CHRISTMAS STORIES OF HOPE
1: “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Blessing” Luke 1:26-38
Welcome: Read excerpt by Jackie McCullough as excerpted in The Incarnation: An Anthology, pp. 47-48.
Introduction:
Are you looking for glad tidings this Christmas season? Do you come to God in search of your own Christmas miracle? Are you fed up with the mundaneness of your life? Examining the skies for a star of hope?
For the next four Sundays we will be exploring Christmas Stories of Hope from God’s Word. Today, we will consider how Christmas teaches us that ordinary people can attain extraordinary blessing in their lives!
PRAYER
I.)The Ordinary Is Invaded (1:26-28) God Invades The Ordinary
A.A very ordinary city.
+ Nazareth was a small and insignificant village in Galilee.
+ It is never even mentioned in the OT.
+ John 1:46 (Nathanael) “Can anything good come from [Nazareth]?”
+ Some would say the same of Bloomfield, or even of BBC.
B.An ordinary young woman.
+ A young Jewish girl would normally be engaged btw. 12 & 14 yrs. old.
+ Typically, at this time a legal marriage contract would be signed, it could not be broken except by divorce, the girl would be called her fiancé’s wife, and any infidelity by either party would be considered adultery. Nevertheless, the young girl would continue to live with her parents and remain abstinent until the marriage ceremony a year or so later.
+ While Scripture praises Mary’s spirit, nothing is ever mentioned to imply that she is remarkable in any other way: physical appearance, intellect, popularity, or wealth. She likely didn’t have any education, was poor and by most accounts a typical, acne-plagued teenage girl.
C.An ordinary man.
+ Even Joseph, though a grown adult man, was simply a run-of-the-mill common laborer. “Mr. Blue Collar from Hobokon.”
+ Likely, he was a carpenter not so much by choice, but because that is what was decided for him since birth because that is what his father was.
+ A man going through the motions of life, doing and being what everyone expected of him.
+ Yet, there was one regal thing about him that went widely unnoticed and unappreciated, perhaps even by himself. Nine hundred years of heredity made him an heir of David. Being a common man, this probably meant little to Joseph. It certainly hadn’t helped him have a better life, gain any fame, riches or privilege.
+ Believers, you too are heirs of the King. Have you forgotton?
God absolutely loves to use the ordinary for His extraordinary purposes!
II.)An Ordinary Reaction to the Unexpected (v. 29)
+ Mary first responded as any teenager, nay, any of us period would. She was troubled,
worried, scared, and confused. She had ADHD butterflies in her stomach, air in her head,
and fear coursing through her veins.
+ Too often, we let our troubles, our worries, our fear and confusion block God and His
miracles from our lives! Too many times, we allow them to keep our lives mundane and
insignificant. But not Mary! She is human and she clearly experiences all of those
emotions. The difference is that she does not surrender to them. Instead, she boldly
inquires, seeks to sort them all out, waits and listens to one obviously more knowledgeable
than herself. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why God chose to use a teenager. Perhaps
we adults could learn a lot from them, after all!
III.)An Extraordinary Blessing (vv. 30-33)
A.Favor Trumps Fear (v. 30)
+ “Do not fear!” Isn’t it interesting how God always seems to say this just before
announcing something that will terrify us?! “Do not fear, BUT . . . “
+ Calvin Miller writes, “God’s visitations unnerve us. Why? Because He never comes to
us without asking us to do something. We never know what He will ask of us, but we
know that we will be overwhelmed by our feelings of inadequacy ” (The Christ of
Christmas). What has God been asking of you?
+ Mary is told not to fear, because God “favors” her. Why? How? Because God desires
to judge us not by the criteria of the world, but by our hearts, our character. God favors
those who honor Him, especially those who are ordinary in every other way!
+ 2 Timothy 2:21 “. . . if anyone cleanses himself . . . he will be a vessel for honor,
sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”
+ God chose Mary because of her character and wonderful spirit, her age was
unimportant.
B.The Blessing Revealed (v. 31)
+ The Lord has determined that now is the time for the Messiah, the Anointed One, the
Deliverer to come.
+ Only, He will come as an embryo in your womb! (Come on, imagine this now!) You
will be responsible for delivering Him first, protecting and raising Him.
+ His name shall be Jesus. Joshua, a common, ordinary name for an
extraordinary purpose and life! Yaweh Saves!
C.The Blessing Explained (v. 32-33)
+ When you have fulfilled your role, then He will deliver all who believe from sin,
protect them from death and evil, and raise them to grow in His righteousness!
+ He will then establish His eternal and holy Kingdom, as promised to David.
2 Sam. 7:16 “Your house and kingdom will endure before Me forever, and your throne will be
established forever.”
Ps. 89:36-37 “His offspring will continue forever, his throne like the sun before Me, like the moon,
established forever, a faithful witness in the sky.”
God loves to bless us. Just as much, He loves to bless us in ways that require our participation, trust and obedience to fulfilling the role and responsibilities He would give us.
IV.)An Ordinary Question (v. 34)
+ Life, even God’s will and calling to us, is full of mysteries. Oh, how we love to solve
mysteries or read and watch others do so, but we abhor being saddled with it ourselves,
don’t we? Here is the problem: too often we allow our discomfort with
mystery to take us away from both God’s will and His blessing!
