(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Today, we're gonna be speaking again from the Christmas narrative.

We're gonna look at a few months before the manger scene, before Jesus was born.

We're gonna look at a passage of scripture that a lady was blessed by God and she became a blessing to so many.

And we're gonna learn today how to position ourself to be a blessing.

How to position ourselves to be a blessing.

How many of you know, if you're going to be a blessing, you gotta first and foremost be blessed, come on.

Yeah, so God wants to bless us.

And when he blesses us, his desire is for us to be the light of Christ in the world we live in and become a blessing to those around us.

And again, the Christmas season is an awesome opportunity for those of us who have been blessed by the cross, the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, it's an opportunity for us to be a blessing to those around us.

And we're gonna learn from a lady named Elizabeth today.

Elizabeth was the aunt of Jesus.

She had a baby named John who was his cousin, but the miracle in her life is actually a miracle we can learn from about how to be a blessing and bless those around us.

If you have your Bibles with you, I'm gonna invite you to open it up to Luke chapter one, Luke chapter one, and we're gonna begin with the story there in Luke chapter one, verse 11.

And this is what the scripture says.

It says, while Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the incense altar.

Zechariah was shaken and he was overwhelmed with fear when he saw him, the angel.

But the angel said to him, don't be afraid, Zechariah.

God has heard your prayer.

Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son and you are to name him John.

You will have great joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord.

Now keep in mind, this John that was born to Elizabeth is the one that we refer to from the Bible as the forerunner of Christ.

The one who announced that Jesus was on the scene and Jesus was on the scene to change a people's life.

And so God is getting ready to bless Elizabeth with a baby named John who will announce the great blessing to humanity that the Messiah, the Christ, the liberator is on the scene.

Come on, somebody.

And so again, she was blessed, why?

So she could be a blessing to so many.

How many of you have been blessed, come on, by Jesus this Christmas season?

And again, the whole reason we have been blessed during this season is because she received the blessing, walked in the blessing, and became a blessing to so many.

The Bible says here in Luke chapter one, picking up with verse 23, when Zechariah's week of service in the temple was over, he returned home.

And soon afterward, his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant, and she went into seclusion for five months.

She declares how kind the Lord is.

He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.

Because in this day and age, her and Zechariah, Elizabeth and Zechariah, had gone a long, long time without having any children.

They had birthed no children.

And if you hadn't birthed any children into your family during this particular time period, during this particular culture, most of the people around you would have begun to look at you as something was wrong with you, that you had done something to displease God, that something was wrong in your family line.

And most people would have been looking at you and saying things about you if you hadn't been able to give birth to a child.

But Elizabeth here, in her old age, she becomes pregnant and she says, now the Lord has taken away my disgrace.

No longer do I have to live in a space and place, but I'm blessed by God so that I can be a blessing.

The Bible picks up the story again in Luke chapter one, verses 36 and 37, as an angel spoke to her cousin Mary and told her a little bit about Elizabeth's birth.

The angel said, Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age.

People used to say that she was barren, but she's now in her sixth month, here it is.

So the writer here writes, the angel said, for nothing is impossible with God.

Nothing is impossible with God.

No situation, no circumstance, no being barren is impossible if God steps in to the situation.

And so if we're really going to be a blessing, like Elizabeth was a blessing to so many, giving birth to John who would announce the Messiah is on the scene later down the road, we have to believe God over the circumstances that surround us.

And again, I think sometimes we believe the circumstances more than we believe God.

But what happens here in this passage of scripture, it shows us how to begin to position ourself to be blessed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-at-one-time God.

That means no matter what the circumstances is, again, Elizabeth is past the childbearing years.

She is too old, so to say, to have a baby.

But God supernaturally shows up and she becomes pregnant with this baby named John and it totally changed everything about her position in life and where she was in life.

She hadn't given up on who God was.

She hadn't given up on who God may have said that she was in the culture.

In other words, she trusted God and she believed that God was for her and not against her.

I think sometimes in our culture, you know what?

If God doesn't show up in the circumstance exactly the time we want him to show up, we think, oh my gosh, you know what?

Maybe I'm not underneath God's hand of blessing anymore.

What did I do wrong?

What did I not do?

What did they do?

And again, we have to begin to believe that God is for us and not against us in the midst of the circumstances.

