I want to open with the Scripture in Isaiah 2, a little
familiar to us, says now so come to pass in the latter days, that
the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on top of
the mountains. It shall be exalted above the
hills, and all nations shall flow to it.
Many people will come and say Come, let us go to the mountain
of the Lord to the House of the God of Jacob.
He will teach this of his ways and we will walk in his path for
out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem. I've often shared this scripture
because our church is called Mount Zion based upon the
Scripture because as we began the church the Lord and say go
the way of spirit and you'll possess things that others have
not possessed. And so we prayed about
everything where we would build our by, I should say, and that
what we should call the church and exactly was the vision that
God wanted to give to us. And this was certainly a part of
it, that we would be called Mount Zion to make a prophetic,
if you would, declaration to our world that we believe when God
says something, it's going to come to pass.
And we actually believe there are latter days.
In other words, there will be the consummation of the age.
Now, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter was preaching, he
actually said, and these are the last days spoken of by the
prophet Joel. So we know when the Bible uses
terms like that, it isn't quite like we would expect because
that was a couple thousand years ago.
But we do know that we're in the final age of God's purpose for
planet Earth and we need to understand that purpose so that
we can certainly be a part of it.
So we believe at Mount Zion and it's according to the word of
God that in the latter days of time, the mountain of the Lords
House is going to be established on top of the mountains.
It's going to be exalted above the hills.
And I used a phrase we might be familiar with.
God's going to make us the top dog anyway.
I believe it's very important for us to understand what God is
wanting to do in the earth through His church because that
macro picture, if you would, also paints a micro picture,
what it is that God wants to do in each and every one of our
lives individually. I believe moving into the year
2026 that we're moving into a very significant time.
I marked it on the calendar, March 2020, that we should begin
to see and expect God to do a great shape taking.
It certainly has proven itself to be true.
But I really believe that we're going to see a lot of things
happening beginning next year that's going to show us that God
has indeed shaken everything that can be shaken so that out
of it, it can be manifested the power of the Kingdom of God,
because the Kingdom of God cannot be shaken.
Amen. So we the people of God have to
have a confidence in what it is that God is speaking.
And I'm tying this into the Christmas story, as you note.
So I'll begin in One Direction, seemingly changing directions.
But what I want to do is point out this awesome picture that
God wants us to see concerning His plan on planet earth.
And also then, well, how does the Christmas story fit into
that story and what it is that we should be thinking about as
we're moving forward in the body of Christ?
Now Jesus is spoken of in the prophecy of Isaiah Chapter 9.
And this is our Christmas picture, if you would, going all
the way back to the Old Testament.
For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given.
The government will be upon his shoulder.
His name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God,
everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.
Now this is very important because it says of the increase
of His government and peace there.
There will be no end upon the throne of David and over his
Kingdom to order it, establish it with judgement and justice
from that time forward. Notice from that time forward,
even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Now, when Jesus Christ came, He was a fulfillment of Bible
prophecy. The Jewish nation have been
looking for their Messiah to come, but when he came, they
didn't even know who he was. He said to them, he says, now
you want eternal life and you search the scriptures for
eternal life. But don't you know the
scriptures talk about me and basically here I am standing in
front of you and you don't even know who I am.
And unfortunately, because oftentimes we get preconceived
conceptions and mindsets that we have an expectation on
concerning God or concerning our life when things don't go the
way we think they should, we can sometimes get confused and
thrown off course if you would. But God says we need to
understand how important it is for us to walk by faith, but
also understand how God does what he does because that's a
very important part of our expectation because we sometimes
think God's told us he's going to do something, so he's going
to do it the way we think. And yet the Bible says God's
ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts as
far as the heavens are from the earth.
That's how far our ways and God's ways are separated.
And so we have to understand that with God, it's always a
simple start. So the Messiah comes as a baby.
