Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey guys, this is naive. And you've reached the Mosaic Church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I'd love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content. If this is blessed you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it. So share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: That was great, right? That was great. We have some amazing people here and it was fantastic. Well, listen, I'm Mike. I'm one of the pastors here and I'm gonna hang out with you this morning. So if you're joining us on Livestream, we're so glad you're here. For those of you in the seats, thanks for being here. So glad you are in this place. We're kicking off a brand new series today and you can see it's called Christmas Reporting on Christmas. I think we came up with this so that the staff person here at Mosaic whose dream is to be a television host. Right.
Could actually help fulfill her dream a little bit. So every week, Merry Christen. I mean, Christmas, Merry Christmas is gonna be here and alongside some people that you're probably gonna recognize. You should have recognized Janania, but they'll be here and making Christ a little lighter and a little more fun. But also, let me, not a spoiler, but let me just give you a little hint at the end of the service when the music's over and everything, don't rush out because after the benediction, there's gonna be the bloopers or whatever, the funny clips after the show of some of the things that happened. So you definitely wanna stick around so you can see what actually happened behind the scenes. Okay. All right. But in, we're gonna be talking about not fake news. I mean, we've heard enough about that, right? We're not gonna be talking about the slanted or the biased news that I sometimes listen to in my truck when I'm riding up and down the road. I just wanna tune in to something. But we're actually talking about good news that brings great joy because it's Christmas time, right? And we'll be using the Christmas story to talk about some of the ways that God interacts with us. And I want to kick this week off by talking with you about how God speaks to us and how we can hear God speak to us and how we can have a conversation with him. Because I don't know about you, but I think some people. I think some people in their lives, they just feel like God has just. I don't know, he's just. He's just dropped us in this world that's full of chaos and said, good luck. Hope it all turns out okay for you down there. But that's not his intention. He absolutely does not intend to just drop us in and just to leave us here without helping us to move along. He wants us desperately to hear from him. And he speaks in different ways. It's not always the same. Sometimes it's a conversation. You know, you just have a conversation with him. And then sometimes he just wants. He just wants to say things to you. In my life, there have been times that he just wanted to speak a truth in my life. Maybe it was something like, I'm so glad I created you that way. Or maybe he wants to give you some direction in your life. Like, yeah, I'm not sure that's exactly what you want to do. Or, yes, just stay the course a little bit longer and it'll all work out. Sometimes he wants to say, yeah, not yet. Just. Just hold off. Or maybe he sometimes just wants to say something so simple, but sometimes it's so complex because he wants us to hear, I love you and I'm proud of you. There's so many different things that God wants to say to us, and that's what I want to talk to you this morning about.
Because his intention is that we actually figure out how to hear from him and how to communicate with Him. I don't know if you seen it in Christmas songs or maybe in Christmas cards, but there's this term that we come across around this time of year. It's the term Emmanuel. Have you heard that word? It's connected to Christmas, but it's also in the Old Testament. It's in Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. And here's what it says. It says, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel. You see, Emmanuel means God with us. Now, don't forget this passage. We're Gonna come back to it and you'll see it show up again a little bit later. But Emmanuel means God with us, which means we can actually hear what God wants to say to us. Because God never far from us.
Now, here's the deal.
I'd like to give you three little steps on how you can hear from God. Or give you some secret recipe that's short and simple and concise. Or maybe just give you some IKEA instructions that just have pictures. Okay? Right.
But I can't do that.
I want to tell you it's easy, but it's not that easy. It takes a little bit of work and a little bit of effort, and it takes a few things that I want to share with you this morning. But it's worth every bit of it because God wants to speak to us and to help us. Now, I'll also admit, for me, sometimes understanding what God is saying feels a little bit like working a puzzle. I don't know if you feel this way, but it feels like putting the pieces of a puzzle together.
Do you even like doing puzzles?
My wife loves doing puzzles. I'll come home and on the table there'll be this box with this picture on it, and there'll be this outline. And I'll look at it and I'll say, wow, you're making really good progress. And I look at the rest of the table, and it's chaos.
It looks like there are a gazillion pieces out there. The box says 200, and it looks like they go on and on forever. Well, here's the problem. I hate puzzles.
