The Promise of Christmas - Part 2

PDF

Well, like many of you, I had the opportunity to gather with my family yesterday and to enjoy celebrating Christmas. I couldn’t help but think that yesterday, as I gathered with my family and you with yours, there literally were billions of people on this planet who were celebrating Christmas. And yet, most of them celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ without even thinking about Christ, without even mentioning His name. In fact let me ask you this morning; yesterday you celebrated Christmas, did you worship Jesus Christ? Was your celebration about Him?

We began last Sunday to look together at Luke’s record of the announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus. We’re studying it because in this announcement we really get a glimpse of who He is and what makes Him unique. In fact, we’re learning why we should all come and adore Him, why yesterday as you celebrated Christmas, Jesus Christ should have been the object of your heart and worship, and of mine as well.

Let’s read this text together and then we’ll begin to work our way through it, Luke 1:26, you follow along:

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. 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 name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

As we’re studying this text together, and we began to do so last week, we’re watching Luke as he unfolds this account, really revealing to us three characteristics of this Child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. Last week we examined the first of those characteristics, and it is His unlikely parents. We looked at their obscure background, that Mary wouldn’t be the person you would expect to bear Jesus. She was an unknown, 13 to 15 year old Jewish virgin who had recently been engaged to the village carpenter, a man named Joseph. They lived in a tiny Galilean town, an obscure backwater place with 200 people or fewer as the population. They are truly the most unlikely pair to be the parents of the Son of God. But we also considered their unique qualifications. Mary was a virgin, which was required by the prophecy of Isaiah, and both of them, Joseph and Mary, were descendants of David, also required for the Messiah. We finished last time by considering their gracious selection: why did God choose them? Well the angel explains it to Mary, verse 30, “You have found favor with God.” The word translated favor is the normal Greek word for grace; God has shown you grace, Mary, that’s why you get this role. It’s shocking, isn’t it, that the one who stands at the very center of human history came from such a humble pair? In His grace God chose this couple so that they would never be the point of the Christmas story, their Child would be.

Now that’s what we considered last time and today we come to the second unique characteristic of this Child, and that is His extraordinary person. As we come to the middle of verse 31 down to verse 33, we learn about the person Himself. In verse 31 Gabriel says to Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son.” Mary, you’re going to conceive and nine months later you’re going to give birth, and that Child is going to be a son. And then Gabriel goes on to explain that this son is going to be truly extraordinary for several reasons. First of all, He’ll be extraordinary because of His saving mission. Verse 31, “And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him[1] Jesus.” This wasn’t a passing statement, this was a command from God: give the son you’re going to give birth to the name Jesus. Now that’s a very interesting choice, more than 100 years before Jesus was born, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. If you lived in the first century, that translation would have been the primary translation you would have used, it was called the Septuagint. And if you lived in the first century and you had heard the Septuagint read, you would have been very familiar with the name Jesus, because it appears in the Septuagint. You see Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament name Joshua or in Hebrew “Yeshua”. And wherever the name Joshua appears in the Hebrew Old Testament, in the Septuagint the Greek translation prior to the first century, it was always translated Jesus. The Hebrew name Joshua and the Greek translation Jesus both mean the same thing: Yahweh, that is the true God of Israel, saves, or Yahweh is salvation. Now, why did God want the Child named this? Three months later, Gabriel explained exactly why to Joseph, in Matthew 1:21 he says to Joseph: name the boy Jesus. And then He says this, “For He will save His people from their sins.” His name is to be Jesus, which means Yahweh saves and that’s His name because this Child will save His people from their sins. Yahweh saves, the Child saves; it’s because the Child is Yahweh. It's exactly what He claimed to be, you remember in John 8 He says, “Before Abraham was born[2] , I AM”, taking the name of God revealed in Exodus 3. And they understood because like I shared with you at the concert, they picked up stones to stone Him. So this Child will be Yahweh, the name Jesus means that this Child will accomplish our spiritual rescue because He is God. You remember what the angel said to the shepherds on the night of Jesus birth: today there has been born for you a Savior, a Rescuer. Jesus Himself said that’s why He came in John 12:47, He says I came “to save the world”, I came to rescue the world. How does this Child in His adult years come to rescue His people from their sins, His people meaning all of those who would trust in Him? He came to rescue those who put their trust in Him from their sins, how? Well Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus, explained, Isaiah 53:10: the Messiah would offer Himself as a guilt offering. If you lived in the Old Testament, you sinned, you took an offering of an innocent lamb to the temple in order to have it slain as a guilt offering so that God could forgive your sins. Isaiah 53:10 says the Messiah, the one who is coming, He will present Himself as a guilt offering to God so that God can forgive the sins of His people. In Mark 10:45, Jesus says this, “I came to give my life as a ransom for many.” 2 Corinthians 5:21, God the Father, “Made Christ who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Doesn’t mean Jesus became a sinner, it means on the cross God credited to Jesus all the sins of His people, all of those who would believe in Him. Every single sin of every single person who would ever believe in Christ was credited to Christ, and on the cross Christ suffered the penalty those sins deserved, so that God could be just and yet still forgive guilty sinners. It’s put this way in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law.” You say, wait a minute, what do you mean I’m under the “curse of the law”? Well, a few verses before that in Galatians 3:10, Paul says “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law.” In other words, you’re cursed if you don’t obey God perfectly. Break one command: cursed, judgment, that’s what he says. But, Galatians 3:13 says “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law having become a curse for us - for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” This Child is the Savior, He’s the only Savior; that’s why Peter in Acts 4:12 says, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” There’s not salvation from your sins in Buddah, there’s not salvation from your sins in Allah, there’s not salvation from your sins anywhere but Jesus Christ; that’s what he’s saying. And let me add, by the way, that you can't save yourself from your sins. This is the idea, the mistaken idea, a lot of Americans have. You cannot rescue yourself from your own sins by your efforts; by trying to live a good life, by being a part of some self-help program, by your parent’s faith, by a spiritual experience you’ve had in the past, by some volume of good works that you try to perform. Jesus is the only Savior from sin, the only one who can rescue me, the only one who can rescue you. There is nobody else, there’s no other way; that was his unique saving mission, and His alone. Call Him Jesus because He and He alone will rescue His people, those who trust in Him, from their sins.

