MCC Podcasts
Christmas Is Worship - Letting The Holy Spirit Have His Way In Us
That's our Scripture text this morning, that story of Mary, the angel revealing this good news of Jesus coming to Mary. This Advent, this idea of Jesus coming, we're considering this theme of Christmas is worship, because in this Advent, in this Christmas story, the characters and the events and the things that happen teach us about being worshipers, those that consider and understand that God is worthy of our praise and worthy of our worship, and that our lives are submitted to Him and responsive to who He is. And so we said this is Christmas is worship, and so these Advent Sundays are about looking at worshipers in the text and what that teaches us about being people who worship God. And this morning, the text is about Mary, as you heard. The text is about Mary, sometimes evangelicals have left Mary a little too far out of the picture, because we thought maybe she was too much going on in Catholicism or something, I don't know. But the beautiful story of Mary, the true and right reasons to sort of lift this person up as a hero in our faith is beautiful and is rich. Mary was extraordinarily open to what God wanted to do. You hear that church? And that is a great example to us. Mary was extraordinarily open to what God wanted to do. And that's what we learn about worship this morning. This is the title of the sermon that we worship by allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in us. This is what we're going to learn from Mary as we examine this. In other words, she encountered God and then she said to the Holy Spirit, you do what you need to do, because I'm yours. And is that right there we'll preach? And in fact, as we were reflecting on all of this, I said, you know what, as an example and sort of a parenthetical, as I start my sermon, I go, Peter, we got to bring up, and Peter, come on up here, we got to bring up some of these folks that are going to Mexico this week. Because these are folks who encountered the Holy Spirit, come on up Michelle, it's male you got to come too, come on brother. And these guys, Peter will tell the story a little bit, but encountered the Holy Spirit in Mexico on a mission trip and said, what do you want us to do about it, Lord? And then they're going back down there in response to God. So thanks, Jeff. Every year we take a team of adults down to Mexico to experience the culture, the language, the difficulties of working on the field. And one of the things that we push them to the edge to do is to lean in on the Lord, lean in on the Holy Spirit and to listen to the Holy Spirit, and maybe we want to come over here a little bit more so we're all in the light. And so this is the team that went down this year, it was a small team, there were six of us, three had been before and three were new. These are two of the three that were new, Tracy Shepard went down with us all so she worships up at Calvary Chapel in Petaluma, you can go to the next one if you would. One of the things that we talked about again as we go down is that there's nothing impossible for God to do. If we can listen to His voice and understand Him and move out in the possible, then God will move in the impossible. And that sign is down there and when we first got down there that was what we heard as our first sort of sermon, or sermonette, a homily. Then what we do is go out and do child evangelism, adult evangelism, and during the child evangelism time the team that went down met the mellow family and this is a picture of their house. You know when you hear about a cinder block house and cardboard and tarp, I mean I normally would think it was cinder blocks on edge like we build, but this is, you can see they're on their side so that the wind can flow in and out easily. So Michelle and this male and Tracy met this family, next one if you would. And when they came back they felt like the Lord had put on their heart. How can we go back and build a home for Rosa and her four siblings? And so then they started stepping out in terms, okay God, what do you want us to do? Here is a picture of Gabbino, he's the oldest, great story about him, but we don't have time this morning. You can capture one of these guys and they can tell you the story of Gabbino. But one of the things that was done was a lot was purchased for this family and this is Gabbino when they were coming back from signing the deed, yeah. Okay, next slide if I will. And so in doing the possible, several, I'm doing the possible, several things that seemed impossible took place. So Peter just asked me to share something that was on my heart about this experience and there have been a lot of amazing experiences over the last 10 months since we got back from that trip and a lot of it has to do with Marine Covenant and the amazing support that we've received. We started out wanting to raise about $5,000 and we raised over $20,000 to help this family and originally we thought that God wanted us to put that into the house for Gabbino and his family. So we started to do that and the welcome home outreach people, that is the building partner that we have down there. They suggested or discouraged us from building a home that was out of character for the neighborhood and just to build them a regular house. And so we prayed about it and literally could not come up with one legitimate reason for building them a