Robert Morris - Christmas at Home
Hey, everyone. Merry, merry Christmas. I'm going to do something that's a little bit strange. I'm going to start the message with a confession: I have been watching Hallmark movies. I'm sorry, but I do it for Debbie. It's only once a year, guys. I do watch Die Hard every year. I know it's the best Christmas movie. It is the classic. But we have watched a lot of Hallmark movies. Just want to get that out of the way and confess that right now. But guys, please still listen to me. I'm still an outdoorsman. I'm still a sportsman. I'm still watching the playoffs that are coming up in January. Okay, all right. But here's the point. Christmas is this magical time of year. That's what we're being told in nearly every movie. It's this time when miracles happen. Well, it's true in this sense. A miracle happened 2000 years ago, and I'm actually going to talk to you today about, God wants to do that miracle in you.
The title of my message is Mary Christmas, and I want you to look at how I spelled Mary, M-A-R-Y, like the mother of Jesus. Mary Christmas. In other words, I am praying for the same miracle that happened in Mary to happen in you. Now hold on, ladies. Don't get nervous, okay? I'm not talking about that the Holy Spirit overshadows you, and you get pregnant, and you have a baby. And husbands, you can relax too, okay? Maybe you say, "Pastor Robert, my quiver's full". Okay, I understand that, but here's what I'm talking about. Jesus was conceived in Mary. She carried Him for nine months. During that nine months, He was formed in Mary, and then she delivered Him. In other words, the miracle was completed. She delivered Jesus to the world. Have you ever thought about that?
When we get saved, the Holy Spirit implants Jesus in us. It's Christ in us, the Bible says, is the hope of glory, Jesus in us. And then Paul talks about, I'm going to show you the scripture in a moment that Jesus is being formed in us. Hopefully, I look, and I walk, and I talk, and I think more like Jesus today than I did 20 years ago. He's being formed in me. And hopefully I'm delivering Jesus to the world that's around me, to the people I work with, to the people that... now my kids are grown, but I go to the grandkids' games, maybe to the people I'm talking with, so the people that are around me. So, that's what I'm talking about. I'm praying that what happened to Mary, the miracle of Christmas that all the movies, they're talking about a miracle at Christmas, but we know what the real miracle really was. So, I'm talking about that I want the Mary miracle to happen in you.
So, let's go back and look at it in Luke 1. All right? This is the part of the Christmas message, In Luke 2, that's the part that is read most of the time. Luke 2, the first 15 verses or so. That's what was read, by the way, over the radio, the first time voice was transmitted over the radio, on Christmas Eve. Before then it only been Morse code. And the first time ever, they read the Christmas story from Luke 2. It's what Charlie Brown, it was Linus, I think, in Charlie Brown's Christmas. So, let's talk about what happened. All right, let's go back to Luke 1. Luke 1:26, it says, "Now in the sixth month..." Now this is talking about Elizabeth's pregnancy. Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist. So, it's in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. "...the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, 'Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!'"
Now, here's the first thing I want to show you about this miracle that, I think sometimes with the Bible we just read over these things. This is a little thing, but here it is, okay? God knows where you live better than Google Earth knows. He knows exactly where you live. This angel shows up to Mary's house, the exact street, the exact house, and says, "Blessed are you, highly favored one". Now, just think about this. What if after He said that, "Blessed are you, highly favored one, the Holy Spirit is going to come on you and overshadow you". We're going to read that. "You're going to have a son". And then he heard this deep voice say, "My name's not Mary, it's Harry. Mary moved three months ago". Well, that didn't happen. Here's my only point, God knew where Mary lived, and He knows where you live. He knows the intimate details of your life.
So, that's the first thing. All right? So, he shows up, and then this is what he says to Mary, verse 30. "Then the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive...'" Notice the word conceive. "...in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus.'" All right. So, there are three points I want to talk to you about today. All right? You all knew it was three, okay? The conceiving of a miracle, the carrying of a miracle, and the completion of a miracle. And this is what I want to happen in my life and in your life. So, number one, the conceiving of a miracle.
