Is Blessing Earned? A Theological Review of ‘Blessed Because You Believe’

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
One of the greatest privileges of our life is to minister to you each and every week.
[00:00:04] You know, whether you watch every week, whether you're a part of our church locally, or whether you're a part of our EFAM all over the world, we pray that as this year ends and a new year begins, you would be in a place of faith.
[00:00:16] And we want to invite you to join us in our year-end offering.
[00:00:20] It's called our Trust in God offering.
[00:00:23] Thousands of people that call Elevation Church home.
[00:00:26] Thousands of people who have been blessed through this ministry take this opportunity to give back generously, sacrificially.
[00:00:33] Many begin to tithe for the first time and many give above the top.
[00:00:37] and an offering to the Lord.
[00:00:39] This is our opportunity to make a difference, to continue to preach the gospel of Jesus.
[00:00:44] And I wanted to make sure before we take you into the message that you knew this is your opportunity to give.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
Yeah, so let's partner together to get the news of Jesus Christ out to as many people as we can.
[00:00:56] And we just want to thank you for your generosity.
[00:00:59] Thank you for your faith.
[00:01:00] Thank you for trusting in God and helping us reach more people than ever.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
Right now you can click the link and give.
[00:01:08] We're praying for you.
[00:01:09] We're believing that God is going to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that you could ask or imagine.
[00:01:15] Now, let's get into the Word of God.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
Ladies and gentlemen, remain standing and welcome to our EPAM all over the world as you continue to hug your neighbors, your friends, your family, and complete strangers.
[00:01:33] It is my great joy to announce to you that today, preaching her final sermon of the year 2025, is my favorite verdict, your favorite verdict, everybody's favorite verdict!
[00:01:53] Y'all give it up for Holly!
[00:01:53] Merry Christmas!

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
Merry Christmas!
[00:02:07] Let me just get a good look at you.
[00:02:08] What an amazing time we have had in worship today.
[00:02:14] It feels so good in here.
[00:02:16] The Lord is present in this place.
[00:02:20] Amen.
[00:02:20] The Bible says that he inhabits the praises of his people.
[00:02:24] I think that means he's here with us today.
[00:02:28] You made it to church on the Sunday before Christmas.
[00:02:34] Whether you're at one of our locations or you're joining us online I know that that means that your heart is expectant today that you want more than just checking off things off your to-do list this week that you want to get your heart right this week and you want to be in the presence of Jesus and I believe that God has a word for us today and I'm really honored that I
[00:02:55] Get to bring it to you so okay real quick before you take your seats i just want to read our scripture for today i'm going to be reading from luke chapter 1 if you have a bible and um last week pastor stephen talked about how god provides and he prompts it was so powerful were you here
[00:03:18] The sermon was called Mary's Prayer.
[00:03:21] I want to pick up today with a little bit more of Mary's story.
[00:03:27] We're going to start reading in the middle of the passage.
[00:03:29] The angel has come to Mary, and he's announced to her that she's going to give birth to the Son of God.
[00:03:36] We're going to start reading right there in verse 34.
[00:03:38] Mary asked the angel, "'But how can this happen?
[00:03:42] I am a virgin.'
[00:03:43] The angel replied,
[00:03:45] The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
[00:03:52] So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.
[00:03:57] What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age.
[00:04:02] People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month, for no word from God will ever fail."
[00:04:12] Mary replied,
[00:04:14] I am the Lord's servant.
[00:04:16] May everything that you have said about me come true."
[00:04:19] And then the angel left her.
[00:04:22] A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived.
[00:04:28] She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.
[00:04:31] At the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:38] Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.
[00:04:45] Why am I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me?
[00:04:49] When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.
[00:04:53] You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.
[00:05:00] Father, would you bless the reading of this word today?
[00:05:04] We love you.
[00:05:05] We want to hear from you.
[00:05:06] It's in Jesus' name we pray.
[00:05:08] Amen.
[00:05:10] The title of my sermon is Blessed Because You Believed.
[00:05:19] On your way to your seat, ask your neighbor, are you blessed?
[00:05:33] Several weeks ago, my husband stood up here and he told all of you about how I am a terrible liar.
[00:05:43] It's true.
[00:05:43] I don't know why, but I am really just the worst liar.
[00:05:49] and what that means is don't ask me if I like your haircut.
[00:05:55] Please do not put me on the spot like that because sometimes I just can't think of anything to say and like the best thing that I might be able to come up with is like wow
[00:06:07] I'm a car salesman's dream.
[00:06:13] I'm going to be like, yeah, a little old lady drove this car.
[00:06:30] She only drove it to church in the grocery store every week.
[00:06:33] I mean, I just believe what people…
[00:06:35] Say to me, and I also believe I've recently come to realize everything that comes into my Instagram feed.
[00:06:43] This drives my family crazy.
[00:06:47] I will frequently show my kids videos.
