This Will Do

Luke chapter 1 is where we're going to be for a message that I'm calling, This Will Do. This Will Do, which is what you say when what you're facing is like, man, this is more than adequate. You know, we try to underplay it. This Will Do. I remember once I had been told, though you have a reservation, we don't have a hotel room for you. We can't give you the room that was booked for you. And I had arrived at midnight. I had to speak the next morning. I was very, you know, rustled by this news. And I said, you need to find one. And the girl goes, beep-bop-bop-bop-bop-bop-beep-bop-bop. She goes, oh, I got you one. And I go, I don't care if it's the mop closet. As long as I can crash, I'm good. And she said, it's the president's suite. I said, you know what I said? I said, this will do. I can work with that, right? This thing had a bathtub we all could have fit in. And I was just me alone. I was filming my family, FaceTiming my family to show them this. It had a doorbell. When the hotel room's got a doorbell, this will do. And the subtitle, if you want to jot it down, is X Marks the Spot. X Marks the Spot.

It's familiar. Let's shake the cobwebs off. And hopefully, God will hit us with something fresh and new in his word. Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. You have to know, there was a joke, a running joke in Israel. They went like this, can anything good come from Nazareth? Imagine growing up with that being spoken over you. Even before you even set out in life to do anything, it's already being told you'll do nothing. You came from nothing. You'll amount to nothing. And he came to Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. Now, again, in a fiercely patriarchal society, to have a female singled out as being the recipient of divine favor and love, this is shocking. This is scandalous. This is not how anybody would have written the story. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying. And she was trying to figure out what manner of greeting this was.

Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. I've pointed out there are 365 do not be afraids in the Bible. And for any circumstance you could be facing any day of the calendar year, there's a promise from God to give you peace in the midst of what you're facing. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great. And he will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. That's why it's such a mistake to live for any other kingdom in this world. It's like trying to move into a sandcastle on the beach. And the tide will always come and wipe it out. But of an investment of our life, our energy, our passion, our time, our worth in heaven's treasure account, there will be no end to that kingdom. That's always a sound financial, sound spiritual, sound life investment strategy. Then Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I do not know a man? Which is biblical code for she ain't had sex with nobody. And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. And the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also, that Holy One who is to be born

will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. This is John the Baptist, by the way. And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren previously. But she ain't barren no more. Homegirl's pregnant. Why? For with God, nothing will be impossible. I need you to know this Christmas that God is a God who can do anything. Our God can do anything. He can do everything He wants to do. There's no circumstance in your life that's too hard for Him. It can go from barren to fruitful, barren to flourishing in a moment. moment of time when he speaks the word. Then Mary said, look at this, behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Can we thank God for his word, for his scripture, for his truth? We elevate it above our circumstances. We elevate it above our feelings. We elevate it above our culture. We tremble before your word, God. Speak to us through it as we consider it. In Jesus' name, we pray.

The hot air balloon was invented in France at the end of the 18th century, right as the French Revolution was about to explode. Turns out the hungry people didn't think King Louis setting off fancy, frilly hot air balloons with chickens and roosters in it from Versailles while they were all starving and the king and the court were eating cake. Turns out they didn't think that was a great investment. But pretty soon, a revolution or no revolution, people thought it was pretty impressive to be able to fly, right, as it is. And so you had a hot air balloon craze really take place where amateur pilots were flying on nothing but hot air. Incredible. And because it was France and it was an agricultural civilization, nation, empire, you had farmers and you had peasants who worked the land all over the place. And the thing about these hot air balloons, they went up. And especially at the very beginning, it was very crude, very primitive. And so they sort of came down wherever they came down, oftentimes in the middle of someone else's estate where, if you have people who have never heard of or seen a hot air balloon before, it's belching flames. It fell from the sky. What do they assume it is? A dragon. And so you would literally have people armed with pitchforks coming out and stabbing the hot air balloon.