Let's keep going in Luke, verse 34. "Then Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I do not know a man?'" This word no means intimately. I've never known a man intimately. "And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age'", that's John the Baptist, "'and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren'", watch, "'For with God nothing will be impossible.' Then Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord!'" This is the key to conceiving a miracle. "'Let it be to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her".
Okay, here's my question for you. Do you need a miracle this Christmas? Do you need a miracle in your family, in your marriage, in your finances, your job, your health? Do you need a miracle? Because I do. All of us do. And maybe you might not think of one right now, but I'll bet you've been in a time in your life when you needed a miracle. So, what's the key to conceiving a miracle? Let it be to me according to your word. Here's Mary, a virgin, "You will conceive a child". Here was her natural response. "How can this be? I've never known a man intimately". So, it's okay to have questions. It's okay when you get a bad health report to say, "How can this be? I never thought this would happen to me". "I never thought I would hear the C word when it was about me or about someone in my family". "I never thought I would hear the D word (divorce) when it came to my marriage. How can this be"?
Yet, here's what I want you to hear. Here's what the angel said: "With God, nothing is impossible". I want to impart faith to you today on Christmas weekend. Nothing is impossible with God. He can do a miracle. So, what do you do when God speaks to you and says to you, "I can do this". If He wants to conceive a miracle, what do you do? You do the same thing Mary did. "Let it be to me according to your word". Now, you might be saying this, "Well, Pastor Robert, if an angel comes to my house and announces this miracle to me, then it'll be easier for me to believe". Well, just for a moment. Remember, I love to go into the depth of words. The word angel comes from the Greek word angalos. The first part of it is spelled just like angel-os, O-S, anglos, and it means messenger. It's used in the New Testament many times, even to refer to people. It's used to refer to John the Baptist.
When I did the series on the seven churches of Asia Minor, The Seven Churches of Revelation, it talked about the pastors of the churches as the messengers, the angels of the churches. So, now I know not all pastors are angels, okay? I know that. Just some of us are. I mean, some are, some are. Okay, some are. But the point is, you could have a messenger from God that might not be a heavenly angel, but it could be a friend, could be someone trying to encourage you. Could be that you were just reading The Message version of the Bible, and you felt like the Holy Spirit spoke something to you. For you to conceive a miracle, I just need to make sure that you understand this, you have to say in your heart, "Let it be to me according to your word".
Now, remember, I'm saying, I'm praying that what happened in Mary happens in you. In other words, that a miracle, that God is able to conceive a miracle, who we know is Jesus, in you, and you're able to carry Jesus, and then deliver Him to the world. Okay? So, here's what I want you to do. If you're watching today with someone, there's anyone else in the living room with you or wherever, you're at a Gathering or whatever. If there's no one else in the room with you, I want you just to say this to yourself, okay? All right? So, I want you to actually say something out loud. So, if you're by yourself, say it to yourself out loud. If you're not by yourself, turn and look at someone. You can go ahead and do that right now. Turn and look at someone in the room. Lock eyes with someone and say this, "God wants to get you pregnant". Just go ahead and tell them, "God wants to get you pregnant".
Now, again, I'm not talking naturally. He wants to get us all pregnant with a miracle. So, that's the conceiving of a miracle. Here's the second part: the carrying of a miracle. Let's keep going in Luke 1:39. "Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb", this is John the Baptist, "and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'" She's saying this to Mary. She can only know this by the Holy Spirit. "'But why is this granted to me'", watch this, this is what Elizabeth says, "'...that the mother of my Lord should come to me?'"
She could only say that because she'd just been filled with the Holy Spirit, and she was speaking by the Spirit. "'For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed.'" Again, that's how you conceive a miracle. You believe. "'...for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.' And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord.'" And then she goes into a ten-verse prophecy, which is called the Magnificat. So, it's very famous. You can read it. And it's all about what Jesus is going to do. So, she speaks by the power of the Holy Spirit, but she says some things that are just incredible. But she starts by saying, again, we call it the Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord".