[00:06:50] I'll be like, look at this.
[00:06:51] This is amazing.
[00:06:53] My kids will look back at me, and they're like, Mom, that's not real.
[00:06:57] And so then I'll find another way.
[00:06:59] I want to show, I got to show Stephen this.
[00:07:00] I'm like, babe, you're not gonna believe this.
[00:07:03] And he'll look at me and he'll be like, Holly, you know that's AI, right?
[00:07:06] Okay, so I'm slow.
[00:07:08] I'm learning because I just believe that things are true.
[00:07:11] The other day, this video came into my feed on Instagram.
[00:07:15] I don't know if you guys saw this one, but it was ring doorbell footage, which means it's true.
[00:07:24] There was a cat and a baby on a front porch, and a bear wanders up.
[00:07:31] The cat kisses and swats at the bear and saves the baby.
[00:07:36] And when I saw this video, I thought, wow, that is one amazing cat.
[00:07:46] And then a couple days later, another one comes into my feed.
[00:07:49] Different porch, different cat, different baby.
[00:07:52] And I thought, I think we need to get a cat.
[00:07:58] So then a third one came.
[00:08:01] And this time, I thought, wait a minute.
[00:08:06] How many moms are leaving their babies alone on a porch?
[00:08:11] This must be AI.
[00:08:12] You can't fool me three times.
[00:08:14] I recently saw another one of this family of dolphins and they were like breaching the water and this tiny little baby dolphin like pops up out of the water it was the cutest thing I have seen in 2025 and I was like oh wait maybe this so I went to the comments because you know in the comments people will let you know if this is AI and one of the first comments that I saw this woman said if this is AI don't tell me
[00:08:41] I don't want to know.
[00:08:43] I was like, Amen.
[00:08:44] It's real.
[00:08:44] How many of you would agree it's getting harder and harder to believe?
[00:08:50] When I was in my 20s, I thought that belief was black and white.
[00:08:54] This is what I believe, this is what I do not believe, and I believe that this is what you should believe too.
[00:09:00] It was really fun to be around.
[00:09:01] You would have enjoyed it.
[00:09:02] As I've gotten older, though, I've learned to let go of the black and white, and I've had to learn that believing God is so much more about who he is than it is about what I think he should do.
[00:09:20] In our story, Elizabeth told Mary that she was blessed because she believed.
[00:09:27] When I read this, those words just leapt off of the page for me.
[00:09:30] The blessings in my life are directly tied to my beliefs.
[00:09:36] What I believe about God has to be at the center of everything I say and everything I do.
[00:09:43] What I want you to know today is that God is not Santa.
[00:09:49] We don't grow out of believing in him.
[00:09:52] We grow into our belief as we walk with him.
[00:09:59] As we begin our journey with him, we begin it with salvation.
[00:10:03] Maybe you accepted Jesus as a child and you've known him your whole life.
[00:10:07] Maybe you accepted Jesus here at Elevation.
[00:10:09] You raised your hand and you got one of those orange Bibles.
[00:10:12] Maybe you accepted Jesus online through our ministry.
[00:10:15] We begin by knowing Jesus as our Savior, but then we get to know that God is so much more than that.
[00:10:24] God never intended for us to stop with salvation.
[00:10:27] The gospel is not about accepting Jesus just so that we can go to heaven.
[00:10:31] That's the beginning and the end.
[00:10:34] But you will be blessed because you believed in him.
[00:10:37] The gospel is about believing in God and getting to know him in the middle part, in the time that we have here on earth.
[00:10:47] We get to know God when we worship him, when we bring our questions to him and our sorrows and our disappointments and when we lay them before him and we begin to grow in our belief of who he is.
[00:11:01] This February, our church is going to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
[00:11:08] I'm so excited.
[00:11:09] I just want you to know we're going big.
[00:11:12] I've told my husband, I was like, we're doing this right.
[00:11:16] 20 years is a big deal.
[00:11:18] So I've been combing through old videos and pictures, and I've just been feeling all of the feelings of what it's been like these past 20 years.
[00:11:27] And I just want to tell you, it has been the blessing of a lifetime to believe that God could use two kids
[00:11:36] From South Carolina to be able to lead a church and a ministry like this.
[00:11:42] We were 25 years old when we started this church.
[00:11:47] I don't know who wanted to come to a church led by two 25-year-old kids, but thank you for coming.
[00:11:54] I'm so glad that God did actually call us to start this when we were young.
[00:11:59] When we started this church, I was so naive.
[00:12:03] And Stephen tells this story.
[00:12:04] I'm sure you've heard about how we were on our front porch in Shelby, North Carolina.
[00:12:08] And I looked at him and I said, it's time for us to start this church.
[00:12:13] And I believed with all of my heart that God was calling us to go and to do this and to step out in faith and to follow him.
[00:12:21] But I had no idea.