Again, God's desire, your creator's desire, the one who created you and me, that made us both male and female, he has a desire to build you into something more, to do great and mighty things in you and through you.

But you have to position yourself to receive God's blessing.

What does that simply mean?

That simply means that, you know what, I believe that God wants to lavish his kindness upon me.

And he wants to lavish his kindness upon me so that he can show his power through me.

He wants to lavish his kindness upon me so that he can show his power through me.

God is all about putting his kindness into our life to display his greatness through our life.

Listen to what the Bible says in Romans 2, verse four.

It says, God showed his kindness to people to turn them away from their sin.

The whole purpose in the manger was to show humanity that God is for us and not against us.

He came to us, come on, Emmanuel, God is with us.

You're gonna hear more about that on Christmas Eve.

But God sees where you can be, not where you are.

God speaks life into barren moments, into dry moments, into dull moments.

If you'll simply believe in his kindness, you're not too far for God's reach.

Again, God shows his love to Elizabeth and begins to bless the world through her because she's positioned for a blessing.

Listen to what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter two, verse seven.

It basically says that God has raised us with Christ Jesus.

God has forgiven us through Christ Jesus.

And it goes on there in verse seven to say, so God can point to us in all future ages as examples of his incredible wealth of his grace and his kindness towards us.

So the Bible teaches us that the whole reason God came in a manger, later went to a cross, defeated death, and rose from a grave and ascended to heaven was to show his kindness to all humanity.

And then he wants to grace us or empower us with his power to begin to display his greatness to the world around us.

And so again, I believe with all of my heart that no matter where you came from, no matter how old you are or how young you are, that God wants to lavish his kindness on you.

And you gotta position yourself to receive that kindness.

The only way you can receive the kindness is by faith, understanding that Christ died for you while you were still a sinner.

He wants to lavish God's kindness upon you, God's mercy upon you.

And then he wants to empower you.

Everybody say empower you.

That's what grace is.

Grace is the unmerited favor of God to empower you to do things beyond what you can do in your natural self.

Grace is the empowerment of God in your life.

God wants to fill you with the Holy Spirit to empower you, to shine his light bright into the world so other people can know about his greatness, about his kindness, about his goodness.

But you gotta believe God over the circumstances and the challenges around you.

Are you truly positioned to be a blessing?

Because first and foremost, you gotta receive the blessing, the blessing of life that God came to offer you.

But so many people, whenever things don't happen exactly like they think they should happen, what they do is they sit maybe in a corner and they begin to worry, they begin to whisper, and they begin to whine.

I wanna encourage you in 2024 to recognize that God is supernatural, that His kindness can be lavish to anybody at any place and any time.

And you can receive that kindness and then begin to operate in His timing to be a blessing of those around you.

We can choose, you know what, to believe a God that shows up and does the impossible even when it doesn't seem possible to our own hearts and our own minds or anybody else around us.

Elizabeth received the blessing.

Elizabeth became a blessing to so many.

Actually, it's the whole reason that many of you and I are sitting here today.

It's because she chose to give birth to John, the forerunner of the Christ, the one that announced the Messiah, the liberator is on the scene.

She chose to give birth to him, and God blessed her in an incredible, incredible way.

If we really wanna be positioned to be a blessing, not to just be blessed, we gotta position ourself to be blessed, but if we really wanna be positioned to be a blessing, we have to learn this.

We have to learn the art of celebrating with others.

In spite of how God has blessed them or not blessed them, in spite of what God has given them or not given them.

And again, you know what?

That's exactly what Elizabeth did.

She was cheerful.

You know, the Bible says God loves those who are cheerful.

And the Bible says this in Luke chapter one, verses 39 through 45.

Says a few days later, after she had become a pregnant, she was in her fifth month, a few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived.

She entered the house and she greeted Elizabeth.

At the sound of Mary's voice, Elizabeth's child leaped within her and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Mary has now become supernaturally impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Mary now is pregnant with baby Jesus, the Messiah, the one we celebrate this time of the year that was gonna be born in a manger.

She comes to Elizabeth's house in the sixth month to visit with Elizabeth.

And all of a sudden, the baby inside of Elizabeth, because Mary carrying the Lord Jesus in her stomach, the Bible says, the baby in Elizabeth's stomach leaped with joy because God filled Elizabeth with the Spirit.

