Songs of Joy
Download MP3I invite you to open your bibles to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1.
Speaker 2:Verse 39. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And 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 you among 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?
Speaker 2:For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.
Speaker 2:For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
Speaker 2:He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich, he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. And Mary remained with her about 3 months and returned to her home.
Speaker 3:Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great, great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the 8th day, they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah, after his father. But his mother answered, no.
Speaker 3:He shall be called Jammah. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote. His name is John.
Speaker 3:And they all wondered. And immediately, his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them upon their hearts, saying, what then will this child be?
Speaker 3:For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesized, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Speaker 3:And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. The word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to God. You can pray with me. Lord, we thank you for your word. Thank you that just hearing your word read through the power of your spirit, it can change our lives. Lord, I pray that you would change our lives in this place tonight.
Joel Brooks:Lord, I'm convinced that you want to wound some of us in this room. Not to leave us wounded, but to heal us. And so through your spirit, God, I ask that you would wound us where we need wounding. You would heal us where we need healing. But we need to hear from you.
Joel Brooks:That's why we're here tonight is to hear from you, not to hear from me. So Lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord let your words remain and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We are going to finish chapter 1 this week.
Joel Brooks:We're going to make it happen. By the time Christmas comes, we're not gonna still be in the Christmas narratives. We're gonna have moved on. Last week, we saw how the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah and Mary and told them that they would both be having a baby. Both of these would be miraculous births.
Joel Brooks:It'd be miraculous for Zechariah because he and his wife were very old. It'd be miraculous for Mary because she's not married and she is still a virgin. These were pretty big obstacles. It's such a big obstacle that Zechariah had a hard time believing it. He doubted and so the angel made him mute.
Joel Brooks:I was talking with a non believer a couple of months ago and actually raised up the Christmas story as a reason that he couldn't believe. And he said, you know, it's, I have just as much reason to believe in Santa Claus as I would virgin birth. And they're both as ridiculous to me. And, and so I responded. I was like, don't you know there was just as many obstacles for them as it is for us to believe a story like that?
Joel Brooks:I mean, Mary did not think you would drink water and become pregnant or, you know, clip your heels 3 times or something like that. She knew you gotta have sex to have a baby. This was an obstacle for her. It was just as absurd for the people in the 1st century as is absurd for us. But yet Luke wrote this because it happened.
Joel Brooks:And I said, you know, just the Jews in that day, it was a huge obstacle for them to believe that the Son of God would walk on this earth, that God would would make himself flesh. I mean for them that was total heresy. And they had no notion of a triune God, And the thought that God would, you know, that God the Son would come and He'd walk in our midst too much. They were looking for a Messiah, but they were not looking for the Son of God. And and so in the 1st century, there's all these obstacles just as we have obstacles to believe a story like this.
Joel Brooks:There were religious obstacles to the Jews thought there was no way the Messiah was the Son of God. A Messiah was the son of God. A matter of fact, God is not even like that. There was those physical obstacles of, well, you know, virgins don't have babies, And so if you're creating a religion, if you're trying to create something like this, you don't start with a story like this. Even in the 1st century, but something happened.
Joel Brooks:Luke tells us this really did happen. He's saying, Theophilus, you've heard rumors. You've heard these things going around. Let me rest assured, I looked it up. Yes, it happened this way.
Joel Brooks:It's incredible, but it happened this way. I wouldn't tell you if it didn't And it was so unbelievable and so harsh at this time for what Mary was about to experience. I think that's why she runs off to Elizabeth. She runs off to Elizabeth to find the one person who she could identify with Another person who is experiencing the miracle of God in her life, and so she needs to see Elizabeth, even if it means going a 100 miles to be with her. And I love what happens when they meet.
Joel Brooks:I mean, they meet, Mary enters the house and says, greetings, you know, I'm here. Elizabeth hears that greeting and John the Baptist responds before she does. Little John the Baptist goes absolutely insane in her womb, leaping. And, if, if you talk to Lauren, Lauren's going to tell you that she had experienced similar experiences to this when she was pregnant with all of our children, because all of them would go crazy when they would hear me preach. Absolutely crazy.
