The Virgin Conception - [Luke 1:26-38]

How many ways are there for God to make a human? Odd question.

How many ways are there for God to make a human? It was a question theologian

S. Lewis Johnson asked and answered. Not one, not two, not three, but four ways

God can make a human. Number one, He can make a human with a man and with a woman.

That's how we all came into existence, through a man and through a woman. Secondly, Johnson says, a human person can be made without a man or a woman.

That's how Adam came into existence. Thirdly, a person can come into existence without a woman.

That's how Eve came into existence. And lastly, a person can be made, my

God, without a man. And that's what we're going to look at today. The virgin conception and virgin birth.

That God brings forth the Son without a man. If you take your

Bible, please turn to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. This is really the

Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. There are four Gospels. Gospel means good news. It's talking about the

Lord Jesus who is sinless and who died on the cross for sinners and was raised and ascended and will come back.

And there are four accounts of this great Lord Jesus. And we're looking at the longest one, written by a physician, so it's the most detailed one.

And we have in the book of Acts, what Jesus continued to do through the Holy Spirit.

And here we have in Luke, what Jesus began to do and how He worked His way all the way to the cross.

This is one of those books where the genealogy of Jesus goes all the way back to Adam. And so it's not just having a

Jewish flavor, it's Gentile as well. So it's a good book for all of us. Luke starts off with the book, wanting to make sure that the man that he's writing to, named

Theophilus, had a good, solid, trustworthy document to understand about the

Lord Jesus. And it's important for all of us to know that, because we're all sinners. And one day we'll die, and then there's judgment.

And we would like to be forgiven. And we would like to be in heaven. And we would not like to be in hell. It reminds me of that one atheist who said,

What I envy most about you Christians, is you have someone to forgive you. And so this whole book is about the

Lord Jesus, who conquers sin and rescues sinners. As a matter of fact, he comes to seek and to save the lost sinners.

And he writes in such a way that you would think that he was some kind of journalist. He was some kind of investigative reporter.

And he doesn't just start at the baptism of Jesus. He doesn't start at the transfiguration of Jesus. He doesn't just parachute in and start at the death of Jesus.

He starts all the way at the beginning, because he wants to have a thorough physician -like view of this person, the

Lord Jesus. And I've been to bad doctors before. And I think, how do I know more than you about medicine?

And I've been to really good doctors before. And Luke is a good doctor. And he wants to make sure that he lays out not just the physical needs of the person, but also spiritual.

This is one of those books that we see, Oh, I'm reading Isaiah and now I see the fulfillment in Luke.

Very orderly book. Very much filled with things like parallelism.

Last week we saw, to remember, that Zechariah was told by the angel Gabriel that he was going to have a son.

And today we're going to look at the parallel account where Jesus is going to be announced in Mary's womb by Gabriel himself.

Just to make sure we understand, if you go back to chapter 1, verse 4, in the

Gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, this careful account, this letter sent to Theophilus, with careful investigation, he says that you,

Theophilus, and of course everyone else who would read it, including me and including you, may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

Really, this is a book about Jesus so that you have assurance. And we all struggle with assurance.

I met somebody yesterday and he was 70 years old and he came up to me and he said,

Thank you for putting together some of those chapters on assurance in that book.

And by the way, thank you for telling me in the introduction of the book that sometimes you,

Pastor Mike, have struggled with assurance. We all have struggled with assurance.

No one's assurance can be perfect because is anything on this earth perfect? And so when you struggle with assurance, what's something you should do?

Well, instead of chasing assurance, I'm running after assurance. How do I know that I'm a Christian? And that becomes your goal is to get assurance and to chase it.

It kind of evaporates. And the way to get assurance instead is to put your eyes down in a book like Luke so that you can have certainty.

