Welcome back you guys.

This is week number one of Creative Come Follow Me for the New Testament, and this

week we get to jump into the gospels.

So as you guys probably know from your previous studies of the New

Testament, you can break up the New Testament into about five chunks.

The first half of the year we're gonna spend in the gospels.

So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, those are eyewitness accounts of

the Savior's life and ministry.

In the case of Luke, he's actually collected other eyewitnesses accounts

and put them into his book, and we're gonna spend a lot of time there.

You can choose when you study the gospels to study them one at a time

or to try and study them in harmony, meaning you're gonna take a few

chapters that cover the same basic areas and try to blend them together.

That's generally what the Come Follow Me manual does.

But there are a few departures.

I've just found it's a little bit tricky to study that way.

My brain likes order and lists.

So we will go through things systematically.

Meaning I'm gonna teach you Matthew, and then we'll jump into Luke.

But my hope is that by setting the stage with Matthew one and then

adding what we learned in Luke one, we'll get a fuller picture of

this piece of the Savior's history.

I really think it's kind of the same way.

If you've ever attended a funeral and you've heard a few different people

speak about that person's life.

And you hear the same kinds of stories and the same personality come out in

a whole bunch of different memories.

I feel like that's what you get when you study the four gospels.

They don't always match up perfectly.

In fact, most of the time they don't, but they compliment each other.

There are a few times when they conflict with each other, so

I'll try and point those out.

But, thankfully, in addition to the four gospels, we also have Joseph

Smith's translation of these books.

So the first thing I would tell you before you even get into your

scriptures this week is to take a second and highlight every single

footnote that has JST at the beginning.

That's what I did before I started this week.

It makes a huge difference in catching those changes.

So go in the footnotes, highlight every JST, and then what I usually do is I

take that same color highlighter and I just highlight that tiny little letter

that corresponds to it in the verse.

That way I never miss a JST translation cuz they make a world of difference when

you're trying to understand the gospels.

The last thing I would tell you, and it mirrors what we heard in

conference, is that when you think about the book of third Nephi,

it's almost like a fifth Gospel.

So throughout this first six months when we're deep into the gospels, we will

focus a lot on the Book of Mormon as well, especially what we learn in Third Nephi.

So you'll kind of wanna keep your whole quad handy.

Today we're in Matthew one and Luke one.

So we're gonna study that precursor to the Christmas story.

We'll get a little bit of a heads up about what came before, and

there's a lot of goodness there.

So grab your scriptures, grab your notes.

Let's get started.

The reason I like to compare the gospels to a really great funeral

where you hear these different eulogies from different perspectives is that's

basically what the gospels are.

They're all written after the life of the Savior.

They're all written after he's died, been resurrected, and then time has passed.

Some scholars think even 70, 80 years of time have passed and

so, there's a lot to capture.

And you get that same feeling that you get at a great funeral where the

people who are writing want to capture what is true and what is memorable,

and what is meaningful, what can last.

And for Matthew, his audience is specific.

He wants to teach the Jews.

Matthew was a Jew, so he was the tax collector that Jews

hated, but he was a Jew.

And once he converted and left his tax collecting days behind him, his

whole focus, at least in what he writes for us, is catered to the Jews

in converting the Jews of his day.

And the best way to do that at least from what it feels like when you study his

words is to teach them about how Jesus was the fulfillment of all of the law of

Moses and all of the prophets that they've studied and loved their whole life.

So he makes a lot of connections to the Old Testament.

What I love about that as the beginning of the New Testament

is it forms this lovely bridge.

I feel like Matthew is almost like every great author because you'll look

at the first 16 verses and it gives you the genealogy of Jesus, and it's really

tempting to just sorta brush past it because it's a lot of begats, you know?

But I think what he's actually trying to do is to stitch things together.

So if you ever read a really good sequel to a really good first book, a great

author will take, you know, memories and thoughts and character points from

the first book and stitch them into the first chapter or two of the second book.

So if you've waited a while for the second book of the series to come

out, your brain kind of kickstarts, you'll be like, oh yeah, now I

remember it's all coming back to me.

I think that's what Matthew is trying to do in this first chapter.

He's trying to teach the people that Jesus Christ is this bridge between

the Law of Moses that they love and the prophets that they study and revere.

He is the fulfillment of all of those.

So in those 16 verses, I think he's stitching them together.

He's showing that the genealogy takes Jesus Christ back to

Abraham and even back to Adam.

He is the fulfillment of all those promises.

So you're gonna see it broken down.

This is not a perfect list.

In Hebrew times, they didn't necessarily try and write a genealogy that was exactly

accurate and included all the generations.

In fact you can tell cuz he breaks it into three groups of 14 to take

him all the way back to Abraham and that wouldn't have fit based on the

number of years we're talking about.

You can go in the notes and learn more about that, but I think he's trying

to do it in a poetic way to show that there is this unbroken chain between

Jesus and King David, who would be the fulfillment of that promise, right?

And then from David, all the way back to Abraham, there is this unbroken chain.

And so that's what Matthew's goal is to try and get across.

He is King of kings.

He is the rightful heir to the throne.

And that sort of takes you right into the narrative part of Matthew one.

So when you look down, you'll see that in 16 that Jacob begat Joseph,

the husband of Mary, who was born of Jesus, who was called Christ.

If you go into Jesus the Christ, you'll learn a lot more about this.

But I really loved how Elder Talmage taught.

He basically said that Joseph is the adopted father of Jesus, which means by

Mosaic Law an adopted son is absolutely as entitled to birthright as a biological

son is so it would work that way.

But because of Paul's writings, we know that Jesus Christ is the

literal seed of David, which means there must be more to that story.

So the way Elder Talmage teaches it is that Mary's line would also be of

this priestly, this, you know, Davidic tribe where he would have rights to

the throne from Mary and from Joseph.

So you can go into the notes and learn a little bit more about that.

