He's the king. He is the king of all. And actually, we see that in number four. He will sit on David's throne. Who sits on thrones? Kings. He will sit on David's throne. He will be superior, greater than all. He will fulfill all the prophecies ever that's ever been made for the nation of Israel. Isaiah chapter 11, verse 10 says, in that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples. and in him shall the nation seek, and his dwelling shall be glorious." Not only is he the king of Israel, he's the king of the world. Number one, he will be called Jesus. He'll be called the Son of the Most High. He will sit on David's throne. And the last thing that he assures Mary which has got to give her great confidence, His kingdom will never end. His kingdom will never end. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom, there will be no end. It means that Jesus is alive. and ruling over his people. And as we think about that today, what is today's date? It's February 26th at 1034. He's ruling and reigning over the universe right now. Today, forever, he reigns. He's reigning over us. How was she conceived? Well, we know that's through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit putting forth Christ, Jesus Christ before us. doing the thing that we would consider to be impossible. But with the Holy Spirit, with God, all things are impossible. Actually, if we think about the Holy Spirit, what is He? He's the third person of the triune God. He is the hypostatic, third hypostatic person of God, working together, all together, Father, Son, and Spirit, the all-powerful, working in this country, handmade, doing the impossible, what we think is impossible. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And in that we see Mary's attitude. She has an attitude of willingness. I'm willing to do whatever God wants me to do in my life. What we have in here in this text is not only God's plan being revealed, and it is, we have God's plan being revealed, and it is Luke explaining to us step by step as we go through the Gospel of Luke, there's a step, and we're in the first step of the conception of Christ, and as we move on we see that Luke is revealing God's, not only His plan, but His heart for people. And it's demonstrated in his love for her. Oh, he's going to be great. He's going to be great. But he's going to be great in a way that we never expected, that she never expected, that he would go to a cross and that he would give his life for us. She wasn't expecting that here. We do know that there's some hints to it in her life later on. but his greatness is measured in the fact that of his great love that he has for us. No greater love is there than a man give his life for his friends. Jesus said that to his disciples. I believe he was referring to himself. What greater gift can we have than someone give his life for his friends? Jesus. No money, no home, no social status, no clout, no degree, at least externally, but internally, Who is he? He's the master, the owner of the universe. He has it all. Externals, well, before God, they really mean nothing. God looks at the inside. And in Mary's heart, he looked and saw in her something in her that was in need of grace. But then she responded with a willing spirit and responded immediately. Her response was immediately, yes, I'm willing, Can you wait a year? Give me another year to finish out my childhood. Can I have another year to get through my teen years? Maybe five years. Or maybe ten years. No, she says, maybe to me, as you said. Immediate response. And you know, that's what God wants from us. He wants us to have a willing spirit, but not only to be willing, but to say yes to Him whenever He calls us to do something. so that we can do great things through He who works in us. God doesn't measure or value our credentials as important, more than our availability and the response of our heart. Ask yourself, what do you do for the Lord? How do you serve him? You know, that's the thing is about servants. You know, we look at it, there are some people who are great, there are some people who are not. But you know what? Really, in reality, there's only one person who's great. There's only one leader, and that's Jesus. All the rest are to be followers. And that's us. And she had a willing spirit to want to go after whatever he wanted in her life. It wasn't just lip service. It was service to say, God, whatever you want to use me for, use me. Another thing we see in Mary is that she had a humble spirit. She was humble, but humble does not mean meek or weak. Same with Jesus. He was humble in spirit. He demonstrated us what humility looked like. It's humility with power, power of the Holy Spirit working in us. Humility is not having an inferiority complex, but a right understanding of what you are in Him and who you are in Him. Paul says that Christ lives in me. If Christ lives in you, then we need to have a willingness to go wherever the Lord leads us, knowing that He will supply all of our needs. All of our needs. Not all of our wants. There's a lot of things we want that we may not get. But anything we need to accomplish His purposes, He empowers us to do that. You know, and that's how it happened with Mary. How could she do this? The Spirit of God was working in her. Yes, she had a willing spirit. Yes, she said yes immediately. She responded and she said yes to what the Spirit was going to do and follow. no matter what happens. Why? Because Christ is in her. The virgin birth of Jesus Christ is significant because it demonstrates to us the power of God and what he can accomplish the impossible, doing things that we can't even imagine, and trusting him to follow through on his promises. And he does follow through on his promises. Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Can we echo those same words in our life? Can we say, Lord, use me in any way you want, I don't know where you're going to lead me. I don't know where you're going to take me. I don't know where this path or this journey leads. And you know, this journey just might lead to something that's going to be difficult in your life. But you know, through it all, Jesus Christ is going to sustain you through it. He's the sustainer of the whole universe. He's great. And the angel departed. But the Holy Spirit didn't. The Holy Spirit stayed with her and helped her along throughout the whole period of her life. And you know what? So does Christ and the Holy Spirit who indwells us. We who are indwelled can say with Paul, I've been crucified with Christ. I don't belong to myself. I belong to him. I live my life for him because Christ lives in me. If you can say that Christ lives in you, then you can say yes to whatever God calls you to do. Follow Him wherever He takes you, to lead you in paths unknown, and be confident in knowing that He'll be there with us wherever we go. Is that the kind of Christ that you believe in? Or is He just one Savior? He got me saved and I can go do what I want to do? No, we need to serve Him and love Him and trust Him all of our life. Trust Jesus. Trust Him to be your Lord. Trust Him to be your Savior. Trust Him and Him alone and not anything else because He's worthy of it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the fulfillment of your word, Lord. You've made a promise. of old that you would send and deliver all the way back in Genesis, one who would come from the seed of woman, and we see that here in this text here, how Jesus became a man, how the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and in a divine way, in your divine power, your omnipotent power, came upon her, and she bore the child Jesus. the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, Jesus, our Deliverer, our Savior, our Salvation. Thank you, Lord, for loving us. We thank you not only for fulfilling your plan, but for including us in your plan as we journey through this life. Not knowing exactly where you'll take us and where we're going to go, Give us a willing spirit in order to say yes to you and follow you wherever you lead, and knowing that you will sustain us. Thank you for it, Lord. We ask, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts. May the Spirit of God, who does dwell in us, convict us of whatever it might be in our own personal life. This is a personal message, personal message to Mary which extends out to us as believers, the lover of her son. Father, we pray that you would just do your work in our hearts and save us from our sin. Redeem us. from our sinfulness, give us life and hope in Christ, in Christ alone, not in our own works, not in our own efforts, not in anything that we think you see good in us, because we know that we are not good, but you are good. In your goodness, and in your goodness, you call people to yourself. Lord, call your people to yourself today. Use us, Lord, as your instruments to share the good news of Christ to a lost and dying world. And may this Holy Spirit uplift Christ in our life. We pray this in Christ's precious name. Amen. Would you stand with me as we close this portion of our service? As we sing, let it be said of us. What is it that we want said about us? What is it that we want said? The Lord is our passion. Christ is in us. Let's sing. That He said of us, that the Lord was our passion, and with gladness we poured, and with trust we were given. of of of of we were marked by We were known by our love and delight in meekness. We were ruled by His peace. In unity strong, joined as one body, and Christ would be seen by all. Let the cross be our glory and the Lord be our song. Let the cross be our glory, and the Lord be our song. Till the likeness of Jesus see through us they know. Let the cross be our glory, and the Lord be our song. Father, we do praise you for the Christmas story, praise you for the birth of Jesus Christ, for the work you did in Mary, in her heart, and the work you did in Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, all those in this story. And Father, that same Holy Spirit works in us if we're truly born again. We praise you for that. Help us just to, like Mary, ponder these things in our heart. is consider who you are and the work that, through your spirit, you are doing in our hearts to make us more like Christ and help us to be humble and willing to be molded as you seek to mold us. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I love you. so oh I didn't sound like it. There's nothing. There's nothing coming out of it. There was earlier. It's not here anymore. There's nothing. It was supposed to be a shirt. No, I think it was. I think it was a little outfit. I don't know if it was possible, but the other one was going to go to my head. It was fine. And when we got here, it was fine. It was happening earlier. I bet you what we need to do is just plug him into the... Yeah, so that way I can... Yeah. It's coming through now. I wonder if it would be in the box. That definitely sounds different now than what it was. There's just so many parts, you know what I mean? It's like, okay, let's try this, or now let's try this, or now let's try this. So we're going to Illinois next weekend. So, do you have the music to this is the day? I don't think it's next week, I think it's the following week. I have it at home, but I don't know. Okay, that's fine. I just want to make sure I actually gave it to you. I figure it's an itchy behavior. There is a new song, but we can swap it around. It's fairly easy. It's pretty straightforward. It's just pretty straightforward. We're getting on. Look at this. You're local from Goodrich here? Yeah, this is where we live. Oh, okay. Yeah. Good morning. Good morning. I can't eat that. Yeah, it's working. Got it, Rach. I got it sent. Okay, great. Oh my goodness, that was so cool. Oh, he doesn't go. No, no. Thank you very much. Oh. Needed. No, I know. My brother has to load up the S1 now. It's nice. It'll stop. So actually, we talked about this. We talked about this. We are, she's telling the truth. He'll go over to your house and fix electricity while you're going to his house. Wait a second. He's going to go over to your house and fix electricity while you're going to his house. Thank you very much. Oh, I get you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.