The Bible goes on to say in verse 42, Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all the women and your child is blessed.

Why am I so honored, she asked, that the mother of the Lord Jesus should visit me.

When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.

You were blessed because you believed the Lord would do what he said.

Did you catch that?

Mary tells her, you know what, that you're blessed because, you know what, you believe the Lord would do what he said.

And the reality of it is, is Elizabeth celebrates with Mary and Mary's gonna give birth to baby Jesus.

She didn't become jealous because Mary was toting Jesus and she was toting John.

I mean, think about that for just a moment.

And in a human perspective, Mary is being blessed with something greater than Elizabeth.

However, she celebrates with Mary in the birth of her carrying the liberator, the Messiah, a baby Jesus.

And so what we have to learn to do if we're really going to be a blessing to those around us is we have to learn to celebrate God's blessing in somebody else's life.

This is how it begins to flow.

And again, I love Valorous Church.

I love to celebrate what God is doing in and through you.

The various gifts, the backgrounds, the skills that God brings into our church.

And can I tell you something?

There's been a lot of people put their faith in the finished work of Christ because God blessed you with a story, a testimony, a gift, and you use that gift.

And I celebrate that today together with you because it is giving birth to so many in Christ Jesus.

See, this is the point, is oftentimes we don't celebrate what God's doing in somebody else.

I got a phone call just yesterday from a pastor friend of mine who hasn't pastored in this area for a long, long time.

However, in March, they're gonna install him as the pastor of a local church right here in the area that we're planted in.

And so he texted me yesterday and said, hey, you know what?

I'm gonna be installed as a pastor of this particular church and they're gonna be installing me as the pastor of this church.

And it's all gonna happen.

We're gonna have a big ceremony in March.

And I'd love for you to come to that ceremony.

And my immediate response was, I would be glad to come to that ceremony and celebrate with you.

Why would I celebrate with him?

It's simply because, you know what?

God is gonna use him in that time and that space to do great and mighty things in a people that God has selected him to make a difference in their life.

And so I celebrate with him.

Do you celebrate what God is doing through other people?

Or has your heart become jealous and callous because, oh shoot, God gave them the promotion.

But I'm really the one that deserves the promotion.

And again, that's not celebrating.

That's not believing that God is blessing them, is gonna do great and mighty things through them.

And hallelujah, God is elevating them to do greater things.

I'm here to declare if we learn to celebrate with the people around us and the gifts and the blessings that God bestows on anybody else around us, we will become a greater blessing ourself because this is the way God works.

Celebrate what God's doing in people's lives.

Celebrate what God is doing through others.

I mean, again, Elizabeth didn't go, oh shoot.

You know, all I get is that non-athletic John.

And look who you get, Mary.

Get the Heisman Trophy winner, come on.

No, no, no, that's not how she responds.

The Bible says she celebrates the gift that God gave her.

And she celebrates the gift God gave Mary.

And what she does is she choose to birth what God wanted to do in and through her.

And then God did greater things than she could ever imagine or think about or draw up in her own mind.

Because this John become great.

The Bible says he will become great in the eyes of the Lord.

Why?

Because he was gonna make the world's greatest announcement.

King Jesus, the Messiah is on the scene to transform everything.

And this John had the courage and the boldness and the gift to stand up and announce that King Jesus was on the scene and he become great and he become mighty.

It's why I'm here.

It's why you're here.

It's because John did what God designed him to do.

My friend, we have to celebrate what God wants to do through people.

We have to believe God over the circumstances.

And then we have to learn to share what he's placed in our hands.

See, again, oftentimes we don't realize what God has gifted us with because we're so busy looking at the position and what God has gifted them with.

And the reality of it is, is if we would learn just to share what's inside of us, right here and right now, we begin to bless the world around us.

I'm telling you right now, whatever God's entrusted to you this very day, he has entrusted that to you to do great and mighty things through you.

But you have to learn to begin to share that with the world around you.

And it becomes difficult sometimes because the world around you will say, you don't have enough.

You're not skilled enough.

You hadn't taken enough English classes to speak live from a podium.

Come on, somebody.

You didn't pass speech class in college.

Come on, this is the world around you will begin to do that.

And I encourage you, if God said, do it, then you step up and you use what God has placed in you and God will begin to do great and mighty things through you.

