He Will Be Great

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Don Filcek; Luke 1:26-38 He Will Be Great

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series,
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King Over All, from the Gospel of Luke. Let's listen in. Looks like I'm the only pastor here.
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For 15 years, we've been gathering in this community to glorify Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
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Our mission on paper, what our stated mission is, is to worship Him and find more worshipers for His name.
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This means that there are two prongs to the goal of Recast Church, two avenues by which we meet the goal and the mission by which
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God has called us together. I would kind of like to call these upreach and outreach.
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Obviously, I'm kind of inventing the word upreach, but that's what I mean by worship is reaching up to God and identifying and lifting
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Him high, holding Him up. By worship, we mean using all the means that we have at our disposal to honor and glorify
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God. That's much more than our voices and singing, church. Worship goes way, way, way beyond what we do here in these four walls on a
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Sunday morning or even more than singing music in your car. But I just would point out, if we're using all the means that we have at our disposal to worship
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Him, then let me just ask you, has He given you a car? Because if He's given you a car, then we should drive it for His glory.
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Has He given you a family? We should love them for His glory. Has He given us a job?
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Then we should work it for His glory. Those are just some samples of the ways that God has given us something that in turn is meant to be reflected back to Him in a life of worship, that upreach.
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But then we also have the second prong of the calling that God has placed on us as a church, and that's the outreach component of the mission that He has us on.
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We are not only here in this world to worship Him as all unto ourselves, but we have a mission given by our
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Lord to spread the truth of salvation in His name as we are going, as we are living.
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As we are going about our Monday through Saturday work week, we are supposed to be testifying and lifting
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His name high in the places that He puts us. To participate in the mission of Recast Church is to be a joyful worshiper of our
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King and a joyful recaster of the nets. The name Recast is a double meaning.
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It has an acronym, Replication, Community, Authenticity, Simplicity, and Truth, and you see those core values that make up our name.
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But it also is a double meaning because the disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing when they encountered
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Jesus on the shoreline. He tells them to recast the nets to the other side of the boat, and only after obeying and following the instructions of their
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Lord did they catch a huge haul of fish. And then Jesus pulls a big switcheroo on them, and He made the metaphor complete by telling them they would no longer be catching fish, but they would be catching people.
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And that's what they went out to do. I'm starting this way because I want to keep our mission in front of us regularly as a church, especially as we go through the book of Luke.
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We're studying the amazing life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the King of all kings who came into the world and showed us the
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Father through the life of the Son. I've entitled this message this morning,
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He Will Be Great. You'll see that if you've got a worship folder. It's probably on the front of there. You'll see it up front on the screens,
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He Will Be Great. And I titled it that because I find this phrase to be somewhat humorous. It's coming straight out of the text, those words,
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He Will Be Great. You'll see that in the English Standard Version of the passage that we're going to be talking about, He Will Be Great.
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And I find it humorous because we will all be likely familiar, surrounding this text, we probably all have heard it before, the announcement of the birth from the angel
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Gabriel to Mary, that she will have a son despite being a virgin. That's the text that we're in this morning.
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And in the middle of this passage, in order to indicate the uniqueness and the unique nature of the baby that will be born to her, the angel says that sentence,
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He Will Be Great. I would suggest to you that never has the limit of human language been stretched more than at this point.
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That is, He Will Be Great. Like, He will be pretty neat. He will be amazing.
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He will be awesome. He will be cool. He will be sovereign. He will be, and you could go on and on and on, and we could spend a lot of time.
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The angel will go on to say more about the Son of the Most High. And John will rightly testify in his gospel that if we were to record and put down to writing all that is true of Jesus, the world couldn't hold the volumes.
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The world would not have enough space to hold the volumes to record all that is true and glorious of this one.
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Superlatives fail us, church. Language collapses under the weight of the one whose arrival is being announced in our text this morning.
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I guess great works, as good as anything, maybe because supercalifragilisticexpialidocious hadn't been invented yet.
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But I want to point out my desire up front here at the beginning. Jesus is not yet on the scene according to our text.
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He hasn't been born yet. There's been no manger scene. There's been no shepherds in the field. So we might be tempted to make
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Mary the main character this week. And we might be tempted to overstate the role of Gabriel here and take a deep dive into angels and the kinds of ministries that angels do and messengers and all of that stuff.
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But before he even arrives on the scene, Jesus is drawing the spotlight. Jesus is the center at all times.
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Gravity is pulling everything toward him, even as we encounter a mere announcement of his impending arrival.
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As a matter of fact, the gravitational pull of the Messiah King coming to rescue his people began way back in the garden shortly after Adam and Eve sinned.
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There in God's sentencing of the man and the woman to death, God says to the serpent in the presence of the man and the woman this, one born of the woman will crush your head.
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You will wound his heel, but he will crush your head. In other words, Satan will get his hits in, but the predicted deliverer is coming, and he will conquer the evil one in one final blow.
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That is who is being predicted in our text. That's who's coming. This is the one who is announced by the angel.
