Alright, good morning. Welcome to Breen Community Church. As you guys know, I came back from a short break. And at the beginning of that break I was out in India and I wanted to give you a brief update of what's going on. And the pastors there sent me a little video, or I was able to get a little video saying thank you and hello to our church.

And I tried to upload it on the Facebook but it didn't work. So Facebook was broken. So when it's no longer broken it should be up. Okay? So you can go check it out sometime this week. Hopefully I can get it to work. Just a couple things I want you to be aware of.

We haven't been able to go out to India for several years because of what's been going on. And we are hoping, part of the reason why I wanted to go there is obviously I wanted to check up on the pastors and see how they're doing. We needed to get some resources to them so that they can use that to support their ministry.

But the other reason was I wanted to see if we can get back in there. Like is it okay? Is it going to be too hard to travel and to get to the places that we're at? And so the conclusion that I came with is that India has actually opened up more than the other Asian countries.

And so Delta was so severe over there. They informed me that not only Pastor Isaac, who was the main guy that was going to take over that ministry, but several of the pastor's wives passed away. And then their friends from other ministries, they've also experienced it quite a bit.

So they said almost everybody there knows somebody who passed from Delta. But as a result of that, because it spread so widely and their vaccine kind of got there so late that now, you know, there's almost like a herd immunity. The numbers there are pretty low. And so it is capable.

We are able to come in and travel and do the things that we were doing before. And they are not demanding vaccination. They're only demanding that you get tested before you come. So as long as you have a negative COVID test, you're able to come into the country and function.

So we are planning to get back in there in January. And so I know some people have been asking us when that's going to happen. And then so within the next couple of months, when we make the final decision and we come with solid dates, I'll let you guys know.

And even though it is a medical mission, you don't have to be a medical doctor. We have eye doctors that come in. That's kind of our primary work. And then people come in and do the assisting work. So we need more assistance than the eye doctor. We only need about three or four eye doctors.

And then everybody else will come and assist their work. So the work that we've been doing there has been, again, very helpful because it gives them a platform to preach the gospel. And those of you who've been there with us know just how effective it is because they're able to get into villages that they would not normally go into.

In fact, the last time we were there, we had a young pastor, probably in his late 20s, who was a schoolteacher. He's more educated than most of the pastors there. And he functioned as one of the translators for us. And he was trying to break into this new village, but because he was so young, and it's a very Asian culture, and so because he was so young, he was having a hard time even being able to talk to them.

And obviously because Hinduism is the prominent religion there, they were just kind of brushing him off and kind of like, "Who's this young guy coming in here?" And so we were able to set up our medical camp there. And you could tell the attitude toward that pastor started changing even while we were there because they were so thankful that we were there ministering to them.

And they're very surprised that even though we're Christians, that we were ministering to the Hindus. And that gave them the platform to be able to speak to them. And then the information that we got after we left was that the village leaders actually invited him to come after we left because they were so thankful.

And so he had an opportunity to share the gospel and begin church planting in that village. And so one of the things that has happened, obviously the Delta and Pastor Isaac passing away as a result, but they're just as active as they were spreading the gospel, but the persecution has increased exponentially during the lockdowns.

And so when we first started going in, they were listed at number 30-something, and then by the time we, I think it was locked down, they were ranked number 10, the hardest place to be a Christian in the world. This is like with Yemen and North Korea and all these countries, and so India is starting to creep up.

And so I haven't looked at the latest numbers, but from what I've been told, that if it was bad two years ago, it's gotten much worse than that. And so one of the things that they told us was not only the physical danger that they're in when they go into these new villages, is that now the local government has openly declared that they're not going to support the Christian families going to public school, because they function with some kind of voucher system where the parents get the funding, they use that to send their kids to school, but they have openly said that they're not giving it to Christians anymore.

So I asked them, "So what do you do with your kids?" They said, "So some of the parents who have some resources are able to get their kids into some discounted schools, like a Catholic school, which gives them some discount, but a lot of the village pastors are taking their children out to the fields.

So when they work, their 5-, 6-, 7-, 80-year-old kids are also in the field working with them because they have no other option." So it's a concerted, long-term effort from the government to weed out Christianity in the country. And so they're making it impossible for Christians to raise their children, and I think their hope is that by the time those children are adults, that Christianity will be weeded out.

So the conversation that we've been having, I already brought this up with our leaders, and I'm in the midst of talking to trying to get other churches involved in helping us possibly establish a school for these Christian children, and I've already had a brief conversation with them, like are they able to run a school if we provided the support and bought land and made the building and gave the financial support, and they said they are able to.

So we're hoping that that would be our next project, that we're engaging, along with our medical missions that we're doing. There are other things that I'd like to update, but for the sake of time, I'll just leave that for now. But the work in India will reopen, and again, if you are praying about going back out with us, in about a month or two, we'll give a formal announcement for you to sign up.

And again, we can only take anywhere from 12 to 13 people, so if you are praying about it, make sure when we give the announcements to try to sign up as soon as you can. All right, along with that, today there's a newcomer's lunch happening at 115, so if you signed up for that, please stick around in the sanctuary, and lunch will be had here.

Summer Maintenance Day, so today is a church cleanup day, so if you are free around 3.30, whether you signed up or didn't sign up and you're free at 3.30, 3.30 to 6 o'clock, you'll be given some guidance as how to implement this, so if you can just come back to church at 3.30, we'll give you instructions on what to do.

