The Angelic Announcements Luke 1 Vs 1 38

They had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well -advanced in years.

So it was that while he was serving as priest before God, in order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the

Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing in the right side of the altar of incense.

And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him,

Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name

John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the

Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.

So turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the

Lord. And Zacharias said to the angel, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.

And the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.

But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time.

And the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple. But when he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless.

So it was as soon as the days of his service were completed that he departed to his own house.

Now after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she hid herself five months, saying,

Thus the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among people.

Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named

Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one.

The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was.

Then 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 bring forth a son and shall call his name

Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the

Lord God will give 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. Then Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I do not know a man?

And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore also the holy one who is to be born will be called the son of God. Now indeed,

Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

For with God, nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the

Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we are thankful that even in the darkest time of human history, that you look on to your people with favor.

And Father, we pray that as we delve into this text, that your spirit would work through the text to touch our hearts, to renew our minds, to see the hope and peace that your

Messiah Christ brings. We pray that we would all find hope and assurance in what

Luke has to say to us this morning. In Jesus name, amen.

So historically, Luke was not an apostle, but he ministered alongside the apostle

Paul as his personal assistant and physician. And we also hold him to be a second generation believer in that he wasn't one of the early disciples of Jesus.

He wasn't following Jesus during his earthly ministry, but rather Luke was a

Gentile believer who came to faith through the first generation of believers.

Now Luke is the author of both the Gospel according to Luke and the

Acts of the Apostles. And the Gospel according to Luke is the longest gospel account out of the four gospel accounts we have,

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And his writing is considered to be one of the finest ancient documents.

Now the Gospel according to Luke was written after the

Gospel according to Mark. And we believe that this was written about around the 60s,

AD 60, the first century. And this was a pivotal time period for the church because Roman persecution was ramping up.

The church was divided also over the inclusion of the

Gentiles. It was a very controversial topic for what used to be former

Jews to suddenly eat with the Gentiles because according to the law they were not allowed to do that.

And the questions in the early believers mind in the first century were, is

Christ truly from God? It seems like we're getting persecuted by the government and our church is divided over table fellowship.

Is Christ truly from God? Did he fulfill what God has told him to do?

And are the future promises going to be fulfilled as well? And at this time

Christians in the 60s risked their social and even physical lives to proclaim the truth of Christ.

This was an important question to answer. The need for assurance of God's fulfillment was very real around Luke's time.

So, Luke writes his account in order to set the record straight, to assure the church that we can trust

God's future fulfillment of his promises because he has already fulfilled his former promises in Christ.

That's the purpose of Luke's gospel. And this assurance of God's future faithfulness is also necessary for the church today.

It seems that we cannot publicly proclaim to be

Christian in any of the major spheres of influence, whether politics, entertainment, and academia.

In this century, we're getting closest to persecution for Christians that's ever been possible in this great country.

It seems the laws that pass the floor of the Congress happen to always go against the

Christian worldview and even Christian practice. And for many

Christians today, whether they're working in the secular workforce, whether they're in the government, whether they're students, and whether they're born into a secular family and all of their friends and family happen to not be a fan of Christianity, the question of, is

Christ going to fulfill the promises in the future, that question needs to be answered.

And Luke's gospel of his meticulous record of Christ's life and all these events that point to the fulfillment of the

Old Testament prophecies show us and give us the hope that if God was able to fulfill the

Old Testament promises in Christ, wouldn't he also fulfill the promises that are coming to the church now and in the future?

So the main point of today's text is, why can we trust God's promises?

Why can we trust God's promises? First point is that because of Luke's careful and ordered narrative of God's fulfillment of his promises in Christ, we can have full assurance of the

Christian faith. Because of Luke's careful and ordered narrative of God's fulfillment of his promises in Christ, we can have full assurance of the

Christian faith. The first four verses of this book serves as the prologue for the whole book.

And Luke tells us in the first two verses that his account will not be the first.

His account will not be the only account of Christ. In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us.

In the first verse, Luke clarifies that his account will not be the one and only, but one of many.

And in his days, there were many written and spoken accounts about Jesus and his act of salvation.

His death on the cross for our sin and the resurrection on the third day. And Luke here is making it crystal clear that he's not starting something fresh, but building upon what already exists.

He's not writing a novel, but assembling a biography with the already existing ample data.

And what is this that he is looking at? What data is he looking at?

Those things which have been fulfilled among us. Notice the passive verb has been fulfilled among us.

