Amen. And please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 1. Luke 1 this morning verses 26 through 38.
Last week in verses 5 to 25, we considered the miraculous conception of John the Baptist to the previously barren Elizabeth in her old age. Now this week we consider the miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Both children were announced by the angel Gabriel. Both are given by their names by that same angel.
Both have their ministries. Pre explained by the angel and the two children are born of two women who are relatives. Similarities are striking and yet Luke and setting them side by side would have us see the contrast. John's mother was barren and the mother of Jesus had never been with a man at all.
John would be a prophet crying in the wilderness. Jesus would reign on David's everlasting throne. John would be great before the Lord. Jesus would be great without qualification.
John would be filled with the Holy Spirit, but Jesus would be conceived by the Holy Spirit. And John would prepare for God's coming, but when Jesus came, God was there in the flesh. Jesus then was like John, but superior in every respect. And so in Luke chapter 1 verses 26 to 38.
What does the angel of God want Mary and through her and through Luke ourselves to see about Jesus? Let me invite you to consider him from Luke chapter 1 verses 26 to 38. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the son of the most high. And the Lord God will give to 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. And Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin?
And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
Let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her. Amen. This is God's word. May he write it on our hearts.
Let's look to him in prayer. Father, in heaven, thank you for the Scriptures. Grant us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. That by the comfort of your word, we may enjoy the hope of eternal life which you have given to us in our Savior.
Jesus Christ. In his name we ask him. Amen. Gabriel says to Mary, you're going to be the mother of the Messiah.
The world has been waiting for thousands of years. The Jews had sat on the edge of their seat, so to speak, for the promise first given to Adam and Eve in the garden, in Genesis 3.15, to be fulfilled. The promise that the seed of the woman would come and crush the head of the serpent. That the offspring of the woman would redeem us from sin and death and defeat the devil.
And now Gabriel says to Mary, you're the woman, and from you will be the Messiah. And so what does this passage then show Mary and us about Jesus, the son of Mary, Jesus, the son of the most high? What might we see? Let me point out four things.
In the first place in verses 26 through 30, the humble circumstances of the son. And then in verses 31 to 33, the exalted status of this son. And in 34 to 37, the miraculous conception of the son and then in verse 38, the model servant of the son. It's still in the first place the humble circumstances of the son.
Verse 26, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel went from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. How utterly supernatural this is. It's not mythological, it's supernatural. God is involved, but with concrete people in actual historical places.
This is Peter Pan in Never Never Land kind of stuff. No, it happened in Galilee. Not the most orthodox Judea, but to a place that was the crossroads of the world. And it happened in a city called Nazareth.
The town so obscure it's never mentioned in the Old Testament. It's never mentioned in early Jewish literature. Most of estimated this population is being no more than four to five hundred people. And it didn't have the best reputation.
In John 1 verse 46, Nathaniel asks, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And so the angel Gabriel was sent to Galilee, to Nazareth, and to a young girl, probably between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a teenager for most Jewish girls were betrothed as teenagers. And she is betrothed to a man named Joseph, a craftsman, a builder, by tradition, a carpenter. But Joseph and Mary were poor.
For when the time came for them to then bring Jesus to the temple to be dedicated and circumcised and to make him an offering of sacrifice to God for his gift to them. In Luke chapter 2, 24, it notes that they offered only what was required of the poor in giving offerings, which was a pair of turtle doves of two young pigeons. So neither Mary nor Joseph brought means into the marriage. And so God brings his son into the world, and he begins in a place that's small and with people who are obscure and poor.
And Jesus, think of it, wasn't born into a wealthy family in Jerusalem, a family of great prominence or obvious advantages of an outstanding education or high fashion or feasts of food and drink or social upward mobility. No, it's very humble. And Mary and Joseph here aren't married yet, the writer tells us. But they're more than engaged as we think of engagement.
To be betrothed in that day was to be so legally pledged to one another that to break it up would be considered a divorce. It was often a year long betrothal until the time of consummations. So they hadn't yet lived together as husband and wife. Hence she's still a virgin, verse 27.
And the virgin's name was Mary. But notice also that she was graced by the Lord. That's the meaning of verse 28 following Gabriel came to her and said, Greetings, favored one, the Lord's with you. But she was greatly troubled with the saying, tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be in the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary.
For you have found favor with God. She's a favored one. He says, having found favor with God. And that word favored is the word by which we get the word grace.
Grace needs to be treated with undeserved kindness when you really deserve judgment. It's getting what you don't deserve in the face of what you do deserve. In other words, the passage is not saying Mary herself was full of grace as if she was a repository of grace who could mediate grace to others. The passage is saying she was the recipient of grace.