[00:12:23] How much I would grow in my understanding of who he is as we walked out what we believed that he was calling us to do.
[00:12:34] I want you to know that I have come to know God as Jehovah-Jireh.
[00:12:39] Because from the moment that we took the first step to move to Charlotte, we've seen him provide over and over and over again.
[00:12:47] Every person that he put in our path, every resource that he prompted someone to give, every connection that led us to the next step.
[00:12:54] I've also come to know him as Jehovah Nissi, the one who fights our battles for us.
[00:13:01] I've come to know him as Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals, and I've seen him bring healing and restoration to so many people across our ministries, families that were put back together, marriages that were restored.
[00:13:14] I've come to know him as Immanuel, God with us.
[00:13:18] In the ups and the downs and in everything in between, I have come to know that God is with me.
[00:13:26] I am blessed because I believed, and you are blessed
[00:13:31] because you believe.
[00:13:33] The Christmas story is about a cast of characters who dared to believe that God was telling them what would come to pass and that it was true.
[00:13:44] So my message today is very simple.
[00:13:47] It's so simple that I'm almost embarrassed that this is what I'm bringing to you.
[00:13:52] It's very common sense.
[00:13:54] And in the time that we have left, I want to show you three things that I believe about God that I see in this part of the Christmas story.
[00:14:03] And I just want to warn you, my points, they're not catchy.
[00:14:07] They don't rhyme.
[00:14:08] They don't spell anything at the end.
[00:14:10] So don't be prepared to be in awe at the end.
[00:14:14] Leave that for when Pastor Stephen comes back.
[00:14:17] It's just a simple message today.
[00:14:18] Three truths that we can believe about God this Christmas.
[00:14:24] And the first one is I believe that God believes in me.
[00:14:31] Let's go back to our scripture, verse 26.
[00:14:33] In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.
[00:14:42] She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
[00:14:46] Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you.
[00:14:52] Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
[00:14:57] Don't be afraid, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God.
[00:15:04] Now, nowhere in this passage do we find a reason why God picked Mary.
[00:15:14] God didn't pick Mary because she was strong.
[00:15:16] It doesn't say that.
[00:15:18] God didn't pick Mary because she was accomplished.
[00:15:20] It doesn't say that.
[00:15:22] God didn't pick Mary because she was experienced.
[00:15:25] She did not apply for this job.
[00:15:27] She did not campaign for this job.
[00:15:29] And she did not volunteer for this job.
[00:15:31] But one day,
[00:15:33] An angel comes to her and he says, you have found favor with God.
[00:15:38] Now, when I think of the mother that I would have picked for Jesus, if I was God,
[00:15:45] I would have picked a woman that already had a full brood of children.
[00:15:50] A woman whose children were homeschooled and responsible.
[00:15:54] They had a chore chart that they actually used.
[00:15:59] And a woman whose children were respectful.
[00:16:02] A woman whose children looked after each other.
[00:16:05] I would have picked a woman who knew the difference between croup and pneumonia.
[00:16:10] I would have picked a woman whose house was clean and orderly, and especially I would have picked a woman who could cook good home-cooked meals for the Son of God.
[00:16:21] But God picked Mary.
[00:16:22] All we know about Mary is that she was a virgin who was blessed because she believed she was the one for the job.
[00:16:32] That's all God requires of you as well.
[00:16:35] I wonder how different my day would be if I woke up each morning and I said out loud, God picked me for this.
[00:16:46] God picked me for this day.
[00:16:48] God picked me for this job.
[00:16:50] God picked me for this child.
[00:16:51] Whatever the circumstances were that led me to this moment that I am in today, I am going to operate under the belief that God believes I am the one for this.
[00:17:04] I think we all live in the tension of the things in our life that we feel called to and the things in our life that we might not necessarily have chosen for ourselves.
[00:17:15] There are things in life that we go after.
[00:17:18] God put a desire in your heart.
[00:17:21] He gave you a gift and a passion.
[00:17:23] Yes, it's hard along the way.
[00:17:25] Yes, there are obstacles and things you have to overcome, but you're going after what you feel like you are supposed to do.
[00:17:33] Anybody ever feel that way?
[00:17:35] It's wonderful.
[00:17:36] You should.
[00:17:36] When you feel like you're called to do something, you should go after it.
[00:17:40] But then there are things in life that… I don't know.
[00:17:44] It seems like they go after you.
[00:17:49] The things you didn't plan for…
[00:17:52] The things you didn't expect or the things that you don't feel qualified for, the things that seem to have just been placed in your life or in your lap that you did not ask for.
[00:18:03] I want you to hear from me that God believes in you.
[00:18:10] He chose you.
[00:18:11] He chose you to be born at this time, at this place, in this family.
[00:18:18] He gave you the children you have.
[00:18:20] He gave you the opportunities you have.
[00:18:22] He chose you.
