Mary and Elizabeth

amen well good morning church at this time we're going to go ahead and dismiss the three to five-year-olds and the six and seven-year-olds uh to their class for this morning and for the rest of us if you have your bibles go ahead and grab them we're gonna be in luke chapter 1. luke chapter 1 we're going to be looking at verses 39 through 45 today so again if you got your bible go and grab those and turn there we find ourselves in our fourth week of our series in luke and uh we again are just getting to know a little bit more uh these two

women elizabeth and mary as they come together um and as they they interact with one another in this story these are two amazing women that in the cultural day of the new testament women were marginalized particularly those who were young and single and also those who were elderly and barren especially if they lived away from major urban areas or urban centers and we're not necessarily connected to powerful families i mean these were the types of women in this day who would be considered the least of the least and and these women fit all of those criteria the young virgin teenage roar girl named mary and

her relative the elderly baron elizabeth like again lives in a small town out in hill country and so we're going to be getting to know them a little bit more in their interaction with one another but i want to give you again for those who have not been with us just a very very quick recap of where we've been and what has happened in the story is that we've learned that the book of luke is actually a gift to us a gift to those who are reading it from a man named theophilus he wanted to know the truth about jesus and so he ended up

hiring a historian and a doctor named luke to do a ton of just investigative research to go and look at written documents that were already out to be able to interview and go to visit the towns and the places where all of this news about the person and work of jesus his life his death his burial his resurrection the people who interacted with him all of the kind of players or characters that were involved in the story and narrative he wanted luke to go and pull it all together and give him a report to determine whether or not this is legit to determine whether or

not this is something to give his life over to and to actually engage in and so we know that luke did all of this work and and by uh inspiration of the holy spirit recorded down what we have in the book of luke and also the book of acts and if you really look at chapters one and two which are in the midst of this or where we are in the midst of really a lot of what's going on in these two chapters are only found here in luke and so without this work of luke we would not have this information which is so exceedingly

exceedingly crucial for our own lives as we continue to just learn about the life of jesus what we've also seen so far in the story is that we've learned that mary again was likely a teenage girl betrothed to be married to joseph again think kind of between the ages of 12 to 16 that was when it was customary for women to get married during that day elizabeth was her relative they were separated by both this and age elizabeth had a husband named zechariah who was a common priest think very simple small ministry in his small town and uh and they were barren elderly couple the

angel gabriel shows up telling zechariah that his wife would give birth to a son he's going to be named john which means god is gracious he would be the preparer and forerunner for the coming of jesus and then the angel gabriel also goes to mary and tells her that you're going to be pregnant with a child and you are to name him jesus which literally means he's going to come and take away the sins of the world that he will save you from from your sins that she's also going to be the fulfillment to the prophecy in isaiah 7 14 that the birth of jesus

would come via the route of a virgin who would give birth to him and so the angel shows up and says mary that's that's you all right you're going to be that fulfillment to the prophecy and then she all and then abe the angel gabriel also tells mary just so you know your relative elizabeth is also pregnant at this point almost six months pregnant as well and so what we're going to be looking at today as we continue walking through this narrative as these two women come together we're going to be talking about life and what makes you alive what makes you alive and there's

going to be three points and one of them is going to be controversial so we're just going to throw that out there but we're going to be looking at life in community life in the womb and life that is found in jesus and so we're going to be looking at those three things and so if that kind of gets your heart beating a little bit more that's okay again we want to be quick to listen we want to be slow to feel slow to think slow to maybe anger as well we want to be slow to these things and we want to let the bible

inform us on on what it is that we're actually looking at and so we're going to dive into this beginning in luke 1 39 we see mary's immediate obedience to god's word and here's what it says in those days mary arose and she went with haste into the hill country to a town in judah and she entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth so at this point what we know is elizabeth has not announced publicly that she was pregnant all right she kind of wanted to keep it hidden because she didn't want to be the mockery of her of her village or of her