That threw them off totally because they're like, how could
the Messiah come as a baby? And Jesus for 30 years just grew
up in a very normal circumstance and situation, certainly not in
a royal well house, certainly not in the family that's well
positioned, certainly nothing like they would expect to
happen. And so because of that, they've
rejected Jesus Christ and the plan of action that God had for
them. But it's always important for us
to understand with God, there's an end result.
That's always very important for us to understand.
And that end result is always, it should always be in our mind
that God's going to do something awesome.
Amen Church, because that's the God we serve.
And so Isaiah prophesied about something that would start as a
baby, but that his government from that time forward, and this
is important to understand the increase of his government.
There would be no end. So the government began with
Jesus Christ and that's why when he was here, he preached repent
for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand because he was speaking
about a present tense reality that they should understand
concerning the Kingdom of God. And to understand that when God
does things again, he does it in a process over time, in a
moment. I'm going to share with you a
video that I believe is very important for us to see because
it's one that we made a long time ago.
We cut it down to two minutes, so it'd be very quick.
But there was a time when the children of Israel, long before
Christ, about 600 years before him, the Babylonian armies came
in and destroyed the holy city in the temple.
And the cream of the crop, as the Babylonians, we consider,
were carried away into captivity in Babylon.
Unfortunately for those who are part of it, there's a very
strong indication in the Scriptures that the men, young
men, became eunuchs because they were going to operate or have
service in the King's house. And that was a typical thing to
do in those days. So they lost their city, they
lost their positions, they lost everything that would happen for
them in a normal situation. And yet they in maintain their
integrity to listen to the voice of God and walk fully into
things that God had for them. The leader of the group was
Daniel, and he was a man who because of his spiritual
insight, actually was given a great responsibility in the
Kingdom. Well, one day the king
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he's all upset because he
doesn't know what the dream means, but he knows there's
something significant about it. So he calls their legal experts,
if you would, which were people that would be astrologers and
people who would look at the sky, etcetera, mediums and the
like. Nobody could explain the
situation. And so they called in Daniel,
who was a man of God and he prayed.
God spoke to him what the dream was and what the dream would
mean. How you know that shows that
man's gods because he didn't have to be told the dream.
He could tell you a dream before it was even told to him because
what God was with him? And so I want you to see this
little video of what the dream spoke to Nebuchadnezzar.
And again, the significant advance for us is.
A vision came to you, King Nebuchadnezzar.
In your dreams you looked, O king, and there before you stood
a huge statue, awesome in appearance.
The head was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver,
its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet
partly of iron and partly of baked clay.
This is what it means. You, mighty king of Babylon,
ruler of the world, are that head of gold.
But Babylon will not always rule.
Other kingdoms will follow yours, and they will be more and
more inferior. Then, while you were watching, a
rock was cut out, but not by human hands.
It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed
them. The clay, the iron, the bronze,
the silver and the gold were all at once broken into tiny pieces.
They became like chaff. The wind swept them away without
leaving a trace, but the rock that struck the statue became a
huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
The prophet Daniel. Interpreted the dream of
Nebuchadnezzar 500 years before the birth of Christ.
And yet, amazingly, that word did come to.
Pass. Around 100 years later, Babylon
was overthrown by Persia. Persia was soon overthrown by
the nation of Greece, and later Greece was overthrown by Rome.
Later still, the Roman Empire expanded to include all the
nations of the known western world.
But that wasn't in the end. Shortly thereafter, during the
time of the Roman Empire, God sent Jesus Christ to be that
rock who would redefine our world.
From his 12 simple disciples now has grown a Church of billions
of followers throughout the earth.
We, the church, have become that mountain which fills the whole
earth. And according to the prophet
Ezekiel, a river flows from that mountain that brings life, food
and healing everywhere that it flows.
Amen. I'm excited about that word
because it tells us again, God start small, but it doesn't end
up small. But he always works in a
process. And that's so important for us
to understand because in our lives when God speaks a word to
us or a hair sermon that encourages us about our specific
situation that we're in, we have to realize it starts small, it
ends big. But that's why the Bible says
that the judge shall live by faith.