This is what we call the divine passive. When the subject is not in the sentence, but the context allows for God who has done the fulfilling, we say the implicit subject of this passive verb of fulfilling is

God. It is those things which God has accomplished. Fulfillment is an accomplishment to its intended goal.

When God fulfills something, he's taken something and he's taken it all the way to its accomplished end, to its intended end.

And it involves intensification and escalation. It's obvious.

It's clear. And Luke says there's data for it. And this is what he's about to do.

And in verse two, he reveals his sources, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the world delivered them to us.

These sources were people who actually saw Jesus' earthly ministry. Not only did they witness, they also were ministers.

They were servants. Their object of ministry was not themselves, but the message of God.

Their focus was not their fame and interest and their influence, but the preservation and spreading of God's message.

And for Luke, he had the primary sources. He had the witness testimonies to work with, something we don't have.

But this is similar to reading a court document. We may not have been sitting as jurors in a finished case, but the jurors, they actually got to listen to the witnesses who have seen the case.

And the witnesses, they themselves have personally were eyewitnesses. They've seen it happen.

And for most court documents, we would believe that to be historically accurate and true.

And what Luke is doing is he's doing something similar. He's compiling primary sources, both written and spoken, in order to write his account, an orderly narrative.

And the next two verses explain Luke's very role in writing this book.

Verse three lays out his methodology. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent

Theophilus. Now because of the abundant data that was available for Luke regarding Jesus and his ministry,

Luke decided it was important to take on the mission to clearly compile and accurately attest what truly happened.

The phrase had perfect understanding in NKJV directly translates to accurately followed.

Here Luke is an investigative journalist following the thread of the documents and spoken words to document an orderly account.

An orderly account means Luke is writing the accurate progress of salvation under God's direction.

This does not mean strictly that it's chronological because there are certain parts of Luke where he places miracles before that Mark does.

And Luke worked with Mark's document because Mark was written first. What Luke is saying, he's making an orderly, systematic, thematic account of God's act of salvation in human history.

And this is why when we take a look at Luke's writings, both Luke and Acts, we see that it starts with Israel and then ends with the

Gentiles. There is this orderly account of how God saves, right?

From Luke to Acts, starts in Jerusalem, ends in Rome, right?

There is an orderly account geographically, broadly chronologically, but absolutely thematically how

God saves in history. And now a lot of ink spilled over the identity of Theophilus.

And Theophilus isn't the intended original audience of this book. He is the one person that Luke has in mind when he's writing this.

Now the only thing we can speculate about Theophilus is what kind of person he was when we take a look at the content of Luke's gospel.

And when we consider Luke and Acts, we know that Luke is not mainly defending his faith.

This doesn't read like in apologetics books, right? Here are the reasons why you can believe that Christ is real, right?

That's not the content of Luke, although there are apologetic sections, but he's not here to defend the faith.

What Luke's writings show us is that he's proclaiming the faith.

He's actually talking about the faith. He's showing how his faith is the fulfillment of God's promises, right?

This means Theophilus probably was not an unbeliever, but a believer who needed to hear the fulfillment of God's promises in and through life of Jesus.

He was a believer who needed to be assured of his faith, that he wasn't just believing in vain, that there was something greater to hope for.

And verse four serves as the purpose statement, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

The goal of this book is not to replace the already existing materials for the church, right?

The goal of this book is not that Mark didn't write enough, Mark forgot the birth narrative, right?

No, it is to give assurance of the Christian faith, to grant certainty to the teachings of the apostles and the life of Christ.

This book's purpose is to set straight any misunderstandings that the early church may have about Christ.

And this is an important prologue for the church this morning.

And this is because the main attacks against Christianity is its validity.

Well, is it the real deal? Is the Bible accurate? Did Christ actually even live?

And in the church, that was just outside the church, in the church, the enemies of the truth are when the focus is about the feelings rather than the truth.

Well, that sermon felt really great. Well, was it from Scripture?

Oh, no. Well, or something like this, it's about love, not truth, right?

What Luke has done is that he's done the legwork of collecting data and analyzing the records to set it in a clear narrative as he's interviewed the eyewitnesses and compared the records, a clear narrative for the church so that the church may know and be certain that they are founded on what is true, what is historically accurate.

And Christianity is a religion in which historical accuracy is at the foundation.