town and so she wanted to kind of keep it a secret so she's home worshiping god getting the nursery ready celebrating the fact that her husband had been rendered for a season so she doesn't have to listen to him for a while um and of hearing this mary says well i've got to go see elizabeth i want to go visit with her i want to go be with her i love her we're close with relatives i'm pregnant she's pregnant we need to share in one another's joy and so mary wants to go and make this trek this journey to go visit her relative now this

is important for us to kind of point out here because this is not just an easy quick journey a lot of times when we read the bible and we hear mary arose and went quickly to go visit her relative elizabeth in a town in judah we might just think that that's kind of like leaving broad ripple and heading to the north side or heading over to zionsville or heading you know we kind of think it's right around the corner and it's not a big deal but when you actually look at it and i've got a picture that i want to show you here when you

really look at galilee being a region where nazareth is is which is where mary was residing heading to the area of judah this is more than a hundred mile journey in order for her to walk in order for her to get to all right like they don't have uber during this time for her to get there in an easy fashion all right so i want just to show you this pregnant girl this is the region that would be kind of heading from nazareth out to judah it's it's not easy all right it's not easy like there would be so many reasons and so many excuses

that one could come up with to not go and engage in celebrating with someone else or joining in with someone else in a community fashion in order to worship in order to engage and so this is kind of my guilty uh plea to you that you will find life in community all right like it was it was worth it for mary to make this type of trek in order to go be with elizabeth so that they could in community celebrate something that god has done and i think sometimes for us we come up with all the excuses we come up with all the reasons like

i actually got to get in my car and start it in order to go to a community group or in order to go be with someone else or in order to interact with someone else like we come up with all the excuses and let's be honest there's times when we have community group that's showing up or a time where we can go be involved in community and there's just things that come up there's things that we would rather do in our house there's things that we would rather do on the couch there's things that we would rather watch there's like there's always reasons for why

we don't want to go and be a part of it and maybe even in the actual community that you are a part of there might be real mess there might be arguments at times there might be struggles within it because again it's full of people and people have problems and there might be real problems involved in those community groups but the reality is is that even more than that there are actually real people there are real people who are going to walk alongside of you in life who are going to celebrate when you're celebrating who are going to mourn when you're mourning who are going

to be angry when you're angry who are going to be frustrated when you're frustrated who are going to be able to carry burdens with each other who are able to to do whatever it is together because that's the way god's designed it that's the way he's designed it and so again you've heard me mention especially last week that mary is not to be an object of our worship but she is to be an example of worship she used to be an example of faith and this is an example for her making the trick to to literally involve herself in community to celebrate what god is

doing in their lives for us as well to make those sacrifices in order to engage in community to be able to cry with those who are crying one with those who are mourning rejoice with those who are rejoicing celebrate with those who are celebrating because this is a cumulative effect community is a cumulative thing all right it's the more you engage the more you participate the more that you will actually get out of it to where friends don't aren't just friends anymore they feel like family all right they're walking with you they're shaping you to be more like jesus and so that's the first point

that i wanted to point out in this is that this would be easy to just skim over and say okay mary went to go be with elizabeth that's great but there's deeper meaning to that there's deeper meaning to that in god's design for community to happen for us to be with one another in order to celebrate and look at what god is ultimately doing in our lives and so that's what's going on here the first point life can be found in community mary knows this and she seeks it out by making the long journey to be with elizabeth the second point is what happens when

these two ladies come together and this again i know this one can be uncomfortable and controversial and that's okay again we're going to just look at what the bible has to say about it and then let that kind of inform us but the second point is looking at this idea of life in the womb so the girls come together a young girl an older woman luke 141 and when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary the baby leaped in her womb the second point is that there is life in the womb we know from previous verses elizabeth is about six months pregnant heading into the third

trimester mary's just conceived by miracle of the holy spirit and is in her first trimester and they come together and the holy spirit is present the holy spirit is active to the point to where the baby in elizabeth's womb john the baptist leaps in his mother's womb as i mentioned last week when we get to content in the text that has a particular application to our current cultural moments we're going to not skim past it but we're going to address it we're going to address it and this is one of those current cultural hot topics i even brought this to the elders just so that