But I loved that tie in that he is a fulfillment on both sides.

Whether Joseph and Mary were related or you know, I don't know how that

all shakes out, but you can go in Jesus the Christ and learn more.

I also love that he says, who is called Christ?

You wanna think of Christ, at least this is how Elder Talmage teaches it, that

Christ is more of a title than a name.

So that's why he calls his book Jesus the Christ.

It's almost like, you know, Elder Nelson the prophet.

It's that same idea that he is a fulfillment of a role

and Christ is his role.

His role is to be the Messiah, the anointed one.

And you can go on the footnotes and see more about that, but

I, I like the remembrance that Christ is not Jesus' last name.

It is his title, and it is a title of dignity and majesty, and we have

to give it a little bit of weight.

Okay?

When you go into this story, you're gonna see that Mary was espoused to Joseph.

So in Jewish tradition, you can go into the notes and learn more, but basically,

there were two parts of every engagement.

At the beginning usually before the bride even hit puberty, the

parents would agree to this union.

They would sign contracts.

It would be very official and hard to get out of this espousal process.

And that's basically where Mary and Joseph are.

They've already hit that part of the contract and they're waiting for

the day when they will actually be married and the bride will go and join,

you know the groom at his parents' house, they're not to that stage yet.

They're somewhere in the middle.

They're espoused.

And in that espousal process, Joseph learns of Mary's state.

So in 18 you see that before they came together.

So before they lived together, before they were a couple, she was

found with child of the Holy Ghost.

And then in 19, then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not

willing to make a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

So at some point, Joseph comes to an awareness of Mary's state.

That she is pregnant, and because of the good man that he is, he

seeks to end this engagement without any, repercussions towards her.

There will still be repercussions.

And I think maybe because he knows she will face gossip and she will face

all kinds of struggle in her life.

He hopes to not add to it, so he seeks to put her away privily.

For me, that just teaches me something about Joseph.

There must be some profound reason that God the Father chose Joseph to

be the Father who would raise Jesus.

Who would be Mary's help meat.

You know, there's some reason that pair is together and I think even though

Joseph isn't the biological father of Jesus Christ, God the Father is,

Joseph's personality and character traits, like any adopted dad, you know

pour into his son because you see how Joseph cares for Mary and how he treats

her and how he seeks her wellbeing.

And then you look at all of Jesus' ministry and how often he makes a point

to focus on the women and to take care of women and to take care of widows and

to take care of those who are, you know, often cast aside and I feel like you,

you see echoes of Joseph in Jesus and I just love that piece of his story.

So he sought to put her way privily.

What I think is interesting about that is that means Mary didn't

tell him how she became pregnant.

I've started to kinda wonder if maybe there's more to this piece of

the story because in every situation that I studied, Mary never told

people how she became pregnant.

In fact, even Elder Talmage talks that no one knows that.

And I just, I, I wonder sometimes if similar to when the savior would perform

miracles in his ministry and sometimes ask the people not to speak of it to others,

if maybe Mary's situation is similar, that she was asked not to speak of it to

others and what weight that might have added to her choice to to go ahead and to

let this happen, that she would know that she wasn't gonna be able to explain it

to Joseph or to her parents or to others.

I don't know if that's the case, or maybe she just had such reverence and

awe for it that she couldn't speak it.

I don't know.

But what I found is throughout this week's study, all the people who came

to understand that this was a divine thing, All of that knowledge came

through the Holy Ghost with Joseph.

You're gonna see it again with Zacharias and Elizabeth.

All of them come to an understanding of this miracle because the Holy Ghost

teaches them, not because Mary testifies about it or tells them, they just know.

And part of me thinks that because this is a miracle that is unprecedented

in every way and has never again been matched, it is something that

only the Holy Ghost can teach.

You know how President Nelson taught us that the mysteries of God are

gonna be unfolded and you need to seek the wisdom of Holy Ghost, so that

you can know the mysteries of God?

I think this may be one them.

That there's, that's the only way you can understand it, but I think it teaches

us something about this interaction with Mary and Joseph that he needed

to come to his own understanding about how this happened and the point of

verse 19, he doesn't know that yet.

So he needs, he needs divine guidance and that's what comes in 20.

So it says in 20 that while he thought on these things, an angel of the Lord comes.

I do kinda love that little piece.

It reminds me of Joseph Smith.

I think Joseph might have a character similar to Joseph Smith in that

he is someone who stews on things.

He didn't make any rash decisions.

He doesn't cut her off.

He doesn't, he just wants to think on things.

I think like everyone, you know, like when you look, read the Book of Mormon,

you see all these descriptions of Mary and that she'll beautiful and fair

and chosen above all of other women.

I think Joseph sees that in her and he's not willing to just end this.

He wants to give it some time, so he thinks on things and as he's thinking

on things, that's when the angel comes.

I love that cuz that happens to me all the time when I can't find an

answer to a prayer or I'm studying something in the scriptures and

things haven't clicked into place yet.

It's the fact that I'm willing to like stew on things that I feel like invites

the spirit to come teach me more.

When I close the book on something and think, oh, I've learned everything I need

to learn, then the spirit can't get there.

But because Joseph is willing to, you know, wrestle with it a little

bit, I think the spirit teaches him.

So the angel comes and he says, fear not.

And I just think there must be a hundred things he's afraid of even knowing

that this is a divine manifestation.

This is a miracle.

That's never happened before.

He must have had so many other questions.

You know, like, how am I gonna raise this kid?

What am I, where do we live?

And how do I take care of her?

And what about all the gossip that's gonna come?

He must have had a thousand questions, but the angel doesn't

answer all those questions.

He gives him this partial answer that simply says, fear

not this miracle is of God.

You can go forward.

It's that moment of stepping into uncertainty with just enough knowledge to

have faith to go forward that I think we see over and over again in the scriptures.

Joseph is no exception.

At this point in time.