Secondly, Jesus is an extraordinary person not only because of His saving mission but because of His divine nature. Verse 32, “He will be great.” Now, back in verse 15, the same angel Gabriel had told Zacharias that his son John the Baptist would be great, and he was. In verse 76 of this first chapter, Zacharias is talking about John the Baptist his son, and he says “And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.” But Mary’s Child is going to be great at a totally different level. He’s not going to be the prophet of the Most High, verse 32, “He will be great” because He “will be called the Son of the Most High.” This is what theologians call “divine passive”, you’ll notice the word “called” is passive in English, as it is in Greek. Who’s doing the calling? Well, it’s a divine passive, means God’s doing the calling; God will call this Child His Son. That’s exactly what happened, several times during the earthly ministry of Jesus, God the Father spoke from heaven. One of them is Matthew 3:17, and what does the Father say? “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased[3] .” Called the Son of God by God Himself. Now, you’ll notice the expression “The Most High”, that’s used more than 40 times in the Old Testament for the One True God, translating the Hebrew name of God “El Elyon”, that is the Highest One, the One above Whom there is no one else. This Child would be the Son of the Highest One, He would be the Son of God. Now, you’ll notice His divine Sonship is mentioned before even His being the Messiah, which implies His Sonship precedes His Messiahship in time, which is exactly true. As the New Testament unfolds, it becomes clear that Jesus is the Son of the Most High in His very nature and in a unique way. In fact, you’ll read in your English Bibles this expression, “The Only Begotten Son.” What does that mean? That’s confusing to some English speakers. All it means is this: He is the unique, one-of-a-kind Son, there is no other son like Him, there’s no other son in the same category; He is God’s Son in a way that no one else is God’s son. We see glimpses of this in the Old Testament, in Psalms 2:7 we read, “I will surely tell” this is the Messiah speaking, “of the decree of the Lord: He said to me ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” And in Psalms 110:1, the most commonly quoted Psalm in the New Testament, it says this, this is David speaking, “The Lord says to my Lord” the one over me, “Sit at My right hand Until I make I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” David says, “One of my descendants, the Messiah, is going to be far greater than me; He is my Lord.” In a Jewish mind that was unthinkable unless He shared an entirely different position, which He did. The fact that Jesus is God’s son in a unique, one-of-a-kind way comes into full clarity in the New Testament, and it does so in many different ways, but let me share two of them with you that just jump out at me. The first one is made clear even by Jesus’ enemies, they understood this is what Jesus was claiming. Think about it, in John 5:18 we read, “The Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” They understood that He was claiming to have a relationship with God as Son in a way that nobody else does: He was claiming to be equal with God. In John 19:7, “The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and by that law He[4] ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.” You see, they understood again that when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, He wasn’t claiming to be like I’m a son of God. No, He was claiming to be the one-of-a-kind, unique Son, nobody else in His category, nobody else in His box; He was claiming to be God. We also understand this, not only from Jesus’ enemies, but even from His own statement under oath. I love this, turn to Mark 14:61. It’s late in the night on Friday morning before Jesus’ crucifixion, it’s at one of His Jewish trials before the Sanhedrin, or at least a portion of it, and He is being questioned, verse 61, “But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest” the highest Jewish political leader in the nation, “was questioning Him[5] .” Now, if you compare Matthew’s gospel to Mark’s, what the high priest says at this point is this; “I adjure you by the living God”. That was shorthand for “I put you under oath; swear to God that the answer you are about to give is the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. That’s exactly what the high priest did to Jesus, and then he asked Him this question, verse 61, “Saying to Him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” that is of God Himself. Is that who you claim to be, the Messiah, the Divine Son of God? Verse 62, “And Jesus said, ‘I am.” Couldn’t be any clearer than that, this is who He claimed to be. And then He said, if that wasn’t enough, “And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” He quotes from Daniel 7, that great passage where the Messiah is given the right to rule, and He says “That passage is about Me.” Verse 63, “Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, ‘What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy.” In other words, they understood exactly what He was saying. Jesus under oath, on the witness stand, “Swear by God; are you the Messiah, the Son of the blessed one. Is that who you're claiming to be?” And Jesus says, “Yes that's exactly who I'm claiming to be.” You see, C.S. Lewis was right years ago when he said, “Jesus didn't allow us to think He's a good person and that's all He is. No good person makes this claim unless it's true” So understand this, Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God, the unique one-of-a-kind, defined Son of God.