[00:18:24] God believed in you before you believed in him, before the world began.
[00:18:32] He knew the number of your days.
[00:18:35] You are not an accident.
[00:18:36] You are chosen and selected to glorify God with your life.
[00:18:41] I don't care what you've done or what you have not done.
[00:18:45] The only thing that disqualifies you from being used by God is believing the lie that he can't use you.
[00:18:54] God believes in you.
[00:18:55] You're chosen even when you don't feel capable.
[00:18:58] You're chosen even when you don't feel like you deserve it.
[00:19:01] You're chosen.
[00:19:02] If you wait until you feel ready or worthy or qualified or prepared enough, you're going to miss what God has for you.
[00:19:14] You're going to miss the opportunities that are right in front of you today.
[00:19:19] So Mary accepted the calling that God placed on her life.
[00:19:24] She said, I am the Lord's servant.
[00:19:26] May it be to me as you have said.
[00:19:28] It's my favorite verse in the whole Bible.
[00:19:30] It's the thing I want to operate from.
[00:19:31] It's the way I want to live my life.
[00:19:33] Okay, God, I'm your servant.
[00:19:35] May it be to me as you have said.
[00:19:39] And then the Scripture tells us that she moved in the direction that she felt that God was leading her.
[00:19:46] The second thing I believe is that God leads me.
[00:19:52] Now, this one is tricky because, unfortunately, God does not always spell everything out for us.
[00:20:01] He doesn't write our next steps in the sky, but he does strongly suggest
[00:20:08] what we should do next look at look at mary again this is verse 35 it says the angel replied the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you so the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of god what's more
[00:20:25] Your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age.
[00:20:29] People used to say that she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month, for the word of God will never fail.
[00:20:35] And Mary responded, Here it is, I am the Lord's servant.
[00:20:38] May everything you said about me come true.
[00:20:41] And then the angel left her.
[00:20:44] I want you to know that sometimes what's next is what you already know.
[00:20:49] The angel left Mary.
[00:20:53] And I imagine that she had to sort of like take in everything that had just happened.
[00:21:01] She was like, okay, did that just happen?
[00:21:05] Okay, what happened?
[00:21:07] And she's replaying it in her mind.
[00:21:09] Okay, the angel came and he said I was going to give birth to the Son of God.
[00:21:15] But then he said something about my relative Elizabeth.
[00:21:19] Elizabeth is pregnant.
[00:21:21] Well, let me go see if that's true.
[00:21:25] So verse 39 says, a few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived.
[00:21:34] She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.
[00:21:38] Sometimes the next step is the thing that you already know to do, but you haven't done it yet.
[00:21:48] The thing is, God's not going to reveal more to you until you do that.
[00:21:56] Now, one of the ways that God leads us is through the people that he puts on our path.
[00:22:00] So God led Mary to Elizabeth, but when Mary got to Elizabeth's home, she enters the house, and the moment she opens her mouth to say hello, the baby in Elizabeth's womb jumps and confirms what the angel said.
[00:22:15] And Elizabeth says to Mary, why am I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me?
[00:22:21] God will send you people
[00:22:24] When you move towards what you know.
[00:22:27] God led Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem because of the census that was ordered.
[00:22:34] It was there that the baby was born in a barn, but it was also there that the shepherds came and visited them.
[00:22:40] They said, We saw an entire host of angels, and we came to worship the Christ child.
[00:22:45] Then eight days after that,
[00:22:47] They took Jesus to the temple.
[00:22:49] It was the custom.
[00:22:50] It was the thing they were supposed to do.
[00:22:52] It was what you did with your baby when they were eight days old.
[00:22:55] You came to the temple and you dedicated them there.
[00:22:58] When they were there, Mary and Joseph, they ran into two different people.
[00:23:02] Simeon and Anna, the prophetess.
[00:23:05] At the temple, both Simeon and Anna confirm what God is doing.
[00:23:10] They said, "'This is Jesus.'"
[00:23:14] They proclaimed, "'We have seen the salvation of the Lord.'"
[00:23:18] The path for Mary was going to be so challenging.
[00:23:22] But I believe that every time that doubt crept into Mary's heart when she thought she didn't have what it took to be a good mom, when she thought she didn't know how she was going to protect her son or how she was supposed to provide for him, I believe that she could recall what God had spoken to her through Elizabeth, through Simeon, through Anna, through the shepherds, through the wise men.
[00:23:45] And I want you to know that God is going to guide you too.
[00:23:48] He's going to tell you what you need to know.
[00:23:51] As long as you keep moving in what you know, he's going to send people to confirm that you are on the right path.
[00:23:59] But it's important to know that God is not going to reveal the entire plan to you.
[00:24:04] God is going to show you what you need to see when you need to see it.
[00:24:10] The angel came to Mary and said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
[00:24:15] The angel didn't give her a timeline.