He could have changed course, he could have picked any other road, and instead

he said, okay, I'm gonna let God prevail.

So in this moment he does and he moves forward.

I love it because he's basically saying, okay, you're gonna be the

author and finisher of my faith.

I'm gonna follow this story to its end.

So when you look in the verses, there's a few things that jump out.

In 21 it says, and she shall bring forth a son.

This is the angel speaking to Joseph, and thou shall call his name Jesus.

I don't know if this was deliberate or not, but I do kind of love

that in this verse, it calls attention to both of their roles.

If she's gonna carry this divine son, it will be her son.

But you're gonna call his name Jesus, and that means that he will save his people.

They both have a critical role to play in the raising of this divine son.

And I think it's, I think it's delineated a little bit in that verse.

Joseph will need to know who he is and teach his son who he is and who

he will become from the beginning of his story and, and I love

that injunction that's in there.

Then he talks about how.

Behold, this is verse 23.

Behold a virgin shall be with child, and this is the fulfilling of the

prophecy, and shall bring forth the son and they shall call his name Emmanuel,

which being interpreted is God with us.

Okay, here's what I love about this verse.

Sometimes I wonder if this was hard for Mary that her part of this, what she

added to this equation, this, you know, it's Mary's child and God, the father's

child together, and what she added to the equation, so that, is that allowing

God to be with us, meaning he's mortal.

He experienced pain and illness and fatigue and hunger and all

these weaknesses, all these mortal frailties he inherited from her.

And I wonder if that was hard to her.

That when she saw him be, when she saw him struggle, she knew that that was

something he, he inherited from her . I only, I think I'm sensitive to this

because of the situation with Jason where he worries about that with our kids.

That they have become accustomed to cancer and to hard things because of

the experience that they've had growing up in a house with a dad with cancer.

So he worries all the time that they, you know, haven't had the childhood

that they could have had, or that he couldn't have been the dad he could

have been, you know, he worries.

And I wonder if Mary had some of those worries that every time she

saw that it was her part of the DNA that brought all this struggle.

But what I love is what we learned in the Book of Mormon, that because of his

ability to feel and to suffer and even to die, that he all, he inherited from Mary,

he is the savior that he needed to be.

He's able to sucker at his children, he's able to rush to them and help.

He's able to understand every pain and every adversity.

Because of what he inherited from Mary.

And I just love that piece cuz I think I see that with my own kids with Jason.

Although he worries about all the things that they didn't get or what where

they're lacking because of our situation.

I also see their ability to have compassion is amplified.

Their ability to, you know, to think longer term and to trust in God's

promises is amplified because of what the family has been through.

So I, I think, I wonder sometimes if all of that is in Mary's heart and if maybe

that's why she treasured things in her heart, cuz that's a lot to hold and

it probably took some time to process.

But I love that she has Joseph by her side because we learn that Joseph does.

You go at the end of this verse or the end of this chapter, in 24, it

says, then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had

bidden him and took unto him, his wife.

He doesn't know all the answers.

He has a partial revelation about what's right and what's gonna happen next.

And he says, okay, I'm, I'm in.

I'm gonna let God prevail.

And I think knowing that he is by Mary's side helps us understand how

they could raise a son like Jesus.

Uh, even though he's divine and has a lot of inherent potential, these

two parents who are like YSA aged, you know, teenage aged, um, they set

the stage for who he will become, and I just love that piece of the story.

If Luke we're gonna stand and give a eulogy at a funeral, I feel like his

would be the one that makes you laugh and brings out the heart and then by

the end you're in tears cuz Luke's focus is a little bit different.

His audience is the Gentiles.

In fact, Luke isn't an eyewitness of the Savior's ministry.

He is someone who seems to be almost like a journalist.

He's someone who went to eyewitnesses like it sounds like

he must have talked with Mary.

He must have talked with some of the apostles.

And he wrote down their accounts and he gives us a preface about his goals at

the, in the first few verses of Luke one.

But Luke himself is a Gentile who converted to the gospel of

Jesus Christ and he'll become Paul's missionary companion.

And he has just a softness to his words.

He, a lot of people think he's a physician and he puts a lot of emphasis

on the savior's compassion, especially for those who are weak or vulnerable or

sinners, anyone who is on the margins.

Luke puts a bit of a spotlight on how the savior cared for them.

So you're gonna love the book of Luke.

But here's some differences to Luke one.

This is a bigger chapter, so I'm gonna break it into a few chunks.

But first off, you get a preface.

So where Matthew kicks right into the genealogy, Luke does

things a little bit differently.

He'll save the genealogy for a couple chapters from now.

And in Luke one, he gives us a preface about why he's making this book.

So if you look in one in verse one, it says, his whole goal is that there are

other accounts out there circulating.

So the book of Matthew and the Book of Mark are probably already

in existence, and he wants to add his understanding and his witness.

And so his hope is that what he'll capture is what is surely believed.

But if you look in the footnotes, it says that a better

translation of that is fulfilled.

He believes Jesus Christ fulfilled all the law and he wants to capture it.

So his goals are similar to Matthews.

He just has a different audience, so he teaches differently.

So he talks about that.

He also talks about how he's gonna gather eyewitness accounts.

Those who saw him firsthand and knew his heart, he's gonna capture

their words and their stories.

I love what you see in three as well, because he basically clarifies that

this is something he just decided to do.

He doesn't, there's no angel that comes and says, Luke, I need you to make an

account and gather all these stories.

There's no, we have no record of any kind of, , you know, command.

What we have is a, a man who sees all these good stories and

says, I want to capture them.

I feel like it's a fulfillment of what we're invited to do.

That we're invited to be anxiously engaged in a good cause.

When you see an opportunity, you're supposed to jump at it and do good.

And so that's kinda what you see in three is he says, it seemed good to me.

It's not that he was commanded.

It just seemed good to me.

So he decides to write down what is true.