Certainty is not floating around out here. Certainty is not floating around in here. Remember what

Luther said? When I look to myself, I don't know how I could be saved. But when I look to the Lord Jesus through the lens of the gospel, particularly today in the book of Luke, I don't know how

I could be lost. Because you realize how great of a Savior He is. And so the gospel of Luke is meant for you to have certainty, for you to have praise, and for you to say,

Even though my life is difficult and I sin in so many ways and I might doubt and I might fail and I might say,

You know, I'm just not acting like a Christian like I should. I want to, but I'm just falling short.

All eyes on Jesus with the gospel of Luke. When I was a kid, we used to go to the three ring circus.

Trapeze. Ladies up on ropes, you know, swinging around. And sometimes there was such a grand act in the circus.

If there ever could be, I guess, in a circus. Why were they called a circus? The other two rings faded out, cleared out, and all eyes spotlight in the center ring.

And that's exactly what's going on here with the gospel of Jesus according to Luke. Remember last week, verses 5 through 25?

The birth of John the Baptist was foretold. Remember Zechariah? He was a priest and he goes into the temple.

He's chosen by lot and he gets this grand privilege. A privilege that no one hardly ever gets, but the

Lord graced him to do. And he goes in the temple and he's going to offer incense. And you can imagine the fear and trembling as he walked in.

I mean, people have died going in to do something like this. Think of Nadab and Abihu. And he's walking in and he's putting the incense in.

It's lights and flickering and dark and people outside praying for him. That he might not be killed and he might do the right thing.

And Zechariah senses that there's someone or something there. And it is Gabriel the angel.

And remember what had happened back in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. The last book in the

Old Testament said there's going to be a curse on Israel and Judah. But eventually there's going to be the

Messiah, but he will be preceded by a forerunner. The king comes to town, there'll be somebody who shows up before the king.

You know the king will get here when the forerunner comes. And that forerunner is going to be someone in the spirit of Elijah.

And Gabriel, for the first time in 400 years, speaks words from God and says,

John the Baptist is your son and he's the forerunner for the king.

Zechariah didn't believe it. I don't believe you. Maybe could I have a sign? The angel says, here's your sign.

You can't talk. Right? And he was mute, he just did not believe. Eventually we'll see that he is no longer mute.

And we come to the passage today in Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 38.

And I know what you're going to say. You're going to say something like, this sounds like a Christmas message.

But we have Easter messages every Sunday, right, for 52 weeks. We don't really know that Jesus was born on December 25th, so we're going to have a good

Christmas message today. But it's not really a Christmas message. It's about the Lord Jesus, who's greater than John the

Baptist. There's a lot of parallels in this account between John the Baptist and Jesus. Gabriel shows up.

There's an announcement. Here's what's going to happen. Supernatural birth. Zechariah's wife is too old.

Mary's a virgin. But all eyes are going to be not on John the Baptist. He might be the greatest man who ever has lived, according to Jesus, but he's not greater than Jesus.

And so there's some parallel things that happen, and we see the birth of Jesus foretold. And it's going to have kind of a different mood, by the way.

The mood with Zechariah is scary, foreboding, in the temple, lighting the incense.

Who is this person? Who's this angel next to me? Here, with this account, we're not in a big temple.

We're not around a lot of people. We're off in some obscure place with an obscure woman with a bunch of nobodies.

And there's going to be another announcement. Behind all this passage are these words from Isaiah.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it.

With justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will do this. So we're going to look at today, verses 26 through 38, and we're going to work through our passage, and then

I'm going to give you some theological truths that I want you to remember. That's the outline. Working through the passage, it's a narrative, so we'll do this very often in the book of Luke.

We'll work through it, make sure we understand what the context is, how it fits in to Luke's bigger purpose, so that you have assurance and certainty, and then we'll have some theological truths.

Some have called this, this is Gabriel's second Mission Impossible. I don't know how many movies there are now,

Mission Impossible, but this is the second Mission Impossible, where Gabriel shows up, not to Zechariah, not to somebody who is a priest, not to somebody who is in a temple, but to someone else, and I think you know who.

Verse 26. Very orderly account. From the beginning, Luke is writing, and he's very detailed, he understands the details, and you'll see that in this passage.