This Child would be an extraordinary person because of His saving mission, because of His divine nature, and thirdly because of His Messianic role. Verse 32, “And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” Now, we already established last week that God chose Mary and Joseph solely because of sovereign grace. But they also had one necessary qualification that they had nothing to do with, and that was their birth families. Joseph was descended from king David, specifically through David's son Solomon. You can see this in Jesus genealogy in Matthew 1:6-7, that's Jesus genealogy through Joseph. This was absolutely crucial that this was true, because God promised David that the Messiah would be one of his descendants through his son Solomon; and Joseph was descended from Solomon. Since Joseph was Jesus' legal father, Jesus had then the legal right to the throne of David. Mary was engaged to Joseph, and under first century law any child born to Mary during their betrothal would be legally Joseph's, regardless of whether it was his or not. Mary was also a descendant of David but not through Solomon, through a different son of David: his son Nathan. You can see this in the genealogy in Luke 3:31 because that's the genealogy, I believe, that runs through Mary. So through Mary Jesus was a physical descendant of David, which the Messiah had to be, but He would not be a physical descendant of Solomon, and that was also absolutely crucial. If you've been in our church anytime at all you know why; it's because that allowed Jesus to escape the curse that God had pronounced on one of Solomon's descendants, a man named Jeconiah. In Jeremiah 22, God swore that none of Jeconiah’s descendants would ever sit on David's throne. But here's the problem, Jeconiah actually appears in the genealogy for Joseph in Matthew 1. In Matthew 1:11-12, there’s Jeconiah. But God said none of his descendants would ever sit on the throne. So think about it, God promised David that the Messiah would be one of his descendants through Solomon. But God told Jeconiah that none of his physical offspring would ever sit on David's throne. So there are two promises: one positive, one negative that present a seemingly impossible situation. Mary and Joseph provided the perfect solution because as Joseph's adopted son, Jesus had the legal right to the throne through Solomon. But as the physical son of Mary, Jesus was the physical descendant of David without being tainted by the curse on Jeconiah. So, He was qualified legally through Joseph, and physically through Mary, and avoided the curse. Because of that, because of His qualification, verse 32 says God will give Jesus the right to rule on David's throne. In other words, He'll be recognized as the true Messiah of Israel, the One who has the right to be king, the right to be sovereign. Verse 33, “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” This is the fulfillment of a clear Messianic prophecy back in Isaiah 9. 700 years before Jesus, in Isaiah 9:6 we read this, “For a Child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Now watch verse 7, of this one the Messiah, back in chapter 7 the one born of a virgin, of this one, “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD [6] of hosts will accomplish this.” God says “Listen, I’m going to make this happen based on My own name.” Turn to Daniel 7, this is the passage Jesus quoted under oath that we saw in Mark's gospel. Daniel 7:13;

“I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming.” That’s Jesus’ favorite expression for himself taken from this text. “One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. And to Him” to one like the Son of Man, the Lord Himself, the Messiah, “was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.”