So I feel like before you flip the page, this is another spot where you

really wanna pay attention to the JST because what Joseph Smith adds to this

very first little tiny part of page one is he focuses on the testimony of Luke

being a witness that even though Luke is not a firsthand account, he didn't

see these things with his own eyes.

He is someone who fiercely believes in the testimony of others, and Joseph

Smith points out that that is enough.

I love that because of what we read in the Doctrine and

Covenants about spiritual gifts.

He talks about how one of the gifts of the spirit is to believe on the

testimony of others, and Luke is kind of a perfect example of that.

He is his testimony that is of others' testimonies is absolutely

valid and used and needed.

And I think that's important for us cuz there's a lot of

experiences that I have not had.

You haven't seen Angels.

I haven't had a lot of the things I've heard other people experience, but I

can believe on their words and testify of what they have seen and what they

know and that's just as powerful.

And Luke is a good example of that spiritual gift.

Okay.

So when you flip the page and you get into the gospel of Luke, some

of the things you're gonna see is his goal is that we might know.

So if you look in three and four he wants us to have a perfect understanding.

He's saying he's coming from a whole, perfect meaning like complete a complete

understanding of the character of Christ, and he wants to pass that on to us.

In fact, he wants us to have certainty.

That's what you see in four, that thou mightest know the

certainty of those things.

That's his goal, so he's gonna teach it differently.

You're gonna understand the compassion and character of Christ differently

because of what Luke adds to the story.

When you go a little bit further in, you'll see he teaches us the

story of Zacharias and Elizabeth.

And we just covered this in the Christmas lesson cuz I , I couldn't resist.

But I'm hoping to draw attention to some other things as well.

So a few things that caught my eye this time.

Cause remember, the scriptures never close.

Like every time you think you know the story, you go back and you study again

and there's a bunch more to learn.

So let me show you some of the things I learned this time when I studied

the story of Zacharias and Elizabeth.

First off, I love the way it's described that they are both righteous.

So if you look in six, remember Zacharias is a priest and his wife is barren,

and they're both older and it says, and they were both righteous before

God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

This is important for two big reasons.

First because oftentimes barrenness was seen as a sign of God's disfavor for you.

So the fact that Luke makes it clear right up front that these were two

good people who just simply didn't have all the blessings that they wanted.

They wanted a child and they hadn't had one yet.

And your heart kind of breaks for them, kind of the same way it did

for Abraham and Sarah and Hannah and so many others in the scriptures.

But what I thought of this time as I was studying it is I wonder if that

adversity that they were facing, the lack of blessing where they wanted

a son, and it was this righteous desire and they hoped and prayed for

it, is actually what allowed them to be righteous walking before God.

I, I only ask or say that because I found that in my life, , you know, when you are.

When you are desperately seeking an answer to a prayer or a blessing that has

somehow been withheld, you stay really close to the Lord cuz you pray for it

often and you hope and you anticipate and you study when it's happened for

others, and you lean on that hope.

And I, I wonder sometimes if this withholding of a blessing is

actually what created their faith.

Um, and there's, there's a kindness in that from the Lord.

You go a little bit further and you learn that this is a

specific time in Zechariah's life.

So he is of the tribe of Levi.

We know that they're related to Mary somehow.

So again, there's a possibility that Mary has like one parent that's of the

tribe of Judah that gives her the Davidic descent and one that is related it to

Levi, which is really cool cuz Elder Talmage talks about this as being like he

is the king of kings and also the great high priest cuz you know he's got Levi and

Judah, which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyways, you go on the verses, you'll see that they're related, but he is a

priest, so he's of the tribe of Levi.

He's a high priest, and at this point in time, his lot is drawn so that

he can go into the temple like we talked about, and offer this prayer.

This is a very rare circumstance.

The tribe of Levi is huge at this point in time.

So each like order of the tribe of Levi only gets two times a year where they

get to go in and most of the orders have hundreds of priests so that he gets chosen

for this one, it's pretty remarkable.

And he gets to go in and he gets to say a prayer at the altar of incense.

So that's that altar that's right in front of the curtain that separates

the Holy of Holies and the holy place.

He's in the holy place with the menorah here and the table of shoe bread, and

he's right in front of the altar of incense and he's in this sacred spot

that he only gets to go in maybe once in a lifetime and in this once in a

lifetime opportunity, an angel appears.

And he has an answer to a prayer that Zechariah hasn't even

vocalized, and I love that piece.

In fact, I think it's powerful because of what we see in the Book of Mormon.

Do you remember when Jesus comes to the Americas and he speaks to the people and

he can perceive in their heart, in fact, he uses that word over and over again.

He says, I perceive in your hearts that you feel you know X, Y, Z.

And he talks about what they're feeling.

Zechariah hasn't voiced his prayer, but because he's lived a lifetime of

diligence and goodness, the Lord knows it and he answers it through this angel.

The angel is Gabriel and Gabriel answers a prayer that Zechariah

hasn't even uttered and I.

I just love that.

I think it, it teaches me something about prayer, that there is something

powerful in diligently asking God all throughout my lifetime for the blessings

that I seek, and at some point in time when the time is right and the will of

God is right, the answer will come even if I haven't asked for it that day.

So I love, I loved what I read about Zechariah there.

Some other things you're gonna see is that fear falls on him.

I actually really love this word choice.

I hadn't thought of this before this week, but when I was studying

it, I'm like, I wonder why they used the word fell upon him.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought actually that fits.

Cuz fear is something that adds weight.

We say this literally with Peter when he's walking on the

water, that fear falls upon him.

He sees the waves and the crashing and he fears, and that fear holds him down.

It actually adds weight and he starts to sink.

We see this in so many circumstances in our own lives.

When we give into fear, we feel weight and heaviness and

faith is the opposite, right?

Faith elevates and lifts, and in this moment he's, he feels

fear, so he, it falls upon him.

And then you see the promise.

So the angel who probably sees that he is in fear, wants to lift, he wants

to take that weight off his shoulders.