Now, how do you carry a miracle? Well, the first thing you do is you get around other miracle-carriers. The first thing she did was she went to Elizabeth, who was also carrying a miracle because Elizabeth couldn't get pregnant. She was barren, and she was in her old age. Think about the negative things that were going on around Mary. Think about if she tried to tell someone what happened. "So, tell me again how you got pregnant". "Well, see, the Holy Spirit came on me". "Yeah, that happened to my cousin Jim's girlfriend, too. The Holy Spirit came on her, too". No one believed that. So, she's around all this negativity. So, what does she do? She gets around other people who believe in miracles. If you want to carry a miracle, get around other miracle-carriers. Get around people who will speak faith into you and then magnify the Lord.
Now, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but the word magnify, it means to cause something to appear larger. Now, stay with me, okay? We now have reading glasses or reading contacts. But in the old days, they had magnifying glasses, and so when they wanted to read something that they couldn't see, they'd get the magnifying glass and magnify it. Now, it didn't make the words larger, but it made the words appear larger. Here's what I want to say about this. The way we magnify the Lord, it's not that we make God larger because He's infinite. It's that we allow Him to appear larger to us. We praise Him, and when we praise Him, He appears larger to us than our circumstances do. That's what I want you to understand. In other words, you've got a medical report or you've got a bad report about the economy, or you've got something negative in your life. The way you magnify something, if you want to know the practicality of this, is you think about it. You meditate on it.
So, if you meditate on the negative, it's going to appear larger to you. But if you meditate on the Word of God, then the Word of God appears larger to you. It's not that the Word of God gets larger, but it appears larger to you. In other words, God, you see the largeness of God more clearly. That's the way you magnify God. Now, I got to thinking about this. I guess there is one thing that actually gets larger with magnification, and it's the sun. Now, the sun doesn't get larger, but the heat of it does. You know, you can get some dried leaves together, and you can take a magnifying glass, and you can literally start a fire. By the way, you can also burn ants with the... I probably shouldn't have said that, but remember, I wasn't saved growing up, okay? So, there are things you can do with the heat from the sun, from a magnifying glass that... I was just thinking about, too, all the kids that are watching right now. You can't do that. You just make them think... Never mind.
Okay, let's move on. The bottom line is that Mary got around someone who was carrying a miracle, and she magnified the Lord. And so, Christ was formed in her during this time. Look at this scripture. Galatians 4:19, "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you..." Christ is formed. Ladies who are carrying babies are careful about their behavior. The Bible tells us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. We should walk carefully. Ladies who are carrying babies sit differently. They walk differently, they act differently. Sometimes I can remember when one of my daughters-in-law was pregnant, she would rub her stomach, and I just said, "I've always wondered why a pregnant woman pats her stomach, and kind of rubs it". And she said, "I'm trying to let him know I'm here. You can quit kicking me". So, they're different.
Debbie, when she was pregnant, we have three children, One was 8lbs 6oz at birth, one was 9lbs 3oz, the other was 9lbs 5oz. So, she had big babies. And Debbie has a small frame, and Debbie knows this, but she got large when she got pregnant. And it was difficult for her because everybody kept making a mistake about how long she'd been pregnant. When she was five months pregnant with our first son, Josh, people were saying to her, "Any day now". And she would say, "No, I'm only five months". And then they would just go deeper. When you make a mistake like that, you just need to pull out. They'd go deeper and they'd say, "Oh, is it twins"? So, it made her feel real good. One lady even said to her, it was a coworker, said, "You look obnoxious. You need to have that baby". So, didn't make her feel that good. But the point is that she was careful about how she carried the miracle. And that's what I want to say to you. You are carrying a miracle in you that God wants you to deliver to the world. So, be careful how you walk. So, there's the conceiving of the miracle. There's the carrying of a miracle.
Now let's talk about the completion of a miracle. Look at this verse. Luke 2:6. "So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered". The days were completed for her to deliver Jesus to the world. Here's the thing that I've got to tell you, though. Sometimes the miracle doesn't turn out exactly like we thought it would. They go to the temple and there's a prophet there named Simeon, and he's prophesying over Jesus, and he turns to Mary and he says, "(Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also)..." What a prophecy to be given to a new mother. She's carrying the Messiah. She has delivered the Messiah. He's now a baby. And yet, the prophet says, "A sword is going to pierce your own soul". In other words, "Mary, you need to know everything's not going to turn out exactly like you thought, but this is still a miracle".