You see in our text, as Gabriel announces the birth of Jesus to Mary, he tells her that Jesus is not only the Savior of the world, He's not only the Son of the Most High God, He is also the rightful King of everyone and everything; He is the One who rules the created universe we live in, He is the one who rules a spiritual kingdom, the New Testament tells us, He rules in all the hearts of His people. But one day, the book of Revelation tells us, He'll return to Earth and He will crush man's rebellion, He'll renovate this planet, He'll set up a literal kingdom on this Earth and He will reign for 1,000 years. Then, at the end of that 1,000 years, He will destroy this universe and He’ll create a new heavens and a new earth, which Peter says is one where righteousness is at home. Jesus will reign in that new universe forever. Mary’s Child was unique; He's unique in His unlikely parents, but He is unique especially in His extraordinary person.

There's one last characteristic that makes this Child unique, and it's His unique conception, found in verses 34-38; His unique conception. Jesus as we've seen is fully God, that's who He claimed to be, the one-of-a-kind Son of the Most High. But in the incarnation, and the word incarnation simply means God taking on humanity, taking on flesh, in the incarnation the Son of the Most High became fully human. Notice verse 31, He’s going to be the son of Mary. Verse 32, He’s the son of David. So Gabriel says here that Jesus, the Son of the Most High, will be conceived in Mary's womb and be born. Now if you're married, you understandably have a few questions, and her question primarily is about the process. And so there's this exchange that takes place between Mary and Gabriel, and in this exchange we're provided several important insights about Jesus' unique conception.

Let's consider those insights together; first of all, it was unique in that it was unprecedented in history. Verse 34, “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Literally in the Greek text it says, “How can this be if a man I am not knowing?”, using the Hebrew expression for sexual relationships. Mary understood what Gabriel was telling her, she understood that, and she assumed that this conception would happen very soon. But her question in verse 34 also tells us something else; it tells us that Mary understood that this Child she was going to give birth to was not going to be the result of her coming marriage to Joseph. How do I know that? Because if she thought it was going to come from her marriage to Joseph, she doesn't need to ask this question because all Gabriel's going to say is, “Listen Mary, do I need to explain some things to you? You’re about to marry and that's how this Child is going to come to be.” No, she asked this question because she knew that as a virgin she would conceive, and as a virgin she would give birth to this Child. How did she know that? Well, Gabriel has just told her that she's going to give birth to the Messiah. Mary was very familiar with the Old Testament scripture, you can see that in her Magnificat. She knew the Old Testament, and she knew the promise in Isaiah 7:14 that a virgin would conceive, and as a virgin she would give birth to the Messiah. Knowing that Scriptural background, Mary asks, “How can this be since I am a virgin?” In other words, what’s this going to look like, how’s this going to take place? At first glance, Mary’s response sounds very similar to that of Zacharias the priest when he is told about John the Baptist’s birth. But his response was different, his response was, “Wait a minute, how do I know this is really going to happen, can you give me a sign?” And that introduces one of my favorite passages in the New Testament where Gabriel kinda crosses his arms, rolls his eyes and says, “Listen buddy, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God and I've been sent to tell you this. Ok, you want a sign? You’re not talking for nine months.” That's not Mary's response here, she was not questioning that this would happen, she's questioning how this would happen, what the process would look like. Let me also say that Mary is not saying in this text what Roman Catholic theology teaches from this text; that Mary had taken a vow of perpetual virginity. In other words, Roman Catholic theology teaches that even after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage. She remained a virgin the rest of her life, and that here what she really says is, “I'm going to continue not to know a man, I'm going to be a perpetual virgin.” Well the language doesn't justify that at all, in addition Scripture teaches exactly the opposite. In Matthew 1:24-25, we read Joseph took Mary as his wife, “But kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son.” The implication there’s very clear, also in Mark 6:3 we meet the rest of the children of Mary and Joseph. Jesus was the oldest, obviously born when Mary was a virgin, but He had four brothers, they’re named in Mark 6:3. And, He had at least two sisters because the plural sisters is used, and probably had more sisters than that. So Jesus grew up in a family as the oldest of at least seven siblings. Also, if Mary had remained a perpetual virgin the rest of her marriage, she would have disobeyed a clear command of the Apostle Paul to married couples in 1 Corinthians 7, that they’re only to come apart for a short time by mutual consent for prayer and fasting. No, that's not what's going on here, Mary knew she was still a virgin and she wondered how as a virgin she was going to be able to give birth to a child. Now, the virgin birth is the only possible option here because[7] Joseph was not Jesus’s human father, everybody agrees to that, there’s nobody who says Joseph was the father. That only leaves two other options: Mary was involved with somebody other than Joseph, or Jesus was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the supernatural act of God, which is exactly what the Scriptures described, and what's promised. It was unprecedented in history.