And we need to go from faith to faith.
Now Jesus speaking concerning the Kingdom of heaven, said
another parable he put forth to them.
The king of heaven is like the mustard seed which a man took
and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the
seeds. But when it is grown, it is
greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the
birds of the air come and nest on its branches again.
This is so important because the Kingdom of God is described in
this way. It all starts with a seed that
grows into a tree. Now this is important to
understand because Jesus Christ is that seed.
One day as he was getting ready to go the cross, he said to his
disciples, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it divides alone. But if it does do this and go
through the process, process, it will become a tree, it will
become a vine and its branches shall reach the nations.
And so this is important again for us to be mindful of the
process. And Jesus declared this is the
purpose of the Kingdom. The process of the Kingdom is
again starts with a seed and becomes a tree.
And that's the ministry of Jesus Christ.
He said this, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the
Lord has anointed me. To preach the gospel to the
poor, to proclaim liberty, the captives, the opening of prison
to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of
our God. The day of vengeance of our God.
To comfort those who mourn in Zion.
To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they
might be called what? The trees of righteousness, The
planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.
I'm a tree. How about you?
And I know that whatever there is in my life that's negative,
God can take it away or he can change it to use it for good.
But we always have to remember it starts with a seed and it
becomes very big. So a lot of people, again, they
have the wrong perception concerning what's going to
happen on planet earth concerning the Kingdom of God.
And we need to understand what the prophets declared and also
what Jesus Christ himself declared.
Look what he says here. Another preparably spoke to
them. The Kingdom of heaven is like
11, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till
it was all leavened. Now this is a very important
concept because when you're making bread or cooking
something, leaven actually has the capacity to change
everything. And then as a part of that, it
also effects everything because it's important for us to
understand That's how it works. Now I had my son take a picture.
Can we go? Oh, there we go.
And this is from Tuesday night. I always have a pastor's
Christmas dinner where I make Mexican food for the group and
have like a buffet of different types of food.
And one of the things we have is tortillas.
Now, tortillas are really very easy to make.
They tell me it's just a little water, a little salt and some
flour, and if you want to add some flavor, add some lard or
something like that to it. But I've tried many times and it
hasn't worked out too well for me.
So I go to Carnival Market and get it there.
But they're making fresh juice, so they're really good.
And when I was a kid, we used to have this roller for tortillas
that my dad had from his mom because the Mexican families mom
would wake up every day and mix the tortillas and beans for the
day. And so I got that because it was
a special to me, but it didn't work any magic for me to make
the tortillas anyway. Also on Tuesday, I got this loaf
of bread from Lorne White and I can't remember, I think it's
called sourdough bread, but that's not significant to my
story today. The reason I wanted to take it
because you can make a tortilla just out of salt and water and a
little bit of flour, and you can also do the same thing with a
loaf of bread that could end up turning out looking just like
that. What's the difference?
Well, it's the difference is the leaven that you put in it,
because when you put in the leaven, it begins to have this
pervasive impact is what Jesus was talking, talking about.
And it will keep on growing. The funny thing about it is it's
important for us to realize that in the part of that process of
which it's growing, usually when you make bread, it rises just a
little bit. And if I say this wrong, just
play along with me. I'm not a Baker by any means.
But anyway, I do know one day I was looking up some YouTube
sites saying I want to figure this out.
I want to make that, but I never have.
But anyway, just kind of put it together, put the yeast in
there, you roll it up and you set it aside so that it can rise
a little bit. And then after it has risen a
little while, then you take it out and then you start smashing
it down again and rolling it up again.
And then you put it in the basket and wait a little while
longer. And I guess it's based on what
kind of bread, how many times you go through that process.
God wants us to realize something.
You're not a tortilla, you're a loaf of bread.