In the sixth month, Luke 1 .26, 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. Nazareth.

If you go there today, and I've been there, it's pretty big, it's kind of a Muslim city, and you can look at a map and find

Nazareth. If you tried to find Nazareth back in those days, you'd probably have 500 people.

Did you know Nazareth wasn't even mentioned in the Old Testament? It's mentioned in the New, but not in the

Old Testament. This is a real nowhere land. This is just out in the middle of nowhere. This is like some city out in Hicksville, Nebraska.

Has anything good come out of Hicksville, Nebraska? Has anything good come out of Nazareth? Again, the contrast is temple, people, religious, small, nowhere, no one.

This little tiny town in Galilee, he even kind of has to say to a city of Galilee named

Nazareth, because if he just said Nazareth, you probably wouldn't know where it was. Is it over there by Moab? Is it over here?

Where is it? It's somewhere around the city of Galilee. Backwoods, small.

And to think, if God is going to become incarnate in the womb of a woman, don't you think it'd probably be some lady in Rome?

Maybe who's got a senator for a husband? Some place big.

Some place wonderful. Some city. Maybe somewhere like in Cairo or something. I mean, at least she could be incarnate.

She could have the baby Jesus in her womb. And she's from Jerusalem, at least.

And this lady Mary, she was betrothed. So, sometimes we don't understand what betrothed is.

And back in those days, a man would ask a woman to marry him. And she would say yes.

And they would legally be called husband and wife. It's a betrothal period for a year. And they wouldn't live together.

They wouldn't sleep together. But if they broke those vows of being betrothed to their spouse and slept with someone else or committed adultery, it's like they were married.

And with anticipation, they're called husband and wife. But it's a betrothal period.

And if you notice the text, not once, but twice, is she called virgin in verse 27.

She's never been with a man. And she's called a virgin. And that's very, very important.

She's in a legally binding contract with her husband -to -be.

And she is a virgin. Did you know back in those days, you could be married at 12 years old?

Right? After you've had the bat mitzvah. And you would have a one -year betrothal. And you'd get married at 13.

Some would get married a little bit later. But I just keep thinking to myself, Mary, 14, 15 years old.

What was I doing at 14 or 15? I don't know. I mean, I'm thinking 15 -year -olds when they're in driver's ed class.

And I have to, you know, we have a couple people here that work as driver ed instructions. And I don't know how they have any here at all.

I mean, this is like my all -time worst job. I had to say to Kim, I just cannot do this. You teach the kids how to drive.

I mean, I'd get out of the car, and my right quad was just cramped up from pushing the floorboard on the right -hand side of the passenger thing.

There's no break there, but I'm still pushing down. Like, why is my arm so sore? Because I'm holding on to that little handle.

She's from nowhere. She's no one. She's young.

She's a virgin. And the angel shows up, and what does he say?

Greetings, O favored one. Cheer.

Grace. That's what greeting means. I'm glad to see you. You know, I'm here for something good.

Even an imperative. I wish the best for you. I love to go to the store.

I did it to somebody yesterday. I said, when the person said hello to me, and I said, greetings.

My children hate it when I say greetings to people. They think it's weird. It would only be weird if I said, greetings,

O favored one. Then it would be weird. I mean, yes, she's a wonderful lady.

Yes, she's a virgin, chaste. Yet, here's a sinless being,

Gabriel, an angel. And when you're in the presence of an angel, even the best of humans cower.

By the way, it is very, very sad. Later in the account of the Lord Jesus, there's another person that came up and said, greetings.

Now, the betrayer had given them a sign. Judas said, I will kiss the man and then seize him.

And Judas came to Jesus and said, greetings, Rabbi. And he kissed him. Mary is startled.

And she's troubled. That's what verse 29 says. She's trying to figure out what kind of, what do you mean by greetings,

O favored one? Lowly social position.

Singled out for the Lord's special favor. She's highly favored. What sort of greeting is this?

Verse 30. 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. He 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.