Joel Brooks:They would go to church, Lauren would be pregnant, and they would be there. Nothing during the announcements, nothing during the music. And then I would speak and all of a sudden our kids would just go crazy inside of her and they would start kicking. Usually her bladder just started kicking away and Lauren would get up and she'd have to leave. And I'd always think, what am I, what did I say?
Joel Brooks:What'd I say? My wife, I speak, she sat through the whole service. I speak, Lauren has to get up and walk out, but our kids would go crazy. And here, Elizabeth is 6 months old. Her Elizabeth has 6 months with child, And that means John the Baptist is 9 inches long.
Joel Brooks:That's a, that's 9 inches span. 9 inches long. He weighs 1 and a half pounds and he recognizes when Jesus comes in that little 1 and a half pound 9 inch, you know, little kid in the womb there is filled with the spirit. And then you have Jesus who's nothing more than, you know, a zygote, just a few cells. He's like 4 days 4 days in the womb growing, and yet, John the Baptist recognizes Him.
Joel Brooks:That's the Messiah, and He leaps. And you really could land here for an entire sermon on the sanctity of life because I find this absolutely unbelievable that little John the Baptist could be filled with the spirit and can recognize Jesus when he's just a few cells. It's not the thrust of this passage. So we're not gonna land here because the thrust of this passage is leading us to the song of Mary. The song of Mary, after she hears these words.
Joel Brooks:Elizabeth says, blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why is it this granted to me that my mother of the mother of my Lord should come to me? You don't hear a hint of jealousy with Elizabeth here. Not a hint that Mary got the greater honor.
Joel Brooks:Not none of that is there. She simply calls, the the woman who comes, Mary who comes the mother of my Lord. And you kind of get where John the Baptist got a lot of his, you know, theology from. Always deferring, always praising the Lord instead of drawing attention to himself. And when Mary hears this, she bursts into song.
Joel Brooks:It's one of the most famous songs in all of the Bible. So famous we give it one of those, you know, fancy Latin names, the Magnificat, the Magnificat. And a lot has been written about this song. You could go through a lot of commentaries and, and certain commentators. They say it's a beautiful song.
Joel Brooks:There's no way Mary could have written a song. There's no way a 14 year old country girl could have written a song like this. It's too beautiful. It has too many theological layers. You know, it uses the, the prayer of Hannah found in 1st Samuel 2 as its base.
Joel Brooks:And then it pulls in no less than 10 to 15 other allusions to different songs and it weaves them all together. And so this beautiful song, very rich in theology. And so a lot of scholars, they look at this and they say, no way Mary wrote this. No way. It's just too good.
Joel Brooks:For me, I kind of think like, this would be the equivalent of Caroline came in and, you know, said I wrote a song and she start singing where the streets have no name or something. And you're like, well, you know, it's a great song, but you didn't write it. Okay. You heard it someplace, you may, but you didn't write this and scholars kind of think the same thing and I think they're mistaken. It's amazing what the power of the Holy Spirit through this little girl, he was saturated herself in the word was able to accomplish.
Joel Brooks:This is what I believe happened. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary, tells her what's going to happen. Like a typical 14 year old girl. She's going, Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
Joel Brooks:Oh my gosh. It's like, I got, what am I going to do? And she's like, I gotta go see Elizabeth. And she heads off 100 mile journey, she heads off, and and that's 4 days. So 4 days she's traveling and she's thinking, what's happening?
Joel Brooks:What is happening to me? Where is this happened in the Bible? Well, the story of Hannah is very similar. She prayed for a child. God gave her a child that was going to be a mighty prophet.