Hallelujah. I think most Christians when
they think about things, they think the body of crisis are
tortilla. We're going to just get stomped
on. But God says, no, you're a loaf
of bread, something good that's going to come out of you, says
the Lord. And just like it is in the
making of the bread, sometimes you rise a little bit and all of
a sudden something's pushing you down and smacking you and
rolling you up all over again. Some people say that's what's
happening to me right now. Well don't worry, you're going
to rise again. That's the story of the Bible.
Amen, Amen. And I can say that process has
worked for us as a local church as we followed in the word of
the Lord that I have this great expectation and that expectation
is the end result is going to be glorious.
Can I hear an Amen church and that's what Jesus wanted to
project to his disciples that they would understand because he
was going to go through some problems.
They were going to go through some issues, but give up.
You're a loaf of bread and God's going to make you as bread to
the nation, says the mighty God. Amen, Church.
Now in Matthew chapter 5, he said this.
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its
flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled
under foot by men. You are the light of the world.
The city that is sat on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a
lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
So what? Let your light so shine before
men, that they might see your good works and glorify your
Father who is in heaven. And isn't that really the same
thing that we've already said? But instead of saying yes, he's
talked about salt. Salt.
You don't see it, but you can taste it, and you can especially
taste when it's not there. I like making Mexican food
because I like adding spices. And when I'm not making Mexican
food, I still like to add a lot of salt and pepper.
Nothing like pepper on just about everything you cook.
That makes it better as far as I'm concerned.
And when it comes to salt, when I got married, my wife Bonnie,
her mom never put salt and stuff because she said, oh, people
solved it anyway, so I'm not going to bother with my side of
that. And I remember when she first
made fried chicken, she says, how's the taste?
I said, I can't taste it. Something's missing.
She didn't put salt in it. And when I was a kid growing up,
I never liked popcorn. My dad used to make it
oftentimes that night, and everybody's watching TV, and I
don't like that. Until I found out it was a good
purveyor of salt. So when we have popcorn at home,
I get my own bowl because I like to go like this.
And sometimes I don't eat it all.
So I'll say you want it, Bonnie. No way.
I'll say no, it doesn't have as much salt.
I did it less just so you could have it if I didn't eat at all.
No, no, too much salt. But anyway, we have to
understand that when salt's there, you know it, right?
And it is good. You have the right amount.
So God always has the right amount.
It's not too salty. But we have to understand
something that God says. We are the salt of the earth.
You don't always taste it, but if you don't taste it, He said
that salt's got to be thrown out if it doesn't have any flavor to
it, because you have to have flavor to the world in which you
live. And we should also see ourselves
as flavor, if you would, to our families, our community.
And that's why we do all we and to let our light so shine before
men that they might see our good works and glorify our Father who
is in heaven. And that again shows the next
side of that where Jesus is talking about becoming bread
because as you allow it to grow and develop, it becomes more
powerful. And Alfred shared the story how
that I was walking on this property.
We own 52 acres here. Next I-75.
I was walking along I-75 and it's like we were going uphill
and I heard the Lord speak to me.
A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
And that was the scripture to me that set the tone for me to
believe that we were to buy this property here.
We found out that it had actually been sold.
And yet God made a wave because we walked by faith.
And of course, the rest is history.
We got the. We're able to purchase the land.
I mean, no, God is faithful. And so he's looking for people
who say, okay, I'm ready. I want to be that visible image.
I want the church to be a part of that visible image.
I want to be a part of a church that's reaching out to the
community, reaching out to the world because he said let your
light so shine before men that they might see your what good
works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Now I also wanted to share this particular map as I'm talking
about the pervasiveness of the Kingdom of God.
Just real quickly, in case you don't know, this is the
continent of Africa and I picked out a map that would show the
religious divide. And if you notice, there's one
color on the bottom and that represents the Christian side of
things. And the top part represents the
Islam or Muslim side of things. Now, it's not a real good one
because Nigeria is in the news because the southern part is
Christian, the northern part is Muslim, and the same thing is
true in Sudan as well. And if you're watching the news,
you'll find out there's a whole lot of conflict going on in the
world today. Now, last week, I was sharing
how that sometimes we think God can only do one thing at a time
because he can multitask. And we have a tendency to just
kind of live in our own world. Now as a pastor who shares
prophetic insight and absolutely believes that we're a part of
the Kingdom of God, when I pray, I pray personal needs.