I mean, when I read those words about the Lord Jesus. And those descriptions from Gabriel about the

Lord Jesus. Matter of fact, if you count them, they're five. And they're all pointing to fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.

That Jesus is the King. He's the Sovereign. He's the Savior. And you're going to have him in your womb. And you're not even married.

And you've not even been with a man. By the way, let's just dissect verses 32 and 33.

To see those five descriptions that Gabriel gives of Jesus. Because they're exalting Jesus. They give a high view of Jesus.

They talk about Jesus as essentially prophet, priest, and king. You see the first thing that he says? He's going to be great.

I mean, John was great. But Jesus is greater. He will be great.

One man said, only a four -word description. But even eternity shall not exhaust the depth and profundity of the greatness of Jesus.

Jesus is great. That's the first thing he says. You're going to have a son. And he is going to be great. Great in the sight of the

Lord was John the Baptist. Great overall is the Lord Jesus.

Spurgeon said, is it not proven that Jesus is great? Conquers are great. But Jesus is the greatest of them.

Delivers are great. But Jesus is the greatest of them. Liberators are great.

And Jesus is the greatest of them. Saviors are great. And he is the greatest of them.

He goes on, though, the messenger Gabriel. And he's called the son of the most high.

If I were to say to you, Old Testament student, son of the most high. Who calls God the most high?

I mean, a lot of gods, small g, are high. Elevated and supposedly powerful.

But there's a God most high. This comes right from Genesis.

When Melchizedek, king of Salem, the priest of God most high.

He's the God most high. He's equal to Yahweh because he is

Yahweh. He is God. John the Baptist in chapter 1 verse 76 is called the prophet of the most high.

But Jesus is the most high. He's sovereign over everything. He's the king. He's the exalted one.

He goes on to describe this baby that's going to grow up. And the Lord God, thirdly, will give him the throne of his father

David. See what Luke is doing? He's trying to show you that everything that the Old Testament talked about is become fulfilled in the

Lord Jesus. And it's fulfilled in his first coming. And everything else will be fulfilled in his second coming.

This is language of Isaiah chapter 9. This is language of 2 Samuel. What is the chapter that talks about the

Davidic covenant? If you were in seminary and I said, Davidic covenant, you would say 2

Samuel chapter 7. Hebrews 1 talks about that, that this is related to the Lord Jesus as the heir to the

Davidic kingdom. Fourth, his reign shall last forever. Kings come, kings go.

They live for a long time and then they die. Kind of like priests. They just die and then you need new ones.

This king, he's going to reign forever. Eternal rule. The Lord will reign over them in Zion from this time forth and forever more,

Micah 4 says. And closely related, number 5, is a kingdom that will never end. He'll rule and his kingdom will never end.

That's who this Jesus is. Now, what happens? Remember, Zechariah didn't believe it.

I don't believe you. I don't know how this can work. I don't believe it. And he was given a judgment sign, he was mute.

How does Mary respond? And Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin?

I mean, she has no idea how babies are put in the womb without being with a man.

How will this be? And this is different. She's not condemned for asking this because here's what she's asking.

While I believe you, and we'll see that in just a moment, what's the mechanism that it's going to take place?

It will happen. I just don't know how because the way people are normally born and conceived, they're conceived through men and women being together sexually.

How will this be since I'm a virgin? Verse 35, the angel answered her. Here's the answer. 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. Behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son.

See, there's power there. God keeps His word. He can do anything. He's trying to encourage Mary.

And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. God can work. God does things. For nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said, behold, I'm the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. I know

I'm a virgin, but I'll take you at your word. I just don't know how it's going to unfold.

What are the details? Now, when you study pagan religion, when you study gods and goddesses, there's language of weird gods and human women getting together for some kind of weird offspring.

What some people try to do is say, see, Jesus is just in a long line of these weird things about weird gods, and the writer

Luke just said, you know what, I see all these weird gods being with women, and I'll just take that story and change it a little bit.