They landed it in the middle of their pasture and destroyed a fence and scared the cows and caused everyone to panic, right? It felt like the end of the world or something out of the Book of Revelation. And so what they would do, because it was France and that's where champagne has to come from, every hot air balloon pilot would bring a bottle of the good stuff, the bubbly stuff, in the gondola with them. And as they landed, as the angry peasants approached, they would just hold it out and appease their anger with a bottle of champagne. And to this day, the tradition is honored. No hot air balloon flight just about on Earth will be undertaken without a bottle of champagne somewhere in the basket. And what they do is, if they land on private property, to this day, they honor the tradition by giving the bottle of champagne to whoever owns the land. If they land where they intend to, in a park, in a parking lot, in any public space whatsoever, everybody who was on board gets to have a toast and raise a glass to a safe flight that they went on. It's a nice and it's a beautiful tradition. And it kind of explains what I saw when, this last fall, we went to the largest mass ascension of hot air balloons on Earth, which takes place every single fall in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Apparently, the winds are favorable. It's a very good place to fly a hot air balloon. And it's so funny, because if you drive around Albuquerque in the fall, I took this one, you will see hot air balloons just all over the place, falling from the sky, literally, every single morning during the fiesta. But as you drive around the communities surrounding the fiesta facility, you will find this in the lawns of everyone's yard. It's a big, old, bold X, made of white, always, that is a signal to all the aviators, go ahead and land here. Why? We want champagne, basically what they're saying. But it's actually a beautiful gesture, because what they're communicating is, you won't have trouble landing here. We're into it. We're welcoming it. And so, of course, they want to be respectful. They hope to land in a park or in a public place. But if they do have to land, because they are sort of, even with modern technology, at the whim of the wind, and so they want to respect it. But if they do end up landing, it's nice to know we're at least landing in a place where they're saying, hey, go ahead. Here's a target. Go ahead and land here.

I love that. And I couldn't help but think about it as I came to preparing this Christmas message. Oh, by the way, my wife, Jenny, because people say, how do you stay humble? I say, get married. And my wife, Jenny, did capture the behind the scenes of that photograph. This is me taking a photo over the fence. And then this is me running away when I realized that the people that live there probably don't want me taking photos of their home. But I couldn't help but think about that white X on the lawn, which, if you're a pilot looking, where am I going to land here? And you see a big, bold X, you're going to say to yourself, this will do. I can work. This is why X marks the spot. When I think about Mary and why, out of all the people who are alive that God could have chosen to invite into his story, why did he pick her? I believe it was no fluke. I believe it was not an accident. I believe that in Mary's life, in her choices, in her makeup, there was that which caused God to look down and say, this will do. Not this will have to do, as though I've got no other options, but this will do. God was lit up by what he saw that

caused her to find favor, the way that she lived, the way that she served, the choices that she made. Even when she thought no one was watching, perfectly prepared her. It put a big old bold X on her life. For God, who is, the Bible says, looking to and fro. Who can I bless? Who can be a recipient of my favor? And what God found in her life made her perfectly poised to receive the miraculous, to walk in the supernatural. And listen to me very carefully. You can too. There are things you can do that will put that X on your life and cause God, looking down, to say, this will do. I want to show myself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are upright. So what made Mary special? In a word, she was willing. She was willing. She summarized it very well when she said, let it be to me according to your word. She was the kind of person who wanted to do what God wanted her to do. Even though she heard this crazy assignment, her response, let it be to me according to your word. I believe today what God is waiting to see from a young person, from a middle-aged person, from any one of us, he's looking to see not great ability, but great availability. Mary didn't have a ton of ability.

She came from, where's that? She didn't have education. She didn't have connection. She didn't have any experience to speak of, sexual experience, she points out. How can I participate in this? I don't have any experience. And God says, I'm looking for someone who's inexperienced sexually. I'm looking for someone who's kept themselves pure. I'm looking for someone who has chosen to live in a way that honors God, who's waiting for marriage to use this gift that I invented called sexuality. It was her inexperience, not her experience, that made her perfectly suited for God to use. You might say she had an empty womb, but an open heart. And God is looking for that today, for people who are using their bodies, using their mind, using their heart in a way that says, God, I'm available. Let it be to me that your word matters more to me than what I see on TikTok. Your word matters more to me than how my friends are living. Your word matters more to me than my impulses. Your word matters more to me than my own feelings. I want your word to set the pace for my life. You will never see the end of what God can do through a life with someone who has yielded to him. And God is waiting for a generation to rise up and say, I am available.