house that was bigger than the rest of the homes. And so we thought that this was God telling us that we should just build them the regular home. So we did that and we told Jackie at welcome home outreach that to be open to something that came along that we could help with since we had all this extra money. Early the next day the people at FF, dirt costs at FFHM, that's the orphanage that Marine Covenant is associated with, called Jackie and said, "We have a need to build a transitional home for single women. Do you think you could build this home for us?" And she said, "Yeah, we could build it, but we'd need to find somebody that could fund the operation." And so she immediately thought of us and emailed us and last week we were just thrilled to email dirt costs at FFHM and tell them that we would be happy to fund the building of the transitional home for single women that's going to be operated by the orphanage. So that was pretty exciting. On top of the fact that because it's Christmas, we get to bless the kids and the families in the neighborhood and we've created and backpacks that have Philippians 413 on them in Spanish and we're delivering 150 of those to the neighborhood kids that were building the home. We have had an outpouring of, you should see our floor in our house and it's probably the same in Ismail's house and Tracy's house of toothbrushes and brushes and lotions and coloring books and crayons and school supplies. I mean, we're going to have to hire you all, I feel like, to go down there. Anyway, so that's just about it on top of the fact that we have about 200 pairs of new shoes and socks to put on their little feet and we couldn't be happier. So my whole family and Ismail's family and Tracy's family, we're all going down on Saturday and we're so excited, it's been good to go. And they've also been able to fund the education for the whole mellow family, all of the kids and these are kids that are really, really smart. So this is going to be a great opportunity for them to step out of poverty and to being very productive. One of the questions I asked, particularly Michelle after the first day that she came back from child evangelism, you know, well, what do you think of all this? And she was speechless, you just couldn't say anything. And so then I asked, well, what are you going to do when you get home? How are you going to tell your family and the speechlessness continued? Did I have everybody that's going down with the trip stand for a minute place? And Carrie, are you going to stand? What they're going to do, the whole shepherd family, the whole huff family, the whole Ismail's family is going to go down and I think you've got some other people going with you, damn. Two other friends. Two other friends are going on and they're going to build a house. So when you see them next time, they will be completed house builders. Would you, let's pray for them as they go and would you just reach out your hands even if they're right next to you or to these guys on the stage? Father, we thank you for this opportunity that you give us to bless others. We thank you, Lord, for Holy Spirit, your Holy Spirit, who when we listen, you speak and you speak so loudly that we can't turn aside from it. Father, I'd ask for travel mercies, I'd ask Lord Jesus that you would open up their eyes, their ears, their hearts, their mind to what you're doing and what you want them to do. And so travel mercies, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. So excited for you guys. It's awesome. Thank you. Amen, that is so great. You know what, when again, darkness and weeping continues, doers for the night, but joy comes in the morning. We keep going out there and bringing Jesus and his kingdom. And man, that's right. That is good stuff. And I loved it because I love that story because it's about going down. You guys are down there and the Holy Spirit starts to speak and so you start figuring out what he's saying. Have your way, God. And then here we go. A couple of poker tournaments later, 22,000 bucks, nicely done. Poker for Jesus. Did you give it a bite? There was all kinds of fundraisers. There was, you know, on the patio, we had the bake sale, but then we had a poker tournament. That's where the real cash got raised. So well done. Man, that is so great. I just loved that list of all the things that get to happen. It does not have just a sense of grace, right? I mean, have you been to Mexico and the poverty and the brokenness is there, but then that list, purchase this lot and a house and build a house and then the transitional home for those people and then the backpacks and the shoes and the education and the, that's just so good. I'm only one excited about that. Mary's a story and a great example to us about being open to what God would have for her. We worship by allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in us. How much more could we be honoring of who God is than by saying, "Come do your thing with me." And that's what we learn from Mary. A couple of things that I just want to review from Mary's story just to kind of help us get this in our head and carry it away as an advent message. Number one, we worship this worshiping part. We worship encountering His great passion for us. We worship encountering His great passion for us. I love the text and anytime you want to, Jim, if you can put the scriptures up there, great, otherwise friends, you can look at it in your Bible. But verse 26, you know, in the six month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel to Gabriel to Nazareth to a virgin pledge to be married to a man named Joseph. And the virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you." And then of course, Mary was troubled at these words as we talked about last week that it's troubling when an angel shows up and you get a glimpse of the glory of God. But he said to her, "Don't be afraid, you've found favor with God. Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord's with you. Don't be afraid, you've found favor with God." And this idea of coming and being part of allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in us, one of the things that happens is we first encounter His great passion for us. Mary's story is our story with God, which is that He says, "You're highly favored. The Lord is with you." It's like He goes, "Hey, Mary, you're the one for this job." Now, she had a pretty special job. But every one of us has this encounter with God as part of this Holy Spirit thing where He goes, "You are highly graced. You're highly favored." That's what that word means, meaning I picked you because of what I want to do in you. Not I picked you because you're so amazing, but you're highly graced. It says, "You're highly favored. You're the one. I pick you." Love that. I love that. That God is doing to work in this world and wants to through every single one of our lives. And every day of our life is an experience of waking up in the morning and the Holy Spirit, if we're listening, saying to us, "You're the one today. You're the one to live your life today. You are highly graced and highly favored and do not be afraid. You're the one I pick to serve me today. Come on now, church." That's you. And so we worship by encountering this great passion that He has for us. And Mary, of course, was troubled. It says she was greatly troubled and wondered what kind of greeting this would be. It's a different kind of ... which she says she was greatly troubled. That word troubled, coincidentally, the passage I read in John 11 about Jesus weeping at His friend's death. Remember it said Jesus said, "Filled with passion in there, and greatly troubled." I don't know if that part ... I read that part or not, I don't remember. But Jesus was troubled at the brokenness and the sin and all that kind of stuff. And the reason is that it turns us upside down and we say, "This is not what I expected. This is an unbelievable mind-blowing event." That's what it is. In the Greek it means blow your mind. It means agitated and twisted around and Jesus was agitated at the brokenness and the pain in the world. She is agitated and blown away that she's been picked by God. A young, 13, probably ... Mary was like 13, poor woman called to do great things for God. In that culture, mind-blower. We worship, encounter His great passion, and then we also worship receiving His great plan. This is part of the Holy Spirit workingness. This is an epic journey. I won't belabor this because obviously her plan is amazing, but I've just sort of already made the point. But we've been picked for something unbelievable to come ahead of us, because it's going to come ahead of us. Mary was greatly troubled, wondered what kind of words this greeting might be, meaning she's like, "What does this mean? What is this? Where is this leading?" I'm highly favored, and I'm the one. I'm the one for what? The Lord is with me for what? And this plan unfolds, as you see in the Scriptures. Of course, she says, "You're going to conceive and give birth to a son, and you're going to call him Jesus. He's going to be great. He'll be the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end." I mean, basically God said, "In as clear a word as he could to this young Jewish girl, I'm going to bring the Messiah through you, a young virgin." It blew her mind. She was receiving this incredible plan. It was something way beyond what she could do for God ever, way beyond. And again, this is at the end of 400 years of silence. I mean, they didn't even have in all of these generations one after another, after another. They didn't even have a sense that God was at work among their people anymore, and she got this word. Man, by us getting into this place of being able to allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in us, we worship in countering His great presence, His great passion for us. And then we encounter this incredible plan. And that's us too. That's not just Mary because she had that cool one, man. That's an awesome one. Okay. So she got a cool plan. But in the scope of things, that the kingdom would come to our world, that we would be agents of His healing and His good news and His redemption and His miracles, friends. That's an epic plan. And isn't it interesting again that the angel says, "Don't be afraid," if you were here last week, you heard my sermon about Zachariah's encounter, the angel's always say, "Don't be afraid," because it's such good news, because we live in the grace of God. Should be afraid, God's going to show up, you don't have to be afraid, because God wants to be near us, which is great news. But He said it to her as well, "You don't be afraid." This epic plan, He said, "You're highly favored, and there's no fear in love. I love you." We don't have to fear the plan that God