That's the farthest thing from the truth. Because if you read some of those stories about these weird gods, they're lewd and lurid.

And what does God do here through Luke? He with delicacy,

He with a restraint, simply says, verse 35, the

Holy Spirit will come upon you, and He'll overshadow you. Nothing weird, but everything related to the

Old Testament. When I talk about overshadowing someone, what should you think of in the Old Testament? Remember, Luke is writing, saying, this is the fulfillment of the

Old Testament. Why do we read Isaiah every single week, or Hosea every single week, or Old Testament?

Because it's one book, and it's the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Overshadowing, what must you think of when

I say overshadow? You say, well, it means to encompass, or envelop, or to surround.

That's true. Exodus 40, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the

Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud settled on it, or overshadowed it, and the glory of the

Lord filled the temple. The Shekinah glory of God in the temple signifying what?

The presence of God. This is the presence of God in the Old Testament temple. This is

God working. How does God make a man? Well, here, He makes the man by overshadowing

Mary. This is also overshadowing language that's found in the transfiguration of our

Lord Jesus. And as Jesus was saying these things, Luke 9, a cloud came and overshadowed them.

And they were afraid as they entered the cloud, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to Him.

Gabriel said, Mary, the Spirit will overshadow you. Think Old Testament Mary.

And I want you to know that the Spirit of God, He is powerful, He's the eternal God. By the way, when you think of the

Holy Spirit, and what He does, what do you think He does? Well, He does everything that the

Father and the Son does, right? Because there's one God, not three gods. And when you think of the

Spirit of God in the Old Testament, creating the world in Genesis 1, and Jesus creates the world, the

Father creates the world. Here the Spirit of God overshadowing the temple.

Spirit of God raising Jesus from the dead. But I want to say it one more time, because of some of the gross things that people say about other weird gods and goddesses, and how babies are conceived.

One writer said, this delicate expression rules out crude ideas of mating of the

Holy Spirit with Mary. And another writer said, this denotes the mildest and most gentle operation of divine power, that the divine fire should not consume

Mary, but make her fruitful. Bottom line, this baby that's going to be born, it's not, well it's going to be a human, but not through human means.

Divine agency, divine power, the Spirit of God doing something. This is not some kind of static thing, but very, very active.

And of course, the Spirit of God, guiding, creating, protecting, so that the offspring is called the

Son of God. Just a side note here, when you're thinking about, okay, virgin birth, Holy Spirit overshadowing.

Could anybody here, I don't want you to answer out loud, please. Maybe one of the kids will.

Can you even describe with words, a normal human conception? I mean, we can't even figure that out.

I think of Ecclesiastes 11. As you do not know the way the Spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with a child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

If you study embryology, you're thinking, well, yes, I kind of know what happens in DNA and genes and sperm and egg and all that stuff, but this is beyond our realm.

I don't think we should be that surprised that there could be a virgin conception. The psalmist said, For you formed my inward parts, and you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it well. And now Mary hears this from the angel, and unlike Zechariah, she believes.

I don't know how it's going to happen, but if God can create the world, can't He do this? If God can spread the

Red Sea, can't He do this? If God can send the death angel and kill all the firstborn of the enemies of God, can't

He do this? Either God is God or He's not, and if God is God, is anything too impossible for God?

To me, I never think to myself, the virgin birth, that's where I draw the line with Christianity, because I can't figure it out.

Well, if you're thinking that way, I have about 100 other things that you can't figure out, so let's just keep going, and they're all solved with,

God is God. God is. Is there a mystery here? Is there unknown here?

Are we thinking we're finite and fallen, and we can't think about who God is and how great He is? The answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes.

The incarnation is simple to believe because God is God. I think of 1

Timothy 3 .16, great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifest in the flesh.

The incarnation, there's a mystery there. The God -man. And how does Mary respond?

Prove it, I don't believe. No, she believes. That's amazing to me.