Secondly, Jesus’ conception was unique because it was miraculous through the Spirit. Verse 35, “The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” This beautiful expression explains the mysterious process by which Mary would be enabled to conceive. This would be different from all other conceptions, there would be no natural intercourse, and in contradiction to Mormon theology, there would be no supernatural intercourse between God and a woman. Instead, the virgin birth would be a creation miracle produced by the work of the Holy Spirit. Notice how it's expressed, “The angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” If you’ve read the Old Testament, you remember seeing that expression repeatedly in the Old Testament as God's Spirit comes up on an individual to empower that individual to carry out the task God has assigned them. Again and again we read; the Spirit of the Lord came upon, the Spirit of the Lord came upon this person, the Spirit of the Lord came upon this person to enable them to carry out the task that's been assigned to them. Verse 35 goes on to say, “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Overshadow takes us back to Genesis 1:2 where the Spirit of God was moving over, was brooding over, was overshadowing the surface of the waters. So the language here describes the creative energy and power of the Holy Spirit. Gabriel's point is this conception will be produced solely by a creative act of the Spirit of God. And notice the result in verse 35, “And for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” Because of the special intervention and creative power of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of Jesus will be protected from sin, listen to this, so that as a child He can rightly be called holy. Now, my wife and I have three wonderful daughters, and when they were children I called them a lot of things, you know where I’m going with this. I called them cute, and they were. And occasionally, I maybe even referred to them as innocent, not in the sense that they were without sin, but they hadn’t experienced the full range of sin. But what I never called my children, as children, was holy. This Child is holy. Christ’s humanity was real, but since He had no human father, His humanity had to be made of what? The substance of Mary, and since Mary was sinful the Holy Spirit had to so act upon her that what was born of her was sinless and absolutely pure. If Jesus wasn't sinless then He couldn't save us because He couldn't stand in our place; He had His own sins to pay for, He couldn’t pay for ours, He had to be sinless. But listen carefully, the virgin birth is not the cause of Jesus’ sinlessness. Some argue that, they say it’s because of the virgin birth Jesus was without sin. And the only way they can argue that is that sin is only passed down through the man. Well, there's no evidence for that biologically or biblically. The Holy Spirit instead had to miraculously protect the humanity of Jesus from the sinfulness of Mary. Roman Catholic theologians, again, have tried to protect Jesus' sinlessness by claiming that Mary herself was conceived in such a way that she had no sin, or no sin nature. It's called in Roman Catholic theology the “Immaculate Conception”. For you football fans, I hate to tell you this, but it wasn’t originally the immaculate reception, it was the “Immaculate Conception”, describing Mary’s conception, not Jesus’. But that's not what the Bible teaches; Mary was a sinner, she needed a Savior. In her Magnificat, she praises God her Savior. Here, Gabriel clearly says that the sinlessness of Christ is tied not to Mary but to the creative work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, because it's the work of the Spirit, this is a holy Child. But it's also a virgin birth. It's interesting, two of the gospels refer to the birth of Jesus Christ, and both of those gospels, Matthew and Luke, stress that Jesus was born of a virgin. You see, the virgin birth of Jesus is one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith; if you don't believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, you are not Christian, impossible. It’s one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. So the question is why? Well, there are three primary reasons the virgin birth is at the core of our faith. First of all, because it fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 7, verse 14. A virgin would conceive, and a virgin would give birth to a son. Secondly, it protected Jesus as we just saw from the curse on Jeconiah. But thirdly, and most importantly, [8] the virgin birth was the only means through which the already existing Son of God could add humanity without becoming a second human person. Now stay with me, think about this; what happens when a sperm and an egg come together? A person begins. But Jesus the eternal Son was already a person. If the virgin birth hadn't happened, and instead a man and a woman had come together, you have another person now you got two people; the eternal Son and the person made from that physical union. No, what you have in the virgin birth is you have Jesus remaining just one person, with an eternal divine nature, and now adding to Himself a human nature. His conception was miraculous through the Spirit.