She was graciously blessed by God. She didn't deserve the blessing. That's, grace isn't deserved. If it's deserved, it isn't grace.
And so she's not the source of grace, but she is the object of grace. And so we have to say praying to Mary as if she's full of grace and can give you grace, misses the meaning of the passage. She's the recipient of it, not the repository of it. And so what should we do?
We should rejoice with her in it. I know she's already in heaven. But we ought to rejoice that God would be gracious to the obscure, the lowly, the poor, a little teenage girl. And rejoice that God is still gracious to the lowly and the obscure.
But don't worship her for it. Praise God for His gifts to her. Don't pray to her for God's gifts. Now, we should say more about this because it's everywhere, right?
Across Christendom, if you want to call it that. We ought not think more highly of her or more of her than she is and place her as a rival to Jesus in our thoughts. We also shouldn't think less of her than we ought. We shouldn't think more.
And frankly, the example of the Roman Catholic Church here does. They hold her out to have been immaculately conceived, right? And free of original sin. Though there's nothing in the Bible to suggest that about her, they finalize that view in 1854.
When they believe in her perpetual virginity, that is, contrary to the expression of Matthew chapter 125 that Joseph knew her not until she had given birth to a son and the fact that later Joseph did know her and Jesus has had other brothers and sisters. She was not perpetually a virgin and they also hold to her assumption in body and soul in a heavenly glory. But there's nothing in the Bible to suggest that. They finalize that view in 1950.
And they hold Mary out to be a continuing intercessor and mediatrix, contrary to 1 Timothy 25, which says Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. So we have to say some think or make too much of her, but we ought to avoid reacting against that by thinking too little of her. Mary, the great Anglican, said no man was ever so highly honored as the mother of our Lord. It's evident that one woman only out of the countless millions of the human race could be the means whereby God would be manifest in the flesh.
And the Virgin Mary had the mighty privilege of being that one. So we should honor the grace of God to her and the unique privilege she enjoyed. But we must say think infinitely more highly of her son than of her. It is to him alone, the scriptures would have us entrust ourselves, for he's the only sinless person born of flesh and blood and the only mediator between God and man.
And part of his glory is his profound humility in choosing, as the eternal son of the most high, to add to himself humanity and be born in humble circumstances. That's part of his glory that you have a God that humble. That's the first thing. And then secondly, we want you to see the exalted status of the son, verse 31.
Rehold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. As with John, the angel gives him his name. Jesus hears the Greek version of the Old Testament Hebrew named Joshua, which means Yahweh saves or the Lord saves. So when you think of Jesus, think it's the Lord who saves.
That's who he is. So Gabriel here affirms both his humanity and his divinity. As Mary's son, who be human as the son of the most high, well that's an accord with his divinity. He's the son of God.
And notice verse 32, he will be great. Here's part of his exalted status, he will be great, verse 32. Now what's interesting here is the contrast with John the Baptist. We saw last week in chapter 1 verse 15, we read John will be great before the Lord.
That is, of course, he'll be great, but not as great as the Lord. But if Jesus we read, he will be great without qualification. Because of course, the Lord God is greater than John and Jesus is the Lord. And so his greatness is not limited in any way.
And notice verse 32, he will be great and will be called the son of the most high. The most high here is a favorite title for God in the Psalms of King David. And so fittingly here as Jesus is King David's greater son, Jesus is called the son of the most high because that's his family of origin. So to speak, it's not merely human, but divine.
He's God the son. He's the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity. And now he is God in the flesh. So that as our forebearers, the early church fathers put it, he became what he was not without ceasing to be what he was.
That is, he took on himself our humanity without ceasing his divinity. And notice at the end of verse 32 that the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. This too is part of his exalted status. That throne was promised to King David and his heirs back in 2 Samuel chapter 7 when God made a covenant with David and his descendants.
And though it looked like the throne promise was decimated, it appeared if you lived in the generations before Jesus, that somehow God had not kept his promise. After all, the people of God, Israel had been defeated, they've been overrun, their king had been killed, they were ruled in turn by the Babylonians and the Medes and the Persians and the Greeks and the Romans and they hadn't had a son of David on the throne of Israel for more than half a century. God seemed to be against it. But as Ralph Davis says, the promise didn't have a cell by date.
It didn't expire. Gabriel says the king of promise is still on the books. And it's fulfilled is what Gabriel says in Jesus. For he's an heir of David's line and notice verse 33, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom.
There will be no end. So that Jesus is, he who was promised in Isaiah chapter 9, 700 years before the coming of Jesus. You'll know this language. Isaiah 9 1, God has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan Galilee of the nations.