I pray for church needs. I pray for individual needs, but
I also like to pray concerning the Kingdom of God because Jesus
said when you pray, pray our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done
on Saturday we have a prayer service just from 10:50.
All we do is open with the Lord's Prayer and then thing
closed because everybody has a equal opportunity to just spend
as much time at that hour they can in prayer.
Some say the whole time, some don't.
But it's important that we learn how to follow the pattern.
But I also pray because I'm very aware of what's happening in the
world. It's always been of interest to
me. So if you watch the news, you'll
notice there's been very bad things happening in Nigeria
where Muslims have been coming in.
And in one case, they went into a Catholic school and kidnapped
all the children. Girls as young as thirteen were
forced to become wives of Muslim men, forced to convert.
I don't know all the situation that was involved in it, but I
think to myself, Lord, I'm so glad I'm an American because I'm
blessed. And I kind of feel like a Pansy
when I read stories like this because I think, how could a
pastor handle being a pastor of a church and find out somebody
come and kidnaps everybody in your school?
That's just mind boggling to me. Or in Sudan, they're in the
midst of a great famine. And because of that, people are
going hungry. And at the same time, they're in
a civil war. And again, they're killing
hundreds and hundreds of people because that's the easiest way
in their mind to take over the countries.
And often times these are Christians.
So I pray for these people and I would encourage you to do this
the same. And I was glad last week our
president even stood up to the president of Nigeria and said
you need to do something about the Christian persecution in
your country. But more than that, I wanted you
also to see something very important.
As I said, that northern part, the purple part is the Muslim
section, but the Sahara Desert covers most of that.
So it's not nearly as populist as you would expect.
But what I find so intriguing is in thinking about the
advancement of the Kingdom. I like to use Africa as an
example because 100 years ago there were like 10 million
Christians in the African continent, and today there's
375,000,000 Christians. Isn't that amazing?
So the Kingdom of God is advancing.
If you're on the front lines, there's a lot of turmoil that's
involved, but you need to know the Kingdom of God is advancing.
We're in El Salvador in our church ministry. 60 years ago,
there weren't hardly any evangelical Christians in all of
Latin America or Central America.
Now El Salvador's 50% evangelical Christian.
Same with Honduras and Guatemala.
It's amazing what God is doing in the nations of of the world
and we need to remind ourself of these things from time to time.
Church, because it's easy for us to be parochial in our thinking
and think only as an American, if you would, or as a Christian
and in the natural, I'm an American, I love America, I'm
very patriotic, but as a person who's been born again, I'm also
a citizen of the New Jerusalem. I'm a citizen of the Kingdom of
God. And so I like to see what's
happening in my Kingdom that I'm a part of.
And I love to see because church, it's very encouraging.
Though there is conflict along the way, victory is inside God's
moving in the nations of the world.
And we need to understand how that works in our life and, and
what the Christmas story represents.
Because when you understand all of that and you see the
Christmas story, it takes on a little different perspective
concerning its prophecies. Now, in the sixth month, 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.
He was 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. And truly, she was a blessed
woman to certainly as we celebrate, conceive, bear and
birth the very Son of the Most High God.
But I want you to notice here, it all started with an amazing
encounter. It was indeed a supernatural
encounter. How many know when you're born
again, it's a supernatural encounter.
And it's very important for us to understand that because just
like it was for Mary, so it's for each and every one of us.
The time that God comes into our life and begins to speak to us,
it's a time of tremendous opportunity and you can have an
amazing encounter. And you have to understand that
it's going to be a process, but that you are highly favored.
Jesus said to his disciples, you didn't choose me, I chose you.