Any other religion, if their founder didn't exist or if their founder's life was fabricated, there's some legends there, there's some myths there, it's fine.

If Buddha, Gautama Buddha, did not actually live in India a couple hundred years before Christ, that's fine because it's about the lifestyle.

It's about the teachings of Buddha. But for Christians, it's more than just the teachings of Christ.

Of course, teachings of Christ matters. But it is the accuracy and the historicity of the life of Christ.

Life, death, and resurrection of Christ is at the utmost importance.

If Christ didn't live, Paul says, you're believing in vain. You're to be most pitied.

But Luke gives us the solution. You can have certainty because I've done the legwork for you.

And if you are uncertain about Christ this morning, follow along to what

Dr. Luke has written for you. And if you have some lingering doubts about Christianity this morning, well,

God has brought you to the right place. Linger along to see the evidence compiled by Luke.

Now, how has God fulfilled his promise of salvation? The first announcement is that at the proper time,

God sends his eschatological prophet to prepare his people for salvation. At the proper time,

God sends his eschatological prophet to prepare his people for salvation.

Now, eschatological means regarding the last days.

And I use eschatological as the Bible uses it. When we read the

Old Testament prophecies of eschatology, when you see the phrase, in those days, in the latter days, in the day of the

Lord, it's pretty broad. It actually spans even from before Christ's birth to the judgment day.

And to us, that's thousands of years. But in the Bible, how the prophets got to see it is that if you look at the mountain range,

I mean, we have a mountain range here. I didn't even ask for this. But if you look at the mountain range, one direction, as you look toward the mountains as they're stacked, right, as they're layered, you can't really see the gap between each mountain peak.

But if you look at it from another angle where you see all the mountains along in a line, you actually do get to see the gap in between each mountain.

So consider the Old Testament prophets as those who have been revealed only a certain part and they're looking at the mountain stacked in a layer.

So they don't really get to see, in those days, it can all of a sudden be the millennial reign or new heaven and new earth.

And it can be the birth of Christ or the Christ millennial reign.

It jumps all over the place because they are all stacked together and they can't see the gaps in between each mountain.

But for New Testament believers, we actually do get to see the gaps in between each peak because it's been revealed to us.

So that's what it means by eschatology. It's the last days and it's a hugely broad term.

And it is climaxed by the coming of Christ. Verses five to seven start with a hopeless context of God keeping his promise of redemption.

First, verse five starts with the political context. Judea is under Roman rule governed by Herod the

Great. Herod the Great governed Judea, the southern part of land of Israel, 37 to 4

BC. And he was placed there by Mark Anthony, a

Roman general. Now, this is far from the glory of Israel of the past under David or even

Solomon. They're just basically a colony under Rome.

Rome is giving them some freedom, but really, I mean, there's not a Davidic king ruling independently.

And this is even farther from the promise Israel under the Messiah that the prophets speak about.

It was a dark time. Really, after the fall of Jerusalem in 586

BC, God's people, Israel, really never got the footing straight.

They never had a firm foundation. Sure, the exile ended, as God promised, but they were always under some sort of imperial rule, whether it's

Persia, it's Greek, now it's Rome. Really briefly, a couple hundred years before Christ, the

Jews actually gained freedom from the Greek Empire, the Seleucid Empire.

They actually fought hard. Guerrilla warfare, they won. That kind of warfare is still studied at West Point today.

Guerrilla warfare of the Maccabeans. Now, at that point, they had one chance to put in place a

Davidic king because they had the genealogy, right? But what did they do?

They put the Maccabees in charge, Levites, and that reign didn't last long because Pompey comes over in the first century

BC, that's from Rome, right, and takes over. So it was a dark day.

The only moment when they could have installed a Davidic king in obedience to God, they failed.

And now they were under another empire, another time. Now Luke then narrows down from the whole nation of Israel to a faithful couple of the priestly family,

Zacharias and Elizabeth. The fact that they were both descendants of Aaron, the high priest, show that they had quite the spiritual pedigree, right?

They can say that they're related to Aaron, the high priest. And remember, in the

Old Testament, most people of Israel did not get to enter the temple to approach

God, but only the priests. So in one sense, their pedigree showed that they were spiritually had more access to God than any other families because their males could enter the temple.

And Zacharias and Elizabeth were therefore already distinguished just from their birth pedigree.

They were that couple, right, that everyone looked up to. Wow, the priestly pair.