If you don't know this about me, I'm colorblind.
So matching this side up doesn't work for me. I would do better with this side. All right. I just look at the shapes and figure out how they go together, but I don't like it. But listening to God, hearing from God is sometimes like putting a puzzle together. And it takes some work and it takes some awareness to recognize it. Let me give you an example of how this has happened in my life. There was this time before we moved back to this area that I pastored a church. And it in eastern North Carolina. It was in near Greenville, North Carolina. And after about five years into being there, I felt like God was kind of. I was a little restless. Something. God was doing something preparing me maybe for what was next. And we loved where we were. My kids had best friends. They could roam around the neighborhood on their bikes, and we didn't worry about them. It was just a small Town. Jennifer and I had great friends. I had the church. I had just helped them go through this process of paying off all the debt that they had. Ministries were healthy, the church was growing, everything was good. But I don't know, I felt like I had this positive anxiousness or positive restlessness about what actually could be.
See, that's definitely a way that I would describe how God speaks to us, which makes it like pudding, a puzzle together, because it just gives us a little bit at the time. There's this feeling, not necessarily a bigger and better. I don't necessarily think it comes, like bigger or better, but sometimes it just feels positive. It feels full of hope for what could be. So what I did was I just kind of began opening myself up to what this next puzzle piece could be that came my way. And I just started walking. Here's an when you begin sensing that maybe God's speaking to you, and maybe this is before you really begin to recognize his voice, but you feel like it's God, one of the things that you can do is just start going in that direction. Maybe you feel like God's got a different job for you. Well, start going in that direction, whatever that means, and see where and what happens, and without trying to force it, but just, you know, give God some room to work and begin to listen. So it was about this time of year. I was at my mom and dad's house. I was still pastoring this church. I was at my mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving. I think it was the day after Thanksgiving. And we were there in the house, and the phone rang, the landline. Probably nobody has a landline anymore, but they still did because they're old, okay?
And so I answered it, and on the other end of the phone was a person who said, james. And I said, no, this is Mike. James is my dad. And she said, oh, really? She said, I was actually calling to get your phone number. It was the chairperson or a chairwoman of the pastor search committee at a Baptist church. I was in the Baptist world then. You remember, I sometimes describe my. I'm a recovering Baptist a little bit. So she said, really? This is you? I was calling to get your number. So immediately what I thought was, okay, here's a couple more pieces to the puzzle. And I wasn't even expecting it. So we talked for a few minutes, and shortly thereafter, I set up an interview with her and the committee. And I went and talked to them. Everything went great. It felt good. They were super nice people. But it was in the holidays, and I was getting ready to leave on a mission trip. And so I said, you know what? Hey, let's just. Let's just hit pause. Let's get through the holidays. Let me get through this mission trip, and we'll come back and, you know, we'll talk about this in January. It will also give me a little bit of time to really lean into. To hear God. At least that's what I was thinking. I didn't say that I didn't want to turn them off, but I wanted to know that this was what God was doing. And so I just went through the process, and it finally ended up where I'm on my knees and I'm praying and praying and reading scripture and praying some more and reading Scripture and just begging God to answer the question, is this what you have for us? And when I say us, I mean my family, because we would all be going, is this what you have for us and for me? And, you know, when I think about that, which you may think that that's where you're supposed to hear God on your knees, praying, reading scripture. Maybe that's the only way you think you hear God praying, reading scripture. It's quiet. You're away from all the distractions. But sometimes it happens over a period of time. And ultimately, and honestly, sometimes that can be the most frustrating experience when you're praying and praying and you don't hear anything, and you don't hear anything.
But on that particular day, I don't know whether it was because I kept praying and I wouldn't leave God alone or what it was. But on that particular day, I heard him say four words, kind of like right out of Scripture, not audibly. I just knew these were the words for me, these four words. And they were this, wait a little longer.
