THIS IS GREAT!
Luke 1:26-38
S: Mary
Th: Courage at Christmas
Pr: THERE IS JOY TO BE HAD!
?: How? How does it come to Mary?
KW: Inductive
TS: We will find in our study of Luke 1:26-38 how Mary discovers the joy that is available to those that accept God’s will.
The _____ aspect of Mary’s story we are considering is the…
I. MESSAGE
II. MESSIAH
III. MECHANISM
Version: ESV
RMBC 07 December 03 AM
INTRODUCTION:
Ill Notebook: Optimism (Hidden Blessings)
There was a king in Africa who had a close friend that he grew up with. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.
Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"
To which the king replied, "No this is NOT good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied him to a stake surrounded by wood.
As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king had but one thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. They untied the king and sent him away.
As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt so very badly about his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. "You were right" he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "this is good!"
"What do you mean, ’this is good’! How could it be good that I sent you, my good friend, to jail for all this time?"
"If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you - and eaten!”
So, let me ask…
What are you?
1. Are you an optimist?
Or are you a pessimist?
Do you see the positive side of things?
Or do you see the negative side of it?
Do you say “this is good” or do you say “this is bad”?
There is one event that happens in a family that almost always elicits a positive response.
It comes from the statement, “We’re going to have a baby!”
2. One of the most exciting times for a couple is the anticipation of a baby.
After the initial shock wears off, and they figure out how it happened, most couples get excited.
Their lives are full of expectation.
They prepare to welcome the new addition into their lives.
For Mary and Joseph, the news of the pregnancy was not what they were looking for, or wanted.
They weren’t ready for a baby yet.
In fact, they were unprepared for it, since they had yet to have union as a couple.
This means that…
3. The circumstances of the birth of Jesus are far from ordinary.
In fact, in a moment, we are going to see that the facts surrounding the birth of Jesus are not believable.
Yes, I said that.
The birth of Jesus is unbelievable, and yet, I believe it.
Let me share with you three aspects of why I do…
OUR STUDY:
I. The first aspect of Mary’s story to consider is the MESSAGE (26-30).
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.”
Tell me…
1. How would you like to be visited by an extraterrestrial?
I don’t know about you, but when someone talks to me about UFOs or aliens, I tend to get a bit cynical.
How about you?
Yet, Mary’s story is just that.
Someone from out of this world is paying her a visit.
An angel comes to her.
And the appearance of this angel is nothing like the ones we see on television.
No, the presence of this angel puts fear into Mary.
The presence of the angel Gabriel commands power and authority.
Mary has to know that something big is about to happen, not only because this doesn’t happen everyday, but because angels come from God Himself with a message that bears hearing and obeying.
So here is the message…
Mary, you are going to have a baby!
So…
2. How would you like to be told you were going to have a baby before you were ready to have one?
Let’s get this right.
She is not ready.
For one, she is young, probably somewhere between fourteen and sixteen.
Though this was the typical marrying age of the time, it just wasn’t time yet.
You see, Mary was engaged to be married.
She was not quite married yet.
And though the espousal agreement was much more binding then than it would be now, Mary and Joseph had not yet lived together.
That alone meant it was not time for a baby.
Not only that, the big wedding celebration was yet to come.
There were big plans to make.
And having a baby at this point in time put a damper on such things.
So it is doubtful that Mary would be excited about such news.
Both the circumstances and the timing were just not right.
This brings us to…
II. The second aspect of Mary’s story to consider is the MESSIAH (30-33).
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.”
So…
How would you like to be assigned the raising of the king?
Here Mary was…essentially, a poor peasant woman.
And she is being given the biggest and grandest assignment of all time.
“You, Mary, are going to raise the Messiah.”
This is unbelievable!
I mean it!
She is going to raise the Son of the Most High.
She is going to bring up the One who will reign as King.
She is going to nurture the One who is eternal.
Well, one thing is good…at least she didn’t have to pick out the name!
That takes one point of stress away.
She is to name Him Jesus.
It was a rather common name, with an extraordinary meaning – “God is our salvation.”
This now brings us to…
III. The third aspect of Mary’s story to consider is the MECHANISM (34-38)
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.
You have to admire Mary a bit here.
She is talking to an angel after all, but she doesn’t hesitate to ask a question.
And it is a most appropriate question.
“Gabriel, how is this going to work?”
“What is the mechanism that is going to make this happen?”
“As you know, Gabriel, I’m a virgin.”
Pregnancies don’t happen with virgins…well, until that day, anyway…
1. How would you like to be pregnant and still a virgin?
Again, doesn’t this seem unbelieveable?
A virgin and pregnant?
This was not looking good for Mary.
She had kept herself pure.
