TITLE: LEAP YEAR
SCRIPTURE: ST. LUKE 1:41
This is a text that is ordinarily preached during the Advent Season or Christmas Holy Day period. However; the text is powerful and makes for dynamic preaching anytime during the year. I must admit when the Holy Spirit began to deal with me in reference to this topic, I thought it was an early gift that I could work on all year and deliver sometime in December.
There is a message here for us this morning. This year marks what has been termed LEAP YEAR. Last month – just a few days ago - February 29 was a date that usually occurs every FOUR YEARS - and is actually called LEAP DAY. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a CORRECTIVE MEASURE - because the earth does not orbit around the sun in precisely 365 days.
Every Four years the Calendar must take a LEAP in an effort to correct itself based upon the Sun’s rotation. During Leap year this suggest that something must be ADDED, something out of the NORM has to take place. When we consider the word Leap, it expresses JOY – TO JUMP OVER SOMETHING. I remember as a boy playing with my cousins and friends a game called – LEAP FROG. Whoever was in the back had to leap over the child or children in front of them. If you were in front you were good, but if you were in the back, the only way to make it to the front was to leap over them. This morning I want to let you know that this is LEAP YEAR. God is doing something right now in our midst, and when He is done working it out for you, your life will never be the same. This will truly be a Leap Year for you.
In our text this morning we find that the ANGEL GABRIEL had already appeared to Mary, one of the amazing things he told her was that "Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month." When Mary heard this, she hurried to Elizabeth for some woman-to-woman support. She was excited for her elder cousin who had up until this point not been able to bear children for her husband. She knew that Elizabeth had prayed for many years, actually many DECADES, and it had appeared that God had not honored her request until now.
• Elizabeth was aged but that made no difference to God
• She was barren but that didn't matter to the Lord
• Her husband didn't believe the promise even when it was personally delivered by the archangel Gabriel, but that didn't stop the one for whom nothing is impossible
• God took Elizabeth's barrenness and turned it into a blessing!
• He saw her emptiness, heard her prayers, and filled that emptiness with the gift of new life
We are stunted Spiritually because we really don’t believe God can -- we have prayed for WEEKS – MONTHS – Perhaps YEARS – given up on God. It’s not too late. Even the Israelites travelled in wilderness 40 years before entering Promised Land. Perhaps Elizabeth and Zechariah had given up. I don’t know, but this I do know, when it appeared Impossible, it was Just Right for God. Don’t give up this morning – God has a blessing with your name on it.
In this text of Scripture we have an amazing event taking place. This meeting of these two expectant women is more than:
• A meeting to speak to each other about babies kicking and moving about
• It’s more than a meeting to discuss the issues of pregnancy
• It’s more than a meeting to discuss how to deal with morning sickness
• It’s more than a meeting to compare projected delivery dates
It is an amazing prophetic, Holy Spirit empowered declaration that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Not only do we see Mary and Elizabeth coming together for fellowship and comfort but we see our Lord and John the Baptist meeting for the first time even before they’re born. In this meeting, or as it’s been called by the church through the centuries, THE VISITATION - we see the meeting of the Old Testament or Old Covenant with the New Covenant. This meeting by these two women is a PROVIDENTIAL coming together. Their meeting is a God ordained meeting. The angel practically extends the invitation for Mary to go see Elizabeth. Many things happen in these few verses.
• God is still placing people in our lives today
• Let God strategically place people in your life
• Ever met someone but it would be years later you became friends – God’s timing
• We try to force people into our lives that should not be there
• Mess up our lives then we let them go
• God extends invitations and when He brings it together
Luke wants us to understand that in the days that Mary received the angel’s message she went IMMEDIATELY to see her cousin. Again, Mary’s faith is seen and shown to us as a model to be followed. She didn’t wait around; SHE AROSE AND WENT WITH HASTE.
• How long does it normally take before you follow God’s Word and do what He has for you to do?
• Why do we spend so much time Waiting instead of Doing?
• Why do we Hesitate when God tells us to Go?
• Mary had a very strong and unwavering faith, one that believed God no matter what
We’re told Mary went to find Elizabeth. She traveled about 100 miles south to the HILL COUNTRY OF JUDAH. This would be about a FIVE DAY JOURNEY. This would also be an amazing trip for a young girl of 14-16 years of age.
• We miss our opportunities because we don’t like to be Inconvenienced
• God does not always make it convenient for us
• God is pushing us to get out of our Comfort Zone
• We miss the very movement of God because we don’t want to take the Journey
Mary was serious about what God was birthing in her life. How serious are people today? God is trying to Birth so many things into the life of this Church. Many are not serious enough about what God is Birthing in You.