Verse 6, for unto us, the child is born, to us the son is given and the government shall be on his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and hold it with justice and with righteousness this time forth and forevermore. Those who know this king as the Savior have citizenship in his kingdom, in the kingdom of God and have begun to enjoy its blessings of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Blessings which we might say explode in glory.
And if you don't know him, he is offered to you this day. Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of sinners and he invites you to receive him as your Savior and King and to rest your soul upon him for salvation. So we see the humble circumstances of the Son, we see these altered status of the Son and then we come at verse 34 to Mary's question which then in answer shows us the miraculous conception of the Son. Verse 34, Mary said to the angel, how will this be?
Since I am a virgin. She asked a question and a question not like Zechariah's from back at verse 18 we saw last week. You may remember that Zechariah doubted the word of Gabriel. He did not believe the God's messenger or God's message and for that he was disciplined even as he furthered the purposes of God in salvation in his own.
But Mary's question is not an unbelieving question, it's a believing question. She isn't doubting Gabriel's truthfulness at all. She is seeking further explanation of how this could be possible when she's a virgin and she hasn't had intimate relations with a man. I mean she knows the facts of life, she understands the biology.
And she can't, well let's say it this way, she can't conceive in her mind how she could conceive a child in her womb without having sexual relations with a man. Notice Gabriel's restrained explanation, verse 35. And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. So Gabriel says this is going to be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
The power of God will overshadow you as we might say the spirit of God, as Genesis 1 says, the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters and then was creatively productive. And as the spirit of God overshadowed the temple in the glory cloud, so the spirit of God will overshadow Mary. The angel of course doesn't fill in the finer details and I think we can safely say if we needed to know those, God in his word would have shared them. This is clearly a miracle and if you're in a mystery and we should say perhaps if your religion comes from Almighty God, there are going to be mysteries.
Maybe a man-made religion can be comprehensively understood by finite man. But a God-made religion cannot be comprehensively understood by finite and we might add fallen man. Maybe God doesn't want to feed our curiosity but lead us to worship. It's not that God wants us to be ignorant of things but he wants us to be content that he is competent and so instead of inviting us to speculate, he invites us to adore Jesus.
What is clear, mysteries though there are, is that because of his miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, therefore in verse 35, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. How do you get a child of a woman born into this world of sin and fallenness without him receiving the guilt of Adam's first sin and the corruption of nature that comes with it that we have all received? How do you get a sinless, innocent, unstained, undefiled human by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit setting apart the child in the womb of the Virgin Mary at its first moment of conception? To say that Mary was overshadowed is the same as to say that in spite of her being a sinful human being, the Holy Spirit would see to it that her child was not a sinful human being.
When Luke says, therefore this holy one would be born of her, we see that it was not that Mary was or not what Mary was but rather what the Holy Spirit did that explains why it is Jesus could be holy. The Spirit sanctified the human nature of Christ in its inception and kept it free from the pollution of sin. Jesus therefore does not share in the sinful human nature that we share in. That doesn't make him less than human.
It makes him human as originally designed. He took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul as Adam and Eve were in the garden before their rebellion. You and I we might say are less than human as originally designed and created in the garden, having become twisted, corrupted from the inside out. But Jesus does not share us in full human nature with us.
He's fully human in the way God intended. And so he therefore can rescue us. Since it was mankind that sinned, it was necessary that the penalty should be born by a man and he has to be a sinless man for a man who was a sinner, couldn't atone for others. And since there are many sinners who need to be saved, not just one giving his life for one other, it was necessary that our Savior be God and man and God to bear the weight of sin and wrath and judgment without succumbing to sin.
Even as he's upon the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is not sinning or he deserves what he's getting. But he's there for you. He's there in your place upon that cross.
Well, how can this be? She doesn't have all those thoughts that are behind, but a virgin conception, the holy one, how can this be? And maybe you've asked yourself that question too. And the answer of the angel is nothing is too difficult for God, right?
Verse 37 for nothing will be impossible with God. Now, not to shock or surprise some of you, but the other night on the way home I had the radio on and was listening to the smooth sounds of Delilah's voice, right? And she was giving some vapid and cliche advice to a caller whose relationship had fallen apart and they didn't know if there was any hope, but they were trying to hold on to hope. And Delilah said, and I try to get the transcript to get it perfectly, but just if it was this, with man, it may look impossible.
And I in my car gripped the wheel and I was just waiting to hear her quote, this passage. And she said, well, sometimes the impossible is possible. I wanted her to say with the angel, with God all things are possible, but alas, she left the best part out. In fact, she left out the only part that can really give us hope.