it was a kind of a group decision to to address this from a biblical perspective so that we were kind of all in full agreement on this as well but this is something that i feel that we should talk about now we should address is is this idea of of abortion and this idea of life in the womb and how we should approach this how we should think about this how we should process this in in our day and age maybe you don't want to but after again seeking the lord and praying we felt it appropriate and so i want you to hear me out

when we when we kind of walk through this whether you're pro-life through and through and that means you're pro-life for the woman you're pro-life for the baby that's that's typically one side of the debate the other side pro-choice can get a bit more complicated if you will some are pro-choice because they have a particular care for women and for their health but but it's in sometimes disregard for for the baby we don't think about the baby that's that's in the room or in the womb it's kind of simply i just want to focus on the health and care of women comes first so i don't

even think about or process what is in the womb i would dare say that most and i'm going to put this in quotations here that most christian pro-choice again i'm going to put that in quotations positions would land in this category they're only thinking about the life and care of the woman the mother and i want to be sensitive to that but i also believe that that position needs to consider a greater a greater position that not only includes the health and life of the individual woman but also includes the health and life of the individual one woman that may be residing in her womb

more on that one in a moment but there's also another more radical pro-choice position that i believe or that believe is okay to murder babies at any stage of pregnancy simply at the convenience of the mother's choice simply at the convenience of the mother's choice so health is not a factor but rather lifestyle inconvenience is the motivator here this radical position is by far greater in threat to the lives of the unborn greater and threat to the lives of the unborn it represents more than 99 percent of all abortions 99 percent according to an article from usa today the gut maker institute states that only

less than one percent of abortions are due to rape incest or the the mother's life being on the line due to pregnancy complications less than one percent so you gotta take out those extremes that means more than 99 of all abortions are because and i'm going to generalize this but the reason is simply i just don't want this baby i just don't want this baby the health and life of the mother is not at stake but rather i just don't know any other way to say it but her selfishness is at stake selfishness is at stake everyone in this room everyone in this room has

a position on abortion everyone and what i'm hoping for is this question to consider did you get your position from reading scripture did you get your position from reading scripture not what you feel not what your parents said was right or wrong not what fox news or msnbc or cnn or any of them have said should be your position did you get your position from reading scripture did god inform your mind and your heart and so a question i want to ask with that is when does life begin when does life begin this is an important question one that both pro-life and pro-choice positions have

been seeking to answer in their their debates the newly appointed supreme court justice katanji brown jackson was asked the simple question when does life begin and her response was i don't know i don't know that is a response that i don't want anyone in this room to ever give and that's the reason why we were talking about this today you can answer the question in a couple of ways you can answer it scientifically you can answer it biblically typically organizations like march for life for example will seek to answer this question scientifically which is again continuing to find itself more and more in line with

what we will discuss biblically today but scientifically the question can be answered this way according to jan langman who was a professor in the department of anatomy and wrote the book medical embryology put it this way the development of a human being begins with fertilization a process by which two highly specialized cells the sperm from the male and the egg from the female unite to give rise to a new organism the zygote bruce carlson with patton's foundations of embryology said similarly the time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history or ontogeny of the individual i have much more support behind kind of

the scientific positions if you will on this but but i want to get to the biblical one as it is the one that has the power to change hearts and minds like honestly at the end of the day that's the only one that has the ability to make any actual change so i want to kind of bring this up because i know there are some people who say just simply trust the science well science is saying that life begins at conception or fertilization which for those who aren't aware is is at a point where mommy and daddy have no way of knowing that they are

even pregnant yet i mean like it's that's something that typically happens before you know you're pregnant um but i want to show you even more than that what scripture says after all luke who's writing this is a what vocationally he's a medical doctor all right like we can we can trust that from a vocational standpoint but at the same time more than that we can trust him because we know that he's inspired by the holy spirit and what he is writing here so god is breathing truth through him and his mind and his heart to record down what we are to believe about what is

in the womb what is in the womb so when does life begin well what he says here is that the baby leaped in her womb so let's ask the question what then is a baby what is a baby and the greek term that he uses for this is brephos now there's two ways that you can organize theology from the bible all right there's two ways there's systematic theology and there's biblical theology systematic theology is when you take an idea or a concept and you look from genesis to revelation and you pull together all the scriptures around that specific idea or concept and then you just