And so that's what I did. I backed off and I waited a little longer. But let me tell you, a little longer can be two years, because it was two years until things materialized. And so I think what we have to know is that God can speak to us and typically speaks to us through time, days, weeks, even months. In my case, it was a couple of years. Now, it doesn't mean he has to speak that way. Sometimes he can speak in time, I would say, which is immediately since coming to Mosaic, there was this period of time when, you know, things were a little odd, things were a little off. I wouldn't say it was a positive restlessness, but some things just seemed odd. And I began to think in my mind, well, maybe. Maybe God's Got something else out there.
And so I began to wrestle with that a little bit, and just me. I wasn't really talking to him about it. But then one day I said. I was just like, okay, God, I'm just processing this. I'm definitely inviting you into this. And I said, you know, I don't know if I'm supposed to be here anymore. And almost immediately, he said to me, four more words.
Stay where you are.
I'm good. Got it. And I kept going. All right, but that's pretty much what happened in the Christmas story, right? I just didn't get an angel like they did in the Christmas story. Okay, I got some words, but I didn't get an angel. I mean, you do know the Christmas story, don't you? And when I say Christmas story, I'm not talking about Christmas vacation.
I'm not talking about Home Alone, what you watched over the weekend, maybe a Hallmark Christmas special. I'm talking about the Christmas story with Mary and Joseph. But even before Mary and Joseph, I don't know if you think about this, even before Mary and Joseph, nine or 12 months before, there was another couple that was involved in this story that kind of kicks the story off. Zechariah and Elizabeth.
So if you don't know the story or you need a little bit of refresher, here it is. Zachariah. Yes, Zachariah. He's. Like I said, he's not typically the person you think of, but he launched his story forward because, again, the Christmas story was a little bit like putting a puzzle together.
There were all these prophecies that came about that are recorded in Scripture, where God actually dropped in little clues about how he would invade, physically invade humanity with his presence and how it would happen. And some of these people wrote it down. One of those people is Isaiah. And In Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 3, here's what we find. A voice of one calling in the wilderness. Prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley will be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rugged rough ground shall become level, the rugged places plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Now, this prophecy has a lot of implications. It talks about the mountains coming down the valleys being raised up. The implication is that this thing that is coming, this gift that is coming, will be available to every person. Every person will have access. But it's also.
It's also that a person is coming as a sign to prepare the way. And the father of this person is actually Zacharias. Zachariah was a priest on duty at the temple in Jerusalem. And it was his turn to go into the temple and to burn incense. Because here's what they believed, as odd as it might sound. They believed that the people, only the priests could go into the temple. The people stood outside praying. The priest goes into the temple, he lights incense. Because they believed as they were praying, the smell and the smoke from the incense would carry the prayers up to God. And that's how they got to God.
The whole idea of having a conversation with God wasn't a thing yet. It just wasn't even something that they could process. They believed that God's presence was in the temple and it could only be accessed in the temple, and only a priest could go in the temple. So they needed a priest. So it's Zacharias turn to go into the temple and to burn incense. He goes into the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant is, which in the ark was the stone tablets from the Ten Commandments that Moses had. They put it there that represented God's presence. And so Zechariah goes in there, and while he's in there doing his thing, I don't know, maybe he was just kind of, you know, sweeping the ashes from the incense off the table. All of a sudden, out of the corner of his eye, he saw this angel standing. And I don't even know if he knew it was an angel at first. It doesn' say that Gabriel was standing there with wings and a halo. Okay, like we think of an angel. But he was there, and he said to Zachariah, I guess this is how you know, this an angel. Do not be afraid. But he scared the mess out of Zechariah because nobody else was supposed to be in there. All this, by the way, is in Luke, chapter one. You can. You can read it this way. But the other part you need to know about Zechariah is that he and his wife Elizabeth didn't have any children. Not because they didn't want to have children, but because she had never been able to conceive. And now the scripture tells us that they are very old. So the angel appears to Zechariah and tells him that his prayer has been answered and that he and Elizabeth are gonna have a child. And it's obvious that Zechariah reacted to this good news. Okay?
Some people think that he laughed, but we don't know. Some people think maybe he rolled his eyes at the idea that he was gonna have a child at such an old age. But we don't know that either. What we do know is that he doubted Gabriel because he said to Gabriel, okay, so how can I be sure of this?
How can I be sure of this? Is that not like the $10 million question, when we begin to hear from God?