So it tells him, let me tell you why I'm here.

Like I'm here to answer the prayer that you and your wife

have been offering for decades.

And it's gonna be joyous.

Not just because you're gonna have a son, but because he will become

John the Baptist, who will be this forerunner to Jesus Christ.

He is a son that has a great work to do.

So the rest of the verses talk about that great work that will happen.

You can go on the notes and learn all about it, but he is basically

a fulfillment of prophecy.

That he is a, he's gonna fulfill all those Abrahamic promises.

This must have been staggering to Zechariah because you guys,

there hasn't been a prophet in the land for over 400 years.

So to know that all of a sudden today a new prophet will

come and he will be of you.

He will be your son.

So he's a miracle in lots of different ways, and it must have

just blown Zechariah's mind because his response is not so great.

So he responds to the Lord and he, or to the angel Gabriel, and says

basically like, how will this be?

So in 18, he says, whereby shall I know this?

When you go into the footnotes on this, it takes you way back to Abraham.

And when he is promised that, that he'll get to the promised land

and he'll be able to inherit it.

And he says like, how will I know this?

And the Lord gives him understanding.

And in this situation you don't get that.

Zechariah doesn't get a second chance.

He's basically either asking for a sign or asking for a second witness so that

he can, he know for sure this is real.

I guess the more I studied it, the more I started to wonder that

maybe what Zechariah is fearing here is not so much whether this

is real and can actually happen.

I wonder if he worries that he can be the father that this great prophet will need

because he's old and doesn't know how long he'll be alive, or he doesn't know

how long his wife will be alive and maybe he's worried that he, he isn't sufficient

to be the father of this great man.

I don't know, but whatever his fear was based on Gabriel comes back pretty strong.

So Gabriel basically says to him in 19, and the angel answering

said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God.

I was sent here to tell you these glad tidings.

That's his response.

And because of his lack of faith in that moment, there is this period.

Consequence, and we talked about this a little bit before in the Old

Testament, but he essentially has nine months of time to think about

his choices where he can't speak.

The Lord didn't take that blessing away.

The the baby will still be born of his wife.

The miracle will still happen, but he has this season to.

Think on his choices.

It's the same way I picture Peter's boat ride back to the shore.

Y you know, like the, when he got back in the boat and he's

all wet and he's frustrated that his faith was not sufficient.

That boat ride back was time to think, but the Lord didn't get to the shore and

say to Peter, I gave you your chance.

You're out.

What the Lord always does with all of his disciples who have moments of weakness,

where fear falls on them, as he says.

Your faith could have been better.

Let's do better tomorrow.

That's discipleship you guys.

He continually invites us to just try it again and so Zacharias

gets a chance to try it again.

I love this uh, with Elder Holland cause I was reading his book recently and

he talked about how this moment where Gabriel says, I am Gabriel, he said as

an apostle God, he wishes he could say this sometimes that people who question.

whether there could have been a first vision or question whether the Book

of Mormon could be real, he wishes he could stand and say like, I am Gabriel.

Do you know whose church this is?

Do you know who Joseph Smith was?

Like he wishes he had that.

You can read the quote in the notes, but I, there is a wait to

Gabriel's answer where he's like, oh, you, you didn't understand and

so you're gonna need some time.

So, you know when you picture that that narrative of God is the author

and finisher of our finisher of our faith, I feel like had Zacharias.

, okay.

The same way Mary does be it unto me, according to that

word, let God prevail then.

Then a certain path would've opened up for him.

But because he feared in this moment a different path opens up.

It's a nine month delay of sorts, but the GPS is just rerouting Zacharias.

He's gonna get to the same place where he's gonna be the

father of John the Baptist, and he will, because of this nine.

He will be a better one.

He will be a stronger father for John the Baptist, cuz he will come to know

God in that nine months of silence.

And I think there's power in that to remember all, for all of us to remember

that even if we fear in that pivotal moment when the Lord needed us to

step up, he will open up a new route.

He will reroute us back to where we need to be.

It might be longer and it might be harder, but we will be rerouted.

And I love that you learned that from Zechariah.

When Gabriel comes to Mary six months later, things are very

different in Mary's circumstances.

She is not in a temple, not in a holy place.

She's not a high priest.

She doesn't have all of that scholarship and learning behind her.

She is in a different spot.

She is a young girl from Nazareth who has this incredible encounter,

and I just love the way it plays.

She basically, the angel comes to her.

We don't know the circumstances.

I like to picture her outside.

Maybe that's just me projecting . But you know, the same way, we have a lot of cool

stories about people who are out in nature and they experience something profound.

That's kind of how I picture Mary's circumstances.

Um, and she learns from the angel who she is.

I love that she learns this first before she learns that she will

be the mother of the son of God.

She learns that she is seen by God and that she is favored.

So if you look in the.

. He comes to her, the virgin's name is Mary in 27, and then in 28 the angel says, hail

thou art highly favored, and the Lord is with the blessed out thou among women.

I picture Mary as someone who.

Has a lot of spiritual gifts.

Uh, we don't know this about her.

We don't have a lot of verses about Mary in general, but we know she

has chosen to be the mother of the son of God, and that would make her

a pretty elect spirit generally.

And I wonder if she, you know, she is a Hebrew girl,

which means she would grow up.

All of her life learning that there would be a Messiah who would come, and

they even knew that he would come from their tribe, from the tribe of Judah.

So she would've gone and learned from her parents, her mom and her

grandma, that somebody was gonna have this child at some point in time.

And I wonder if every girl, in fact, I read a book from Camille Frank Olson

that talked about that every Jewish girl, especially of this tribe, would

probably have grown up hoping that they could play a part in that miracle.

And I wonder if Mary's there in that situation because when the angel comes,

I don't see her as afraid as much as I see her eager . Let me explain why.

So when you go on the verses, you'll see that the, he says that she is blessed

among women, blessed art thou among women.