I'm willing. A.W. Tozer said, God waits to be wanted. God wishes to be welcomed. Are you the kind of person that welcomes God and that puts that big old X down and says, you're sending an angel somewhere? Why not here? Why not me? Mary was willing. Five things, jot it down. Willing to wonder. She didn't know how it was all going to work out. She was willing, but she had questions. In fact, she said, how can this be? And what did the angel say? God. She said, how? God said, who? We love to focus on the how. We need to focus on the who. Once you know who, it doesn't quite matter how, because God will sort it out, because he's got power, because he's God. And Mary persisted in her confusion. Her not knowing how didn't cause her to walk away. She leaned in. She embraced. And the angel didn't even tell her how. He did, God's going to take care of it. And she was like, cool, let's do it.

That's amazing. She was with God in her confusion. Are you willing to wonder? Are you willing to continue to follow God, even though you don't know how it's all going to work out? Even though you don't know how it's all going to be afforded, how it's all going to take place? Can you continue to be willing, even when there's some wonder in your life? Secondly, Mary was willing to wait. Babies take time. It wasn't like Gabriel said, you're going to be the mom of the Messiah. Poof, here's Jesus, you know, walking on water right now. Of course, there was nine months of pregnancy when they out. overshadowing of the Holy Spirit did take place. And then there was 30 years of Jesus just being a carpenter. And she's thinking, I've gone through all this sacrifice to raise this child, gone through the stigma of being accused of being unfaithful to my fiancee, the whole deal. When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? Even at the wedding, when he turned water into wine, she's like, you're going to do it now? And he's like, it's not my time. My hour has not yet come. She persisted through lots of waiting. What's your comfort level with Confucian and with waiting? When God's going to do it, but not yet. It's the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed

that eventually becomes a tree, but there's a lot of waiting. Are you willing to water when you're not seeing results? Are you willing to not give up when you're not seeing it happen in your timing? We want everything to be like Amazon. We want it now. We don't want to do the hard yards of waiting, and trusting, and obeying, and praying, and seeking, and fasting, and believing, and trusting. Even when it's not working, can we persist and be willing in the wait? Thirdly, Mary was willing to work. My beautiful wife, Jenny, who, dang, in the leather, hello, she has had five children, and that's a lot of work. Growing a body, that's a lot of work. Mary worked hard. Blood, sweat, and tears, sacrificially worked to participate in the gospel. Are you willing to put your hands to the plow and work to see the kingdom of God come? I've caught a hot air balloon. They're heavy. Five, six people, all that extra fuel. It's a lot to stop it when it comes, right? To put an X down is great, but to actually get out, as many homeowners do, and actually help stop it, help roll up that canvas, put it back into the trailer, set up the church service, be willing to put the chairs out. It's great to say, I want to see God work, but are you going to put yourself out there

to start a Bible study on your campus of your school? Are you going to put yourself out there to share the gospel with that neighbor that you're praying will come to? Oh, I want to do something about the injustice in the world. Are you willing to get to work with one of the amazing nonprofits in our cities to help feed the homeless, and help clothe the naked, and do the work for the single mother who, I'm pro-life. Well, let's be pro-life in helping that young woman with the resources that she needs to do what she's called to do to raise that baby that we want to be alive, right? It's not just having an opinion. It's not just putting up a preference on social media. It's being willing to work. It's being willing to be weird. I'm all about reverence and honoring God, but can we admit the plan's weird? OK, virgin born child. I immediately have questions. And this carvender is going to die on the cross, and somehow that's going to bring salvation to the whole world. Tell them to go climb a mountain and pick a perfect flower. Everybody would be excited about that. That seems like an assignment that would cause us all to get involved. But it's kind of humiliating. How'd you get saved?

Someone died in the cross. It's humiliating. How'd you get saved? Someone died on the cross, and I believed? Oh, well, that's good for you. I am doing 75 hard. Human nature craves something that can make us feel like we're the hero, but the gospel allows room for one hero. His name is Jesus. He shall be called the highest. His name shall be great. The means of salvation God appointed allows one person to be great. And honey, it ain't you. It ain't me. And that's why the gospel is offensive. It's weird, and God revels in the weirdness. He revels in it. He picked it intentionally in such a way so that he would get all the glory when he works through it. And then lastly, she was willing to worship through it all. If you read the rest of Luke 1, it's just this huge poem of worship, where she basically, in the response to all of this, says, my soul magnifies the Lord. How are you going to make it through waiting? How are you going to make it through working weird stuff and confusing wonder? The choice is before you to worship when you don't know, to worship when you can't figure it out.