Berean membership class, a new round of membership classes happening starting from July 10th at 9 a.m. It's an eight-week course, and so that will take place during our first service at 9 a.m., so please sign up for that. And then child care safety training, if you are working with children or planning to work with children, in our Sunday school, July 3rd at 1 p.m., there is a mandatory training for you, so please come to that.

And then finally, on July 10th at 1 p.m., we have a seasoned community group fellowship, seasoned meaning you're 50 or over. Previously, we said 40 and over, but 40 is no longer seasoned, okay, so we moved that up, okay, so you need a little bit more time to be seasoned, so 50 and over, so if you're in that category, please sign up for that.

It'll be on the church website, or you can contact me directly. The lunch fee is going to be $10, and I mentioned this before. We have people who are over 50. When you first enter the church, we just—first reaction is, "Oh, man, this is a church filled with college students," and then you get to know the church a little bit.

It's like, "Oh, there's a lot of young adults in here," but you'd be surprised. We have over 70 people, over 50, at our church. Even I was surprised by that, you know, and so we're going to—again, if you're a part of that, you don't have to be a member.

If you want to come and participate in the fellowship, please sign up for that, and again, the lunch price will be $10, okay? All right, so let me pray for us for the offering, and then after that, our brother Brayden Woo is going to come give his testimony. He'll be baptized this morning.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank you for your mercy and grace for God that sustains us. I pray that no matter what we've been distracted by this week, this month, help us to give our full attention to worshiping you, to calibrate our hearts, our thoughts, our hopes to be in Christ and Christ alone.

I pray that you would bless this offering. May it be multiplied for your use, for your kingdom, for the spreading of the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Church family, would you please stand with us as we continue our worship? Hi, my name is Braden Wu and I am a finished second year at UCI studying business admin.

Growing up, I was born into a Christian home and I went to church pretty much every Sunday. My mom was a Sunday school teacher and my dad was pretty involved in the church too, so I had known a lot about all the Bible stories and what the right answers were.

When I was in first or second grade, my mom gave me a gospel presentation and walked me through what it took to believe. Partly because I wanted to be a part of the club my big sister was in, and partly because I wasn't sure what it meant, and partly because I was scared of death, I prayed a prayer and superficially asked Jesus into my heart.

I continued going to church throughout elementary school, and through my conduct outside of church, it was pretty evident that I had not been truly saved. The life I had lived had been only to serve myself and to truly pursue all that I felt that I wanted. I turned away from everything I had said I wanted to believe in, and I lived in a worldly life.

I didn't care how I treated others, and I only lived to do things that made me happy. I truly was a self-centered sinner. It didn't help that around this time I started to competitively play hockey, and I would have to drive about an hour to and from practice three to four times a week, which meant that I had not a lot of time to focus on church or that part of my life.

And more than just simply focusing on something else, it was focusing on myself, choosing to indulge in what I wanted to do, and turning my back on attending weekly service. Pairing this with the fact that my family had recently started attending a new church meant that I had a few, not many friends there, and it just led me to not wanting to attend church all that much.

I continued in this mindset up through middle school, and even though I still considered myself a Christian, I had no understanding of what that truly meant. Through God's great grace, it turned out that I would begin to realize what following Christ truly meant through hockey. In the summer, entering high school, I attended a hockey camp run by Christians, and one of the nights when we were singing for worship, it dawned on me that I was a sinner, a truly terrible person, and I was in need of a savior.

I saw the grace that God had given us, and how through the death of Jesus Christ I could receive this grace through faith. Ephesians 2, 4-5 says, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved." And 1 Timothy 1-15 says, "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." These two verses sum up a lot of what I realized at that time, knowing that I was a dead sinner, the worst even, but that I could receive grace from a perfectly loving God through Jesus' death and life through his resurrection.

That night I prayed that I would turn from all the various sins that I had been living in, and that I would be forgiven. This was only the beginning of my understanding, because although the desire was there, I felt that I kept being set back through a lack of consistent Bible reading and continually falling into sin.

Thankfully God was still able to work in me, and although at the time I couldn't see it, getting cut from the highest level of hockey was one of the biggest blessings in my life. It afforded me more time to go to church, growing in my friendships, but more importantly in spirit.

Around the same time I was going through some high school, a drama which concluded with the realization that God had a perfect plan for me, and that I could trust him with my future. A verse that I kept with me from that time was Matthew 6, 33-34, from the Sermon on the Mount.

The verse reads, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." That verse encouraged me that I didn't need to live in anxiousness, because ultimately all I needed would be provided as I strived to live in his righteousness.

I sought out discipleship at my home church and slowly began to grow as I learned more and more about God's person and my own sin. Bible reading became more consistent and I saw growth in the way that I learned to pray. Today, by God's grace, I have been able to find a church in which I feel that I am growing a lot.

I am challenged every day to live every moment for the glory of God, and I have continued to grow in my spiritual disciplines. Romans 12, 1-2 summarizes a lot of what I have been learning this year. "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." I see how good he is, and I desire to glorify him in all that I do, walking faithfully day by day, being sanctified, and continuing to humble myself in submission and obedience to God.

I had been hesitant in the past about being baptized because I felt that I had to be a better Christian, but I have come to learn that baptism isn't about being the perfect Christian, but rather being obedient to Christ and a public profession that Jesus is my Lord and Savior.

Thank you. Thank you, Brayden, for that great testimony, and for all you college students. They're almost cultic, the way they stick together. If you could turn your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 1, verse 39 to verse 46, and I'm going to read the whole of it, reading out of the NASB.