She was doing the appropriate thing during the espousal time.
It was a time of commitment.
It was a time of preparation.
It was not a time to fool around.
It was not a time to be a loose woman.
But as soon as the pregnancy is found out…and it will be found out…she will be regarded that way.
And what about Joseph?
Is he going to believe this story?
He knows that if Mary is pregnant, it was not him?
Would he abandon her?
Or even worse, would he be so mad that he would call for a stoning?
It did happen from time to time.
And what about her parents?
Would they believe her story?
Would they be supportive?
Or what about the townspeople?
I mean, news like this spreads like wild fire.
The tongues would be wagging.
Would she survive the ridicule that was certainly going to come her way?
This was going to take courage.
There was a great risk to this news.
It was going to change her life.
But consider this as well…
2. How would you like to be the mother of God?
Again, this is so unbelievable!
I mean, how does one do such a thing?
How does one become mother to the Son of God?
Doesn’t this seem to be beyond the task of any one person?
And is this the type of thing one agrees to do?
ILL Notebook: Agree (climate doesn’t agree)
Although he was a qualified meteorologist, Hopkins ran up a terrible record of forecasting for the TV news program. He became something of a local joke when a newspaper began keeping a record of his predictions and showed that he’d been wrong almost three hundred times in a single year.
That kind of notoriety was enough to get him fired.
He moved to another part of the country and applied for a similar job. One blank on the job application called for the reason for leaving his previous position.
Hopkins wrote, "The climate didn’t agree with me."
I think if I was Mary (and I happened to be a woman), I would say this is a job that didn’t agree with me.
Mary, though, agrees.
She agrees with what God is going to do.
And she very calmly says, “May it be as you have said.”
“Let it be to me as you said.”
It is an amazing statement, for this is going to be hard.
All that is going to happen to her is going to be so unbelievable.
But Mary is willing to go forward and leave the dilemmas in God’s hands.
Why?
Because nothing is impossible for God.
You see, God is bigger than our limitations of Him.
He goes above and beyond the laws of nature and does what is needed and what is right.
APPLICATION:
Mary’s response to Gabriel is rather solemn, but when she goes to visit the relatives, particularly Elizabeth, there is a change of reaction.
She bursts out in song.
She sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord!”
She gives praise to God because “This is great!”
She is the optimist.
As bad as this is all going to look, it doesn’t matter…this is great.
God is Almighty!
God is merciful!
Holy is God’s name.
God puts down those who oppose Him.
God is just in flat out control of all things.
And it is a reason to rejoice.
For Mary seems to know that the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.
So with this confidence, note this…
THERE IS JOY TO BE HAD!
Understand what Mary teaches us today…
When God is with us, there is joy!
When God favors us, there is joy!
When God uses us, there is joy!
Even if the path looks uncomfortable, painful and dark, do not despair.
We never go wrong when we say “yes” to God.
There is joy in the end!
COMMUNION:
We come to this table because we celebrate that Jesus came to us.
The message of the angel Gabriel identified to Mary just who Jesus was…
…the Son of the Most High
…the eternal ruler of David’s throne
…the Messiah
…the Son of God
This being true, we now have available to us a relationship with the “With-Us God.”
We know Immanuel—God with us.
We agree with the hymn writer, William Dix, who wrote “What Child Is This?”
In the second verse, he writes:
Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear; for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The babe, the Son of Mary.
Those of us that know Jesus as the Word made flesh are invited to share in the elements of the table.
He told us to come together for this fellowship and to do this in remembrance of Him.
Yearly, we take this time of the year to remember His coming—a coming that would eventually lead to the cross.
But this coming, a humble, humiliating and even unbelievable coming is an invitation to know the power of God.
You are invited to know Jesus today, even at this very moment, by recognizing and repenting of your sin, receiving Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
It is that simple.
It is a statement of faith.
You can have a new start.
Jesus can be born in you today.
The table is for believers of the Lord Jesus.
We come to remember that the babe in the manger cries out for us to remember the God who became like us—to save us.
The God of all creation humbled Himself.
God Himself became vulnerable as a fragile baby to show us the way to overcome the world by the power of His Spirit, even unto death on the cross.
Let us take a moment and meditate on these great truths for us…
(Prayer — )
The apostle Paul writes, "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
Let’s partake together.
(Prayer — )
Again, the apostle Paul writes, "In the same way, after supper he took the cup saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
Let’s partake together.
Deacon Offering
#155 O Little Town of Bethlehem
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Know the joy…for when God is with us, we have all we need.
Know the joy…for when God favors us, there is no way to go wrong when we say “yes” to Him.
Know the joy…for when God uses us, the end will always be worth whatever path God has for us.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