What I love about this piece of Gabriel's prophecy towards

her is he basically says to.

Before he mentions the savior at all, or that she will be the mother of the

son of God, that she herself is valued and seen by God that he is with her.

At this point in time, he has always been with her.

And then you can see how, so if you look a little further, it says that

she's troubled cuz she doesn't know that the, another word for that or another

translation of that is, startled.

She's startled.

So remember, she's not in a holy place.

She doesn't, and there's really no precedent for people in the

Bible for angels coming to women.

In fact, only two times in the history of the Bible doesn't angel speak to women.

So there's no precedent for this, as opposed to Zacharias.

There's a lot of precedent for his situation.

Her's is unique and so she's startled to buy it and he says, fear not Mary

for thou has found favor with God.

I love this cuz basically what we understand about Mary,

she's pretty young, right?

She would be, most scholars that I read said somewhere between

like 15 and 17, somewhere in that range, possibly even younger.

So she hasn't had a lot of time to be a devoted disciple of God.

You know, she's young the same way Joseph Smith was young and

the Stripling warriors were young.

But what I think this says about Mary is.

. She is someone who was favored by God before she ever even got here.

She is someone who's proven herself in the premortal world because

she hasn't had enough time to, to establish herself in this one.

So there must be more to her story.

There's another quote from Elder Talmage in Jesus, the Christ about Mary and

how she must have been an elect spirit in order to be chosen for this role.

She like the way we talk about Eve in the Premortal world.

Mary is someone who.

remarkable.

And so I think you see a little bit that I think this is what I feel like

my job is as a parent is basically to open up the view of my kids so that

they don't just see themselves in this limited mortal space, that they see

that they are a person who existed long before they were born into this world,

and who will continue long after it.

They are bigger than what this mortal body and mortal experience feels like.

And I feel like that's what Gabriel is trying to say to Mary,

you are so much bigger than just this little girl from Nazareth.

You have such a great work to do.

So he goes on and he shows her how.

And her response to this is how , kinda like we talked about last time, I really

think this is a logistical question.

She's not doubting that it can happen.

She believes prophecy.

She believes that these scriptural promises can be fulfilled.

She just isn't an how, cuz she's a virgin and she's espoused but not married and she

doesn't see how that's gonna be possible.

And so the angel answers her.

It can seem unfair that Zacharias gets nine months.

You know, quiet when he asks.

Basically the same kind of question.

But Mary's I feel like is a little bit different.

I also think Mary's situation is different.

You know, we learn from the doctrine and covenants that, you know,

great responsibility comes when you've been given great blessings.

And Mary's situation and Zechariah's situation are pretty different.

They're what the Lord expects them to understand and to.

would be different.

Uh, so the, the angel's a little more patient with Mary and teaches her and

explains that she will have this son, that he will be the son of God, that he

will be Mary's biological son, and God the father's biological son, and that

there will be no mortal man involved.

And that's critical for our doctrine cuz it's not taught

that way in every other doctrine.

So it's critical to understand and teach your kids this week that we

believe that Jesus Christ is the literal son of Mary and God the Father.

And you can go in the notes and see a lot of prophetic quotes about it,

but this is unprecedented, right?

It's never happened before.

And Mary who's facing a miracle that is bigger than any miracle that anyone has

ever known says, okay, and I, I just.

Find that remarkable.

I really think that Mary is the product of home centered learning.

She didn't get to go study in, you know, the, the schools she, she would've been

taught at home about prophecy and about scripture, and she believes the same way.

The stippling warriors in a similar spot who were facing ridiculous uncertainty

in a battlefield, say, I don't doubt it.

My mother knew it.

And so they go forward and that's what Mary does, be it

unto me according to thy word.

I don't see this as a passive.

Okay, let it all come.

I read this as eager.

I see her as someone who probably always felt like she was something special or

that she had something to do for the Lord, but in her circumstances couldn't

figure out how she could be that person.

And now, Lights are going off.

I, this is how I feel about Mary.

I don't think she's just this quiet, passive person.

I think she is someone who knows who she is and wants to, wants to plumb the

depths of what the Lord sees in her.

I see her as like this eager person who wants to fulfill.

So when she says, be it unto me, it's like, okay, let's go.

She is a strong woman in my mind, even at this young.

. And so she's excited and the first thing she wants to do is go, because

basically what the Angel Gabriel teaches her is that almost as a witness of,

I know it's crazy to believe that God can do impossible things, but let me

tell you about your relative Elizabeth.

And so he teaches her about Elizabeth and this other birth, this happened when

Elizabeth is so old and well past the time when anyone would've expected it.

And so of course, the first thing Mary wants to do as soon as

she learns about her role is to say, I want to go see my cousin.

So that's what happens next.

this journey to go see Elizabeth is a long one.

It would've taken five days to get there, roughly.

This is a a hundred mile journey.

That's how excited she is.

And again, I wonder if sometimes it's because she couldn't

explain this to anyone else.

She couldn't tell anyone else what had happened, but I wonder if she hopes

that Elizabeth will know, or maybe she just wants to rejoice with someone else.

Understands miracles the way Mary does.

All of a sudden.

So she goes, and what is powerful about the interchange between

them is there are so few words.

Mary, when she approaches Elizabeth, in fact, she doesn't

even say she sees her yet.

She just calls out to her and the babe leaps in Elizabeth's womb and

she is filled with the Holy Ghost.

Sometimes we just focus on that babe leaping.

You know that John the Baptist in his baby form is leaping because of the presence.

The mother of the son of God that is at this point carrying Jesus, but

probably not showing in any way yet.

And so there is this rejoicing that happens, but for me, the more powerful

part happens at the end of 41 when it says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.

Because somehow in that moment of being filled with the Holy Ghost, she

knows she can wrap her head around a miracle that has never been done before.

Because when Mary comes, she recognizes her and.