Luke chapter 1, verse 39 through 46. "Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cried out with a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what has been spoken to her by the Lord.

Mary said, 'My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has had regard for the humble state of his bond slave. For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

And his mercy is upon generation after generation, for those who fear him. He has done mighty deeds with his arms. He has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down the rulers from their thrones and exalted those who are humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed.

He has given help to Israel, his servant, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever. And Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned to her home.'" Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for your blessing. Help us to glean and understand more than just thoughts, but your very heart.

Help us, Lord God, to be moldable as you are the potter and we are the clay. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, as I start and jump back into the book of Luke, I wanted to highlight, and it is kind of related to the text that we're at, but it is not the point of the sermon.

If you notice in Luke chapter 1, as Elizabeth is speaking to Mary, the way she says, "The baby inside of her leaped." And she was about six months pregnant already when this happens. And she recognizes that Mary is pregnant with the child of God, the son of God. I want to highlight here, because of something spectacular that has happened this week.

Roe v. Wade has been overturned. And those of you who have been Christian for a while, you know the struggle that Christians have had for over 50 years. Because if there is one law we can say with confidence was evil, was this law. It was evil. Because it was a specific targeting of a child.

And it has progressively gotten more evil through the years because more and more there's been conversations about even terminating that baby after it comes out of the mother's womb. Because if the intention was to kill the baby, it is not a baby, even after it was born. I don't know how a Christian could possibly defend that.

But to my shock and surprise, in the last few years, we've had Christians, sometimes even leadership, somehow defending and almost supporting. And so, again, it shouldn't be a shock if we've been seeing the degradation of the church, where the Bible has been taken out, where right and wrong has no longer been centralized in the scripture.

It's more of what you're hearing from society, that even the church leaders are more concerned about how non-Christians who do not obey God, how they would be offended by certain positions that we take, than offending God himself. When we say we are a God-centered worshiping church, that's first and foremost in our priority.

That our first concern is that we live in such a way where we honor God. That we are God-fearers, first and foremost. Not the fears of our culture, not the fear of ramification, of certain decisions that we make or certain things that we say. This issue of abortion is not a debatable issue in the church.

Let me make that very clear. That there's nobody in this church where they say, "Oh, you know, I know some Christians who don't think so." It is not a debatable issue in the church, because the Bible makes it absolutely crystal clear, the high view of life that God has.

And the only reason why he sent his only begotten son is because he has such high view of life. The text that we're looking at, again, that's not the point of the sermon this morning. It makes it clear that the baby, the human being in the life of Elizabeth, jumped for joy.

And they recognized the baby in Mary, who was just conceived. That the life in there recognized the life in the other human being. Now, if you've been a Christian for any period of time, I know that you've been talking, debating, and maybe, you know, maybe even within the church, maybe even with other Christians.

I don't think this is just a Christian view. This is a humanity view. In our culture, life is sacred, whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian. We all universally believe, and obviously as Christians, we believe that God has inputted that inside every human being, a sense of moral compass, even though the world has gotten lost, that there is sacredness to life.

And because there is sacredness to life, if there is a possibility of harming a human being, you can get arrested and put into jail for that purpose if you intended that. If somebody comes in this room and shoots a gun off, and it didn't hit anybody, but there was a possibility of hitting a human being, you would be guilty of that, not because you murdered, but because there was a possibility that you could have murdered.

You know, the argument that they've been saying is like, "Well, you know, is it really life when they're conceived?" At minimum, whether Christian or non-Christian, there has always been a debate, right? Christian or non-Christian, that there is a possibility of life. There's a reason why, whether you're a Christian or not, if somebody gets pregnant, they celebrate, and they say that there's life in that individual.

This is not a Christian view. Only when they decide to terminate it, they stop calling it a baby. So, is it a sound argument to say that at minimum, there's a possibility that that's a child? And if that's a possibility that's a child, that is enough to get you indicted, to terminate that.

And yet, that's the argument that has been made, and it has been progressively that even with the child completely formed in the mother's body, that somehow, the conscience of our world has been seared to the point where even if they are fully delivered, their lawmakers in this country have been debating that we could terminate that because if our intention was to kill the baby, the baby is no longer a real baby.

That's how far we have gone. What has been disturbing me is that the church has become so secular that even within the church, I've been hearing within the last year or so that this is possibly a debatable issue. There is nothing more arrogant than to even to use the term that if a woman gets pregnant, that it is her choice.

It is her choice. She is the sovereign. Even if it's a possibility of a child, you are not sovereign over that life. So as Roe v. Wade has been overturned, it is a cause to celebrate. But I also want to caution all of us that just because that has been overturned, the world has not become brighter.

People are not more receptive to the gospel because of that. In fact, the people who have been fighting for pro-choice are probably even more angered. In fact, all the churches have been put on notice that if you start preaching against this, that you will be targeted. So we've been seeing on the news churches being targeted, protested, coming inside the church.

Who knows? Maybe that may happen here. But this is not a debatable issue. Not inside the church. Christians can have that view and not have this view. It is crystal clear that God has a very clear view of what is life and what that life means to God. And so we celebrate that.

We are cautious that we don't think that the fight is over. I don't think it's over. As long as we live in this dark world, the fight is going to continue. But as we fight for this, because we live in a free country, we have to also recognize that the only way that people truly change is through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We can change all the laws to reflect who God is and the scriptural principles, but nothing will change other than the law unless the gospel penetrates into the hearts of people. So as we celebrate this change of law, which again, I know many Christians have been fighting, praying over this for many, many years, that all the more that we need to commit to the gospel getting to the remotest part of the world.

