kecharitōmenē! You're going to hear that word. And when you
do, pay attention. Hey, welcome back, friends.
Tonight we begin something I've been looking
forward to for weeks now. A four -part walk towards
Christmas Eve. We're calling this journey, in
those days, four nights at the edge of Bethlehem.
And over these next few weeks, we'll sit with
the people God chose long before anyone thought
that they mattered. Mary, Joseph, a crowd of
town with no room, a handful of night shift shepherds,
ordinary folks caught up in a very holy story.
If you have ever wondered whether God can start
something beautiful in a life like yours, man,
you are in the right place. And around here,
it's Wednesday night. Our favorite night of the
week. Fellowship Hall still smells like supper
kids chasing each other around the coat rack.
Everyone's already talking about what they're
bringing to the Christmas Potluck Fellowship
Luncheon. Sanctuary's half -decorated. And every
time the front door opens, a cold wind follows
someone in with a casserole and a prayer. We
gather like this not because life is easy. Because
grace keeps drawing us back to the table, back
to each other, back to the word. So settle in,
take a breath, and I'll see you on the other
side. All right, I'm going to go ahead and begin.
Got the thumbs up from Mr. Wayne. I'd like for
us just to pause for a second and realize if
you're still thinking about whatever. You walked
in carrying the conversation perhaps that went
sideways today, the bill you're not sure how
to pay, phone call you might have been avoiding.
It's okay. Bring it with you. God's Word has
room for all of it, but let's make sure to make
some room for the Word tonight as well. Tonight
we're beginning a four -week walk to Christmas
Eve, and I'm calling this series, In Those Days,
Four Nights at the Edge of Bethlehem. Every week
we're going to land in a different nowhere place,
a place the world overlooked, but a place that
God chose anyway. So here's the map. Tonight
we started Nazareth with a girl named Mary. Next
week we sit with Joseph in the middle of a scandal
he didn't cause. Week three we're going to follow
them to Bethlehem and the borrowed room that
wasn't big enough. And then... On Christmas Eve,
our fourth Wednesday, which, by the way, just
a reminder, we will not have Bible study nor
dinner Wednesday, Christmas Eve. It'll just be
Christmas Eve service. But on that Wednesday,
we will end in a shepherd's field where the sky
cracks open. Four stops, four nobodies, four
moments when heaven showed up where nobody was
looking. I think there's a thread that runs through
it, and I want you to look for it. That God does
not begin his work in places that we often expect.
Not in the capital, not in the temple, not with
the credentialed or the connected. He actually
begins at the margins. He begins in the dark.
God begins with people who have nothing left
to offer except an open door. Now, if you've
been around church long enough, you've probably
heard the Christmas story so often that it's
kind of like wallpaper. It's pretty. It's familiar.
It's also easy to ignore. We've laminated it.
We've hung it on the nursery wall. And we stopped
really seeing it. So I'm asking you to do something
tonight. Forget the pageant. Forget the bathrobes
and the tinsel halos and the kids fidgeting with
their angel wings. I want you to hear this story
like maybe it's the first time. Because maybe
for someone in this room, it might be the first
time the story actually lands. We're not going
to sentimentalize Advent. We're here to be wrecked
by it. So let's begin. Now, before I get to the
text, let me... set a scene in our minds I want
you to come with me picture Nazareth at dusk
a handful of oil lamps flickering behind mud
brick walls a stray dog nosing his way down an
alley a rooster complaining about nothing in
particular somewhere a mother is calling her
children in for the night Somewhere else, a man
is putting away his tools after a long, hard
day of shaping wood into something useful. And
in one small house, a young girl, maybe 14 or
15, is finishing her evening chores. And she
is not on anybody's radar. No one is painting
her portrait. No scribe is recording her name.
Her whole life could fit. into the palm of a
carpenter's hand. And heaven is looking at her.
Heaven's whispering her name. Heaven is about
to step over the threshold of her life and speak
a word that will tilt the axis of history. God
doesn't start in palaces. God starts with people.
