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<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">Resources for Advent 4</span></span><span style="font-size: small"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small">Luke 1:26-38<span style="color: black"> - <strong>"Surprise, It’s Christmas"</strong></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small">Luke 1:26-38<span style="color: black"> - <strong>"</strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal">The </span></strong></span><b>Unwanted Christmas Gift: The Gift That Keeps on Giving</b> <strong><span style="color: black">"</span></strong><span style="color: black"> by Leonard Sweet</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">Luke 1 <font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">- </font></font>the sermon title "Surprise, It’s Christmas" <font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> </font></font></span></span>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">The
greatest thing about Christmas morning is the surprises. When else in
life do you get to pile 10, 20, 30, 40 sometimes 50 surprises all
together and sit for an hour enjoying each of them? One after another,
surprise after surprise. Christmas Morning is wonderful in that way. I
can remember still today the way I felt as a child, the amazement, the
astonishment of Christmas morning.<br>
<br>
Chuck Swindoll writes, "surprises come in many forms and guises: some
good, some borderline amazing, some awful, some tragic, some hilarious.
But there's one thing we can usually say -- surprises aren't boring."
Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await
each one of us at unexpected and unpredictable junctures.<br>
<br>
I like the story about a professor who sat at his desk one evening
working on the next day's lectures. His housekeeper had laid that days
mail and papers at his desk and he began to shuffle through them
discarding most to the wastebasket. He then noticed a magazine, which
was not even addressed to him but delivered to his office by mistake. It
fell open to an article titled "The Needs of the Congo Mission".<br>
<br>
Casually he began to read when he was suddenly consumed by these words:
"The need is great here. We have no one to work the northern province of
Gabon in the central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article
that God will lay His hand on one - one on whom, already, the Master's
eyes have been cast - that he or she shall be called to this place to
help us." Professor Albert Schweitzer closed the magazine and wrote in
his diary: "My search is over." He gave himself to the Congo.<br>
<br>
That little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else,
was placed by accident in Schweitzer's mailbox. By chance he noticed the
title. It leaped out at him. Chance? Nope. It was one of God's
surprises.<br>
<br>
This morning we focus on one of the greatest surprises that ever there
was, the surprise that took place when an angel by the name of Gabriel
appeared to a young teenager by the name of Mary. Gabriel piled one
surprise upon another. Mary and Joseph's Christmas tree had more
astonishing surprises than any couple on earth had ever
experienced. Gabriel surprised Mary with the following…</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">1. “The Lord is with you, do not be afraid.”</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">2. “You will conceive in your womb, and bear a son.”</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">3. “He will be called the Son of God.”</span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining <a __removedlink__1613389811__href="http://www.sermons.com/signup" target="_blank">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">_______________________</span></span>
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<div><span style="font-size: small"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black"> Luke 1 <font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">- </font></font>the sermon titled “The Unwanted Christmas Gift: The Gift that Keeps on Giving" by Leonard Sweet </span></span>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"> “Survivor”
is a reality tv game show that has proven to be one of the most
successful franchises in television history. Starting in 1992 as the
brainchild of a British tv producer, Survivor has spread throughout the
world to play in over 50 countries as diverse as Chile and China. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">If
you’ve watched CBS’ “Survivor” with its $1,000,000 prize, you notice
how quickly the sixteen to twenty strangers separate out into two
groups, no matter how many “tribes” there are. In one group are those
who, in the face of the unexpected, meltdown, freeze, or fold. In the
other group are those who cope, manage, and overcome when the unforeseen
rears its head.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">This
difference in ability and mobility is less dependent on the facts, and
far more dependent upon faith. All “Survivor” stories combine components
of grace and good luck, grit and gumption. But at the very base of
those who “survive” in the face of surprising challenges, are those who
have faith. When it is just too hard to hang on, we need another we can
hang on to.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">First
century Palestine was not a particularly progressive society. Jews and
Gentiles, Jewish and pagan, iron-fisted Roman rulers and oppressed
subjects lived in an uneasy, unequal social equilibrium. In the first
century there were definite “haves” and “have-nots” — the “who’s who”
and “who’s not” lists that circulated locally. Getting on one of these
“who’s not” lists had far more social, political, and even “Survivor”
repercussions than any Christmas “naughty and nice” list.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">In
the 21st century it is hard for us to hear how the angel Gabriel’s
“good news” sounded to Mary. In the 21st century it is not a death
sentence to receive a birth notice.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">It was then. That is exactly what Mary heard at that moment of angelic visitation… </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Consider the Impossible</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">This
is a story of impossibilities. Consider the impossibilities Mary faced
in this story: She is a virgin and pregnant—she is having a child while
she is a virgin. Impossible! No way! Won’t happen! Joseph has to follow
through on the marriage after he discovers Mary is pregnant. Impossible!
Mary must avoid being stoned to death when the neighbors hear the news.
Impossible! </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Consider
the impossibility Elizabeth faced. She was well past the childbearing
age, and yet God says she is going to conceive and bear a child. This
impossible news left old Zechariah speechless. Impossible! No way! Won’t
happen!</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">This
is a story of biblical impossibilities. But, what are the
impossibilities in our world? What would you label “impossible” in your
life? Peace in our world. Impossible! No way! Won’t happen! Christian
values returning to our nation, morality becoming the norm? Impossible!
Our church reaching our surrounding community and making our world
different? Impossible! Restoring relationships, healing past hurts in
our lives. A relative or friend entering a relationship with Christ.
Breaking an addiction and overcoming past hurts and disappointments?
Impossible! </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">We
find ourselves with the same troubled mind as Mary, wondering over the
impossible (v. 29). We even ask the same question Mary asked, “How will
this be?” (v. 34). To us it seems impossible! No way! Won’t happen! The
real question for people today is “How can the impossible become
possible?”</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Dwight Gunter, The Possible Impossible</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Speaking of a New Order</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Men
are strangely quiet in Luke's first chapter. Zechariah is silenced.
Joseph says nothing at all. What is the gospel writer up to here? In the
hush, our gaze is drawn toward two women-cousins who rush to greet each
other, females with wombs filled by miraculous cavorting babies, and
spirits set afire by the living God. Pure hysteria. I imagine that Plato
would have cringed at the rampant emotionalism of it all. And it's just
getting started, for after the raucous reunion, after the cousins bump
their rounded tummies, the women start to prophesy. They start to talk
about how the world ought to be. They make claims about what God wants
of us. Their talk is full of typical irrational stuff: you know, tyrants
being thrown down; hungry people getting food. They protest social
inequalities. They speak of a new order.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Scott Black Johnston, Head of Household? </span></div>
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