Now again, this is not the point of my sermon this morning. I'm hoping maybe out in the future that we can spend more time, because I've spent so many countless hours debating and researching and talking in the last 30, 40 years of talking to non-Christians and sometimes trying to explain to young Christians why this is such an important issue, because once you denigrate life, everything else falls apart with that.

It's not just one law. We are already in rebellion against God, but this is the ultimate shaking of fists toward God that life does not belong to you. I do whatever I want with it. And so again, this is not the point of the sermon, but again, you don't have to do deep theological search to find out that this ought to be Christian view.

Just from this text alone, God recognizes there's life in that, in both of these women. One woman who's six months, another woman who just got pregnant. Both of them, it's explained that there's a child in them. Now having said that, Mary has this encounter, and this next section in verse 46 to 56, the theologians call this Mary's Magnificat.

And they call this Mary's Magnificat because the word "magnificat" basically means to magnify. And so this section is Mary just spontaneously breaking out into worship. And you and I already know that every Sunday we have prescribed worship. So on Sunday at 9 o'clock, 11 o'clock, depending on which service you go to.

And then when you come, you know what to expect. Sometimes we have baptism, testimony, we'll sing some songs, give offering, and then you'll hear a sermon, and then you'll hear benediction, and then we go home. We have fellowship and we go home. That's prescribed, right? Prescribed by God. So we're trying to follow that.

But if you've been a Christian long enough, you know that the best worship sometimes is not prescribed. It's spontaneous, right? Where you recognize the grace of God. Maybe it was an answered prayer, maybe something happened. Or you just came to a revelation of God's presence, and you just break out into worship.

And it doesn't have to be Sunday morning, right? It could be in the morning. It could be at night. It could be while you're driving, and you just break out into genuine worship. Some of the best worship is spontaneous, and that's exactly what's happening here, where Mary recognizes God's blessing upon her, and she just breaks out into worship.

Verse 46, "My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has had regard for the humble state of the bond slave. For behold, from that time on, all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name, and His mercy is upon generation after generation for those who fear Him." So in this magnificat, in this exaltation of God, I want to highlight two things that Mary says, where she recognizes why she is so blessed.

We're in this--I'm not going to go line for line and tell you what the meaning behind it is, but in summary of what she says in this text, there's two things that she highlights to say that this is the reason why she is blessed and why she's breaking out into worship.

One, Mary was blessed because she believed, simply because she believed. In Luke 1:45, it says, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what has been spoken to her by the Lord." Now remember what that means because prior to that, remember the story before that, where the angel Gabriel tells Zacharias and Elizabeth that you're going to have a child.

And remember, because he had a hard time believing. We're of old age. Even though we've been praying for this all our life, my wife is beyond age of childbirth, and so am I. So how can this happen? And so because of his unbelief, he was basically--he couldn't speak for nine months.

But can you imagine if that was hard to believe? An old man and an old woman having a child. If that was hard to believe, the angel Gabriel basically told Mary that you, a virgin, if it's impossible for somebody who's that age to have a child, a virgin's going to have a child.

And that's not the incredible part. The incredible part is that it's going to be the Messiah. And it's not just the Messiah, it's the Son of God who's going to come through your womb. So if it was impossible, difficult for Zacharias to believe that, can you imagine how difficult that would have been for Mary to believe that?

And so Gabriel speaks to her and says, "Nothing is impossible with God." And Mary responds in verse 38, "Behold, the bond slave of the Lord may it be done to me according to your word." And so she believes it. As difficult as that prophecy was, she believes it with all her heart.

And then it is because of this belief, she breaks out into what will happen. Now let me point out here. When she starts singing, did it happen? It didn't happen yet. Nothing has happened. All that has happened was that there was a prophecy given to her, that you've been chosen, that God is going to give you this favor.

And because she believes, she breaks out into spontaneous worship. The basis of Christian worship is always faith. It's not because it has happened. Our worship is only dependent upon when something good happens. We were sick and we prayed and then God answered our prayers. And thank God for that.

We had a relational issue and it got mended. You had some financial struggle and you found a job. And so all of those things are reasons for praising God. But true worship, spontaneous worship, is based upon God's promise. See, when she broke into this praise, nothing has happened yet.

It's simply because she believed. Our worship is not contingent upon the goodness that we see with our eyes. Our worship is based upon the promise that He has made. That no matter what happens during this lifetime, that God of glory is coming. That because Christ died for us and we've been covered by the blood of Christ, when the judgment comes, we will be spared.

And when He is glorified, we will be glorified with Him in eternity. He will wipe away our tears. He will wipe away our tears. Though you may be crying now, He says He will one day wipe away your tears. You may be sick now, but one day you will be whole.

You may have experienced tragedy and you may not find resolution during this lifetime. But because you believe in the promise of God, true life, true joy is coming with Christ. So our worship is not based upon simply answered prayer here. Our worship is not simply because we see good things and blessings happening, simply because we got married or had kids or our business is doing well.

It's based upon God's promise. In fact, Hebrews 11 verse 1 says, "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for." Hoped for. Not things that we see, not because it's happening, but because we hope and we believe in the promise that God has made to us, the conviction of things not seen.

So if our joy is only dependent on what we see and what's happening around us now, it comes and then it goes. You're worshiping one day, questioning God another day. Things are great when you're financially good, and then when things are difficult, where are you? I have no reason to praise God because He's not answering my prayer.