list them out in an organized fashion all right so if you take the idea of trinity you're looking at genesis to revelation let me look at all the scriptures that talk about god in the idea of trinitarian viewpoints and let's put them into a chapter if you will and then just provide all of that evidence biblical theology is when you look into the specific context of a passage and so you're looking at author you're looking at audience you're looking at if there's any clear similarities between what he's writing is there any supporting context of what they're writing from kind of chapter chapter as they're looking

at this so a biblical viewpoint would say how does luke for example talking about a baby how does he define that himself as he continues writing does he refer to a baby anywhere else in his writings and so one of the things that i want you to see here is anytime this word brephos which is the greek term for baby anytime that's used it is defining what we would consider a life a baby so in his context in his book luke 141 is where we first see it when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary the baby leaped in her womb we also see it in

luke 144 elizabeth says the baby in my womb leaped for joy we also see luke 2 12. you will find a baby there's our word again wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger so oftentimes people will say and again the way that our current government has it kind of defined as far as rights go is babies that are in womb have no rights babies that are outside of the womb have rights all right that's kind of the way that it's that it's kind of regarded that's why again we stand on the side of of fighting for the rights because we see it as

the same thing as the same thing and that's exactly what luke is saying here he's using the same word brephos for john when he's in the womb and jesus when he's in the womb of mary to jesus who's wrapped in swallowing cloths and lying in a manger right he's being placed in a crib he's he's in the nursery like he's he is alive and well outside of the womb luke 2 16 they went with haste and found mary and joseph and the baby jesus lying in a major same word there again as jesus is older and adult in luke 18 15-16 luke writes this now

they were bringing infants to him that's the same word that's used that he might touch them and when the disciples saw it they rebuked them but jesus called to him saying let the little children come and do not hinder them for such belongs the kingdom of god same word for john the baptist in elizabeth's womb same word for jesus lying in a major same word for these infants that were brought to jesus that jesus then even refers to them as little children all right so we can think like literally the ones that i just dismissed to go to their classes we can group them into

this same category as a life a child last occurrence is in acts 7 19 luke wrote this he said and he's he's referring to the godless pharaoh he dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their again same word infants that were birthed living healthy children we call that infanticide so that they would not be kept alive so people murdering children is also in the bible and it's it's not just a 21st century issue that we're looking at today we also see this in 2nd timothy 3 14-15 outside of luke the apostle paul uses the same word here but as for you

and he's writing to timothy as for you continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood that's the word for breakfast there how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in christ jesus why do we have a little district for this reason here right here it's a long commitment it's a it's a long play it's a long and slow discipleship but it works because it's biblical all right the greek word for childhood is brephos which is same word for john the

baptist in elizabeth's womb so what we are teaching the children in there is because we are seeing that they are acquainted with and the same as what is in the womb filled with the holy spirit that's leaping for joy there's life that is there now i say these things but i'm also going to say this we are not a politically motivated church because right now some might be saying like you're stepping outside of what we should be preaching and proclaiming you're stepping into the political realm we're not a politically motivated church but we are a biblically motivated church and we're going to step into things

that we see are against what the bible promotes against what the bible promotes and biblically what's in the womb is a life it's a baby some of the arguments out there some of them that are kind of silly one guy debating on a news channel said it's tissue it's just simply tissue to which i would say yeah and so are you like we're we're all like just a bunch of tissue that's that's an argument but i think it's a silly one and i actually think the scriptures even kind of draw into that as you'll see here in a minute some would say well they aren't

human until they have a heartbeat so are people with pacemakers are they no longer human because they have a mechanical thing that's helping their heart actually beat if one of you right now were to go down and and would lose your heartbeat do you not want us to resuscitate you because you're no longer human because you don't have a heartbeat anymore like these are arguments out there that are just kind of silly but again one of the biggest debates right now around when a baby is a baby is is when does this life begin is it is it when it's just tissue when the heartbeat