+ To quote Calvin Miller again: “. . . mystery is the heart of faith! . . . We basically have two
choices to make in dealing with the mysteries of God. We can wrestle with Him or we can
rest in Him. We can continue searching the unsearchable or relax in the reality. What
exists at the end of all our searching will be a God who knows absolutely everything . . .
and chooses to love us anyway.”
+ 1 Timothy 3:16 (read together)
V.)An Extraordinary Answer (vv. 35-37)
A.The Source (v. 35)
+ Literally, the Holy Spirit will “invade” you!
+ The source of power in all creation will invade and overwhelm you, even fill you! He will
fill you with the One who is completely Holy, uniquely set apart from all others.
+ He will be in your womb, but He is God’s Son.
B.The Sign (v. 36)
+ The Announcer and Preparer, the Voice Who Will Cry Out In The Wilderness is already
on his way.
+ “As I have blessed your elderly and barren cousin with a special child, can I not then fill
you with my child?”
+ Doing the impossible is God’s business! It’s what He does!
C.The Promise of Power (vv. 35-36)
+ A promise made 900 yrs. earlier to King David was now being fulfilled!
+ Gen. 18:14 (LORD to Abraham after Sarah laughed) “Is anything impossible for the
LORD? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have
a son.”
Jer. 32:17 Ah, Lord GOD! You Yourself made the heavens and earth by Your great
power and with Your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!
+ God is a God who always keeps His promises! It was true then and it is still every bit as
true today!
Clearly, God is willing and able to do this extraordinary miracle of blessing, but He desires Mary’s cooperation and participation as well. Will she? Can she? At such a tremendous risk and cost: hurting her betrothed, her marriage, her reputation, her relations with her family and friends, being left alone and outcast, taking up the impossible task of protecting, caring for and raising the Son of God with the Lord Most High and the future of the world depending on it?! God is willing, but is Mary? What about you? When God throws you what seems like a dangerous “curve ball” requiring you to risk everything and trust Him completely, are you willing?
VI.) Surrender to the Extraordinary (v. 38)
+ Notice, first, how Mary did NOT respond.
She did not, as Moses, proclaim “please, use somebody else instead.”
She did not, as Zechariah (John’s father) six months before, express doubt and insist on
a special sign in order for her to believe.
She did not, like Jonah, seek to run away as far as she could.
She did not, like the nation of Israel on so many occasions, insist that God do it their
way, ignore Him, respond with arguments and complaints, or worry about “What
will our neighbors think?”
She did not play the famous “what if” game. Have you ever played that?
What if nobody believes me? What if Joseph hates me, divorces me or even has
me stoned to death? What if mom and dad “have a cow”? What if I am
excommunicated and outcast alone and with no way to provide for this divine
baby? What if I’m not adequate for the task?
What will my mother say?! How would your mother react? (pause)
Reflecting on this, Beth Moore writes: “When the winds
of heaven converge with the winds of earth, lightning is bound to strike. Seems to be
that Gabriel left just in time for Mary to tell her mother. I have a feeling Nazareth was
about to hear and experience a little thunder” (Jesus, the One and Only)
The unknown and the strange did not consume her. She did not wallow in
her worries and sorrows. And she certainly did not throw herself a big pity party!
Nor did she puff up with or bask in pride that of everyone who had ever lived, she was
the specially chosen one. In fact, there is nothing to indicate that this thought ever
crossed her mind as a matter of pride. Fear, doubt, wondering or even hoping He
had chosen someone else, perhaps. Pride, never! THAT is her purity!
+ Instead, she responded with what one might call reckless abandon. She ignored the risks,
the doubts and the “what ifs” and, instead, completely surrendered to the Extraordinary of
God!
+ How many of us can say that we have such trust and willingness to absolutely surrender
ourselves into God’s hands?
+ “May it be done to me, according to your word” is the genuine attitude of the heart and
spirit that brings birth to miracles!
+ With this one little commitment, this young, ordinary, undistinguished, small-town girl
turned the world upside-down and changed it forever!
+ Perhaps, you right now, are being paralyzed or settling for less because of your fears,
doubts, confusion or sense of your own inadequacies. Rather than wallow and despond on
the seeming impossibility of it all, why not echo Mary’s attitude of willing surrender?
Why not, instead, rejoice in the endless possibilities in His hands?
+ John Hagee writes: “Please understand this: you obey God only when you do what you
don’t want to do. If God asks you to do what you want to do, you don’t obey, you agree.
When He asks you to do what you don’t want to do, that’s obedience” (from The Spirit of
Christmas).
+ Do you want to know the real “Christmas Spirit”? It is the spirit of joyful surrender and
obedience to God!
God uses ordinary people who desire to do His will, no matter what it may be or what the cost may be! And He does extraordinary things!
Conclusion: Why Mary and How it could be Me
We readily acknowledge that Mary is the only human being in all history to be miraculously invaded by the Holy Spirit in such an extraordinary way. And so it is true. We lament: “I guess I shouldn’t expect anything, then. It already happened to Mary, it can’t happen to me.” Not exactly true. Sure, you won’t be miraculously impregnated with the physical presence of the Son of God. But, don’t forget, all who believe in Him, have been invaded by Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit! And don’t misunderstand the potential of His unlimited power in your life, no matter how ordinary it may be!
1.The more ordinary the vessel, the more God is magnified.
2.Committed to purity.
3.Trusted God, even in the unknown and seemingly absurd.
4.A student of His Word (vv. 46-55, at least 10 times she quotes from the OT)
5.A servant’s heart.
6.Desire to do His will – no matter the cost!
INVITATION