Mary's worship and her blessedness came directly as a result because she believed. She believed this fantastic thing that the angel has said. In fact, Hebrews 11 verse 6, it goes on and says, "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." That's a Christian life in a nutshell.

Yeah, you know, I work hard at church and I share the gospel and I'm serving, I'm raising my children, I'm doing all these things. But the central question to a Christian is, do you believe? Do you truly believe? And does your faith affect your worship? Does your faith affect your life?

In Romans 4, 3, it says, "For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." Not because he forsook everything and left and as a result he became a righteous man. He said because he was righteous because of faith, he did righteous things.

The whole book of chapter 11 describes people because of faith, what they ended up doing. I mean, we have to caution here because whenever we talk about salvation by faith alone, we always have a contingent of people who hear that and say, "Oh, so our hard work doesn't matter." So anybody who talks about how we need to be disciplined and strive after God, that's legalism.

The whole chapter 11 of Hebrews describes because of faith, they walked in faith. Verse 7, "By faith, Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household." Noah just, "Oh, I have faith so I can just sit here and then because of faith, you know, everything's going to be okay." He said because of faith, he acted in obedience.

The proof of his faith was his life, but the cause of righteousness was his faith. By faith, Abraham when he was called, obeyed. So the central question that we have in our worship, in our walk toward God is do we believe? Let me phrase it another way. Is my work based on achieving or believing?

Let me say that again. Is our hard work and discipline and pursuit of holiness and righteousness, is it based upon achieving or believing? It may sound like semantics, but the difference is night and day. The end result and what it produces is night and day. You know, when you're in the world, you have all these things like we're going to build, we're going to work hard, we're going to do all these things, and your desire to become somebody.

And sometimes if we're not careful, you've taken all of those principles and all you've done is transferred it into the church. And so you're still pursuing yourself. You're still working hard, but it's not simply because you believe. It just happens that your culture and your community happens to be around Christians.

So when you are working hard in that context, all you have to do is change their circumstance and they're no longer working. They're no longer striving because their labor wasn't because of faith. They were trying to achieve. And so Mary's worship, it breaks out in praising and thanking God because she believed.

But I want to spend more time on the second part of it because this is something that we all know, we all recognize, and we all struggle with 100%. If there's any place where I feel like there's a universal blind spot is this. Mary was blessed because she was humble.

Not despite that she was humble, because she was humble. We may look at Mary and say, you know, despite the fact that she was young, despite the fact that she comes from this obscure city, despite the fact that she doesn't have any recognition or education, despite all of that, God chose her.

That's not what it says. In fact, the scripture says over and over again it's because she was humble. Verse 48 says, "For he has had regard for me, for the humble state of his bond slave. For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed." And then she goes further on and describes basically redemptive history, what God has been doing.

"For the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear him." Who does God work with? People who recognize who he is and who fear him. And then it goes, Mary's worship says, "He has done mighty deeds with his arm." And what does this mighty deeds look like?

"He has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down the rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who are humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent away the rich empty-handed." Mary is not describing a small portion of redemptive history.

Mary is describing the promise that the Messiah, the Son of God, was going to come, and she bursts out explaining what God has been doing and what he's coming to do. That Christ is going to come, and he's going to humble the proud and raise up the humble. We see a perfect picture of that in John chapter 3 and John chapter 4.

You have Nicodemus who's at the peak of his religious success, and God, Jesus Christ, just shuts the door on him. "You cannot enter the kingdom this way. Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom." In other words, all your righteous deeds, everything that you have achieved, cannot get you into the kingdom.

Then he talks to a Samaritan woman, a sinner, adulteress, who's even embarrassed for Jesus, for even talking to him, talking to her during the day. And then he pursues her, deals with her sin, and then invites her into the kingdom. She becomes the first evangelist to the Samaritans. So you see the high, how he humbles them, and he brings the low, and then he raises them up.

And that's, in essence, how the gospel is described to us. Spurgeon says, of humility, this is what he says, "Every Christian has a choice of being humble or being humbled." Let me say this again. Every Christian has a choice of being humble or being humbled. Think about how hard we work to be somebody.

Think about how hard we work. You wake up in the morning. All of you, 100%, look better here than you are at home. I've seen you at home, right? Because every time we walk out, we're aware of other people's views on us, so everything that we do, even something trivial as doing our hair and brushing our teeth.

Because we want to present ourselves in a certain way. Why do we choose certain schools? Why do we choose certain jobs? Why do we have to drive certain cars? Why do we have to have a certain amount of money, live in a certain type of house? Even in the way we raise our children, you need to succeed.

Succeed for what purpose? Almost every aspect of our life has been tainted by this desire to exalt ourselves, and exalting ourselves is at the core of human sin. We've been created to reflect His glory. We were created to worship God, to adore God, to reflect God, and at the core of human rebellion is desiring that some of that attention comes to me.

And so whether we realize that or not, every part of our thought, whether you say it loudly or you say it quietly, we all wrestle with what you think of me. I'm perfectly fine until I meet somebody else who seems a little bit better, and all of a sudden I'm discontent.

In fact, all other sins stem from this--coveting, lying, murder. All other sins come from this desire for self-exaltation. In fact, God describes the sin of Israel this way, Hosea 13, 5 through 6, "I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of the drought. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud.

Therefore, they forgot me." They forgot me. You see that pattern? God blesses them, and then they begin to think, like, maybe I did this, and then once they do this, they forget God. So what precedes rebellion? Forgetting God. I can do it. That's why Jesus says it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven because in all his riches, it's easy for him to think, I did it.