And the smaller the person, the louder his glory
rings. Now, friends, let the poetry of Luke rise
in your ears, beginning with chapter 1, verse
26. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was
sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph
of the house of David. The virgin's name was
Mary. And he came to her and he said, Greetings,
favored one. The Lord is with you. She was much
perplexed by his words and pondered what sort
of greeting this must be. The angel said to her,
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor
with God. And now you will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great. and he will be called the Son
of the Most High, and the Lord God will give
him the throne of his ancestor David. He will
reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom,
there will be no end. Mary said to the angel,
How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel
said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you.
The power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born will be holy,
who will be called the Son of God. And now your
relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also
conceived a son. And this is the sixth month
for her who was said to be barren, for nothing
will be impossible with God. Then Mary said,
Here I am, servant of the Lord. Let it be with
me according to your word. Then the angel departed
her. The word of the Lord hums like a tuning
fork after it's struck. I don't feel like you
just read this story. We need to let it vibrate
through us. Greetings, favored one. Do not be
afraid. He will be great. The Holy Spirit will
overshadow you. Nothing will be impossible with
God. Let it be. These aren't museum pieces under
glass. They're highway markers pointing to a
truth as old as creation, as fresh as the next
breath in your lungs. God loves to begin great
in small places. He loves to start revolutions
with the least likely people. He speaks destiny.
into the ears of the overlooked. If you have
ever felt invisible, if you've ever wondered
whether your life is too ordinary to hold anything
actually holy, then this story is for you. So
let's walk it together. Now, if we were writing
the script for the Savior's arrival, Nazareth
wouldn't survive the first draft. God announcing,
the Messiah? No, we'd pick Jerusalem or Rome,
somewhere with marble columns and diplomatic
credentials. Somewhere where the cameras would
already be rolling. We'd want press releases,
official channels, religious authorities signing
off, but God doesn't start at the center. God
starts at the edges. I want to explain, when
I say Nazareth, Think of the kind of town, and
friends, we can think of this kind of town, stick
with me. Think of the kind of town where the
only business open past 9 o 'clock is a gas station
with a busted ice machine. A place where you
have to drive 45 minutes to get to Walmart. Another
hour to a decent dentist. The kind with one blinking
stoplight. Post office that doubles as the community
bulletin board. The kind of place where people
move away from, not toward. And that is where
the salvation of the world begins. Nathaniel,
later in John's gospel, will ask the question
everybody was thinking. Can anything good actually
come out of Nazareth? This wasn't a theological...
Objection. It was geographical snobbery. Nazareth
was a punchline. And God makes it the opening
scene. And then there's Mary. Unmarried, unremarkable,
unknown, no pedigree, no platform, no influence,
a girl whose life could be summed up in chores,
family obligations, and quiet hopes. for a simple
future with a carpenter. And yet God chooses
her. This is for anybody who thought that the
Lord only used the impressive, the credentialed,
the connected, the ones who don't stumble over
their own words or lie awake doubting themselves
at 2 o 'clock in the morning. Mary is the counter
-argument written in flesh and blood. And let's...
Name something that we usually don't say out
loud. Most of us grew up believing, because we
were taught this, that God works through important
people. We have been trained to think that divine
favor looks like success, visibility, pats on
the back, applause. We imagine calling means
a highlight reel. God choosing the eloquent,
the influential, the spiritually athletic. But
underneath that Christ -polished assumption,
there's a wound. And that wound that rides in
us is, I'm just too ordinary for God to use.
Or, I'm too broken for God to choose. Or maybe
God will get around to me after I clean up, after
I fix that habit, after I look more holy than
I feel. Picture God as a talent scout scanning
the crowd for the best and the brightest. The
God who sent Gabriel to Nazareth isn't scouting
talent. He's just looking for openness. Mary
wasn't powerful. She wasn't wealthy. She wasn't
connected, but she was present. She was honest.
She was willing. And I believe that God does
his finest work in people who aren't performing
for him. Hear me, friends. If your life feels
small tonight, you're exactly the kind of person
that heaven loves to visit. So I want to take
this passage slowly and let it breathe. In the
sixth month, the angel of Gabriel was sent by
God. This is verse 26. Heaven is not random.
Gabriel didn't freelance this visit. He was sent.
He was commissioned, dispatched with intention.
Which means Mary wasn't some sort of afterthought.
Mary was chosen deliberately. And I feel like
if you need to hear anything tonight, please
hear this. God is not improvising with your life.