[00:24:17] He didn't say, see, we know the story, so it's easier for us, right?
[00:24:22] But the angel didn't say to her, okay, first you're gonna have the baby and he's gonna be born in Bethlehem.
[00:24:27] I know that's weird, but you're gonna be there by accident kind of for the census.
[00:24:30] Then you're gonna go to Egypt for two years because Herod's gonna kill all the baby boys and it's not gonna be safe for Jesus to stay in Judea.
[00:24:38] But eventually you're gonna come back and you're gonna settle in Nazareth.
[00:24:41] And Jesus' ministry isn't gonna even start until he's 30.
[00:24:44] So you'll have him for 30 years with you.
[00:24:46] and then you're gonna get to see him do this amazing ministry and he's gonna perform these incredible ministry miracles and and then the things that he's gonna do is just gonna blow your mind but then he's gonna die on the cross and it's gonna be awful but don't worry because he's gonna rise again on the third day it's all part of the plan and i think like as parents we want that for our kids like wouldn't it be nice if they came with a timeline and we were like it's okay it's all part of the plan
[00:25:16] Here's where they're going to struggle.
[00:25:18] Here's where they're going to shine.
[00:25:19] This is what you should do when this happens.
[00:25:21] This is what you should do when that happens.
[00:25:23] You should intervene here, but don't worry here.
[00:25:26] God doesn't work like that, because God is more concerned with you than he is about your situation.
[00:25:33] God wants a relationship with you.
[00:25:38] A couple weeks ago, Pastor Stephen preached something that I will never forget.
[00:25:42] It was just a small point in his sermon, but he did this visual thing that just reached into my heart, and I don't think I'll ever forget it.
[00:25:52] I don't know if you remember this.
[00:25:53] He said, "'Faith is more like this.'"
[00:25:56] and he kind of like closed his eyes and he put his hands like this out and he said it's like grappling in the dark it's like feeling your way around and trusting god with each tiny step that you take he said it's more like this than it is like this holding tight to what i thought this was gonna be and then he said you hold tight to the promise but you hold loosely
[00:26:26] to the plan.
[00:26:27] That might have been the most impactful thing you said this year.
[00:26:31] It marked me.
[00:26:33] It helped me.
[00:26:35] How many times in my life have I thought that faith is not wavering?
[00:26:40] It's not letting go of the original plan.
[00:26:42] I have to believe.
[00:26:43] If I just believe, if I just come to him over and over again, reminding him of my plan, and eventually everything will happen the way I thought, it's so hard to let go of what I thought was the plan.
[00:26:57] I don't even want to think about how many times I have said something to God that was of the nature of, God, this was not the plan.
[00:27:07] Maybe you feel that way today.
[00:27:09] You're like, God, divorce was not in my plan.
[00:27:13] Sickness was not in my plan.
[00:27:16] Job loss at Christmastime was not in my plan.
[00:27:19] And I'm not saying that God causes these hard things to happen to us in life.
[00:27:24] What I am saying is that faith is remembering.
[00:27:29] His name will be called Emmanuel.
[00:27:33] God with us.
[00:27:36] His plan is to be with me every step of the way.
[00:27:41] His plan is to comfort us.
[00:27:44] His plan is to guide us through the difficulties.
[00:27:48] His plan is to grow us, mature us, and strengthen us in the process.
[00:27:53] That's God's plan.
[00:27:55] Jeremiah 29.11 God says to Jeremiah, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.
[00:28:04] This verse has gotten me through some really hard times because it helps me know that when my plans don't go my way, I hold on to the promise that he has good plans for me.
[00:28:21] The plans are his.
[00:28:24] The plans are his.
[00:28:25] He holds the plans.
[00:28:28] We hold on to him.
[00:28:29] The very first promise that was made to Mary was that the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
[00:28:40] And you know you have that promise too.
[00:28:43] Jesus told the disciples, this is John 16, 13, he said, "'When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.'"
[00:28:54] The promise we cling to is that the Spirit will guide you.
[00:28:59] The promise is not a map with turn-by-turn directions.
[00:29:02] The promise is that you're taking a journey with the ultimate guide who you know is going to lead you through the hard parts.
[00:29:11] Belief is not knowing how God will do it.
[00:29:14] Belief is trusting the one who will.
[00:29:18] We hold tight to the promise, not to the plan.
[00:29:20] I have to tell myself this over and over and over again.
[00:29:23] My job is not how.
[00:29:26] Man, I want it to be how.
[00:29:27] I'm really good at how.
[00:29:29] My job is not how.
[00:29:31] My job is who.
[00:29:34] Who do I trust?
[00:29:36] Who is he calling me to be when the plans aren't working out the way I thought?
[00:29:41] I can't control the plan.
[00:29:43] I think we all need to say that out loud.
[00:29:46] Let's say it together.
[00:29:47] I can't control the plan.
[00:29:50] But you know what I can control?