She said, well, I'm a virgin, I don't know what's going to happen. He gives her some encouragement about Elizabeth, and then

Mary responds this way. Behold, verse 38, I'm your servant, let it be to me according to your word.

What a great response. Contrasting the disbelief of Zechariah and showing the belief of Mary.

I believe you, let it be done to me. Thank you for the encouragement that Elizabeth has been supernaturally helped.

Nothing's impossible with God. By the way, just a side note about nothing's impossible with God.

I think that's a good pillow to lay your head down on when you're hurting, when you're praising, when you're thankful.

Nothing's impossible with God. You have a wayward child, nothing's impossible with God.

You have an old grandparent that's dying and doesn't know Christ Jesus, nothing is impossible with God.

This is a good refrain over and over and over. A principle that angels know and proclaim to us.

You say, well, my faith isn't very strong. Nothing's impossible with God. I sometimes falter in sin.

Nothing's impossible with God. One writer said, there's no sin too black and bad to be pardoned.

The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. Nothing is impossible with God. There's no heart too hard or wicked to be changed.

The heart of stone can be made a heart of flesh because there's nothing too great for God to do.

Nothing too hard. Mary says, I'm your servant. She not only was given this gift of having

Jesus in her womb, she's also given the gift of faith. You don't just come up with faith on your own.

Remember, faith is what? Well, it's a responsibility, but it's a gift. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

Philippians 1. In the book of Acts, it's a gift. I'm your servant. Now, there are some people that say, well, this

Greek word is slave. And every time you see this word for slave, you have to translate it slave. This is one of those examples where slave is not a good translation here.

Oh, that's the Greek word. That's true. But lots of times we think of slavery as kind of this harsh, involuntary servitude, forced.

You're the master. I'm the slave. What does she say? She didn't sound like that to me.

May it be according to your word? This is humility. This is a good servitude.

This is like Isaiah, the servant song's servitude in Isaiah 42 and following.

We could argue about the word slave, but ultimately the point is, she said,

I'm at your disposal. I'm going to walk by faith. And if you promise the pregnancy and childbirth,

I believe. Let it be so to me as you have said. Could there be a better expression of faith than that?

That is so wonderful. Now let me have you think theologically for a while.

That's the passage. We kind of walk through it so we can understand it. Thinking theologically, number one, as I think of some practical things.

Number one, I want you to remember that God takes the initiative when it comes to salvation. Mary didn't say,

Lord, come. Lord, I need this. I want to do this first and then you can. God takes the initiative.

He sends Gabriel. God takes the initiative for our salvation as well. Everything is not contingent on us.

Nothing is contingent upon us. If they do this, then I'll do that. And I'll wait for them to move, and they'll be the great mover, and I'll respond.

God's not a responder. God does something. He is the initiator. Since nothing good can come out of Nazareth, He makes sure something does.

God takes the initiative in our salvation and even here. Was Mary looking to become pregnant when she was betrothed?

No. Did Joseph have any role in conception? No. Our salvation is based solely on God's initiative and power.

Secondly, thinking theologically about this passage, Mary was a wonderful lady, but she was still a sinner.

Mary was a wonderful lady, but she was still a sinner. Sometimes we as Protestants kind of push

Mary to the back and say, OK, fine. Mary's worshipped and adored and venerated, and I don't want to do that.

Of course, we don't want to do that. But she is a favored one, and the Lord was with her.

Go back to verse 28. You see greetings, O favored one, the

Lord is with you. Does that mean she has received grace from God?

Or does that mean she has received grace from God and now she dispenses grace to other people?

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Is Noah the great dispenser of grace to all those who would come? Well, of course not.

Don't fall into the trap thinking when it says favored one, that Mary has favor to give to other people.

By the way, if you are graced by God, it's always because we're sinful. If you receive grace, it's because you're sinful.

She receives favor. She doesn't give favor. You're highly graced,

Mary. Hail Mary full of grace, the

Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

A lot of that from Roman Catholicism comes from a wrong view of this.