comes in and this is where again i want to continue to look at what the scripture teaches on what we should believe about what is life and when to protect this life to protect this life psalm 139 13-16 puts it this way for you formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother's womb i praise you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made wonderful are your works my soul knows it very well my frame was not hidden from you when i was being made in secret intricately woven in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were

written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them for the tissue people i love this passage because he names the tissue unformed substance like david is literally just saying yeah there there was tissue there was unformed substance and his name was david who would become a man after god's own heart who would become the king of israel it was my tissue that the lord was forming as he was knitting it together he was also writing out every one of them the days that would also be formed for me when there was yet none of

them all right there goes god just creating something out of nothing this is how he's operating how he's working we also see in isaiah 49 1 isaiah the prophet as he's talking about the beginning of his calling he says this listen to me o coastlands and give attention you peoples from afar the lord called me all right giving him purpose giving him his job task the lord called me from the womb from the body of my mother he named my name for those who say my body my choice the lord here has an answer for that here the prophet isaiah is declaring that the lord

gave him his calling in life while he was still in the womb and in case you're a little gray on on what the womb is he is even saying that it's from the body of my mother god named me you cannot separate the woman's body from the life that is in her womb biblically speaking you cannot separate it god sees these two as the same from the womb from the body of the woman god knows the life knows the baby who resides there and is giving them life giving them purpose giving them calling giving them skills giving them jobs to do once they were born

same was said of the apostle paul in galatians 1 11-15 he said for i would have you know brothers that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel for i did not receive it from any man nor was i taught it but i received it through a revelation of jesus christ for you have heard of my former life in judaism how i persecuted the church of god violently and tried to destroy it and i was advancing in judaism beyond many of my own age among my people so extremely zealous was i for the traditions of my fathers so this is paul in

those four verses talking about how much he hates the church how much he hates christians this is his identity this is his this is his personhood at this point this is his job all right but then he says this in verse 15 but when he referring to god who had set me apart before i was born and who called me by his own grace so regardless of the life path that you have or the thoughts that you have or the way that you've informed your mind or what you feel is right i mean paul in this moment feels that it is right to be able

to go and persecute and to take lives and to kill and to and to drag women children out of their homes and place them in prison like he was zealous for this good work for this work that he viewed as good zealous for this but then when he becomes a believer he says that actually before i was born god had already declared out what was going to happen for me in my life that he would actually save me and rescue me from that life that i felt was right that i felt was informed that i felt was good that i felt was going to be

life-giving to me he rescued me from my own worldview and ideology and then transformed me into the person that became the apostle ball who was no longer taking lives but saving lives saving lives and that this calling was even before he was born listen to this one what if i said what if i said you are you you are a life even before your biological mother and biological father ever even had conception because at this point outside of a biblical perspective um the the the only science that's proving life is at conception all right the stats that i already gave you earlier is that when

sperm meets egg and they fertilize and become a zygote they're saying that's when life begins but what if i were to tell you that your life began before that before mommy and daddy ever had any types of relations that you were you because i think this will help really inform us that there is no point at any point in conception or in pregnancy that we would say it's anything other than a life that is being created and knitted together by god himself you say i mean right now you could possibly say well that's a stretch you're you're trying to protect something that isn't even a

substance but maybe just a thought well what does the bible say about it ephesians 1 3-6 blessed be god and the father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us in christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places listen to verse 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through jesus christ all this is before the foundation of the world according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious

grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved what this scripture is saying is that god had every human being and mind before god even gave birth to the physical world we now reside in this is the truth some may quibble over the details some may turn into religious attorneys some may want to argue the finer points but the absolute truth is that god is the author of life god is the author of life life belongs to god life begins with god god alone is the one who gets to decide who lives and dies and he may speak of of capital crimes and punishments

in the bible but he certainly doesn't have any scriptures that say if it's inconvenient might disrupt your college studies could cost you some money maybe for the gentleman and child support payments feel free to just go ahead and murder that kid you're not going to see that in scripture you're not going to see any biblical reason in scripture in this regard to take a life of an unborn now we could again dive into all the statistics surrounding this that are just staggering but honestly i believe all we need to know is what the bible says about this topic and to be quick to listen and