Do you ever feel like that when you pray and you think, you feel like God's speaking to you and you feel like there's an answer coming? How can I be sure of this? Of course we do. But again, here's what I've learned. Most of the time, God speaks to us through time. And so when I feel like God is speaking to me, I'm gonna step back, I'm gonna give him a little room to work, and I'm going to exercise some patience, but move forward strategically, as if I'm aware of what he's saying. And think about the story. I mean, Zechariah really didn't need to push the issue, right? I mean, a lot of things have to happen for a baby to be born. Okay? So Zachariah could, you know, he could just strategically go about this and see what happens. But an angel shows up to Zechariah. He doubts, and the angel's not real happy about it.
The angel says to Zechariah, look, dude, I know you're a priest, but I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now, since you doubt what I'm saying, I'm going to close your mouth. And what happened was Zechariah was not able to speak until the child was born. And when the child was born, there was some confusion about what his name would be. And so finally, Zechariah wrote on a tablet, his name is John. And that's when his mouth was open. Of course, John. John the Baptist, if you know the story, is that child that came to prepare the way.
So here's what you can take away from this. In the event that you have an angelic experience, just go with it, all right? Just go with it. So that's Zechariah and Elizabeth's story. But let's move on to the story. You're probably more familiar with the Mary and Joseph story.
Mary was Jesus mother, and she has a little bit better outcome. So you'll see how this story fits together, because Elizabeth has been pregnant for six months now with John. And God dispatches Gabriel once again to see Mary, who is a relative of Elizabeth. And here's what the scripture says. In Luke 1:26, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David, the virgins. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. So it's safe to assume that up until this point in time, this is the first time Mary has ever heard God or any representative of God. Mary's young, probably a teenager. Now I'm not saying teenagers or even younger people can't hear from God. I believe today they do. But to hear from God in that day, they not only it wasn't part of their belief, but they certainly didn't expect it. Now Mary would have grown up in a Jewish home. She would have been told about God. She would had all this head knowledge. She would have spoken prayers in the morning, prayers in the evening before they went to bed. I mean, that was just their tradition. But there was no expectation that God would ever speak to them or that anybody would ever have a conversation like that with them.
And there's also no indication again that Gabriel shows up in any angelic looking way. He probably just looked like a semi normal person. And a normal greeting in that day would have been shalom. It would have been shalom. And the expectation is that the person in front of them would say that back to them. It identified the two people as Jewish people because if you said shalom and the person in front of you said something derogatory, then you knew they weren't a Jew.
But it was just the way they greeted one another. And it also meant something else that you're probably familiar with. It means peace, or more literally upon you be well being. So it's like you blessed a person when you came into their presence. But that's not what Gabriel said. Gabriel said, greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. He has this incredibly articulate opener because he's getting ready to just shake her world.
Here's how it goes on in verse 30. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son. And you shall call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Jacob's kingdom and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end.
How will this be? Mary asked the angel, Since I am a virgin now, that is a legitimate question, right? She didn't doubt, but she did want to know.
Because we all know how babies are born, and no one is going to believe this story. Janani knows how babies are born, and this is impossible. But the angel goes on and he says, let me explain. The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.
You see, that right there is why it's so important that we learn to hear from God and to have a conversation with God, because no word from God will ever fail.
Hearing from God is knowing your future and the direction of your life. Right? You get that? Hearing from God is knowing your future and the direction that your life is supposed to go in. And her response to what will ultimately cause chaos in her life. Because no one in this small town of Nazareth. I don't know if you've ever been a part of a small town where everybody knows everybody's business, but nobody is going to believe that a baby is gonna be born without two people coming together. They just are not.
It's gonna begin like this for Mary. It's gonna begin with people whispering behind her back, and then there's gonna be ridicule. And then she's at least gonna be expected to feel shame because people are talking about her.
But here's how Mary responded to this whole idea.
I am the Lord's servant, she answered. May your word be fulfilled.
I guess you could say teenagers are just a little naive, right?
I mean, she was ready to embrace this. I don't know. I don't know. But here is what's beautiful about this interaction. In a world where divine interventions just didn't happen and were absolutely not expected, she was open. She was open.