has for us. You know, He doesn't lead us into a plan where we're punished. There's no fear in love, the Scripture's saved, perfect love casts out fear. And so the angel goes, "Yeah, I'm going to give you a plan, it's going to blow your mind. I'm going to call you to some stuff in your life, it's going to freak you out. It's going to be bigger than you ever dreamed, but do not fear." And while that plan is radical, the reality is that He's good. We know that from Jeremiah and the other passages, the other prophets, every time somebody got called to something big, God said, "Things like He said to Jeremiah, 'I know the plans I have for you. I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. And their plan is to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope. My plan is good for you." So we worship by receiving that plan, His abundant, awesome, and terrifying plan. This is all part of allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in us. So while we may worship in countering this great passion, and while we worship Him in countering this great plan, friends, in the end, those things don't have truthfully, they don't have that much effect if we don't get this third part, which Mary's story tells us that we worship submitting to a great power. We've got this great passion, we've got this great plan, but unless we're submitted to His great power, it won't have its intended effect. This God's passion that we live out His will in our lives is so great that it absolutely requires His great power. You with me on that? That's not enough just to be, man, God loves me and God has incredible ideals for me and a plan for me, a great passion, great plan, but it is about great power. And that's what Mary's story is so, I was going to say iconic if you excuse a pun, that's why Mary's so iconic, because she was submitting to this great power. This is what her story teaches us. And it's interesting, you know, in the text, you know, she didn't doubt His favor and she didn't doubt His plan and she wasn't doubting Him the way some of the other folks doubt Him. You know, you look back at the Scriptures, Mary says in verse 34, "How will this be since I'm a virgin?" Zachariah said, "What's the sign this is going to happen? Can you give me?" You know, like he was asking for some, he tested the Lord and a lot of these guys tested the Lord. And last week I said, you know, I totally have grace on those guys, you know, for testing the Lord because it's when we walk with God, we're wondering, do I hear Him? Did I hear Him? Do I hear Him? Do I hear Him? Right? I'm like, well, like we get that? Mary wasn't even in that. She wasn't testing like, I don't know. She was like going, okay, that's radical. How is this all going to happen? Because and in the Greek it literally says, "I am not with a man, with a man." Like, presently I would not be active with a man. That's what it's saying in the Greek. And she goes, "How can this happen, this thing? How can you possibly, and isn't that amazing, isn't that amazing when we start to think about what God wants to do in our lives, that He comes up with a plan that at first glimpse there is absolutely no human way possible." Come on now, church. No human way possible. That requires a great power. I wonder if we don't see God's plan for our lives in those terms, maybe we'd not hearing all that God asked for us. If we look and we think God's plan for my life is X, Y, and Z, and we go, I think I know how we can pull that off. I don't know that we're here in it. I think this kind of stuff is beyond it all. She hears that this is about the Holy Spirit that's going to have to come on her. It is going to require this passionate plan for her is going to require a power so great that it overcomes all reason. It overcomes all obstacles. This is a power so great that it overcomes all human shortcomings. It overcomes all sin, it overcomes all doubt, it overcomes all human limitations. It overcomes all of that stuff. She goes, "How's this going to be?" And she hears that it's going to be by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, there's a little parenthetical into the angel says, "So the Holy Spirit's going to come on you." That's not parenthetical. How will this be? He says, "The Holy Spirit's going to come on you and the power of the Most High is going to overshadow you." And then she goes on to say, "Check out your relative Elizabeth. She knows something about miracles. Everything is impossible with God," the Scripture says. How's this going to be? This is going to be by the whole power of the Holy Spirit and friends, that's us too. That's what we need. That's what we need. We need to submit to encounter His great passion for us. We need to receive His great plan for us, but then we have to submit to His incredible power for us that's going to overcome all of the human stuff so that God can do what He needs to do. We need to power big enough to do the God-sized work that He wants to do in us and through us. And every one of you know what I'm talking about because there's stuff in you that has felt kind of man-sized, kind of woman-sized, kind of human-sized. And when you came to Christ, you said, "I've got to knock that thing off." And you thought, "Here we go. I can do it." And through some help and some friends and some accountability, you figured it out. But I'm talking about the stuff in you that's