Joel Brooks:And so she's thinking of that song of Hannah. She's going through the psalter and she's, she's going through all of the, the Psalms and thinking, how does this relate to what's happening to me? And so for 4 days, she's chewing on this and then she finally gets to Elizabeth who affirms what's going on and it sets her off. Everything that's been working inside. Everything she's been thinking about bursts out into song, and it's a song that weaves all of these old songs together, yet it's, it's her song.
Joel Brooks:And what we see here really isn't that unusual, especially if you've ever been to the Brooks household. If any of you have ever been to the Brooks household, you will realize that I live my life in a musical. I've got 3 kids, you know, 3 little girls. They're always going around singing and they're dancing and, you know, I'm the guy here, and we just got a girl dogs, and I'm like, really, I'm overwhelmed by all this estrogen. And they're singing and they're dancing and they don't make up songs out of the blue.
Joel Brooks:They've, they've heard songs, but then they change those songs a little bit to mean whatever they want to mean. And I do too. I'm, I'm just as guilty as they are. I sing all the time. To give you an example of what I'm talking about, our youngest girl, Georgia, started walking over the weekend.
Joel Brooks:She just stood up and just started taking steps and we've been encouraging her to do that. And so we we sing to her, you know, we'll sing songs like, you know, stand up, stand up for Jesus, little Georgia, you know, we'll modify it and, and we do that and then sometimes we do it outside and our neighbors are just kind of looking at us. And, I know they think we're like the Flanders family. I'm going to look in like, Hey, diddly do neighbor. I know they have that view of us because we're because we're always doing stuff like this, but we we took this song and we modified it.
Joel Brooks:I do really silly songs. You 2 has kind of been the base of all the songs that I sing because I love U2. And and Lauren, one time, she was asking if I'd found the purple bows, for the girls and I broke into it. I still haven't found what I'm looking for, which wasn't bad enough, cause I mean, it wasn't enough cause I kept going and I started saying, you know, I believe in purple bows. Where have they gone?
Joel Brooks:I don't know. I don't know. And I was like, now I'd get down with my girls, I'd be like, sing with me. Come on, sing with me. And they're looking at me like you're looking at me.
Joel Brooks:You're you're insane. You're absolutely, you're crazy, but there's these songs that, that you know. And then you kind of make up other lines to go with them. You're just kind of filled with joy and you kind of make that song your song to tell your story and he burst into joy and that's what's going on here. That's what Mary's doing.
Joel Brooks:She's heard all of these songs. The song of Hannah, she would have sung every year at one of the Jewish festivals. She's heard that. She knows all of these Psalms. She's been singing those, and now she she takes those as the base.
Joel Brooks:The spirit of God ignites singing in her, and she starts singing and those songs become her songs, and she weaves them together to kind of tell what's going on with her. And it's this beautiful, beautiful worship. Beautiful. You know, when I sing around the house, I'm not brooding, I'm not mad, it's always joy. Don't picture Mary here and I used to for the longest time, kind of somberly saying my soul magnifies the Lord.
Joel Brooks:She is jubilant, bursting into song. Have you experienced worship like that? I think one of the reasons that Luke writes this is because he wants Christians to experience this type of worship. Not somber, but filled with joy. Have you ever just burst into song?
Joel Brooks:I mean, what does it take for you to burst into song? Here she is bursting in song over her savior. I'm gonna quickly give you ways that I think that this can happen, how you can allow this to happen, ways that we see in the text here. First of all, you have to fill yourself with the word of the lord. That's what I would like, I'd call the kindling necessary, is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:That's what the Holy Spirit is going to ignite and to praise. And you see this all throughout her song, it's just full of the word. You know, we live in a generation where everything goes back to Seinfeld. Have Have you ever been in a conversation? Everything goes back into Seinfeld.
Joel Brooks:You're talking like, Hey, did you see the Seinfeld where this happened or the Simpsons where this happened? Everybody's like, uh-huh. And you quote the lines from it. That's the generation we live in. Mary's like, it always goes back to the word.
Joel Brooks:That's the experience she held in common with everybody. That is what she knew. And and so whenever something would pop up, she would think, oh, that's that's it goes back to Hannah. It goes back to Hannah. It goes back to David when he was singing this song.