Are we open to hearing God? Are we open to letting God in? Are we open to letting God work in our lives? Maybe even bringing a little chaos into our worlds? If you want to hear from God, you have to be open. And I think he has to know you're open to it. So what does it look like? Here's what I think you have to do. First, I think there has to be an invitation to God to speak to you. I believe an invitation does two things. I believe it not only communicates to God that you're interested, that you want to know what he wants from you, but I believe it also creates inside of us an awareness that it might happen. It creates an expectation.
And I don't mean like to just say right now in this place, one time, okay, God, I'm ready to hear. No, I think it's something that you do every day. I think it's something that becomes a part of your process. And you're telling God almost on a daily basis. And I don't think it has to be at a certain time, but I do think it has to happen that you say to God, I'm ready to hear. I want to hear what it is you're saying. And again, I believe it creates an awareness, an expectation in our lives.
I think that's why Zechariah and Mary were confronted by an actual angel. Because in that world, they never would have expected to encounter God or a representative God.
And today it's not that way. Today we can expect that. That's the whole idea of Emmanuel. God with us, we can absolutely expect to encounter God in our lives. So if you want to hear from God, you have to expect it. Besides, based on this story, I'm not quite sure any of us want an angel encounter. Because you know what happens when angels come along? People end up pregnant. That's what happened in the story. All right, so a couple of weeks ago, God spoke to me again. And it was weird, you know, I didn't completely understand what it was all about. And I don't even know how to explain it other than we just had a conversation again. I wish it was simple. I wish I could tell you exactly how to identify it and how it happens. But for me, it was. It was just a conversation. As I was going.
It wasn't audible, but it was just as I was moving. And it was kind of out of the blue. And I didn't totally understand why we were having this conversation again. It was just a couple pieces. And so I went along, I had this conversation. And about a week later, I'm engaged in another conversation.
And I realized that I had had this initial conversation with God because somebody was going to say something to me that I needed to respond to. And if I would not have had that conversation, I would not have been ready to respond. And so there are so many implications in talking with God. It sometimes happens like that. There's another conversation that God and I are having. Even now, not right now, but we're just walking along and I'm telling you, it's not typically when I'm praying, it happens at some of the most odd times. But we're having this conversation. He's spoken to me, and he said, you know, I want you to do something. And I'm trying to figure out what it is that he wants me to do.
And I do know it involves my wife. And so we had a conversation about it, and she said, okay, all right, let's just keep processing this and praying about this and figure out what it is you're supposed to do. Because when it happens, I want to be like Mary. I want to be ready to do my part. And I know that it's left to me. I won't be. And so I wanna lean in to whatever it is that God's saying. And speaking of spouses, there's one more person involved in the Christmas story, right? Joseph. Joseph. He didn't get a personal encounter with an angel. All he got was a dream. Okay, a dream with an angel. He did get an angel, but it was in his dream. And.
And so there's another little hint in scripture I think we can take away. God does speak in dreams. I know that may sound odd to you, but God can speak to us in dreams. Here's what happened. Mary is engaged to Joseph. Not really engaged like we think about being engaged today. It was just kind of arranged. And he's going through this process. There's some rituals. He's got to pay Mary's father a certain amount of money. And there are all these things that are supposed to happen through this engagement or arrangement process. And in the process, he finds out that Mary is pregnant. And so he comes up with a plan in his mind, same plan probably most guys might would come up with. Knowing that there's no way it could be his child, he decides he's going to break it off. But we learn that Joseph in this process. We learn in Scripture that he's a compassionate guy because he planned to do it quietly because he didn't want to bring any humiliation to her. And here's what it says in Matthew, chapter 1, verse 20. But after he had considered this breaking it off, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, joseph, son of David, do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. To which he probably said, oh, okay, that makes Perfect sense, he went on. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. Here it is again. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him what?
Emmanuel? Which means what God with us?
God can speak to us even in our dreams. Now, I'm not saying that all of your dreams are God speaking. I had a dream this week. Somebody gave me a new truck. I think it was because I was watching a commercial on TV and eating chocolate before I went to bed. All right, that's probably not gonna happen, but here's my litmus test when it comes to dreams.