And you are not plan B. You are not the backup
singer in somebody else's story. Now, to a town
in Galilee, this is the ancient world's version
of nowhere. I think in Hebrew it kind of translates
to... um city of sticks so it would we could
say kind of like nazareth is out in the sticks
gathering disciples we go to jerusalem announcing
a king go to rome announcing the savior of the
world apparently god says you go to a village
that's so insignificant it doesn't even come
up in one single old testament text God is not
interested in reinforcing our social ladders.
Instead, he subverts them. Centuries later, the
prophet Isaiah told a nervous king by the name
of Ahaz that God is going to give him a sign
that a virgin would conceive. But Ahaz didn't
ask for a sign, and he didn't want it. Bless
you. That's what I do. But God gave it anyway.
bypassing the powerful to plant promise in overlooked
soil. That pattern didn't start in Nazareth.
It just arrived there. To a virgin engaged to
a man named Joseph. Mary's life is just beginning.
She's engaged. She and Joseph have probably talked
about the house they'll build, the children they'll
raise. where they'll plant the olive tree, and
God interrupts. He doesn't wait for her calendar
to clear. He walks right into the middle of her
plans and says, this is where I'll begin. And
some of us know that God, he doesn't schedule
his calling around your convenience. Now the
Greek word, kinkardikomene, means graced, gifted,
or favored. Notice, Gabriel says this about Mary,
but Mary hasn't done anything yet. She hasn't
yet obeyed. She hasn't yet proven herself. She
hasn't even said, okay. The favor comes before
her response. That's Advent theology in one word.
Grace precedes transformation. The gift arrives
before the obedience. It's not the other way
around. God's blessing is not a reward for performance.
It's the starting point. Verse 29 into 30 says
she was much perplexed. Do not be afraid. Good.
That's what happens when God interrupts ordinary
life. Grace is beautiful, but it is disorienting.
When God steps into your routine, something is
about to change. And change is terrifying, even
if it's holy. Mary isn't fearless. She's faithful
in her fear. And the angel beats her fear. with
the first gospel word of Christmas. Do not be
afraid. You could preach an entire Advent season
on those four words, and I have. You will conceive,
bear a son, and name him Jesus. The name Jesus,
or Yeshua, means the Lord saves, not assists.
not fine -tunes, not polishes up the parts you
couldn't manage, saves. God isn't coming to tweak
the world. He's coming to redeem it. Verse 32
and 33, He will be great, the Son of the Most
High, the throne of David, kingdom without end.
This language, guys, is specific. This is royal
language, covenant. The language used with the
promise made to David a thousand years earlier,
now being fulfilled, but not through a king in
a palace, but through a teenage girl in a clay
-walled house out in the sticks. Heaven's politics
always flips the world's scoreboards upside down.
And in verse 34, Mary asks, how can this be?
And her question isn't rebellion, it's honesty.
Spiritual maturity doesn't mean pretending you
understand everything God is doing in your life.
It means trusting him enough to ask the real
question, how can this be? And you've prayed
that too. How can I carry this? How can I ever
forgive this? How can I survive this season of
my life? And the answer is always the same. Verse
35. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power
of the Most High will overshadow you. Mary...
is not asked to perform any miracle. She's asked
to receive one. And the language there overshadow,
it echoes, the cloud of God's presence that filled
the tabernacle in Exodus, that led Israel through
the wilderness, that settled on Mount Sinai when
Moses climbed up to meet God, that word, that
glory, that... presence of God you can see, smell.
It's called Shekinah. That's Shekinah glory.
It's presence language. It's the language of
the temple. The eternal word who spoke creation
into existence is about to become small enough
to be carried in a teenage girl. Heaven. is condensing
itself into human cells, knitting together bone
and skin in the dark. And if that doesn't make
you catch your breath, you should read it again.
Your relative, Elizabeth, has also conceived.
Now, I don't want to skip over this too quickly.
Gabriel's doing something here as well. He's
telling Mary, hey, you're not alone in this.
God's already been working. Six months ago, he
visited another overlooked woman, elderly, barren,
written off by everybody who saw worth measured
in fertility and youth. And she's carrying a
miracle too. Elizabeth's pregnancy isn't just
a sign. To bolster Mary's faith, it's evidence
of a pattern. God has been sneaking grace into
forgotten lives for six months already. The revolution
was already underway before Gabriel ever even
knocked on Mary's door. And if you zoom out further,
the pattern goes back centuries. Sarah, Old Testament,
barren and laughed at. Hannah, mocked and desperate.