Joel Brooks:She was so filled with the word. She'd been chewing on these for days. Now I think we live in the age of information, but not thought. And and we like our information in an instant. We want everything in an instant, but God is not like this.
Joel Brooks:You don't get it in an instant. His his words to be chewed on, is to be meditated on, is to be memorized. And so don't think, you know, you could also turn a switch and you have this instant worship. It's not gonna happen. On our Tuesday morning breakfast, we've kind of talked about this when we're looking at wisdom, and wisdom throughout the book of Proverbs is always described as a path, not a door.
Joel Brooks:All of us want the door because we want instant, but it's a path. The path is when he put one step, one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other, and every day you do it every day, you do it. And finally you wear it down and you can see a path. That's what wisdom is. It isn't a door and you open it like, oh, I'm wise.
Joel Brooks:You can't walk out of here and go, I want to worship. Boom. I'm gonna worship. It's a path. Every day pouring yourself in your word, over and over, and then the Spirit of God ignites that.
Joel Brooks:That's what we see here with Mary. I love reading the journals of Jim Elliott. I don't know if any of you have read through his journals. He was a missionary to Ecuador. He was martyred on the mission field because when you read his journals, it's almost impossible to tell when scripture ends and his thoughts begin.
Joel Brooks:It's so woven together. Like, is he quoting scripture here? Is he not quoting? Well, yes, he is. No, he's not.
Joel Brooks:And he just goes in and out, in and out because it was in his heart and it was in his life. That's Mary. Second thing that we see here for a fuel for worship is the need for a true friend. You know, all this stuff's been bottled up in Mary. She's waiting to explode.
Joel Brooks:She encounters Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, when when she sees Elizabeth's delight and the delight that's in her, she cannot help but burst into song. It explodes out of her. Elizabeth is the touchstone that's needed for praise, and that's what is is needed of us. That's what should happen when we gather together for worship. You know, we go outside these walls, the world gives us shameful looks, but when we're together, we see that this person delights in what I'm delighting in and praise explodes.
Joel Brooks:When we see that, when we feel that we encourage one another to launch into praise, not to hold back, not to be ashamed. You look at one another and you need to see that little spark that's there and you wanna blow it. Husbands, you need to be that to your wives. Wives, you need to be that to your husband. You, you, you need to ignite worship in them, not suppress it.
Joel Brooks:Those of you who are looking for a spouse, one of the things you should look for is when I'm with this person, do they a night worship in me? Someone who's not ashamed to see me worship, not ashamed for me to, to raise my hands, or or to sing at the top of my lungs because that's what I'm created to do. 1 who's not embarrassed by that, but who fuels it. Go. That's what you were made to do.
Joel Brooks:We need people like that. Our church needs to be like that. I wish this whole place was just full of Elizabeth's. Stirring up praise in one another. Final thing that we see here that ignites worship is humility.
Joel Brooks:And we've already seen Mary's humility when the angel, when she met Gabriel, and she said, you know, I'm your servant, the servant of the Lord. Look at verse 48. This is in the magnificat, she says, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. Look at verse 52, He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
Joel Brooks:You know, Mary is not just saying this because it's beautiful, it's she's saying this because it's her heart, true humility here. She never got over the fact that God chose her for this. You know in 1963, there was not found a single reference, pre Christian reference to Nazareth, even in 1963. The only reason Nazareth is even famous is because it's Jesus of Nazareth. But trying to find a pre Christian reference, they didn't find one until 1963 because it is such a podunk little town in the middle of nowhere.
Joel Brooks:It is there's no reason to ever reference Nazareth. It's a little little teeny teeny town way out in the country. I like to think of it of the Rootville of our day. Any of y'all heard of Rootville? It's a suburb of Roosterville.
Joel Brooks:Any of y'all heard of Roosterville? Preached at First Baptist Roosterville one time. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's kind of in between the Georgia Alabama state line. That's what I think of when I think of Nazareth, it's Rootville.