Number one, if I still remember the dream after a certain amount of time, after I wake up, I take special note of it. And number two, if it makes sense and it seems realistic. Now, when I say realistic, I don't mean it has to be things played out perfectly. One particular dream I had was very metaphorical. But I remember this dream even to this day, and it was so significant to me. But I think it has to be vivid. I think it has to be realistic, and it has to be memorable.
When I had that dream that time, it really threw me off because it was probably the first time I had ever had a dream where God was actually speaking to me. But there was something so unique about it. So what I did just kind of, I don't know, checking it out. I talked to some people that I was with, and I said, hey, you know, they understood the situation we were in. I said, hey, this is what happened.
Now, they couldn't authenticate it. They weren't a part of the dream. But based upon the situation we were in, they definitely affirmed it. So God can speak to us even in dreams. But this may sound like a lot of work to you, and as much as I'd like to tell you that you could just pick up the phone and talk to God, it doesn't work that way. It takes effort. It takes awareness. It's difficult sometimes, but the rewards far outweigh the effort it takes. Because I really don't believe God ever intended to just drop us into the world and say, good luck. That was never his attention.
And one of the ways over the years that I think God has helped me to even hear his voice a little bit better is sometimes it's this idea of, like, prophetic prayer. And sometimes we would. And maybe we'll do this in 20. Keep an eye out for this. Maybe we'll do this. It's almost like. It's almost like hearing from God 101. But we would get together in a group and we would pick one person and we would say, okay, let's pray for this person. Let's listen for God.
Let's see if God wants to say something about this person. We would pray, and then we would just be silent. And the focus is on this person. And we would ask God for a word. We would ask God for like a picture or something like that.
And almost every single time that I've ever done this, all the people in that group saw something or heard something. And it was just an easy way in a group of people to just lean into what God was saying. And it helped being there with one another because we focused our attention on that one person. And God almost always would speak in that. So maybe we'll do that. Keep your eyes open for that in 2025, and maybe we'll practice that and see how it goes. But, I mean, sometimes some crazy things came out of that. But it was beautiful. It always came together in a beautiful picture. So here we go. If I can sum up kind of all the things I've tried to communicate to you today, here's what I would say. Number one, be open. Be open to it and communicate to God that you want to hear what he has for you.
So important. Be patient.
Realize that sometimes God can speak in time.
But most of the time I find that when I'm hearing from God, it's through time.
And it takes days and weeks sometimes.
Number three, be aware by expecting God to show up. Maybe not in a normal place, maybe not on your knees, but just be aware and expecting God to just invade your world with his presence and with his voice as you're going about doing life.
And be strategic. Work out how you can walk along without forcing things, giving him room to work in your life to show you how all the pieces come together.
Because when you do this, you will see the bigger picture. Here's my puzzle. A bigger picture at the end, the Nativity. Here you will see how it all comes together.
That's what happened in the Christmas Story.
And finally, be prepared.
Be prepared to respond like Mary did.
Whatever it is, I'll do it. Whatever it is, I'm ready for it. Whatever it is, I'm with you.
I wish Saint was telling you it was a piece of cake. I can't say it enough.
It's not a piece of cake, but it's worth every bit of the effort it takes to really begin to recognize when God's speaking to you. And I want to pray that over you this morning. Can I do that? Would you stand with me? Let me pray for you. Let me pray that you will be able, if you don't already, to hear God speaking in your life and just guiding you through this world. Father, just thank you so much that when I think about you, I think about Emmanuel.
I think about the fact that you are never far from us and got to think about the fact that you are always speaking.
God, would you just help us?
You condition our hearts that we would lean into what it is that you want to say to us. God, you might be speaking something to us today, right in this very moment. Maybe somebody here just needs to hear you saying that simple and complex statement, I love you and I'm so proud of you.
Or maybe there are other things that we're going through in our life, God, things that we just need. We just need your input on.
God, would you just allow us to hear your voice?
Would you give us the desire to work the process of inviting you in and being aware and being ready for whatever it is you have to say?
But God, most of all, we just thank you that you are never far from us.
Help us to feel that, to know that and to hear your words. Pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaic Church tv.