[00:29:54] Me.
[00:29:56] I can control me.
[00:29:58] I can control what and who I go to when I feel disappointed.
[00:30:02] I can control what I say and what I don't say when I feel frustrated.
[00:30:06] I can control my attitude.
[00:30:08] I can control my responses when things don't go my way.
[00:30:13] I can do that.
[00:30:15] That's the faith part.
[00:30:17] When things don't go my way, can I release my grip on what I thought would happen?
[00:30:22] Can I cling to the one who promised to be with me and do the things I know he has already told me to do?
[00:30:30] You don't get the next step until you do the things you know he's supposed to do.
[00:30:37] Maybe some of you, the word for you today is attitude.
[00:30:42] God is like, I just want you to work on your attitude.
[00:30:45] In this situation, can you have a better attitude?
[00:30:49] Philippians 1.6 says, He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.
[00:30:54] You don't have to know the plan.
[00:30:57] You just have to stay close to the one who does.
[00:31:01] You have to stay close to the one who promises to be faithful to complete the work that he started.
[00:31:08] Not the work that I started, the work that he started.
[00:31:10] I know that so many of you came in here this Sunday before Christmas feeling like you don't know what to do next in this situation, and I want you to know…
[00:31:19] God is going to show you the next step.
[00:31:24] You don't have to solve the puzzle.
[00:31:26] You don't have to manipulate the situation.
[00:31:28] You don't have to cheat your way into it.
[00:31:31] All you have to do is take the hint.
[00:31:34] Ask God to open your eyes to see where he is working.
[00:31:37] Stop asking him to change your situation and start asking him to clearly show you what to do next.
[00:31:47] God, spell it out for me.
[00:31:48] Make it plain, and I will obey.
[00:31:51] The point is, though, that you're going to him.
[00:31:55] You go to him with your problems.
[00:31:57] You go to him first.
[00:31:58] Mary heard from the Lord, and then she obeyed, and then God confirmed through Elizabeth.
[00:32:07] You go to God, and then he might send a person to encourage you.
[00:32:11] He might give you a verse to cling to.
[00:32:13] He might give you a song to sing in this season.
[00:32:16] He might show you a tiny little next step to take.
[00:32:19] If you believe that he leads you, you will be looking for him everywhere you go.
[00:32:27] God leads you.
[00:32:28] Do you believe that God will lead you in your situation?
[00:32:39] The last thing I believe is that God hears me.
[00:32:47] This is a hard one to accept.
[00:32:50] I think when most people read the Christmas story, they start where we started with the angel coming to Mary.
[00:32:57] But God, in the book of Luke, he begins the Christmas story through Elizabeth, Mary's relative, and her husband, Zechariah.
[00:33:07] I don't know if you've ever read the first chapter of Luke.
[00:33:09] It's really beautiful.
[00:33:10] It tells this really beautiful story that God is weaving.
[00:33:14] And so, in the beginning of Luke, we find Zechariah, he was a priest, and his wife, Elizabeth, was Mary's relative, and she was barren.
[00:33:23] They had no children in a culture where having children was actually like a mark of how blessed you were.
[00:33:32] It was everything.
[00:33:34] And Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child, but God had not answered them.
[00:33:40] Look at what Luke tells us about them in verse eight.
[00:33:47] It says, one day Zechariah was serving God in the temple for his order was on duty that week.
[00:33:53] As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.
[00:34:00] While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside praying.
[00:34:04] While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him.
[00:34:09] Standing to the right of the incense altar, Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him.
[00:34:16] But the angel said, Don't be afraid, Zechariah.
[00:34:20] God has heard your prayer.
[00:34:23] Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you are to name him John.
[00:34:30] God has heard.
[00:34:33] Your prayer.
[00:34:34] This prayer was a prayer Zechariah and Elizabeth had put to rest.
[00:34:43] They had come to terms with the fact that it was too late for them to have a baby.
[00:34:47] And a baby is just not a part of our story.
[00:34:52] They're too old.
[00:34:53] But yet, the Bible tells us that they continued to faithfully serve God.
[00:34:59] Zechariah was just doing his duty.
[00:35:02] He was a priest.
[00:35:04] Burning incense was something that happened twice a day in the temple, but this time he got chosen to go in and burn the incense.
[00:35:12] You know, I believe that God often does the biggest work in the most ordinary parts of my life.
[00:35:22] I believe that God saw every single day that Zechariah showed up and continued his duties day after day.
[00:35:32] Zechariah was on duty.
[00:35:35] He was doing his job.
[00:35:38] And an angel comes to him and tells him that his son, the one he never thought he would have, the one he had given up on ever having, his son is going to be the forerunner of Christ.
[00:35:54] All this time they had prayed for a child, they believed for a baby, and it never came to pass until the time was right.
[00:36:02] God was about to place a baby in their laps.
[00:36:04] It wasn't just any baby.