God-sized, that requires a God-sized healing and God-sized intervention. Come on now. You know what I'm talking about? The stuff where we get to the end and we go, "I can't do this, God. I can't do that stuff within me. And I certainly can't do this plan that you're calling me to, to be an agent of redemption and love and healing and witness. I can't live for you in this world." That's God-sized stuff and that's what we need. And Mary's the hero because she comes and goes, "How's this going to be?" And there you go, the angel says, "It's going to be by the Holy Spirit on you." And those two phrases, look at those two phrases, you can put both of them up there. The Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. I love this before, just as I'm finishing up here, I don't want you to miss those two. The Holy Spirit will come on you. How's this going to be? How is this great power going to come? The Holy Spirit will come on you, he says, the angel says. God Himself, the creator of the universe, the sustainer of every breath that every living creature has, the holy perfect God of heaven will come on you, he says to her. And friends, we receive that Holy Spirit when we give our lives to Jesus at conversion, when we say yes to the gospel, the good news that Jesus died for us, we receive that Holy Spirit and here's the good news, it doesn't just come on us, it comes in us. And we all have the Holy Spirit within us, this incredible power within us, we have been highly favored, highly graced and the Holy One of God comes in us to live this life and this power. We cannot take that reality for granted, we cannot live like that is not true. We allow the work of the Holy Spirit because He's ready to go in us, to transform us and to change us and to speak to us and to heal us and then through us to see incredible fruit happen in our lives. It is a life of power and of miracle. The Holy Spirit will come on you, what a dramatic, that little phrase, oh yeah okay I get that, no that dramatic phrase that God Himself comes in us to do His work in us and through us. Come on now, we'll show hands who needs that right now. In that second phrase and he adds like in case it wasn't enough for her to understand, the Holy Spirit will come on you and the power, there's the word, of the most high will overshadow you. Overshadow, shadow is this, it's the image of the cloud of the presence of God in the Old Testament at Sinai. When God spoke the cloud covered the mountain, the presence of God. It was the cloud in the tent of meeting that covered the cloud of the glory of God that covered that temporary tabernacle in the desert when God showed up. It's the cloud of the presence of God. It was the cloud that overshadowed everything at the mount of transfiguration. These are all the same places that use the same word. It's the brilliance of all of that. Overshadow means His glory will come and eclipse all that you could not be. You hear that? The cloud, the overshadowing means it's the, His glory will come and eclipse all that you could not be and all that you could not do and all that you could not be faithful in. It is His glory, the overshadowing is you cannot, but He can and so here comes glory. That's what that is. The cloud of the presence of God covers us and it clips all our notness in God's canness. And that's the point of the text. The point of the text is God's going to come by His great power. And now what are you going to do? And Mary's our example because in the last verse of that text she says, "Yes, please," and allows the Holy Spirit to have His way in her life, allows, submits to God's power, and allows the Holy Spirit to come, Mary says, "I'm the Lord's servant." May it be to me according to your word, may it be exactly as you've said, may your will go down exactly the way you want it to go. I'm yours. Friends Mary is our example of being a worshipper this Christmas season. This story tells us because she said yes to what God wants to do in her and that's us. To come into us, to overshadow us and to His miraculous work in us through us. Where do you need the Holy Spirit at working you right now today? Where do you need the work, the power of the Holy Spirit in you and through you? Ben come up here and we're going to worship but I want to challenge us around this thought. Where do you need the Holy Spirit? Because we come friends and worship Him right here. Look at me. I know they're all pretty. Look right at me. Come here. Look at this. Don't miss this. Where do you need the Holy Spirit where you say God I'm at the end of me and I can't fix this and I can't heal this and I can't go further than this. Come Holy Spirit, the power of the most high, come and overshadow this in me. Or maybe you need the spirit of the power of God on something in your life. There's a situation, there's a person, there's a relationship. There's a difficulty where you say God. I know I'm highly favored. I know you're a great passion for me. I know you've got a great plan for me but I need your great power to come into this situation. Every one of us in this room I'm positive has one or two or five of something of those in your life where you go in me God I need your great power there and out in my life I need you to come with your power to this situation. Friends let's not live like he's not in us. We're worshiping by submitting to his great power and allowing his Holy Spirit to come.