It does not mean full of favor to give. Jerome translated the

Bible into Latin and he sadly made it sound like Mary was full of grace.

Pope Pius X, Mary is a dispenser of all the gifts that our

Savior purchased for us by His death and by His blood. She is the supreme minister of the distribution of graces and the distributor of the treasures of His merits.

How can that be? Pope Leo XIII, Mary is the intermediary through whom is distributed unto us this immense treasure of mercies gathered by God.

Well, how can that be? Pope Pius IX, Mary is the seed of all divine graces adorned with all gifts of the

Holy Spirit and almost infinite treasury and exhaustible abyss of these gifts.

And famous Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott said, since Mary's assumption into heaven, no grace is conferred on man without her actual intercessory cooperation.

Friends, don't we know that Jesus said, no one is good except God alone.

Don't we know that even Mary soon in this chapter later will say about God He's great and that she herself is a sinner?

God only gives grace to sinners. By the way, true or false, there's one mediator between God and man.

True. The man, Christ Jesus. Mary doesn't know what's going on on earth now, but if she did, she'd be very, very sad that the attention was not pointed to the

Lord Jesus like Luke does, like Matthew, Mark, Luke does, like Romans does, like Acts does, like Isaiah does.

People are justified by grace through redemption which is found in Christ Jesus.

Of course she was honored more highly than any other person up until that time and maybe forever.

J .C. Ryle said, no woman was ever so highly honored as the mother of our Lord. It's evident that one woman out of the countless millions of the human race could be the means whereby

God would be manifest in the flesh. And the Virgin Mary had the mighty privilege of being that one.

Keep your finger in Luke and I want you to just turn to Ephesians chapter 1 where this is used elsewhere, this language of freely bestowed grace, full of grace as people might translate.

Ephesians chapter 1. I think this is the only other time it's used in the entire

New Testament and to whom is it used of? Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3.

We'll pick it up in verse 3 of Ephesians 1. Blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.

To the praise of His glorious grace. And here's the exact same word which

He has blessed us in the Beloved. The idea is that the

Ephesians have received the favor and grace and blessing of God. This is not simply just for Mary, but now for all those who trust in the

Lord. Back to Luke chapter 1. I just want you to remember that Mary was a wonderful lady, but she needed grace.

She needed to trust in the Savior that was going to be in her womb. Mary is not blessed over women.

She's just blessed among women. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve.

If you look at Luke 1 .47 And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, Mary said.

Theologically thinking number three and lastly for today. Did you know that your

Savior Jesus had to be sinless and spotless? And you say, of course.

Well, just as a reminder, we are going to need the overshadowing of the

Holy Spirit so that the fall is bypassed because Jesus can't be born with sin nature because He'll have to pay for His own sin.

Right? Jesus must be spotless and not tainted by sin in any way. That's why the virgin birth is mandatory.

While we, as Job 15 says, drink injustice like water, like John says in 1

John 1, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and make Him a liar. As Paul says in Romans 3, none is righteous, no, not one.

We're going to need a Savior who is sinless and spotless. One that didn't inherit sin.

One that wasn't guilty by sin. One that didn't actually sin. The virgin birth is a key component to Christianity.

Without it, there's no Christianity. The only sin that Jesus ever had to deal with was what was credited to Him, or imputed to Him, or given to Him at Calvary so that we might be forgiven.

Listen to some of these verses. There's a litany of verses about Jesus, your Savior. 1

Peter 2, Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. 2

Corinthians 5 .21 He made Him who knew no sin, that's Jesus, to be sin or a sin offering on our behalf.

So that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Hebrews 4. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one

Jesus who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. He's going to have to bear

His own sins if He sins. We need somebody to bear our sins. A sinless

Savior. 1 John 3 .5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins. And in Him there is no sin.

John 19. Even Pilate knew it. Behold, I'm bringing Him out to you so you may know that I find no guilt in Him.