Not only that, verse six sets them apart in character, both righteous before God and blameless.

In the Old Testament, those two adjectives are used, righteous before God and blameless, to describe

Job. And Job was a righteous man. So you can see what kind of impeccable character these two people had, right?

Now righteous here does not mean a pulse use of the term righteous, as in a legal position before God, right?

Justification doesn't happen until Jesus dies for our sin. Now righteous here means that they were walking faithfully with the

Lord and obeying the law, right? This does not mean they're sinless. It means when they did sin, they sacrificed correctly to be atoned for, right?

That would be what it means to walk righteously with the Lord, following the

Lord. And they lived up to their prestigious pedigree, right?

It was not just the name. They lived it too. Now everything seems to fall right into place until verse seven.

They had no children because Elizabeth was barren and they both were advanced in ears.

In the Old Testament, childlessness was viewed as a reproach, a curse for unfaithfulness.

And I'm sure they did get, they might, they probably have gotten those looks from their neighbors.

What's going on? They're the priestly pair. They seem to be living righteously.

However, the readers know, and Luke knows, that their childlessness was not a judgment from God, but a dispensation from God.

God had a specific purpose for their childlessness. It was not a judgment.

After all, they were living righteously before God. Now after setting the background and introducing the tension of childlessness, verse eight to 23 depict the solution via the angelic announcement of John the

Baptist's birth. The angel appears to Zacharias when he is ministering inside the temple.

And he's chosen by a casting of lots. This is that random casting lot.

You would pick a stick and if you get the right stick, you get to go in to serve inside the temple.

Now, for those of you who have gone through Exodus together, we know that the golden incense, offering of the incense, was inside the tabernacle, inside the holy place, and it represented prayers going up to God.

It was a special honor. And hence, in verse 10, people outside are praying during the hour of incense.

For Zacharias, this was a special once -in -a -lifetime honor. It probably wouldn't have repeated again.

And verse 11 shows us that it was special for more than that reason alone. God's messenger shows up.

Ironically, Zacharias goes in to the temple to offer up prayers and God sends a message back immediately.

He did not expect that coming. And as Zacharias is trembling in fear, the angel reassures him, do not be afraid,

Zacharias, for your prayer is heard and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son and you shall call his name

John. Now, the prayer here can be seen as in two -fold. In the previous years,

Zacharias and Elizabeth prayed for a child. They were the priestly pair and they were childless.

I'm sure there were many hours of tear -filled moments praying for that child. However, this child was an answer to another prayer, as Zacharias, the priest, is praying for the nation of Israel.

And John the Baptist is the answer to both. John the Baptist has a national significance, but also a personal significance.

In a sense, God kills two birds with one stone through the birth of John the

Baptist. And the angel tells him that the birth of John will cause joy for not just the barren parents, but for many.

And this great eschatological joy is associated with the unfolding of God's plan of salvation.

And verses 15 to 17 tell us the reason for this joy. Verse 15 first shares that John will be specially, especially set apart for the

Lord. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.

He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. There are three ways in which

John will be set apart wholly for God's redemptive purpose. First, God will view him as great.

Others may view him as weird. Others may ostracize him. Others may be offended by him and kill him.

But to God, he's great. Second, he will be set apart as a

Nazarite. Avoiding wine or strong drink was specifically for the

Nazarites to set themselves apart for the Lord. It was an

Old Testament way of physically showing that this person was different, especially holy unto the

Lord. And lastly, the Spirit of God will reside in John.

This was extraordinary because God's Spirit all throughout the Old Testament did not reside in a person permanently, from birth to death.

In fact, many of the Old Testament figures, the

Spirit of God left them. None. The Spirit of God came and left

His people at will. However, not so with John.

He will be filled with the Spirit from conception because he will be a prophet proclaiming the coming of the

Messiah from conception. He had a special role in God's salvific plan.

He was a special prophet, even among other prophets. And verses 16 to 17 show how

God will use the prophet John first to turn Israel back to the Lord their God.

Now this is actually different from Christian conversion because Christian conversion is not turning back to God as if they were already walking with God and they fell away and then they're turning back to God.

Rather, at conversion, we're turning to God for the very first time. It's an initial reorientation.

For Israel, however, as a nation, needed to turn back to God.

It was a return. In order to prepare for God's ultimate salvific plan,

God sent His prophet to proclaim the message of reformation to the nation of Israel that needed a dire restoration.