Joel Brooks:There's so much out there in the sticks, you know, when John, in John, when, Nathaniel, Philip tells Nathaniel about Jesus, what's his, what does he say? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nazareth? Out in out in the sticks? That's where she's from.
Joel Brooks:I mean, Gabriel passed by the region of Judea, passed by Jerusalem, pass by all of those places and went to this podunk little town, found this little 14 year old country girl, passed over the wealthy, passed over those that you know, who had power passed over the rulers and the Kings and the priests, all those people, and went to that little girl who spoke with an accent. When you picture Mary picture a 14 year old girl who lives way out in the country, has an accent, probably lives in a trailer. She's not stupid, but she's not educated and she loves the Lord. God says, that's the one. He picks her.
Joel Brooks:I've been chewing on this for the last few weeks. One of the lines from her songs just keeps bouncing around in my head. Verse 52, verse 51, when it says, he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Now some of your translations might say imagination instead of thoughts and it's the same idea.
Joel Brooks:And what Mary is saying here is really quite profound, especially for a 14 year old, Quite profound. She's saying, those who claim to power, kings, rulers, you know, the wealthy, those who are well fed, all those people, they're playing pretend. They're playing pretend. I mean, that's all they're doing. It's no different than what Caroline and Natalie do when they're in their play fort and they, they call themselves queens or princesses, you know, and they sit down and they have their tea and they're having this sumptuous meal that's just bark that they picked up from the ground and, and all they're doing is playing pretend.
Joel Brooks:And Mary says she looks at all of those people and she says, God's gonna tear down their imagination. He's going to show them when He shows up, when God comes, He's gonna say, it's just an imaginary world you've been living in. You're playing pretend.
Jeffrey Heine:And then cast it down.
Joel Brooks:You know, when Pilate, when Jesus was at trial before Pilate, I love the comment Pilate says, don't you know that I have authority to release you? Jesus goes, You have no authority. Pilate, you're playing pretend. You know, put on your little crown, dress all up, but you're dressed in an imaginary world. No power is given to you unless I give it to you.
Joel Brooks:Says from then he sought to release him. You know, God has painfully been reminding me of this over the last 6 months, teaching me this. I'm I'm becoming aware that in the past I've had the language of humility, but not the heart. I've had the language of humility, but not the heart. I have, you know, I'll be really vulnerable in front of you guys.
Joel Brooks:I have at times been craving another platform in which to preach. A larger platform like I used to have. I think back to UCF, I'm like, wow, it is a larger platform there and there's not I mean, 99% of me loves this. Then there's that part of me that flares up and thinks, oh, man. But when I had the platform, I had the language of humility.
Joel Brooks:I had it. I convinced myself I believed it. And then God painfully starts bringing out, oh, no, there's pride. You had the language, but not the heart, Joel. And he hurts you, only to heal you.
Joel Brooks:I found myself at times jealous of other pastors, larger churches, But all the time, I I had the language of humility. I was like, that's the language, it's not the heart. Let me wound you a little bit. Let me knock down that imaginary world that you live in, that somehow that platform's better, somehow speaking places like that. Let me, let me just knock that down for you.
Joel Brooks:And it's been good. So good. It hurts when God tells us we've just been playing pretend, because we we think our imaginary world is the real world and it needs to be shattered by God. That's what the Lord does to Zechariah right after this. He shattered Zechariah's world.
Joel Brooks:Zechariah was playing pretend. And so God said, okay, let me shatter that 9 months of silence for you. Yeah, you had the language all before faith, all that stuff, but when I actually came to it, dropped the ball. This is what the Lord does for people he loves. He scatters the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.
Joel Brooks:So if you think you're something because you are a doctor or because you are a lawyer or because you have money or because you're educated and you think you're something because of all things, although you would never really admit it because you're gonna use a language of humility. God needs to shatter that down and say, quit playing pretend. This is something you see God doing over and over in scripture. You know, King David, he really thought he was something. He thought he was something.