Basically, you are the mother of the son of God.

You're the mother of my savior, and why are you coming to me

You know, like I should be coming to you.

And it's just how would she know that Mary hasn't said it.

I don't know if she learned it in prayer before Mary got there,

but you know, I really think it's because she's full of the Holy Ghost.

Because some kind of teaching, some kind of doctrine simply

can't be taught in any other way.

But when you are full of the Holy Ghost, Understanding and light can

pour in, and so Elizabeth understands and they just rejoice together.

In fact, I love hearing them talk back and forth.

Remember, they are so different.

Mary's probably 16, 17, I don't know how old Elizabeth is, but

she's gotta be, at least in her sixties, probably maybe even older.

So they have very few things in common, and because of their love of

prophecy and scripture and fulfillment and miracles, they find a way.

Unite.

Their hearts knit together in this moment, and they rejoice.

And so there is happiness.

Vic.

Luke 46.

This is where the Magnific hot begins.

You know Mary's song of Praise, it sounds a lot like Hannah's Song

of Praise when she finds she's gonna have this chosen son, and

there's a lot of similarities to it.

But what I love about it is this, this.

I don't know this jubilance to it.

Mary is not she.

She has had a few days, at least, at least in the course of this journey, to think

about the ramifications of her choice to let this happen , and she's not afraid.

For me.

I think if I was in this situation after five days of.

Travel.

I would be thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong and

how I'm not good enough for this.

And you know, but that's not Mary.

Her character is one of like, okay, let's do this.

And so she's excited and she prophesized and teaches

Elizabeth, and so they rejoice.

She talks about the great things that have done unto her.

We don't know how this happened.

We don't know how the conception happened.

There is no record of it.

And I think that's, There's reverence to that event and Mary keeps that in her

heart, but she does rejoice about the great things that have been done unto her.

In fact, you go on the verses and she starts to sound like prophets.

She says that he has showed strength in his arm.

He'd scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart.

He put down the mighty, and he exalted them of low degree like she is a living

witness like she is a living witness studied these words in scripture all

her life or heard them at least now she is evidence of it cuz she is someone

of low degree and was brought up.

She's been exalted and you almost start to feel like you're

reading this sermon on the mount.

You know it's got those same echoes.

And again, I think Mary is the teacher of Jesus.

She would be the one who would teach him all of his young years.

And so when you get Mary's testimony and Joseph's testimony,

The divine nature of Jesus Christ.

You start to see how he becomes the savior that Luke will write

about, this compassionate savior who loves the meek and loves the

poor, and seeks after the sinner.

And the, you know, like you can see how his, how Mary and Joseph's

testimonies combined to create something beautiful in this sun that they raised.

So you hear her promises about that.

I also love that she ties in the Abrahamic covenant.

Mary must be a scholar of scripture even at her young age, or at least she

was taught it well, cuz she understands that he is this fulfillment of prophecy.

That all those promises that Abraham received, that his covenant people,

that God remembers, his covenant people, Mary's miracle is the fulfillment of that.

And she rejoices in.

, the verses teach that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for the last

three months of her pregnancy.

In fact, most of the scholars I read said you shouldn't really take

the verses in chronological order.

It says that Mary left to go back home and it makes it seem like she

left right before the birth of John.

But most scholars I read think that's not likely, and that Elizabeth was probably a

bit of a mothering mentor for Mary, so she could see this process play out in front

of her and get some help along the way.

But I loved thinking.

What those three months must have been like.

You know, can you imagine like they're together in house, the mother who will

be the son of God who is 16, and the one who will be the forerunners mother,

who is probably in her sixties or seventies, and they are bonding together.

And I thought if we were women in the first century, what would you do?

And it's the same thing we do now.

Like if you get me together with my sisters or my mom,

What would, what would we do?

We would study, we would pray, we would rejoice, we'd sing, we'd

craft, we'd, you know, like I think that's what women have always done.

And so I loved.

Visualizing this, like they know that they're a fulfillment of prophecy.

So I bet they studied like crazy.

I bet they prayed together.

I bet they created beautiful things for their babies.

Maybe even things that were similar, you know, like they are bonded.

And I just loved envisioning those three months and thinking about how

I could treat my own relationships, both with my relief society

sisters and my actual sisters.

in more of this kind of way.

How could we, how could we bond like Mary and Elizabeth must have done?

I also think it must have had an impact on Zacharias because how do you live

in a house for three months with Mary and Elizabeth who have this miracle

happening and not have it rub off on you?

In addition to that, he doesn't have his voice for those nine months, so he

listened a lot and I think you can see.

How that plays out for him.

I think Zacharias is a remarkable man.

I, he had a moment where he wasn't as strong as he could have been

in that holy place in the temple.

But everything after the, we learn about Zacharias is he's doing great.

So I feel like we can't define him by that one moment in the temple.

You have to let the rest of his story play out.

Same way, you know, if, if God is the author and finisher of my faith,

there are sometimes when I don't follow the course exactly like I

could have, but things get rewritten.

So was Zechariah when his son is born, there is this opportunity to declare.

So Elizabeth is pretty clear.

She says to the people, no, his name needs to be John.

This is eight days after his birth and when they come to circumcise

the baby and to give him a name.

And they have choices right at this point in time, he, he could

choose any number of names.

He could choose to name this child after himself, but I think the last

nine months of quiet and maybe even the last eight days, cuz for me, if I

were Zacharias and even Elizabeth, I would've assumed that as soon as the

baby John was born, That I would have my voice back , you know, that that would

be the fulfillment of the prophecy.

So I wonder if those eight days between John's birth and the circumcision day

were a little scary, you know, if they wondered how they were supposed to show.

That they really believed and this day is their chance to do it.

So basically in this moment, Zechariah says to the people,

his name shall be John.

He has to write it on the board cuz he can't speak at this point, but as soon as

he does, he makes that place a holy place.