slow to think slow to feel slow to process to just let it simmer and meditate not what i think not what i feel what is god saying here what is god saying here if your position your heart is first bent towards the life health and care of the woman before it is the child i'd simply ask you to actually look into the statistics surrounding the health of women who have abortions versus those who actually deliver babies what we are seeing play out more and more is that women who have abortions have statistically higher chances of emotional physical mental and spiritual damage than those who deliver

their child even if they put them up for adoption it's safer to deliver than than to to abort why because it's god's design it's god's design god knows better than we do take time lean into this situation be informed and advocate not just with posters and bumper stickers but consider consider fostering consider adoption adopting serving single mothers helping pregnant women who are on the fence and struggling with a decision like if you're pro-life let's be pro-life for all lives that are in the equation baby mother and father to be pro-life all right that was a big point big point first one was life is in

community which was very short second one was life is in the womb and now i want to see our response where we see their response elizabeth and mary that life is found in jesus luke 1 again picking it up in verse 41. when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary the baby leaped in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry blessed are the young women and blessed is the fruit of your womb and why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting

came to my ears the baby in my womb leaped for joy blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the lord so first and foremost elizabeth filled with the holy spirit tells mary that she's blessed she's blessed and that also her womb is blessed what our children children are a blessing all right children are a blessing our world oftentimes children are the brunt of the joke children are a curse if you will i mean they they they make you put on weight they make you give you stretch marks you know they they teed they drool

they burp they pass gas they cry they poop all day long like i know the parents in here can amend this um you're exhausted they cost a lot of money they're they they are at times just inconvenient i'll use that word but they're your blessing they're your blessing a pooping passing gas eating yelling screaming teething expensive blessing psalm 127 says that they are a blessing i've got three kids we we lost two through miscarriages and it is something that just still haunts me to this day you know what six-year-old ezra is a blessing four-year-old wyatt a blessing almost two-year-old shepherd our favorite blessing but not

only does elizabeth call the baby in mary's room a blessing but she also calls him lord she calls him lord and that's the third point life is in jesus she's experiencing life by meeting jesus and she's the first first person in the new testament to be able to call jesus lord even when he's still in the womb why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me in that culture the older person would be honored by the younger not the other way around and here she is honoring the younger this is this was unusual behavior and she does it

while jesus is in mary's womb newly conceived again not tissue it's the lord it's the lord she's worshiping jesus so now we've got the eternal son of god coming into human history through the womb of the poor marginalized unmarried virgin rural potentially illiterate young girl to identify with us sinners by himself living a humble simple life by jesus being tempted though not sinning so that he could be our substitute and reconcile us to god and take away our sin and send us the holy spirit so that we might be brought into a new birth ourselves to a new birth ourselves and elizabeth says i can't

believe i'm in the presence of my mother or of the mother of my lord she hasn't even seen him live yet she hasn't seen him walk on water yet she hasn't seen him raise the dead heal people dying across resurrect she hasn't seen any of the yet but she's already worshipping him and claiming him to be god she's claiming him to be what i said i would cover last week in 131-33 where it says and behold you will conceive in your room and bear a son and you shall call his name jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most

high and 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 its kingdom there will be no end why is she worshiping and calling him lord why is the baby in her womb leaping for joy because they are meeting for the first time the son of the most high god the one who will rightfully take the throne of of david king of israel and the one who will reign and rule over the house of jacob forever which is symbolic for all of god's people all who put place faith and trust

in jesus and of his kingdom there's no end jesus has no borders no boundaries no limits he is someone worthy of worship worthy of worship this baby in mary's womb will sit upon this throne of david and will rule and you've got to see this last part here verse 44 for behold when the sound of your greeting came to my ears the baby in my womb leaped for joy how did that happen like how does i mean we're still trying to teach our kids who jesus is how does this baby already know that he's jesus well because as you saw in luke 1 15 as