I made the right choice. I started harder than other people. I got the right job, made the right decisions. I bought crypto early, bought the house when it was dipping, made some right choices in stocks. I'm a good salesman. I worked hard. I achieved well. I was patient with my children.

And so all of these good things happened because of my work, and as a result of that, quietly, we don't need him. So God simply becomes a figurehead, a figurehead in the church, just like you hang a cross. And so he's a figurehead in the church, but he's not the one that we submit to.

We're not desperate for him. He describes Israel's sin. Simply, they just became proud because things are going well. I don't need him, and they rebelled. In James 4:6, it says, "Therefore," it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." He is actively opposing. Imagine how much time and effort that we put into our life so that we can be better.

How much time and effort and energy and emotions and thoughts and finances go into making our life better in the next stage in this life? And then yet God says, "If you are actively seeking to promote yourself, God is actively working against you." Isn't that a scary thought? So much of what we do is following the pattern of this world so that we can get to the next stage, so that our children can get to the next stage, and then yet God says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Remember when people were following around saying, "We want to be disciples"?

Remember what Jesus said? "If you want to follow after me, deny yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me because before I go to glory, I go to the cross, and you must also go to the cross." So Christian sanctification is not bettering ourselves so that we can be masters at Scripture and putting more time in prayer, and all of these things are things that the Bible commands us to do.

But the primary call of a Christian sanctification is to become less, to die, so that after we have done the work, nobody recognizes who you are. Just like John the Baptist. He gave his whole life to prepare for Christ, and as soon as Christ shows up, he says, "He must increase, I must decrease," and he's never heard again.

All we know about John the Baptist is that he was kind of eccentric. He was out in the desert. He ate some locusts, had some weird clothes. He said things that Jesus was going to say. He did things that Jesus would do, and then as soon as he showed up, he disappeared.

There's no monument for him. There's no record of what he did, his genealogy. Only thing we know of him was that he prepared for Christ's coming. You and I have been called for the same thing. It's not about you. It's not about me. If I die and nobody remembers me, but they know the Christ that I loved, then I've been faithful.

But if I pass and you talk about me for generations, then maybe I worked a little bit too hard to leave my legacy. God didn't call me for that, and he didn't call you for that. C.S. Lewis says, "As long as you are proud, you cannot know God." A proud man is always looking down on things and people.

And, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see sometimes that is above you. A proud man always looks down, always looks at things that are not up to your par. So you cannot know God because you're always looking down. 1 Peter 5:6 says, "Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and he may exalt you at the proper time." We have a habit of honoring the proud and dismissing the humble.

You know, some of the most challenging testimonies I've ever heard are people who had nothing, from uneducated people. I mean, you talk about the faith of these men in the villages, some of them can barely read and write. They don't know--they've never read systematic theology. They weren't properly trained in how to make disciples and how to multiply your church.

They've never been--they came, heard the gospels, "I believe this. Forgive me of my sins." And then they just took that simple message and just started following the other pastors. And even in the midst of persecution and trouble, they campaigned to support their kids. Because of their faith, their kids can't even go to school.

And yet their faith is so much more powerful than even our celebrity pastors in our culture. Why are they more powerful? Why are they bearing more fruit? Why are they so much more courageous? Because they know Christ. I remember years of being out in the streets working with the homeless, and this guy that I met, he was out in the streets temporarily.

If you met him, you wouldn't know that he was homeless. But we would set up and feed, and he would sit down, and I got to know him a little bit. And basically what happened was he was part of a gang, and he was selling drugs, and he was coming in and out of prison constantly.

And so his family got fed up with him. And so by the time--last time he went, his family said, "I don't want anything to do with him. You go figure out your life." So by the time he came out of prison, after about six months, there was nobody there to catch him.

So he was out in the streets temporarily until he found some government funding and trying to get a job and to save up enough money to get back on his feet. And it was during that short period of time that I met him. I remember one particular Tuesday, he came, and he was always a joyful guy, but then this particular Tuesday, I mean, he was beaming.

And he said, "Peter, God is so good." I said, "What happened?" He said, "You know, on the way here, I got robbed." I said, "Okay, so you got robbed. What happened?" He said, "I got robbed. Some drug addicts came and wanted something, and I had nothing in my pocket, and they didn't believe me.

And so I started walking away, and they didn't believe me, so they chased me down, and they took a bottle, and they smashed it over his head." So I said, "Okay, you're kind of crazy. Are you back on drugs? What does this mean?" He said, "Look at my head." So I said, "What do you see?" And I said, "Nothing.

You're bald. Outside of that, what do you want me to see?" He said, "Do you see anything?" He said, "No, I don't see anything." He said, "There's no mark. I didn't get cut. That guy broke a bottle over my head, and I didn't get cut." He said, "Praise God, because he protected me.

Even in the midst of a broken bottle over my head, he protected me." He understands the grace of God. You know, a man who's been broken to the point, who's humble to the point, has nothing to be proud, and he knew God's love and grace to the point that even being robbed and having a broken bottle over his head was a cause of praise to God.

Think how easily we get thwarted by worship, worshiping God. Bad traffic. Somebody said something mean to you. They didn't remember your birthday. You didn't get the promotion that you wanted. Think how easily we get sidetracked. It's like, "I have a hard time worshiping God because of this." Yet a man who is humble and understands what he has in Christ could not take him off of worship.

A humble man. God is looking for humble people to exalt. Humble people to exalt. There's a reason why Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith that is not of yourselves, but is a gift of God, so that no one may boast." Christianity and boasting is a contradiction because the core of Christianity is to say we could not and He did.