• If it rains, people won't come to church
• God forbid snow or cold, stay home for weeks
• We allow the least little ache or pain or problem to hinder what God is trying to birth in our lives
• Wonder, What have we missed?
• Adversary wants to Abort everything God is attempting to Birth in us
As marvelous and miraculous as Elizabeth's conception of John was and as sufficient as just giving birth to a child would be, God wasn’t finished.
• He was about to transport Elizabeth from the realm of the natural world to the kingdom of supernatural power!
• He was about to fill Elizabeth with a divine energy that would make even her miraculous pregnancy pale in comparison
• The delivery agent of that jolt of the supernatural would be Elizabeth's cousin, Mary, but the source of that power would be the very Son of God Himself, conceived by the Holy Spirit, whom Mary now carried
• God was now flesh in the womb of humanity and He was about to unleash all His omnipotent power through the tiny and gentle voice of a simple virgin
Mary now arrives at the home of her cousin. We don’t know whether Elizabeth saw Mary at first, or just heard her voice. She may have been working around the house or in another room when Mary gave her greeting. Hello, Elizabeth, it’s your cousin Mary are you home? But however it was, Luke tells us that Mary’s voice had an affect on the baby Elizabeth was carrying.
As soon as Mary gave her greeting – A BOLT OF HEAVENLY POWER shot across the distance between her and Elizabeth. It entered Elizabeth's body with such force she was immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and, in her own words, "As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy."
What was the purpose and mechanism of this action? What would cause the fetus within the womb of Elizabeth to leap at the presence of Mary in the house of Zacharias? THIS ACTION WAS NOT A NORMAL BIOLOGICAL MOVEMENT NOTED IN THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNBORN. Something had to trigger this action for a purpose.
It is important we recognize why John the Baptist leaped for joy. It starts with the HOLY SPIRIT. The angel told Zechariah that John the Baptist would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb - ST. LUKE 1:15 - Filled with the Holy Spirit, John the Baptist was leaping and kicking with joy because he knew the Messiah was present. At the same time as John the Baptist was kicking with joy, his mother Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to praise God for what was being done through Mary.
This leaping is a PROPHETIC LEAPING. It is something that God’s people had been waiting on for centuries. What do I mean?
• The last utterance by any prophet came from the mouth of Malachi
• He was the last prophet before the 400 years of silence
• There were 400 silent years between Malachi and the beginning of the NT
• The people would have read this text and waited for an amazing event
• At the announcement and birth of Jesus there would be so much joy that God’s people would leap for joy like a calf comes out of the pen
God wants us to know this morning that we need to bring back this same sense of Joy in His House. There is no Prophetic Leaping in the Church because there is a lack of Joy. We no longer react to the voice of God.
• The problem is joy is not a commodity that can be produced, bought, sold or stolen
• We can’t get joy on discount from J.C. Penny
• We can’t buy Joy in a Cup at 7-11
• We can’t Download Joy
• We can’t lobby for Joy in Congress
• We can’t Legislate Joy
• We can’t Win Joy in a Lawsuit
• We can’t Seduce Joy
• We can’t Turn it On with a Remote Control
• We can’t Earn Joy
• We can’t Inherit It
So the question I ask this morning is - When we come into the Lord’s presence here in church, are we moved, like John the Baptist, to leap with Joy? We focus so much on the things that seem to Take the Joy From us. What is keeping you from Leaping with Joy this Morning? Is it something that’s bigger than the Lord Himself - It may look that way, but nothing is truly greater than He. And that in and of itself is reason to leap for Joy!
--Joy comes from God and God alone.
--Man cannot give us Joy and Man cannot take it away.
--God is bringing back the Joy to His Worship Experience
--Just as John Began to Leap In the Womb
--God is saying to us today that this is LEAP YEAR
--If we once again get excited about His Church
--If we once again get excited about the Voice of God
--God will make this our LEAP YEAR
--Whatever Problems you have in your Life, God will cause you to Leap Over It
--Whatever has kept you Bond – God will cause you to Leap Over It
--Whatever Addictions have Kept you from your Promotion in God – Leap Over It
--That Promotion you have been waiting for – Leap Over It
--God says this is our LEAP YEAR
--Bad Habits – Leap Over It
--Bad Decisions – Leap Over It
--Devil has had you down long enough
--Tell the Devil, this is my LEAP YEAR
--Misunderstandings – Leap Over It
--Friends turned their back on you – Leap Over It
--Leap over the Problem
--Leap over that Situation
--Leap over that Trial
--2012 is my LEAP YEAR
--This Year is my LEAP YEAR