And verse 17 tells us that the manner in which John's prophetic ministry will be carried out in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers and the children.

This is a partial quotation from Malachi 4, 5 to 6. Behold, I will send you

Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, that eschatological day.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

In the last days, which we just talked about, it's very broad when we say the last days,

God will prepare his nation via a reformation through his eschatological prophet who is like Elijah.

They will be reconciled to God. But not only that, they will be reconciled to each other, children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.

This prophet John will provide for a vertical and a horizontal reconciliation.

And a reformation that is one and not the other is not true reformation.

Ones whose souls have returned to God are restored vertically with God.

But not only that, they're restored horizontally with God's people. It's both and.

And to a nation that has been oppressed by one empire to the next, this was truly a joyous announcement.

It's gonna start soon, right? For Israel, the coming of John the

Baptist was the start of the game. If you're into the

World Cup or even Super Bowl, it's that initial music when the players walk into the field.

That's John the Baptist's birth. It's about to come down. However, Zacharias doubts as he asks for a sign.

How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is well advanced in years.

Translation, I need more proof than what God has already said because my circumstances make it impossible.

I need more evidence because my circumstances are bigger than what

God can do. And this leads to the angelic rebuke.

I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.

But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time.

Gabriel's response is not a logical argument. It's not a spiritual mechanism that could take place for the barrenness to go away.

He doesn't even talk about all the barren women whom God has healed in order to give birth to the child who would deliver people of Israel at the right time, right?

Think Samson. Think Samuel, right? Or even going all the way back to Abraham and Isaac, Isaac and Jacob.

Barrenness is a huge theme in the Bible. Oh, Gabriel doesn't even go there. His only answer is, the authority of the word comes from my close approximation, close proximity to God.

You better believe it because I stand before God. Gabriel's response is that of authority that comes from God.

Because God has said it, I'm only the messenger. You better believe it. And the irony is when

Zacharias receives his sign of muteness, he will not be able to talk about the joyful announcement until it is fulfilled.

That's the irony of the sign. And verses 21 through 22 describe the crowd's reaction to Zacharias' prolonged stay in the temple.

They assume correctly that he has seen some sort of spiritual vision. And then verses 23 to 25 show

Elizabeth's response to the fulfillment of God's promise. She hides herself for five months because she knows that she can't disclose this eschatological beginning until it's the right time.

Now to what does this eschatological prophet point to?

The thing we need to know about the prophets is that the prophets themselves are not the source of the message.

They don't get to say whatever they want. They're always pointing to something.

And they're also always getting, receiving something from God.

So the third part is God fulfills his promise of salvation by sending his son to reign as king.

From the temple in Jerusalem, the angel appears in Nazareth, which is a small town in the region of Galilee, which is about 45 to 85 miles away from north of Jerusalem.

And verse 27 sets the background for the new audience of this angelic visitation.

To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was

Mary. Compared to the priestly pair we've just seen, Mary is unknown and unrecognized.

The only thing we know about her is that she is engaged to Joseph, who is a descendant of David, and she's a virgin.

That's it. Two things. Betrothed to a Davidic descendant and a virgin.

Despite her unknown status, however, the angel showers her with praises.

Something that is even not even comparable for what

Zacharias experienced. Rejoice highly favored one. The Lord is with you.

Blessed are you among women. Highly favored one means a recipient of God's grace.

The direct translation is the one who has received a lot of grace. The one who has received grace.

And similar to Zacharias' reaction, this initial encounter scares

Mary. Hence the angel has to reassure her too. Do not be afraid,

Mary, for you have found favor with God. Favor here again means grace.

You have found grace. God has found grace in you. Now what is this grace that God is bestowing on Mary?

The angel announces birth, the birth of another child in verse 31.

However, compared to the first child, John the Baptist, this baby is superior.

Verses 32 to 33 describe the child's calling. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest.

And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. Now John the

Baptist was great in God's eyes. Jesus will be great, period.

No argument. Everyone will one day have to accept that. He is just great.

Now not only that, Jesus' call as God's son is far superior to the office of prophet.

While John will be the mouthpiece of God, Jesus will be the direct representative of God as the son of God, the son of the highest, the son of the most high.

Who else could it be in Israel than God himself? And not only that, his calling is regal.

Jesus is not just a prophet, he's a king. He will be the promised

Davidic Messiah. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.