Jesus said it of Himself. I always do the things pleasing to Him. John 8. Isaiah prophesied of the sinless

Savior. His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with the rich man in his death because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

1 Peter 1. Knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

The virgin birth has to be because we need the Spirit of God to overshadow, and we'll leave it at overshadowing,

Mary, so that the Savior would be born sinless. And you say, well,

I still don't get this whole virgin birth. I can't quite understand it. I don't think you have to understand the means.

I think you need to respond like Mary. I'll just take you at your word. I don't know exactly how it happened, but it's in the

Word. It's prophesied in Isaiah 7. And here's going to be the sign. And I just trust that.

I know most of you here have no problem with the virgin birth because you have no problem with the resurrection. You have no problem with the soon return of the

Lord Jesus. The church has always believed this. The Apostles' Creed. I believe in God, the

Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the

Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried.

He ascended into hell. And the third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the

Father Almighty. From there He shall judge the living and the dead. The virgin birth is important because we need a sinless

Savior. We need to see that Scripture is in fact fulfilled from the Old Testament. There's going to be one who is going to bear a child and she's going to be a virgin.

Well, as my old pastor used to say, there's much more to be said. We'll do that another time.

My old pastor said, sometimes when pastors say that, they really ran out of material and so they say, it's time to close.

There's more to be said. There actually is more to be said. Luke is writing a book.

It's kind of a new kind of a book. There are letters, there are poems, and now he writes something called the

Gospel. And the Gospel is good news. And here's the good news. Even though you and I are sinners and we deserve hell, there's a spotless

Lamb who takes our place, who dies sacrificially in a bloody, awful, vicious, cruel way.

And He's our substitute so that all the wrath of God from all our sins can be absorbed by or intercepted by, assuaged by Jesus Himself, the spotless

Lamb, because He's not dying for His own sins. He's dying for someone else's sins. And then amazingly, supernaturally, like the virgin birth,

Jesus raises Himself from the dead. It's one thing to raise somebody else from the dead. Jesus says to Lazarus, Arise.

How do you raise yourself from the dead when you're dead? And Jesus does that very thing because He's not just man,

He's the God -man. And this is written so that you might say to yourself, I see how it's all getting put together.

And people can study all they want and try to say the Bible's not true or I don't understand any of this.

They just work their way through and they should see with Theophilus, through Luke, yes, in fact,

I can trust this God. By the way, if Jesus is not born of a virgin and Jesus is not born with the

Holy Spirit overshadowing, well, we shouldn't even read the next verse. We might as well just live our lives.

I think we've got a new pagan holiday and I think they celebrated it yesterday, right? What was yesterday's pagan holiday?

Happy Earth Day, I think. I got here in 1997 and I preached something about Jesus is going to return and just wipe everything out and start the new heavens and the new earth and then

I said, Happy Earth Day. I think like five people left. Scott Farrell was one of them but I convinced him to come back.

There are these parallel accounts. John the Baptist is great. Jesus is greater. John the Baptist is a forerunner.

Jesus is the King who's going to come after. John the Baptist, there's a miraculous birth but it's through the conception of a person with a husband and a wife in a normal way.

It's just later in life and Jesus is born of a virgin. You have to believe Jesus is born of a virgin because otherwise you pay for your own sins.

It's just the orderly account walking through 24 chapters of you can be certain that this is true.

I've driven out of this parking lot several times and I think, is this all true Christianity? Have I dedicated my entire life to something that might not even be true?

And the answer for people like me who drive out of that parking lot is I should make a U -turn and come back and say, yes,

Luke is the one that will help me understand from a physician's perspective this is true.

And then we respond like Mary does. I'm your servant, Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this time. I love it that you have given us this chapter so we know about the beginnings.

For no other reason but sovereign grace we as a congregation say of the Lord Jesus with Gabriel that Jesus is great.

We say as a congregation that He's the Son of the Most High. He's God incarnate. We say we know

He has the throne of the Father David, all the Old Testament promises fulfilled in Him and that He reigns now over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end.

And when we've been there for 10 ,000 years shining as the sun, there are no less days to sing