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Mary isn't the point. The angel is a mere messenger, but Jesus says the angel.
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He will be great. So let's open our Bibles or your Scripture journals or your devices to Luke 1.
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We're going to read Luke 1, verses 26 through 38. I'm going to be reading in the
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English Standard Version, but read in whatever translation you have in front of you, and follow along to see that the things that we're talking about this morning are coming from this text.
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Let's give it our attention because, recast, this is God's holy and precious word, what he desires to communicate to us this morning.
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Luke 1, starting in verse 26. In the sixth month, the angel
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Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
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Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one.
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The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
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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
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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
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David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel,
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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
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Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.
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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.
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And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.
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And the angel departed from her. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in praise this morning.
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Father, I thank you for this birth announcement, a kind of save -the -date of sorts, for we who belong to him.
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A recognition of his first arrival that also reflects and reminds us of the advent that we wait for there in that time, in that day, in that age.
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They're awaiting the first arrival of their Messiah King, the one who would come to rescue people.
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The name given Jesus Yahweh saves. The name given by you to your
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Son among us. Father, I pray that all that we think and do in this gathering this morning would reflect well on him, would lift him high, would let him assume the central role, not only in the church, but in our individual lives as well.
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Father, we come in a fractured and divided time. We come in a season of, I think for many here, fear and concern and worry about what the next week will hold, let alone what the future holds.
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But we know who holds us. We know who's in charge. We know the one that is in control.
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So let us rejoice this morning. Rejoice in the good news that you have sent your
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Son to deal with our sins once and for all. To rejoice in the reality of a hope that is for an eternal glory and future for a kingdom without end.
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Leaderships end, administrations end, governments end, nations come to nothing, but your
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King will stand through the ages. Let us praise him this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Thanks a lot to the band for leading us. I appreciate them and the effort that they put in every week to lead us in worship.
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And their goal, I know, is to fade into the background. I think they do a good job at that. I encourage you to get comfortable and reopen your
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Bibles or your devices to Luke 1, verses 26 -38. Having that open on your lap is going to help you to kind of follow the flow of the text and stay engaged and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's Word.
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Now to remind us all, Luke interviewed eyewitness accounts, eyewitnesses rather, and then recorded their accounts during years of research to produce this gospel of Luke that we're going to be studying over the coming weeks.
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Now it wouldn't be impossible that this account comes from Mary herself. We don't know whether Luke actually sat down with Mary in an interview or not, but at least we know he saw these as eyewitness accounts and did all of his due diligence to make sure that he had followed every lead possible.
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So I think it's quite likely that either a conversation with Zechariah or Mary or Elizabeth or both or all three or whatever.
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But our outline this morning is going to be this. The setting, a betrothed couple, verses 26 -27.
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The arrival, a startled young lady, verses 28 -30. The third is the message, a virgin birth, verses 31 -35.
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The fourth is the sign, an unasked for grace, verses 36 -37.
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And the final verse, 38, is the response, a willing servant. And I think you'll see all of those.
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So let's start with the setting, a betrothed couple in verses 26 -27. Luke connects this account about the birth of Jesus with the announcement of the birth of John by measuring time according to the pregnancy of Elizabeth from the passage that we looked at last week.
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So that the six months mentioned in verse 26 is the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
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She has kept it a secret for five months, as the text told us last week. And she cannot hide her pregnancy any longer.
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And now the same angel, Gabriel, who made the announcement to Zechariah in the temple last week about the birth of his son, shows up to tell
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Mary she's going to have a baby. I guess angels, probably it appears that they had more work before the pregnancy test was invented.
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And so they're going around telling everybody that they're going to have a child. Seems like, at least according to the start of Luke, that seems to be the case.
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But there's a huge contrast in the setting this week from last week, right? Last week we were in the holy place before the altar of incense with a priest named
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Zechariah. This week we're in a backwater town in the north of Israel. I think the north was kind of like Hickville to the
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Israelites. Like that was the north, was kind of like the area where you kind of thought uneducated, kind of backwater people lived up north in Galilee.
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That was their attitude. And it's this small, out -of -the -place town called Nazareth. And we encounter there a young woman betrothed to be married to a man named
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Joseph. Now, how many of you heard this story before? All of us, right? So I recognize that you might be kind of going like, what are we going to get out of this?
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Remember that this is God's holy word. It's worth our attention. It's worth us paying attention to multiple times.
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And we're going to keep going through the gospel of Luke. And of course, we know some narratives in this more than we know others, but we're going to just march through.
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But the setting is parochial. It's common. It's exciting because a marriage is going to happen in the next few months.
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We don't know exactly how long they're into this betrothal period, but we know that there's a marriage being prepared for.
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But ordinary is maybe the best word to think of when we encounter the setting of our text this morning.
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She's likely between the age of 12 and 15, probably likely on the lower end of that. And all of a sudden, it sounds anything but ordinary to our ears, right?
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All of a sudden, you're kind of going a 12, 13, 14 -year -old girl getting married. What is going on here?