And in so doing, you get to participate in a reproduction of what Mary went through. Now, I realize only one person ever has the job of being the virgin-born mother of the King of Kings. But the part in the play that God is producing in the world today has plenty of space for other people who are willing to be Mary in miniature, as Christ wants to be in you the hope of glory, and then form you, and then use you to bring Jesus into this world, that his kingdom might come, that it might be on earth as it is in heaven. But you might say to me, Levi, you don't know how messed up my life is. Christ formed in me. I can't. And I would say to you, do you remember the manger? Do you remember the stable, the swaddling cloths, the rags, the animals, the lowing of the donkey? Are you kidding me? God has a high comfort level. Stepping into messy situations, your painful, broken, battered life doesn't scare him a bit. He's rubbing his hands, and he's saying, this will do. He's just waiting to see you paint that X. A few years back, I had some ministry I was doing in Italy and came a couple of days early with my wife, and my sister found out about it. She said, I'm going to be in Italy the week

before you get there. And we compared notes and realized we were going to be in the same city just a week separated. And I said, here's what we should do. You go on a run, send me the coordinates for the run. I'll do the exact same run a week later with you. And so I did. And then the day of the run, she texted me GPS coordinates and said, I left something for you if you can find it. Now, this is fun. My brother had done this before. He had left me in the Salt Lake City airport a creepy little baby. And I confused the stories till I texted her and got it all straight. But the baby was my brother. My sister, I was like, what is she going to leave me? You know, I was like, maybe another bambino. Who knows? And so I do the run. I get to the GPS. I'm figuring it all out. And I get to this park. And she had sent me a picture with an X over these two rocks that came together to find what she had left me there. I couldn't find it. I couldn't even get there to find it because there was two men sleeping right on top of it, right there in the middle of the park.

So I kind of texted her a picture. I'm like, hey, I didn't want to walk into their living room and wake them up and be like, excuse me, my sister a week ago, just the whole deal. And so I eventually left and texted her later and said, what did you leave for me? And she clarified the details today. She said, I left you a cross, a little note wrapped around, a tiny little cross. Could it be that in all your searching, we've done a lot of searching for the perfect gift, a lot of searching for all the things we got to do and the party and all that. But bigger than that, if we step back in life, all of us are searching for something, looking for something. Ever since you were born, you've been on a quest. And I submit to you that just like my search that day that ended in a cross, previously a baby, but then a cross, you are searching not for something but for someone, a baby who grew up to die on a cross. And there is nothing on this earth that you could ever find that will fulfill your empty soul, give you the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of life after death like Jesus, the baby that was born to grow up and die on the cross. And if you're here and you've never trusted him for salvation, or maybe you grew up in the church and know all about God your whole life, yada, yada, yada.

But you're, if you're honest, a prodigal son or daughter, far from God, not following God, looking for something else. But today is the day you come home to the Father. You give your life to Jesus. I'm going to pray with you. I'm going to hope that this Christmas, you'll give him your heart. Acts marks the spot. So Father, we thank you for what you're doing in this moment, the ways you want to work in all of our messy situations. And I thank you for the person here who needs to know that you love them. I pray they would sense and feel it. Thank you for the promise that you're knocking on the door of our hearts, not far from any one of us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life. If, as we're praying, you would say, I want to give my heart to God. I want to trust him. I want to be born again. I want to turn from looking to things in this world to satisfy me to Jesus, I'm going to pray a prayer. I want you to pray it out loud after me. And in praying this, God will hear you. And I believe, as scripture says, he will come into your heart to be your Lord and Savior. I'm not going to ask you to pray this alone. I'm going to ask the church to pray it with you, saying, we're with you in this decision,

welcoming you into the family. Say this, say, dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. Thank you for sending Jesus. Please come into my heart to be my Lord and my Savior. Thank you for new life. I give you mine, in Jesus' name.