But the fear of stepping into the gifts that God has given you and being unwilling to share with the world around you oftentimes sterilize or stalemates people from being everything God's designed them to be.

And I wanna encourage us to be a church that shares what we have.

Let's have a mind shift.

I'm not inviting you to go give away the whole farm because God probably didn't call you to give away the whole farm.

But what God has called you to do is steward what he's placed in your hands and leverage it to be a blessing.

But you can't be a blessing until you recognize the blessing that has already been bestowed upon you.

Look at Elizabeth, Luke chapter one, verse 56.

The Bible says now she's in her third trimester.

In other words, she was probably weighing a little bit more.

She was probably, her ankles were probably swelling a little bit, right?

She was probably had a lot of water weight.

And she probably didn't feel like serving her cousin, her younger cousin, who wasn't old and pregnant.

She probably didn't feel so much like serving Mary.

But look what it says.

Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months.

That means probably till she was about nine months pregnant.

And then she went back to her own home.

Not only did Elizabeth celebrate with Mary, she extended what she had to Mary during that time, showing her hospitality, love, and kindness throughout it all, using what she had in her hand to make a difference in Mary's life.

And what I've discovered in my own life, God is willing to work in people He can work through.

And the question is this, do you really believe that God has placed in your hand and put you in the atmosphere He has put you in, on the street He has placed you on, in the community He has set you in, do you really believe that God so put you there so that you could be a blessing?

I believe the whole purpose that this church, even the physical building and the property itself is here, where it is, in the community, placed where it is with the people it's got, is simply so we can share what we have, the good news of a resurrected Jesus with the world around us through the gifts and talents and be a light to the world.

We don't have everything, but we have what we need.

And because we're willing to keep on keeping on, God keeps on doing what only he can do, blessing other people.

See, the Bible says in Hebrews 13, verse 16, it says, don't forget to do good and share with those in need.

The Bible says in 1 Timothy 6, verse 18, always be ready to share with others.

Jesus tells us in Luke 6, verse 38, give and you will receive.

Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap.

And again, we don't share, so we continue to get.

We share because God has lavished His blessing upon us and we share what we can, where we can, how we can together as His body to make a difference in the world.

And my friend, God continues to bless and bless and bless and bless and bless and bless and bless and bless some more and keep pressing it down, keep pouring it in.

He keeps on doing what He says He's gonna do because we believe God over the circumstances around us.

Don't make God a formula.

God ain't Santa Claus.

He is the creator of the world.

He's the most high God.

He created you and He created me.

And again, this isn't a formula.

Hey, I'm gonna give some more so I get some more.

That's not God's heart in this.

God's heart in this is to recognize what you have been given.

Come on, somebody.

And then leverage it to show His kindness and His power in and through your life.

It has to be God's power that shows up in moments.

It's our faith in this great God, but it's Him showing up, showing off who He is.

God wants to bless the world.

God wants to bless the nations.

That's what the Scripture says.

But the way God does it is through a people who will position themselves to be a blessing and receive the blessing.

The question is, is this Christmas?

Are you just going to let the blessing flow in, or are you gonna continue to let the blessing flow out and make a difference in the world around us?

I believe that Tuesday night, the night after tomorrow night, between four and six p.m., at four and six p.m., at those two services, multitudes of people's life is gonna be blessed with the good news of Christ because we choose to be a blessing.

Let me pray for you.

God, you're an amazing God.

I thank you for every man, woman, boy, and girl here today.

God, I thank you for the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth.

I thank you for their courage of stepping in to who you called them to be, to be a blessing to others around them.

God, I pray today we would be a people that believe you over the circumstances.

We're willing to celebrate with those around us, and we're willing to share what we have to make a difference in the world for your name's sake.

God, may your kindness continue to be lavished out upon us.

May you work in us.

And God, may your power be shown through us as we're being empowered by your amazing grace.

God, if there's one here today that hasn't stepped into that right relationship with you through Christ Jesus, I pray today they would turn away from their sin, they would trust what Christ did on that cross for the forgiveness of sin, they would trust the resurrection of Christ and the ascension of Christ.

And God, may you bestow grace upon them all the days of their life so that they can become all you've created them to be.

God, you don't want us to be alone.

God, you came to make your home in our hearts.

And I pray that we would be the kind of people that receive you and we let you work in us and work through us.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.