House of Jacob is Israel. And his kingdom, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

This child will fulfill God's promise to King David in 2

Samuel 7, a never -ending dynasty. Remember, in 2

Samuel 7, right after David conquers Jerusalem, he sees the tabernacle, which we just went over in Exodus, and realizes, gee,

I'm living in a palace, but God's in a tent. I better make a house for God.

Nathan initially says, great idea. But he comes back and says, the

Lord says no. And this is because a man, even

David, will not make God's redemptive history happen.

Only God has the prerogative to take another step forward in his redemptive history.

It is God's decision, not David's. However, God turns it around.

He reverses this. He says, you're not making me a house, but I will make you a house.

I will make you a dynasty. And on that throne, there always will be a

Davidic king on that throne. And your son, your son will build me a temple.

But your throne will be everlasting. In the immediate context, Solomon is the son who builds the temple.

However, that promise is not fulfilled by Solomon, because he, too, died.

And there are two ways in which a king, a dynasty, would go on forever.

And we've talked about this before. One is that there's an everlasting generation of kings.

There's a fresh batch of kings all the time. So the dynasty continues generationally.

There's the second way in which this could be fulfilled. And it's to have an eternal king reigning on that throne forever.

A king who doesn't die, but reigns from that throne eternally.

And this angel tells us clearly that the fulfillment of the Davidic promise will be done the second way.

Jesus the king will reign forever. Not only that, his kingdom will be global.

Both temporally and spatially, Jesus is supreme.

And after the announcement, Mary, similar to Zacharias' response, poses a question.

How can this be, since I do not know a man? Now, this question is different from Zacharias' question of doubt.

While Zacharias requested a sign, how will I know this? To believe what

God has said. Mary believes, yet does not understand how it will be done.

Because she is a virgin. And Gabriel explains and confirms this in verses 35 to 37.

First verse 35 explains what will happen, how this can happen. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore, also the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. The Holy Spirit has a crucial role in the fulfillment of the

Old Testament promises in the New Testament. And the same

God who brought life into existence out of nothing in Genesis 1 will be the same

God who brings a life into a virgin womb. And of course, this is an escalation compared to what's going to happen to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was barren, and in the Old Testament, over and over again, we saw that God was able to bring out a child from a barren womb, a dead womb.

But here, God's doing something far greater. God will bring a child out of a virgin womb.

Now that is unheard of. And this comparison shows us who is truly greater,

John the Baptist or Jesus. And although Mary did not ask for it, the angel actually graciously gives her a sign to confirm what has been announced will take place.

Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

For with God, nothing will be impossible. To Mary, she knows of Elizabeth.

That's her relative. The fact that, oh, Elizabeth? She's six months pregnant?

That will serve as a sign. After all, she did not let anyone else know.

So it would have been a surprise for Mary to see the pregnant belly.

And know that God has not forgotten Israel. And know that she has a crucial role in the coming of the messianic king who will deliver his people.

But more than that, the world. And to this reassurance,

Mary responds, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

Out of her mouth, we do not hear how socially ostracizing this will be.

Out of her mouth, we do not hear how relationally complicated this will be with Joseph.

Both of these things are true. But that is not her focus. When the announcement of God's gracious fulfillment comes to Mary, she humbly receives as a maidservant.

She receives the gift. And this morning, like Mary, we have a choice to make regarding how we receive the gracious announcement of God's very

Son, Jesus Christ. Will you receive Him humbly as God's gracious gift for your salvation?

Will you receive Him as the crucified Messiah who died so that your sin could be paid for and that He is risen and He is reigning from above?

Will you receive Him as your Savior and King? Or will you reject

Him? Will you doubt the gracious gift? Ah, this couldn't have happened.

How will I know this is true? And for Mary and Zacharias, the main reason they knew it was true was through the

Word of God. Because God said so. You just wait and watch the fulfillment.

And for us this morning, it is also true of how we would, what we would do with the announcement of the gracious gift of Jesus Christ.

Are you going to receive Him or not? And the only evidence we need is

God's very Word. Because God said so.

Let us pray. Father, we are thankful for Your gracious gift of Jesus Christ.

Thank You that You had made it abundantly clear that You would even send a prophet to prepare

Your people to the coming of the Messianic King. And Father, we pray that during this season especially that we would honor

Him and treasure Him, delight in Him and receive Him as a gracious gift from You.

Father, we pray that we would be more than willing and eager to share the gift of Christ to everyone we know.