Ruth, a foreign widow gleaning at the edges of
someone else's field. Over and over and over
again, God writes his story through the women
the world would dismiss. You are not God's first
unlikely choice. You are a part of a long line
of people who had no business being chosen and
were chosen anyway. And then verse 37, nothing
will be impossible with God. That's heaven's
thesis statement. Now hear me, not nothing will
be easy. Not nothing will be painful, not nothing
will cost you, just nothing will be impossible.
And then her response, here I am, let it be with
me according to your word. And this is the hinge
of salvation history. One teenage girl in a forgotten
town says yes, and the universe pivots. Mary,
is it powerful? but her surrender is. She isn't
influential, but her consent is. She isn't perfect,
but her openness is. Let it be is not resignation.
It's courage. Story isn't about Mary being extraordinary.
It's about God choosing the ordinary. It's about
heaven knocking on a door nobody else would have
bothered with. It's about a God who doesn't require
a resume or reputation or readiness, just simple
willingness. And here's what that means for us.
Advent is not a season of self -improvement.
It's not about trying harder to feel more hopeful,
mustering up that old Christmas spirit. Performing
joy you don't actually feel. Advent is about
receiving. It's about opening a door you didn't
know God was standing behind. So let me ask you
gently, where is God knocking on your nowhere
door tonight? Where is the Spirit whispering
something you didn't plan? Where is grace trying
to begin something? You feel too small to carry.
Where is the holy interrupting your ordinary?
Maybe it's forgiveness you don't want to extend
and God keeps bringing that person's face to
your mind. Maybe it's healing you don't think
you deserve and the wound keeps asking to be
touched. Maybe it's a calling that terrifies
you because you're certain you will fail. Certain.
You are not qualified. Certain somebody else
should do it. Maybe it's simply this. The invitation
to believe that God isn't done with you yet.
That your small life isn't too small. And that
the story isn't over. Hear the angel again. The
Lord is with you. Do not be afraid. Nothing is
impossible. That's the invitation of Advent.
Not to manufacture hope, but to simply receive
it. Not to build a kingdom, to welcome one. Not
to climb up the ladder, just open the door. Mary
didn't change the world by being powerful. She
changed the world by simply making room. She
didn't have all the answers. She had questions.
She didn't have certainty. She had surrender.
And that was enough. That was more than enough.
And you, the weary, the overlooked, the just,
barely holding on, you're exactly the kind of
person God loves to begin things with. The Savior
of the world was carried into history. Through
an ordinary girl in an ordinary town. What makes
you think that you can carry it into your situation?
So, friends, may the God who sent Gabriel to
Nazareth send comfort to your weary heart. May
the Holy Spirit overshadow the places in your
life that feel too small or too broken for heaven
to bother with. Friends, may the words do not
be afraid. Settle into your bones like a warm
fire on a winter's night. Amen? Amen. Thanks,
guys. Hey, as we close tonight, let me leave
you with this. God still knocks on nowhere doors.
And if we're honest, most of us have at least
one room in our hearts that feels too small,
too cluttered. Too unfinished for him to enter.
But Advent has never been about us getting everything
tidy before Christ arrives. It is about Christ
arriving right in the middle of whatever we'd
rather hide. So, if something tonight stirred
you, pressed you, unsettled you a little bit,
hey, don't shove it down. Sit with it. Let it
work on you. Conviction is just grace wearing
work gloves. Comfort? Comfort is the whisper
that says God's not going anywhere. He began
with Mary in Nazareth. He can begin with you.
Right here. Right now. Whatever quiet corner
of life you're trying to survive. And listen.
This time together meant something to you. It
met you where you needed to be met. Didn't you
favor? Throw a like in the offering plate. Doesn't
cost a thing, but it lets me know somebody out
there is tuning in, still hungry for grace in
the middle of the week. And if you want to walk
with us through this whole Advent journey, Nazareth
to Bethlehem, to the field where the sky splits
open, go on and tithe your subscribe. That way
you'll hear at the moment the next chapter drops
like bells carried on a cold December wind. Till
then, keep your lamp lit, keep your heart open.
And as always, friend, be blessed.