2024
Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
Passage: Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 1:39-56
Where the understanding is outraged,
where human nature rebels,
where our piety keeps a nervous distance:
there, precisely there, God loves to be;
there he baffles the wisdom of the wise;
there he vexes our nature, our religious instincts.
There he wants to be, and no one can prevent him.
Only the humble believe him and rejoice
that God is free and grand,
that he works wonders where man loses heart,
that he makes splendid what is slight and lowly.
Indeed, this is the wonder of wonders,
that God loves the lowly.
‘God has been mindful of the humble state of his servant!
God in lowliness—
that is the revolutionary, the passionate word of Advent.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Where God Wants to Be
SERMON OUTLINE:
Mary shows us how to prepare room in our heart for Jesus through…
1.Scripture-filled prayer
2.Magnifying worship
3.Joyful humility
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
Share a time you have prepared for something or someone. What was involved, what was challenging, what did you enjoy?
Read Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 1:39-56. What challenges, encourages, or sparks questions for you in this passage? What phrases stand out to you that help shape your understanding of God’s character and your identity as a child of God?
Consider this Advent prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: “Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” What has it looked like in your life to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest God’s Word? In what ways can you grow in these areas?
Mary’s song highlights five characteristics of God: He is mindful of his people, holy, merciful, righteous, and faithful. Worship is simply telling the truth about who God and what he’s done. How have you resonated with or experienced these aspects of who God is in your life? How does Mary’s expression of worship challenge or encourage you in the ways you worship?
Mary did not fit God’s plans into her life, she joyfully received her place in God’s plan with humility. She prepared him room and rejoiced to receive him. In what ways are you being called to prepare Jesus room in your heart this season?
PRAYER
Share with your group how they can be praying for you: what is weighing on you from this past week? What are you praising God for from this past week?
Isaiah 9:2 / “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”