You are hardly favored, Amen. If you're sending the service
today and you say, I know Jesus Christ, you hardly favored.
And if you're just beginning to explore these things, you're
here because of God's drawing you.
And he's saying, don't resist. Get on in, says the Lord,
because you have been favored to be called into the Kingdom.
Now it's time to respond just like Mary did.
So the Angel said to her, do not be afraid Mary, for you have
found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in
your room and bring forth the Son, and his he shall, you shall
call his name Jesus. He will be great, and you will
be called the Son of the Highest, the Lord.
God will give to him the throne of his Father David, and he will
reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and of his Kingdom
there will be no end. And so this is an important
thing again, for us to understand that Mary's being
called of God, that she would be a part of a divine purpose, and
what a purpose that was. Now, if you get a word from God
that God's going to do something awesome like that in your life,
there's no way you could fully conceive or understand what that
means. Over church history, oftentimes
Christians have tried to give more of a supernatural side to
Mary's life, thinking that they're giving her honor.
But unfortunately they actually take a little bit from the honor
because she was just an ordinary virgin, young team, possibly
team for sure, who had never known a man.
She was an average Jew, if you would.
Nothing special. She wasn't part of a royal
family. She was just chosen of God and
had a purpose chosen of God. And that purpose was of course,
for her, that she would bear the king, King Jesus in that awesome
church. How many know if we have a king
in Jesus? Now, it's important for us to
understand that because when we think about government, we have
to understand that we are in a Kingdom where we're in God's
Kingdom. He's our king.
I've always loved government. Started studying it when I was a
young child. I remember when my brother Bill
was in high school, he had a government class, and I thought
that was the greatest thing that could happen because he used to
bring home his government book and then I could read it.
There were two good things there.
It made it look like he's doing homework even though he wasn't.
And I got to read his book anyway.
If you were to think about the best kind of government, it is
having a benevolent dictator. If you would, somebody who's in
charge, whose main concern is about us in history, it didn't
work having kings among people because just like if you read
People magazine, what happens to the Royals in Europe, you'll
find out that, well, that's why that doesn't work.
But you have to have a mindset change when you think like that
because in the Kingdom of God, it absolutely works.
In the United States of America, we are not a democracy, and I
want to point this out because we are a republican form of
government, which means we have a constitution that we live by,
and then we elect leaders who in turn govern the country.
Now, that's different than a pure democracy, which means
ruled by the people and what has been good about that?
And that's why I say our government's been the best
government. Next year we'll celebrate 250
years of success with this government because it gives us
an opportunity to participate because we elect our rulers, but
then they rule in positions of authority.
Now, what happens in a democracy is everybody has to listen to
the people all the time. Now, sometimes we want things
that are not good for us. Come on, our country is getting
in pretty dire economic straits. A lot of people aren't
recognizing, but things aren't going so good because
everybody's wanting to smooth over things.
Just like it is in the natural, so it is in the economic world.
You have to have seasons, and some of them you don't like and
some of them you do. But it all works out good for
the process. And winter is a time of purging
and separating and bringing forth something new in the
springtime. Well, the same thing happens in
economics. But now the government's really
pressured to make sure that we don't go through any winter
seasons. And so they're making decisions
that are in the long term, detrimental to our country.
I just want to point that out because we have to understand
that. Well, what do you know about
economics? Usually how it affects you, but
sometimes the big picture is going to affect us in a negative
way for a while, but it works for a long term good.
That's why it's good to be in a Kingdom because God, he always
does what's good for us. He calls us to his purpose.
He works in his favor upon us and sometimes he does things
that we would rather him not do. But in the long run, we should
always have a confidence. King Jesus has a plan that's for
our good. Can you say Amen to that church?
And so we have to be very, very glad we're in a Kingdom with an
absolute king that we can trust and have our confidence in.
Then Mary said to the Angel, How can this be, since I do not know
a man? And the Angel answered and said
to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you.
The power of the highest will over shadow 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, and this is
now the 6th month for her who was called barren.