So how can a man who praises and worships and memorizes that He gave me something I didn't deserve, I deserve wrath, but He gave me love, how can the core of Christianity teach that and be proud at the same time? He said, "He saved us by grace so that no one may boast." How boasting ruins everything.

You ever see a man who is trying so hard to be recognized? My achievements, what I have done, churches I planted, people I've discipled. You ever see a man that does that? If you've been watching the news, you've probably seen it yourself. Whenever you see somebody do that in a large scale or small scale, what's the first response?

The first response that you'll see is everybody trying hard to knock him off that pedestal. That's our first response. That's not a certain type of people do that. Everybody, if somebody comes into the room, "Do you know who I am?" "Yeah, I know who you are, you're a jerk." He who is humble, God exalts.

He who exalts himself, God opposes. You know, there's a story about this rooster, right? It's not in the Bible. So don't wake up now and say, "Abbas and Peter's quoting weird things." It's not in the Bible. There's a story about this rooster. All his life he's crowing, and he has convinced himself that the sun rises because of him.

Every morning that's what happens. He crows and the sun rises. Well, one day there's a massive disaster coming in, and so the eagles decided to have mercy on these farm animals, and he swoops down and he tells them, "You're going to have to grab onto me, and I'm going to take you out to safety." So the small animals are attached, because obviously they can't do that with their little legs.

They don't have fingers, right? So he said, "You're going to have to bite my wings, and then I'm going to lift you up, and I'm going to start taking you to safety." So all the little animals come, and they cling on to him, and the crow comes, and he bites onto the eagle, and the eagle starts flying, taking them out.

And as he is flying, and they're headed toward safety, high up in the sky, the eagle recognizes the sun coming up. And so the other eagles are like, "Wow, the magnificence of the sun. This is so awesome. Who has done this? Day after day, this beauty of the glory of the sun being raised.

Who has done this?" And the crow, with his mouth clenched to the eagle for survival, is thinking to himself, "I did it! I did it!" But he can't say anything, because the moment he says it, he's going to fall. And as the time goes, they just can't--it overwhelms them.

The glory of the sun. And the crow just finally couldn't stand it anymore, and it started to say, "I did it!" as it started falling to its death. True story. It's something that I heard when I was a little kid that I remembered. How much of human life is captured in that silly story?

We try so hard to become somebody, sometimes even in the church, when God has been telling us, history after history, passage after passage, example after example, that your goal is to become less, not more. To become a nobody, so that He can become a somebody. So that when He comes in glory, that we wait for our glory when He comes in glory.

How much of our trouble, how much of our anxiety, how much of our divisions stem from this? How much of our marriage problems, how much of our difficulty with children stem from this? That we have not given up on our ambitions. We have not given up on our exaltation.

And as a result, we have become impotent in the things of God. God is looking for humble people that He may be exalted. Let me conclude with this. In the years that we've been here at Berean, there's one lesson that I've learned like almost a punch in the face.

You know, I started out ministry at 19, 20, and I started speaking. I spoke outside the church way more than I do now. Part of the reason why I asked my wife Esther to change from being a pharmacist to a schoolteacher is because pharmacists have to work year-round. So my thought was, and again, as a young pastor thinking like, and since I'm going and traveling so much, I asked her, it's like if you become a schoolteacher, you know, you get off school a little bit earlier and you have the whole summer off, so maybe you can come with me.

And then eventually, maybe if you don't have to work, you don't have to work. But that was my thinking, right, at that perspective. And so I experienced, you know, what you would call, humanly speaking, superficial fruit early. Because I was speaking a lot and I was going to places, you know, and I had a lot of friends.

And then I got punched in the face. I just got burned out. The fruit didn't turn out the way I wanted it to turn out. All the sacrifices, labor that I felt like I was putting in, it just wasn't producing what I wanted. And I started thinking, like, am I going to have the same life that my parents lived?

The very thing that I couldn't stand, like I don't want to do this. But it started to look like that. And so when this church first got started, I had no vision. I've already been disappointed. I had no expectation. Just a few of the kids, I mean, there were kids at that time, like I'm just going to be faithful and try to take care of them.

And the church didn't grow. Not to my surprise, it wasn't a big surprise because at that time the Seeker Friendly Movement was just taking off. And so every church was like their mega churches are popping up left and right. It's like, oh, 5,000, 10,000. And so I remember during that period my friends who were, you know, I went to their churches to speak.

All of a sudden, Peter, why are you doing that? You can go to this large church and you can do this. You're just so stubborn. Why are you committing to these few kids? And at that time it wasn't anything noble. It was just I had no vision for that.

I was already burned out by that. And I just wanted it like -- I thought it would be noble even if it's just 10 of them to commit to them and at least it's worthwhile. And I don't know if I'm going to keep doing this, but I'm just going to do that for the time being.

I remember during that period every friend, every mentor that I knew said, "Peter, stop being stubborn. You're just stubborn. You're so stubborn." I've heard that so many times I know that for a fact. I'm pretty stubborn. If I'm convicted about something, like I will not move. You have to show me why I need to move, but I'm not going to move just because you said it because, you know, I've heard it enough.

No amount of pressure you're going to put on me is going to get me to change me unless I actually see it. But then all of a sudden, again, you know, make a long story short, at some point, six, seven years down the line the church started actually growing.

You know, what's really interesting was during that period when the church wasn't growing I started reading a lot of books about church growth and, like, how to do church because I don't know how to do church. I was just -- I know how to preach, right, and I know how to, like, do discipleship, but I don't know how to run a church.