Elder Worthen or President Worthen, the BYU President talked about about

this, it's, it's a talk that's had a big impact on me over the last few years.

We are always invited to stand in holy places, but we are also invited to

make the places in which we stand holy.

And I feel like that's what Zacharias did.

He took this spot where he could have chosen a bunch of

different options and instead he said, no, his name will be John.

And when he writes that phrase, his mouth is opened cuz now the Lord.

Knows his heart.

Now that he's proven his faith in this moment, he probably

sells all the same fears.

He's still an older man who's trying to raise a prophet that

hasn't been done for four centuries.

He has no one to turn to for advice on how to raise a prophet,

but he's like, okay, bring it on.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best.

And so he names him John, and his voice is open and he praises God for me.

When I picture this moment with Zechariah where he can finally speak, I almost

picture it like, , you know, the Jaredites when they were in barges for a year

and then they get to the shore and they go out on the beach and they all just

kneel down and pray, and all they wanna do is praise God for the promised land.

I always picture myself in that moment, like I would've been so relieved to

be off the boat that I can't imagine I would've knelt down and pray.

But I think when you're in this, he's basically in a barge of silence

for nine months and he's had a lot of time to think about what,

how he will act in this moment.

And so he praises.

, that's what he does for all the rest of the verses.

He praises God and he gives his son this beautiful blessing.

It's almost like a baby blessing cuz that's basically what he offers, is

he, he talks about who John will be.

It's, it's like a combination of a baby blessing and a patriarch blessing in one.

In fact, if you look in the doctrine covenants, you learn that this same day

John is actually ordained by an angel.

So it's, it's not in the New Testament, but at some point an,

an angel comes and sets him apart for this great work that he.

And I just love the way Zechariah phrases it.

I feel like you feel his heart.

He is someone who has come full circle and is fully in the camp of this.

Let's do this.

I'm I'm on board because the way he speaks.

So he says that his son will prepare people for the face of the Lord.

That he will give knowledge to people, that he will help them, this is around

77, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of.

John's whole big job is to prepare the way for the savior and to

baptize so the remission of sins piece is critical for him.

He will help people get a fresh start so they're ready to be disciples of

Christ and that he will be a light, that he will be a light to those who

are in shadow in the shadow of death, that he will guide people to peace.

I think he's sp speaking about John, but he is also speaking about

what the Savior himself will do and that he will be this gift to the.

And the weight of that knowledge As a parent, I mean, I mean, we

all know our kids are of a chosen generation and they were sent here at

this time to do a specific work and what I read and studied this week.

Kind of brought some gravity to that statement.

For me, I am like Zacharias and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph, they

were all sent to do the work of raising this next generation to do the

work that they were supposed to do.

And that's the same weight that's on us, that we are the parents of

a chosen generation and we need to step up and prepare and be

humble enough to say, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know you do

And that's the message I got from all four of.

Miraculous parents.

I hope you get it to you.

Welcome back everybody.

This is the creative side of week one, and I've got three object

lessons for you to work with with your kids to help them understand this

doctrine just a little bit better.

So I'm gonna give you a quick preview here, and then for those of you in the

chorus, I'll take you through each one and walk through how to pull it off.

But your first one is simple.

Just to begin this book, this year of study in the New Testament

by understanding how the New Testament is even organized.

But it sounds kind of boring to approach it like normally.

So I thought it would be fun if we make some games.

So on the printables this week, you're gonna find labels that are

all the books of the New Testament that you can put on styrofoam cups.

And then I'll teach you many games that you can play to help your kids

learn the books of the New Testament.

Learn the different categories and understand how to apply them.

So that's your first one.

The second one is all about goals, because if you haven't scratched off your

sticker for this week, it's goals week on the chart, which means once a quarter.

I'm hoping to give you a chance to check in with your kids about

how they're doing on their goals.

I really love how this week we learn from John about how he waxed strong.

Same way the savior had to grow in wisdom and knowledge We, our

kids have to do that same process.

They have to grow a little bit of a time.

And the way the church helps us do that is through the children and youth program.

So my hope here is that I can give you the tools and just the reminder to check in

with your kids and set up some structures.

So I'll walk you through how to pull that off in the object lessons.

Third one is a little more adventurous.

this one involves fire because I just, I have found that my kids

really love fire object lessons.

So we've incorporated a lot of those into the last three years, and I

wanted to kick this year off, right?

So we're gonna talk about magnifying the Lord, and we'll do it by starting

a fire with the magnifying glass.

And I'll explain why in just a minute.

But you're just gonna need a good solid magnifying glass.

And then, The printable that you can burn through, uh, just a piece

of card stock and some tape and scissors, and you'll be good to go.

All right.

That's your supplies list.

Let's get into the details.

Thanks for joining me for week one.

You guys, it's gonna be a really good year, can't you tell?

Okay, so I hope you enjoy your week of study.

If you wanna pop in with me on Instagram, that's I do a live Mondays at 10:00

AM Mountain Time, that's where you can come on and catch some of the insights.

I didn't remember to put the videos or answer questions or just chat

with you about the object lessons.

You can see all of that on the Instagram live at 10.

If you can't catch it live, then you can always see it in my feed.

It'll stay there for about a week, and so you can catch it anytime there.

In addition, those of you who are in the course, if you want to add your

questions to the discussion boards, that's a really quick way to get my attention.

So I'll try and answer those as quickly as I can.

Um, also if you want to, you can find me in podcast form.

So I know some of you are new to the course this year, and if you're

not familiar, Public podcast that just has all the creative insights.

You can find that on YouTube too.

And then there is a private podcast that's for the subscribers that has

all the insights, all the creative, and the links out to all the notes.

So if that's an easier way for you to consume the content, just come reach

out to me via email or on the discussion boards that I will send you your

private link and get you all hooked up.

But otherwise, enjoy this first week of deep study in the gospels and

get yourself ready for week two, cuz I promise you're gonna love it.