Joel Brooks:You know, Saul killed us 1,000. David has tens of 1,000. Darn right, but I'm gonna use the language of humility. And, you know, and he he thinks he's a king and he thinks he's a really good king and and he's a really great king, so he could do whatever he wants. And so he rapes and he murders And he thinks it's okay because he's king.
Joel Brooks:God sends Nathan to wake him up from reality saying, who do you think you are? Who do
Jeffrey Heine:you think you are? Who do you
Joel Brooks:think put you there? What game do you think you're playing David? He's the real king. You don't make up the rules. Peter tells Jesus, I love this.
Joel Brooks:He goes, Jesus, we've given up everything to follow you. I picture Jesus looking back at him smiling, thinking, Peter, what world do you live in? Given up everything? You've inherited 100 of times more brothers and sisters and things in this lifetime. Given up?
Joel Brooks:Or Peter saying, God, even though all all of them might deny you, I will never deny you. Peter, on what planet are you living on? What planet? You you you quit playing pretend. I don't, I didn't call you rock because I saw potential in you.
Joel Brooks:I didn't call you rock because I thought, man, that's a person I want to keep. He's a keeper. He can do great works. That's not it. Before this very night ends, you're going to deny me 3 times.
Joel Brooks:Quit playing pretend. And in this story, Zechariah forgot who he was talking to. Demanded a sign from an angel. That says, okay, be quiet. Be quiet.
Joel Brooks:Let me shake you up out of that imaginary world you're living in. And now please understand that the reason that God tears you down from your thrones, and all of us have thrones that we love to sit on. The reason He tears those down is not just so we could like stomp you down and say, I'm God. Remember that. No, it's to bring you up into worship.
Joel Brooks:That's the goal of it. That's why he does this. So you'll burst into song. So ultimately, you'll become like Mary who says, my soul magnifies the Lord. The Lord.
Joel Brooks:So the Lord brings discipline into your life. It's only so that you might have worship, worship as sweet as Mary's. Not so you could beat yourself up. There's not a hint of Zechariah beating himself up after this, he just burst into praise. You know, you see that in King David, when the Lord restores him, you know, he writes Psalm 51, which we love, cleanse me with the hyssop that might be clean and then Psalm 51 says, restore unto me the joy of my salvation.
Joel Brooks:And then he says, of your salvation, he says, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will return to you. The arrogance, seeming arrogance of that statement, David the adulterer, David the murderer is now going to teach sinners. David, are you gonna come up to me, give me a little marriage advice?
Joel Brooks:You're gonna come up to me and, you know, tell me how to deal with my anger issues. Is that what you're gonna do to me? It's absolutely right. There's not a hint of condemnation when the Lord restores you and he carries you through discipline. Same with Peter.
Joel Brooks:You deny me? Yes. The Lord restores them and says, Peter, feed my sheep. I give you your task once again. Zechariah, there's not a hint of self condemnation after this.
Joel Brooks:Only a burst into praise. And so when God humbles us, embrace it. Sometimes the the humbling is because well, you need to be disciplined. Sometimes it's like Paul and you just need to give, be a thorn and give a thorn into your flesh just to keep you from exalting. Whatever it is, when the Lord brings that in, be patient, endure it, chew on His word because His ultimate goal is worship.
Joel Brooks:Worship like Mary. My prayer for us is that we would truly magnify not ourselves, but the Lord in this place. Pray with me. Lord. May our soul magnify you.
Joel Brooks:Not us Lord. You need to wound a number of people here in this room. We are sitting on Thrones. I pray that you would reveal to us where we have the language of humility, but not the heart. Show us, kick us off our throne.
Joel Brooks:Knock us, you know, so where we, we wake up from the pretend world, this imaginary world we're living in. Refocus us on you. I pray that for those of us in here, we will be touchstones for one another for worship. We would truly ignite one another in praise. We worship you now, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It's in your name we pray. Amen.