Thirdly[9] , it was effortless to God. Gabriel offers Mary encouragement to believe in the virgin birth here, and in doing so he answers all skeptics of the virgin birth. If you're here this morning and say, “I don't know, that virgin birth stuff I’m just not sure I can go there, that doesn't match my sort of scientific mind.” Well, listen to Gabriel's arguments here. The virgin birth is more than possible if you consider first of all, the other miracles that God has performed. And Gabriel points Mary here to the miracle in her relatives life, verse 36, “And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth months.” Gabriel says, “Listen Mary, I know this is hard but I want you to look at the miracle that God has done for your relative Elizabeth.” Here is a woman past menopause, a woman whose body no longer has the power to produce a child, and God has worked in the body of that woman to bring a child. So God can do this, you see a virgin birth is not significantly harder than what had happened with Elizabeth. And let me just say, read the Bible, look at the miracles God has performed; frankly just look at the creation of the world. This is not a problem for God. Gabriel adds that Mary can believe the virgin birth because of the omnipotence of God, verse 37, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” I love the way it's expressed in the Greek text, the word order just hits me. Literally here's how it reads, “Not will be impossible with God any word.” He does a double negative thing to stress it, “Not will be impossible with God any word.” If there's a God, then no word God speaks is impossible; He can accomplish it. And let me just stop there and say, if you struggle with the virgin birth, you don't really struggle with the virgin birth, you struggle with the concept of God. Because if God exists, if there is a God, then the virgin birth is not an issue. If He created the heavens and the earth, if He created this universe by the mere expression of His word, if He is ordering divine history according to His will, if He brought His Son into the world at all, if He's accomplished redemption, if He's performed all the miracles we read in the ministry of Jesus; if He’s done all those things, a virgin birth is not a problem. So just be honest with yourself, if you struggle with the virgin birth what you're really saying is, “I'm just not convinced that God is.” But let me say to you that you may think that's what you believe, but you don't really believe that. I know that because in Romans 1 Paul says God has made it evident to you that He exists. So you know God exists, and what Paul says in Romans 1 you're doing is you are covering that, you are suppressing that knowledge because you don't like the implications of there being a God; you want to be God, you want to order your life the way you want to order it. So there is a God, and if there is a God then a virgin birth is not a problem. Think about this, God created Adam’s sinless humanity using dust. He created Eve’s sinless humanity using Adam's rib. So, how much harder is it for Him to create Jesus’ sinless humanity using Mary's body?

Jesus’ conception was unprecedented, it was miraculous, it was effortless, and fourthly it was accepted by Mary; and let me just add, by all true followers of Jesus Christ. Notice Mary’s response, and you gotta love this, verse 38, “And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bondslave’ literally the slave “of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” Now, that is wholehearted submission. But have you ever thought about how hard this was for Mary? Remember now, she's a 13 to 15 year old virgin living in a small village of 200 people. Think about what this cost Mary by saying, “Let this happen to me.” She would live her entire life under quiet suspicion, under innuendo, or sometimes outright accusation that she had been sexually immoral, either with Joseph before their marriage, or with someone else to whom she was not betrothed. It would mean ridicule for certain, it would mean criticism, it would mean alienation from friends, and it very likely meant alienation from her family. You know it's interesting in Luke 2, when Joseph and Mary get to Bethlehem, which is where their ancestors were from, so there was undoubtedly extended family that lived in Bethlehem, we read in the Luke 2 account that when they got there, there was no room for them in the what? The inn. That's a bad translation, the Greek word is “Kataluma”, it's a word that Luke never uses for an inn like we think of a hotel, or even a traveler's shed. No, the word that's used there is the word for “guest quarters.” What it really says is Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem, and there was no room in anybody’s guest quarters for them. The family said, “I don't think so, not with what's going on in your life.” And so she gives birth to Jesus in a cave; this is what it meant. It meant divorce probably, I mean remember Joseph, that's what he was planning to do, to divorce her privately according to Matthew 1. It might mean public disgrace, and in that day it could even have meant public stoning. But despite the cost, Mary joyfully submitted to God's plan, and later she even submitted to the lordship of Her own son. You read Acts chapter 1 and 2, and in the book of Acts Mary is one of the 120 in the upper room worshiping Jesus. She's one of those in Acts 2, confessing Jesus is Lord. Mary wouldn't want us exalting her, in fact listen to the words of her own son, our Lord. Luke 11:27-28:

“One of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him”, as she heard Jesus teaching, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” In other words, blessed is the woman who gave birth to you. And of course there's an element of truth to that, I mean even Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you to get to be the mother of our Lord.” But don't take that too far, because Jesus goes on to say this to the woman who said that to him, “Blessed is the woman who gave birth to you”. He says, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” He's not saying you shouldn’t give honor to whom honor is due, He’s saying, Mary is worthy of honor, along with all of those who hear the word of God and observe it. Mary's acceptance of the virgin birth reminds us that we too must ground all our hopes in the power and promise of God to fulfill His word to us, in and through His Son.

Now let me just ask this morning, and I really want you to think about this personally. You know, however engaged or disengaged you've been to this point, I want you to just think about this with me. Luke wrote this account after careful research and under the control of the Holy Spirit, is what he claims, so let me just ask you a series of questions[10] : do you believe that Jesus was a real historical person? Do you believe that He was the eternal, pre-existing Son of God, the one-of-a-kind Son of God? Do you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin? Do you believe that in the womb of Mary, by a miraculous act of the Holy Spirit, the second person of the Trinity received full humanity, a human body and a human soul; do you believe that? And do you believe that He came on a saving mission to rescue His people from their sins by offering Himself as the payment our sins deserved. Do you believe those things? I hope you do, but even if you do that's not good enough, because if you believe everything I just said, all that means is you have the same kind of faith as the Devil himself. He believes all those things too. You see, it's not enough to have a historical faith in Jesus, which many people celebrating Christmas have, you must also accept Him as your Savior. Luke 2:11, the angel said to the shepherds, “Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior.” You have to acknowledge your sin and what your sin deserves before God, you must give up your own efforts to be right with God, you must repent of your sins, you must turn from those things in your life that you know dishonor the God who created you and who sustains your life. And you must put all of your full confidence and trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone, the one who came on a saving mission to rescue His people from their sins. So you have to accept Him as your savior, but that also means you accept Him as your Sovereign. You see, saving faith looks like this; it means you recognize His right to rule. In Luke 2:11, the angel said “Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord.” The “Kyrios”, the Sovereign, the Master. In the words of Romans 10, to become a Christian you must confess or acknowledge Jesus as your Lord, you must acknowledge Jesus’ right and authority, not only to rule, but to rule you. Jesus is the virgin born Son of God, but is He your Savior from sin? Are you one of His people? Is He your Sovereign King? Listen, if He is not your Savior from sin, and if He is not your Sovereign king, then you don't really know Jesus, and you're not really His follower. And I plead with you today, as we celebrate this weekend His birth, be reconciled to God. Confess Jesus as your Savior, your rescuer, and as your Sovereign, your King, the one who has a right to tell you everything.

That's my prayer for you today so that you would find the forgiveness of sins that is found in Him.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this amazing passage and all that it tells us about the one whose birth we celebrate. Lord, I pray for all of us who do know Him as Savior and Lord, who have confessed Him as Savior and Sovereign. Lord, I pray that you would cause this time of celebration and even our study this morning to deepen our love for Him, to deepen our commitment to follow Him, to obey Him, to do what honors Him, to submit our wills to Him. And Father, I pray for those who are here this morning who have never confessed Jesus as Lord. Lord, I pray that you would do what they can't do; that you would remove the blindness from their eyes to help them to see their true condition, to see the beauty of Jesus Christ, the incredible grace you offer in the gospel. And Lord, may they may be reconciled to you today by trusting Jesus as Savior and as Lord. We pray in His name, amen.

Pastor Tom said "call His name"

Said "existed"

Pastor Tom said "listen to Him"

Pastor Tom said "this man"

Pastor Tom said "Jesus"

Pastor Tom said 'YAHWEH"

Pastor Tom messed up Joseph with Jesus

Took out a phrase that he repeated

Took out a phrase he repeated

Deleted a repetition of the words "Let me ask you a question"