And I remember reading this book about church growth, and in that book it says, "If you plant the church and it doesn't grow in the first two years, 99.9% that church will fail." And I read that about five years into the church. So basically he said, "Wrap it up, right?

You fail. Stop being stubborn." Now, if I started with a vision for a large church, that would have been it, right? But I had no vision to begin with, so it didn't really bother me that much. But I've accepted that's the way it's going to be, you know, and this is what I'm going to do.

And then when the church started growing, all of a sudden the same people were asking me, "Peter, what are you doing? What are you doing? How are you preaching? How is your Bible study organized? What does your small group look like? You have big donors in the church." I mean, they started asking me all these questions, and my answer to them is, "Nothing.

Everything that you were telling me about not being stubborn the first five, six years is the exact same thing that we're doing." And they would just walk away and say, "Peter doesn't want to share." But honestly, that's my honest thing. Nothing has changed. It's just that God saw fit early on to keep us that way, and God saw fit at the second part.

And if there's one thing that I learned, and I'm still learning, God is not seeking my glory. God is not seeking my glory. God is seeking his glory. So the worst thing that I can do is to get in the way, to get the credit. And once I do that, then I have a God who is actively opposing me.

So if I want God to be exalted, I got to get out of the way. I have to become less. That's the one lesson that I've learned over the years, over and over again, that if somebody meets Christ, that they meet Christ, not me, not the leaders, not the organization, not the elders, not the pastors, that you come and meet Christ.

And then if I die and you don't remember me, but you love Christ, then I've done what I've been called to do, to introduce you to Christ. I don't want you examining my life. I don't want you -- I don't want, after I die, examining my life and say, "Oh, what was Pastor Peter like at his home?

What was he like?" I don't want you examining my life. I don't want you examining my grammar. You know how many people tell me how bad my English is? I admit I'm a partial fop, and I embrace it with all my heart. I don't want you examining my life.

My life is not worth examining. I'm a man who's broken by the grace of God. I struggle like everybody else to want some of that. But if you look at me carefully, you're not going to celebrate me because I don't want you looking at me closely. I want you to look through me to see the Christ who saved me.

Our biggest struggle is that our fallenness, wanting to be at the center and on a pedestal. We bring it into the church. We bring it into our preaching. We bring it into everything that we do, not realizing that that is what's causing God to oppose us. Mary was not chosen despite her humility.

Mary was chosen because of her humble circumstance. Let me give you seven quick things as a wrap-up. What humbleness looks like in people. One, humble people are thankful people because they know they didn't do anything. Because Christ did it, their heart is always thankful, which leads to praise. Two, they are eager to listen more than to speak.

A proud person wants to teach everybody. I got something to say. But as soon as other people have something to say, they're kind of wandering off. A humble person is eager to listen more than to speak. Again, there's nobody who qualifies 100% with this. These are things that we all struggle with.

Three, they're more quick to forgive because you and I stand because we're forgiven. But you offend a proud man, as soon as the conversation is over, he's sharpening his knife. How dare you speak to me that way? How dare you? But a humble man is eager to forgive because he's been forgiven.

A humble man is teachable. He's like, "Oh, I can't. I got a PhD in this, and I can't learn from that guy. What does he know?" A humble man can learn from a child because he's teachable. Anything that reflects Christ, you can learn from. They don't have to be PhDs.

They don't have to be pastors. You can learn from your own children when God has reflected off of them. Humble people build others up because they know what they have, they don't deserve it. So they're eager to build other people up. Humble people are servants who are eager to serve because they're thankful of what they have.

So they naturally become worshipers, and worshipers naturally end up serving. And then finally, humble people rest in the sovereignty of God. We're not easily shaken. When we embrace our humility that Christ has exalted, we're not easily shaken because we're never in control to begin with. So when things go out of whack, it's like, "Oh my gosh, things are out of whack." No, it's never out of whack because we were never in control to begin with.

God saved us from something we could not control, and our rest and peace rests upon His sovereignty and not ours. And all of these things are ultimately what produces life. So God calls us, one, to believe, and then to empty ourselves, that He may be exalted. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to You in our weakness, in our brokenness, in our weariness, and at times distracted, filled with pride, filled with coveting, desiring to be recognized, actively pursuing to retaliate.

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief, that we may take to heart, Lord God, how You have humbled the proud and how You have blessed the humble, that we may pursue a life of emptiness, that we may embrace the humility of Christ, that in our humility that we may exalt Him and Him alone.

Thank You, Father, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Why don't we all stand up for the closing praise? O nail me down again here at Your feet Show me how much You love humility O Spirit be the star that leads me to the humble heart that I see in You You are the God of the broken a friend of the lame You wash the feet of the weary embrace the ones in need I want to be like You, Jesus to have this heart in me You are the God of the humble You are the humble King O nail me down again here at Your feet Show me how much You love humility O Spirit be the star that leads me to the humble heart that I see in You You are the God of the broken a friend of the lame You wash the feet of the weary embrace the ones in need I want to be like You, Jesus to have this heart in me You are the God of the humble You are the humble King You are the God of the humble You are the humble King Let's pray.

May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you that Christ and what He has done may be exalted wherever He sends us. Amen. God sent His Son They called Him Jesus He came to love He went forth again He lived in time to buy my heart An empty grave is there to fill a Savior there Because He lived I can face tomorrow Because He lived All fear is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth the living Just because He lives ♪ ♪ ♪