For with God nothing will be impossible.
Amen, Church. But first of all, she has a
dilemma. Questions.
How can this be? I don't know a man.
Now the answer is, but the power of the Holy Spirit shall over
shadow you, and that which is conceived in you shall be called
the Son of God. Now I want you to understand
something that all sounds good, but how you know wouldn't make a
whole lot of sense to a young girl.
What? How does the Holy Spirit coming
upon me make me pregnant? That doesn't make any sense.
Never heard of that before. Never happened this way.
Now, This is why it's very important because even when,
like for instance at Mount Zion, we teach people get baptized,
get filled with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes people are
uncomfortable in the situation, don't understand the whole
thing, and because of their discomfort, they kind of pull
back a little bit. But what you have to do is you
have to keep on persevering because God says that which is
in you is good, says the Lord and there's great potential
there and you have to put your trust in Him.
So though we have questions and we'll always have questions, God
says keep moving by faith because God has a simple answer
you don't understand. But with God all things are
possible. Amen.
Church. How many glad you just serve
that kind of a God that's important.
Now this verse is the one that came to me in prayer and that is
Mary said, behold the maidservant of the Lord, let it
be to me according to your word. And the Angel departed from her
and talking about the awesomeness of the Kingdom, how
there's 2 billion Christians in the world today and all the
things that are happening. Again, like I said, God sent his
only begotten Son, but how you know it had to start with
somebody like Mary saying yes. This is so important to
understand because sitting in the service today, if you say
yes to God, it could be a life changer not just for you, but
for generations which are to come.
You'll never have an understanding fully about what
your choices are going to have on your children and upon the
generations even which are to come.
That's why I love the story about Stephen in the Bible.
He, he was a young man that made a Deacon.
He starts preaching a message and they stoned him to death.
What a sad funeral that must have been thinking of him dying
at a young age. But there was a man by the name
of Saul, later called Paul, who was watching the whole event,
holding the coats of those who stoned him to death.
So what happened? Well, you didn't even see it.
His family might never have known it, but he sowed a seed
also that changed the world. And so we have to have our
confidence in God, how the God is at work, and that it all
begins with a yes. And then of course, she said, be
it on to me according to your word.
Well, there's going to be a cost to this thing.
You don't know exactly how it's going to work, but you just have
to put your trust in God. So in closing, I want to read
what's called the Magnificat. And it's the Magnificat of Mary.
And we would call it a prophecy because after she went to see
her cousin who was old, who had a child or was pregnant six
months at the time, she was too old to have children.
She's pregnant. And that was Mary's
encouragement. Your situation is strange too.
How you know sometimes somebody elses testimony can't help us.
But as she goes and sees her cousin, she begins to prophecy
and declare. My soul magnifies.
The Lord of my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for
he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.
Behold, henceforth all generations will call me
blessed, for He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name. His mercy is on those who fear
Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their Thrones and exalted the
lowly. He has filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped us serve in Israel in remembrance of His mercy as
He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His seed
forever. Can we all please bow our heads
for just a moment? I tell you that God is preparing
us in this time. God is calling in this time and
you might be involved in a situation you already have a lot
of questions. Maybe in your understanding of
God you have a lot of questions, but the issue is, is will you
say yes? Saying yes to God means really
waking up every day and saying, oh, it's still a yes.
God, I might not understand what's happening to my no, not
fully understand how this is turning now, but I'm highly
favored. You have called me and you've
used my situation to bring forth your glory in the earth.
And for that I thank you. God is looking for a yes and one
that says and be it unto me according to your word.
Because when the word begins to work and we're troubled and
confused, God says, keep on saying yes.
You'll be prophesying just like Mary.
You'll be declaring that God takes the lowly.
He lifts him up. It's time to rise in newness of
life, says the mighty God. This is Pastor Lorne Colbubius
from Mount Zion Church. We thank you for joining us
today and invite you to connect with our church family by
visiting mountzion.org and following us on social media.
God bless you.