I mean, for all she said was that the impossible is possible, but she didn't give her call or her listeners any reason for that. Why that might be the case? I mean, not a single reason. Why in this world of thorns and thistles and disease and decay and death and broken bodies and broken relationships, we ought to believe that what man cannot do can be done.
Why? Well, the angel doesn't keep Mary hopeless nor us. No, he gives her hope and hope with reason. For as Gabriel says, nothing will be impossible with God.
And he's case in point, gives her an example, verse 36, the whole relative Elizabeth in her old age has already conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called Baron. And if God can fill a Baron womb among a couple in their old age, he can fill a virgin's womb and a teenager who's never known a man. And he points her to Elizabeth.
And then he takes her back to Genesis 1814. This is a quote there where our English reads, is anything too wonderful for the Lord. Or is anything translators will interpret that to say is anything too difficult for the Lord. But the word is wonderful and it means supernatural.
And of course not. Elizabeth can be infertile. Sarah can be post-medopausal. Mary can be virginal.
And God can do what God promised to do and God can give exactly what God promised to give. And so it is for you. And so it is for you and me. Not that he's promised to give us what he promised Mary, but perhaps it seems impossible for your great sin to be forgiven or impossible for your family to be restored after much heartbreak.
Or impossible for your physical or financial needs to be met. Or maybe it seems to you impossible for your work or your studies to be successful or for your ministry to be fruitful. It may seem impossible to you to endure the suffering that has come into your life. Or it may seem impossible for someone you love to come to Christ.
But the angel says nothing is impossible with God. He's the God of the Virgin Birth. There's no saying he can't forgive. No relationship he cannot reconcile.
No problem he cannot solve. No need. He cannot meet. No ministry.
He cannot bless. No grief. He cannot comfort. No life.
He cannot reclaim. No sinner. He cannot save. The God of the Virgin Birth is the God who makes all things possible.
And so you see the miraculous conception of the sun. And then finally you see in Mary the model servant of the sun. Verse 38, Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.
And the angel departed from her. She willingly embraces her role as God's bond slave. That's her word. Slave.
Her willing slave. Bond slave. In God's plans for Jesus. How rare we might reflect.
Even upon the heroes of faith to hear them respond immediately with faith and obedience. Without qualification. Think of Moses. The great Moses who asked God to send somebody else to leave the Exodus.
Does it really happen to me basically what's this question? Could he send Aaron or somebody? Or think of Gideon who said he couldn't deliver Israel because he was the weakest man from the weakest tribe. Or think of Jeremiah who said he was too young for the job.
Jeremiah 1 6. But Mary was a woman of great faith that he'd be fitting one who was greatly graced. And think what she willingly abraced. Think of the pain in the hardship that might be hers.
This would not have been outside of her mind. Even in the moment she says, let it be to me. I am your slave. I will do whatever you ask.
Because for all she knew Joseph would divorce her. They're betrothed. They've never been intimate. She's going to show that she's got a child.
And what would he presume? Well, actually we know what he would presume. Matthew tells us he contemplated divorcing her until the angel Gabriel intervened in his life and sort of said what's up. And then they remained betrothed.
What could she say herself to convince him? She wouldn't know the angel would go to Joseph. What could she say? What sane man would listen to her explanation?
Well you see. So, so she must have suspected. This will bring divorce. We know that he determined to do it.
She didn't know he would stay with her when she said yes. All she knew was that having the son of God inside her would ruin her marriage. And ruin her reputation. Right?
Oh great. Goes the village gossip. The unmarried teenager is pregnant. And some we know they did would eventually call her child a bastard child.
And some undoubtedly would have said though they didn't typically do it. They would have said you know somebody ought to stone her to death for her sexual immorality. And so for all she knew she would be despised and she would be deserted. And wrongly so but that wouldn't change the likelihood.
And so in the face of that she submits and she says I am your slave. What a model then of faith she is for us. To profess to believe in the miraculous conception and the virgin birth and the sinless holiness and the devitic kingship and the eternal reign of the son of God most high. When to make such profession of faith may put everything at risk for you.
And cause you to be deserted or despised or mocked or ridiculed. I mean what trust she had. That come what may she was safely in the Lord's hand. What courage she had to risk everything for him.
What grace she was given to welcome the intrusion of the son of God into her life. May God give us the grace to welcome his intrusion in ours. Let's pray. Our father we do ask for the intrusion of the son of God into our lives.
We ask that he would as you do come inside and renovate us from the inside out. Cause us to be born anew. Thank you where you have done that work and we pray that you would finish that which you would have begun. That you would help us to know the love of Christ in our heart of hearts and how wide and long and high deep is his love and then to abound in his love in his name we pray.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and sing.