as i believe josh preached that one a few weeks ago that john would be filled with the holy spirit even in his mother's womb two women come together old covenant new covenant promises that are now being fulfilled prophet and lord john and jesus and boom john worships john's saying like i i'm in utero you're in utero but i can sense you're here and i'm going to bow down i'm going to worship i'm gonna leap i don't know if that's him in womb singing or dancing or celebrating or what he's doing but what we know is that he's filled with the holy spirit and he is

meeting jesus for the first time and he is responding how we should be responding he's responding rightfully that he's lord and i worship him by the power of the holy spirit that there's there's nothing greater than i'm ever going to experience other than this moment right here of getting to meet jesus for the first time and that it's a work of the holy spirit that's doing that it's a work of the holy spirit there is potentially the chance that there are people in this room right now who met jesus intellectually by being raised in church but have never actually met jesus being being transformed by

the renewal of your mind and renew of your heart by the work of the holy spirit to where you now leap for joy when you hear jesus rather than just checking them off a box because you were raised that it's the moral right thing to do that's a scary place to be to be team jesus but not actually on jesus team that's what at least from my background being in the south was trying to convince people that they weren't saved when they thought they were just because they were raised in a biblical culture raised in a church growing culture always came for the sake of

checking off the box that i was participating in the sunday school classes that i never missed a sunday even if it was race day that you know i never missed whatever it looked like i was always participating i was always doing my part i was always earning god's favor and i'm team jesus because it's just the right thing to do or we team jesus because the holy spirit introduced us to him and he saved us from our sins which is the reason for his name and that he rescued us and that he put our our sinful our sinful lives to death he buried it and

as he was buried he rose us to a new life and a new identity to where now we are are no longer kind of like i'm struggling to come in but we are leaping and celebrating in joy because we know jesus and we are in relationship with jesus more than just a thought of who he is like we know him because we are united with him in relationship that is an abiding relationship not a facebook relationship where we like something that he says every once in a while or we kind of just kind of peruse his his profile to be able to learn some facts

about him and we study him from that perspective because we just want to be on the right side but we might not actually abide and know him this can only be done by the work of the holy spirit by the work of the holy spirit and we're seeing that from the life of john filled with the holy spirit he leaps for joy in womb and dedicates his entire life to being a preparer a forerunner for jesus christ even to the point to where he goes to his own death preaching and proclaiming the good news of jesus telling people don't miss him don't miss him entire

life sold out for jesus why not because he was his relative but because jesus is lord son of the most high rightful heir of the throne of david going to rule and reign over the entire house of jacob if you're like i don't even know what that means there was abraham who was born abraham had a son isaac isaac had a son jacob jacob 12 sons that become the 12 tribes of israel that become literally the people that that wander and are just stupid and do all kinds of dumb things throughout the old testament um and and god is is rescuing them and working through

them and through that lineage from jacob to david and then from david all the way to jesus we get the son we get the son of god jesus who's born and becomes the rightful heir to all of the people and if you're like well i'm not jewish i'm not a part of those people guess what we get to get grafted into the same family as well that's why he says we are adopted into the family of god if you're gentile and so we get adopted and we get grafted in and we become the true family of jacob of the house of jacob we become the

true followers of jesus christ so you're not a follower of jesus christ by blood just because you're jewish you're not a follower of jesus christ by intellect you're a follower of jesus christ by the work of the holy spirit who puts to death your sin and raises you to life in jesus christ that's it and the only proper response is exactly what john the baptist is doing here we leap we leap whether it's in our hearts whether it's in our minds whether i mean go charismatic jump around i don't care like just we leap for joy we leap for joy as jesus speaks we believe

we respond we trust him we love him we follow him we enjoy him we serve him we we are to emulate him god speaks we believe we believe and that response does not happen without your life being substituted for christ's life on the cross as it brings us to our time of communion having a life in jesus comes first and foremost through the death of jesus speaking of this baby in mary's womb colossians 1 15-23 says this he is the image of the invisible god the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in heaven on earth visible and invisible whether thrones

or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together he's the head of the body the church he is the beginning he's the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of god was pleased to dwell i mean you talk about just a bio introduction for a person this is amazing there's there's no one in human history who has this bio but this is jesus this is this baby and mother and mary's womb this is why john is leaping