[00:36:07] This was a special baby.
[00:36:09] This was a baby the prophets Isaiah and Malachi foretold.
[00:36:13] This was the baby that had to be born at this time.
[00:36:16] God chose Zechariah and Elizabeth to raise this baby.
[00:36:20] You know who it was, right?
[00:36:21] John the Baptist, the one who would prepare the way for Jesus.
[00:36:26] I mean, arguably the second most important baby born in the New Testament.
[00:36:32] God chose Elizabeth, but he wanted to use her pregnancy in her old age to confirm to Mary what was going to come to pass for her.
[00:36:41] The time had finally come.
[00:36:43] I thought about calling this message, He Heard You the First Time.
[00:36:53] Because I want you to know that God hears our prayers.
[00:36:58] God hears our prayers.
[00:37:02] God hears your prayers.
[00:37:05] And just like Pastor Stephen taught us last week, he doesn't need our prompts.
[00:37:14] God has been speaking to me so much about prayer this year, about what it is and kind of more what it's not.
[00:37:22] There are so many beautiful aspects of prayer.
[00:37:25] There are written prayers.
[00:37:26] There are spoken prayers.
[00:37:27] There are silent prayers.
[00:37:28] There are private prayers.
[00:37:30] There are public prayers.
[00:37:31] But what I am learning is that prayer is mostly about coming into God's presence.
[00:37:38] however you can do that it's about bringing him into your situation and as god's child as god's children we have so many biblical examples that tell us that we can and we should come to him with our requests that is perfectly acceptable and and you should come to god with your requests but i want you to know if all you ever do is make requests
[00:38:05] You are not going to experience the power and the presence of God in your life.
[00:38:10] If God worked like Santa and you could just send him a letter every December and magically all your hopes and dreams would come true, there would be no faith required in that.
[00:38:21] There would be no relationship needed in that.
[00:38:24] It's just some guy you write a letter to.
[00:38:27] A couple of months ago, I was so frustrated about a situation that I've been praying about for years.
[00:38:34] I mean, I have brought this thing to God and I've asked him to change it,
[00:38:41] I have suggested many ways that I thought he could change it.
[00:38:45] I've even been so good as to work out the times that I thought God would move in this situation, and I found myself back in that same place of frustration.
[00:38:58] I hope it's okay for me to tell you this, but I said to God, God, I can't talk to you about this anymore.
[00:39:09] I just can't.
[00:39:11] God, I don't even know what to say to you anymore.
[00:39:15] When I pray about this, nothing happens, so I'm just not going to talk about it anymore.
[00:39:22] I feel like God whispered right straight into my heart.
[00:39:26] I feel like he said to me, Good.
[00:39:33] I can work with that.
[00:39:36] just come into my presence holly just you don't have to talk to me about it just come into my presence just sit in my presence i heard you the first time
[00:39:47] Now remember, there's nothing wrong with being persistent and having the faith to keep praying for God to do something in your life.
[00:39:54] The Bible supports that.
[00:39:56] But sometimes you need to exercise the faith that believes that he heard you and that he's working in your situation.
[00:40:07] The faith that believes that he is telling a story on this earth that is so much bigger than you and your situation.
[00:40:16] Faithfulness sometimes looks like showing up to the things we know we're called to do just while we wait for the things we hope for.
[00:40:24] That's what Zechariah was doing.
[00:40:28] There's a lady who's a part of our eFam, and she sent this letter to Pastor Steven.
[00:40:35] And thank you, by the way, to all of the people who send us letters.
[00:40:39] Your stories mean a lot to us.
[00:40:42] And this story, I wanna share parts of this story with you because it's just incredible.
[00:40:48] She writes this.
[00:40:50] I have been faithfully watching Elevation worship services at 9 30 a.m Sunday mornings for the last six years.
[00:40:56] I've wanted to write you for a long time.
[00:40:58] I've wanted to share my testimony with you and let you know how you changed this particular chapter in my life with one of your sermons.
[00:41:06] She says your sermons continue to bring me hope and comfort.
[00:41:11] And she goes on to talk about how she was raised in the church and her husband was raised in the church and they raised their children in church.
[00:41:24] They had three boys and one baby girl after their three boys were born.
[00:41:30] And they raised their children to believe in God.
[00:41:33] They raised them in church.
[00:41:34] They taught them to love God.
[00:41:36] and then she begins to share how in 2021 their daughter became involved with some very bad influences and she began to make some really poor choices and she eventually ended up this is every mother's nightmare she ended up living with a man who was an alcoholic and who was abusive to her daughter both mentally and physically and she says that they prayed
[00:42:02] In the letter she says that the situation just felt helpless and hopeless.
[00:42:26] And then she says on July 2nd, 2022, we got a call that she had been involved in an accident.
[00:42:37] And she said they rushed to the scene and they saw where her car was totaled and found out that she had been drinking.