The only reason I'm saying that is sometimes we get disappointed because we think the miracle is going to turn out one way, and it's still a miracle, and it's still for our good. But it doesn't turn out quite like we thought. Because you can imagine 33 years later when she's standing at the foot of the cross watching her Son die. She didn't know He was dying for the sins of the world. And so, the miracle might be completed in us a little differently. But I have some good news for you. Since God has conceived the miracle in you, He will complete it. We even have a verse on it. Philippians 1:6. "...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun [or conceived] a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ". So, this is my word for you, that God wants to do in you what He did in Mary. He wants to conceive His Son in you. He wants His Son to grow in you and be formed in you. And he wants you to deliver His Son to the world. I had this thought, though. "Well, Pastor Robert, Mary was a virgin".
Now, here's what we think about with the word virgin. "She was pure. And I'm not pure". And I'm not talking about sexually now. I'm talking about that we all see our human fallenness. We all see our sins. We all see our mistakes. There's a scripture that when you first read it, it kind of bothers you. It's in 1 Corinthians 6, and it's verse 9. It says, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God"? The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Well, I've been unrighteous a lot. And then it even has a list. And here's the bad news, I make the list. I mean, I make the list like two or three times.
You know, Debbie is, St. Mother Teresa Debbie. But it says, one of the things on there is thieves. Debbie told me, one time when she was little, her mother told her she couldn't have something in a store, and she opened up the package, took one out of 100 out and took it home. And she was telling me about this, and so she stole something. My wife, Debbie, a thief. Just wanted all of you to know that. I wanted to ... I've confessed my sins enough. Let me confess hers some, okay? Here's the point. My wife makes the list. Everybody makes the list. But here's what the next verse says. Verse 11 says, "And such were", past tense, "some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God".
So, we make it because of the blood of Jesus. As a matter of fact, remember the word virgin when we're the bride of Christ? Because of grace, watch what Paul says about us, 2 Corinthians 11:2. "I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste", that word means pure, "virgin to Christ". Here's my good news for you. Because of the blood of Jesus we have been made pure again. In other words, not only do we get to go to heaven, but we can carry Jesus, and we can deliver Jesus to those around us. This is my Christmas message for you. Mary Christmas. I wish you a Mary Christmas. I want you to know if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior and if you haven't, you can do it right now because you just do it the same way Mary did it, "Lord, I believe".
You just believe. But if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior, then Jesus has been conceived in you. You are carrying Him. He's being formed in you. And one day the miracle is going to be completed, and you're going to deliver Him to the world that's around you. But I also want you to know that if you need a miracle in your life today, God is still a miracle-working God. 2000 years ago, a virgin conceived, and she bore Jesus who bore our sins on the cross so that we could be forgiven and presented pure to the Lord once again. It's called Mary Christmas.
I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I want you to just take a moment and just say, like we do every weekend, Holy Spirit, what are You saying to me through this message? And I really want you to think about it in two ways. Do you need a miracle right now in your family, in your health, in some area of your life? I want to remind you that's what Christmas is about. It's about God conceiving a miracle in a person, and then God completing that miracle through that person. So, He would like to do a miracle through you.
I want you to say, "Lord, be it unto me according to Your word," but I also want you to think about that you can deliver Jesus to the world around you. That's the message of Christmas. And that's what I want us to do as a church. Let's carry and deliver Jesus to the world. Let me pray for you.
Lord, we want to tell You, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You for what Christmas represents, that everything changed from BC, before Christ, to AD, the year of our Lord. It all changed when You sent Your Son into the world 2000 years ago, to be born of a virgin, to live a sinless life, a life that we couldn't live and yet to die a death that we deserve to die and to pay for our sins on the cross. And I pray, Lord, every person watching will carry You, will receive You, and will carry You, and will deliver You to the world in Jesus' name, amen.
Merry Christmas.