for joy is because he's meeting the image of the invisible god the firstborn of all creation that jesus who is being conceived by the holy spirit six months after john john is being knitted together in elizabeth's womb by jesus think about that all things are created through christ nothing has come into being unless it's come in through christ this is why she's able to say my lord when he is is coming after elizabeth it's because he predates her this is why the the king david was able to say the lord has said to my lord like when he's talking about jesus he's talking about him

as lord who predates him even though he's going to come after him it's because what we're looking at is the image of the invisible god we're looking at god himself who has come from eternity past and is stepping into our history in the form of a baby for in him all the fullness of god was pleased to dwell and here's the key for us in our invitation to communion here and through him to reconcile to himself all things that is to make all things right whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross we'll see that in a moment as

we look at the juice and we talk about the juice and you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds all right that's all of us okay we're all thrown into that category we were alienated we were hostile in mind this is why i say don't don't lead first with what you think lead with what the bible says don't lead with what you feel lead with what god feels and what god is convicted by and what god tells you and informs your heart to feel why because we were hostile in mind doing evil deeds all right that's by nature how we're created

how we're born because sin is is is in us and sin is our identity and sin is informing and instructing how we think and how we feel and how we act and all those things and and we do like our posture by nature is to be selfish and to do evil deeds so don't trust you trust the scripture and trust what god's word says so who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds he has now reconciled in his body of flesh breaking of his body by his death think about that when we talk about the wafer the bread the cracker in order

to present you holy and blameless and above repoached before him if indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast believing trusting him that he is who he says he is that he's done what he says he's done not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you've heard which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which i paul became a minister we're coming to the table of communion to remember the sacrifice of jesus who has reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death and has made peace by the blood of his cross in order to present us holy and

blameless and that is only done by the work of his holy spirit who applies it to our account who then by applying it to our account sends the bill up to the lord and the father comes in and says i can adopt you and bring you home now because you are now clean you are now holy you are now blameless your sins have been forgiven the name jesus is now washing over us and he's forgiving us he's forgiving us so i want you to go ahead and stand with me if you don't have the elements i want you to go back and grab them from

the table we believe this is the reason for why jesus came to this world and was given the name jesus because he saves us sinners from our sins and the plan to save us was always the cross it was always the cross so if you believe that we invite you to worship jesus through remembering his sacrifice and partaking of communion if you don't believe that we ask you to refrain from communion because you would make yourself out to be a liar by partaking of it and therefore just bringing more judgment on yourself but i hope that's not the case god is a just god but

also a gracious and loving god who wants to give you grace and favor and forgiveness right now if you would simply believe that you're that you're wrong that your worldview is not correct and that you would trust that you're a sinner and that you are giving yourself over to him and believing him for who he is and what he has designed and what he has done through his son jesus christ we believe that and and by believing that he guarantees for us that he will forgive us of our sins that he will take our place on the cross and so i pray if you've never

done that that right now you would do that you'd pray to him lord i i am a sinner and i've sinned against you and i i peg for your forgiveness and he's faithful and just and we'll do that as you hold these two things in your hands i did this exercise last week and i want to do it again as you hold these things in your hands i want you to think about the sins that you've committed this week you know even hitting a topic as as hard as this one is that we've talked about we saw staggering and i'm actually going to probably butcher

it i think it was is kelsey in here she just stepped out all right she's the one that told me the statistic but um it was somewhere in the range of one in five christian women have had abortions and so it's not out of the realm to say that that's a possibility in this room and if that is a possibility in this room and as i've been preaching through this there might be a weight that is being felt a grieving a mourning you may know of a christian woman who has done this and there's forgiveness he's making peace by the blood of the cross but

even more than that as we continue just working through our own sins we are to place those sins on jesus because that's the very reason why he went to the cross and so as you're thinking through the wafer i want you to place your sins there he crushed his body in order to crush those sins and as he shed his blood that is to literally wash away those sins so that god remembers them no more it is forgiveness for you is forgiveness for you and so as we read every single week from first corinthians 11 as you do this do this in remembrance of him

for we are proclaiming his death until he comes so right now let's proclaim and worship together as we continue on