[00:42:43] And so right there, she was charged with a felony DUI.
[00:42:48] And they took her to the hospital and they treated her for bruises and a broken nose and a broken hand.
[00:42:55] And she writes this, she said, she said, I had to help her in the backseat of the police car once she was released from the ER.
[00:43:05] She was on her way.
[00:43:07] to jail for the night.
[00:43:09] Initially, my thoughts were, really, God?
[00:43:14] We gave her to you to watch over her, and this is what you allow to happen?
[00:43:20] Then she says, yes, I believe he did, because she was able to get out of that man's house safely and move back home with us.
[00:43:31] We know that without his intervention, she would not have even survived the crash.
[00:43:36] And she came home and she spent the next several months in AA and in therapy.
[00:43:41] She was extremely faithful to her recovery and she made the necessary changes in her life and they were feeling really hopeful.
[00:43:47] But her court date came around.
[00:43:51] And on February 20th, 2023, she goes on to say that to their utter devastation, their daughter was sentenced to 180 days in jail.
[00:44:04] And she goes on to write, she says, I was angry with God.
[00:44:08] I could not believe that he would allow this to happen now after she had spent so many months turning her life around.
[00:44:17] Jail?
[00:44:18] She said, I spent my whole life trusting in God.
[00:44:22] And she says, side note, trust was my word for the year.
[00:44:26] But now my trust was gone.
[00:44:31] This is where it gets good.
[00:44:33] The next Sunday I was home alone and out of habit I turned your service on.
[00:44:40] The songs they sang that day were all my favorites, which I didn't want to hear, but they made me cry.
[00:44:46] God was working despite my acceptance, despite my anger.
[00:44:50] The title of your sermon was, God is up to something upstream.
[00:44:55] Anybody remember that one?
[00:45:01] I kept telling myself he was up to something, but I wasn't having it.
[00:45:05] You kept giving examples in the Bible of how God was always 20 miles ahead of your situation or circumstance.
[00:45:11] He's 20 miles ahead.
[00:45:12] He's 20 miles ahead.
[00:45:14] I kept hearing it over and over again, and something hit me.
[00:45:18] I grabbed my phone and typed in directions to the county jail from my house.
[00:45:29] Guess how far away it was?
[00:45:30] 20 miles.
[00:45:34] She said, I dropped to the ground.
[00:45:38] Tears were flowing down my face.
[00:45:43] God was 20 miles ahead, she said.
[00:45:46] A week or so later in our conversation, she told me she was having Bible study in her cell and teaching and singing Elevation music to all the girls.
[00:46:04] She did four and a half months time, and the day we picked her up was one of the best days we have had.
[00:46:10] God gave us so much grace and so much mercy during those months.
[00:46:15] I thought I would never make it through.
[00:46:16] It wasn't in her plan.
[00:46:19] She said, Please keep my family and myself in your prayers.
[00:46:22] We have learned to take one day at a time, and we just keep praising our Father for all he does.
[00:46:39] What a story.
[00:46:40] God is so faithful.
[00:46:43] He's so faithful.
[00:46:45] He hears us when we pray.
[00:46:47] He heard you the first time.
[00:46:50] He knows things we don't know.
[00:46:54] We have to trust the one who is working in our situation even when it doesn't make sense.
[00:47:05] I love how the letter ended with, we just keep praising our Father one day at a time.
[00:47:13] Because I think that's it.
[00:47:17] Maybe if you find yourself in a place this Christmas where you're wondering if God heard your prayer, where you're feeling like nothing is happening in your situation, maybe we can take our cues from this lady who's a part of our Ephraim and from Mary.
[00:47:35] Because Mary didn't prompt God.
[00:47:38] She didn't list out all of the things that God was going to need to do to work everything out for her.
[00:47:43] She didn't remind God of all the things that could go wrong.
[00:47:46] She didn't suggest people who were more qualified for this calling.
[00:47:51] She praised her Savior.
[00:47:54] She was blessed because she believed that God believed in her, that God was going to lead her, and that God heard her prayer.
[00:48:03] She was blessed before she had seen any of these things come to pass.
[00:48:08] Luke gives us her prayer.
[00:48:11] It's called the Magnificat.
[00:48:14] She says, "'My soul magnifies the Lord.
[00:48:17] My heart rejoices in God my Savior, for he lifts the lowly, and he has done great things for me.'"
[00:48:25] He hadn't even done anything for her yet when she said that.
[00:48:28] She said, "'He has done great things for me.'"
[00:48:32] I want you to know that praise is a reset.
[00:48:36] It enables you to take your eyes off of your situation and place them on your Savior.
[00:48:44] I want us to follow Mary's example today, and I want us to magnify the Lord together.
[00:48:50] I want us to bless his name for who he is and for what he has done so we can trust him with what's next.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
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[00:49:21] I'll see you next time.