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Well, one thing that you need to understand, and it is helpful for us to understand these things. I'm certainly not making any kind of case for 12 -year -olds getting married today.
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But life expectancy at that time was in the 30s. Let that sink in. Life expectancy was in the 30s, mid -30s, was how long you were expected to live.
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So they had to start being responsible pretty early to have a life. That number, by the way, is skewed by a high infant mortality rate, which is devastating.
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But even then, if we bump it up into the lower 40s or mid -40s, that's still...
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How many of you would raise your hand and go, that sounds like a short life to me? Like the average being in the maybe 40s after you get rid of the infant mortality rate in there.
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There was no such thing as adolescence. That's an invented idea.
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Adolescence, no such thing. We don't do well to read our current expectations on a girl of that age into this text from what we expect of a 12 - or 13 -year -old girl today versus what the common thing was there.
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There was no room for adolescence, but there was also no room for, certainly no room for adultalescence.
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An extra invented word, but we know what we mean by that. Further, we cannot call
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Joseph and Mary's betrothal an engagement. So understanding the context and what's going on there really matters.
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The setting of this angelic visitation is breaking into ordinary and routine things of life during this first century.
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She's a young girl of marriageable age who has never been with a man. She says this directly in verse 34.
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And just in case any of you have ever encountered or stumbled upon any quote -unquote scholarship that interprets the word virgin as a word that means merely young lady, verse 34 clears up what
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Luke means by this when she actually says, how can I have a baby? I've never been with a man.
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I'm a virgin. So it's quite clear what is meant by that phrase in this text or that word in this text.
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But further, the status as betrothed, as verse 27 says, means that she has been spoken for.
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Different than our engagement. So often you'll hear pastors try to modernize the concept of betrothal with using the word engagement, and that leads us down the wrong road.
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It's better that we just take a little bit of a deeper dive into what they meant by betrothal.
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She's been spoken for. A bride price has been negotiated and already changed hands between Joseph and Mary's father.
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The money's already in the bank. It's already been paid. They are in a traditional waiting period between agreements.
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A date has been agreed upon and on that date there is a set day in the plans.
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Joseph will leave his father's home in a parade of sorts to go to her family home. There he will take her to his home in another parade.
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Probably a home that he's been preparing for up to a year would be a betrothal period. It depended on his means.
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It depended on his need to save and on his part to nest for his new family.
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And so that's what's going on during this time. And there they would feast and dine with friends.
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And then later that evening after the party dispersed, they would finalize the wedding with a consummation and quite likely a conception.
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You need to recognize that that's not that uncommon. So they would have a consummation and a conception quite frequently.
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She is not engaged. She is legitimately his. To break a betrothal required official certificates of divorce and a demonstration of good cause.
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It wasn't like our modern engagement is just kind of like, well, he just kind of broke it off and that's the end of it. There was relationship.
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There was family involved in this. There was community involved in this. We don't know how far Joseph is into his preparations, but anticipation is certainly in the air over this couple.
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The setting. Think about the setting. Common. Backwater town.
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Young woman on the cusp of starting her own life.
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We know very little of the absolute circumstances here, but what we can know is that a woman preparing to get married is one of the strongest forces on the planet.
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Right? I believe that some things never change. And bridezilla is real.
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Was that too much? Maybe. So this common peaceful setting is interrupted by the second movement of the text and arrival.
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The arrival. A startled young lady versus 28, 29, and 30. I call her a startled young lady, but I wrestled between the words startled and confused because I think both show up here in the text.
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She certainly has a component of fear over this encounter. Gabriel and most of the angels appear to have mastered the art of the jump scare and they were really good at it.
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And everybody, when they encounter an angel in Scripture, is startled, scared, surprised, a little like knocked off their game.
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Right? Do you see that pretty consistently in Scripture? When an angel shows up, people are like, Okay, you got me.
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That's funny. But confused is also directly stated in the text.
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She's confused and that is shown by her attempts to discern the meaning of the angel's greeting.
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The greeting itself is shocking to her. Look at what the angel first says.
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She shows up. Bam! There he is. She's like, Ah! Don't do that to me. And then the angel says this,
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Greetings, O favored one. The Lord is with you. And she goes, That's weird. That's a weird greeting.
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You see, his first words are, Greetings, O favored one. The Lord is with you. In the middle of that greeting is the likely cause of her confusion.
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Because it's a quite specific title that she's given here that she doesn't even know why. The angel gives her a startling title.
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The one graced by God. O favored one is rightly translated.
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The one graced by God. This foreshadows everything that Gabriel has come to say to her.
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This would be like responding to a knock at your door, which you probably usually don't do anyways. You at least look out the curtains and decide whether you're going to, especially at this time of the year.
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Anybody had anybody stop by your door lately? Anybody? We have. This would be like responding to a knock at the door and finding cameras and reporters saying,
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Congratulations! And you don't even know what's going on yet. They're all congratulating you.
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Would you be confused if that happened? Nod your heads if you'd be a bit confused. I answer the door and there's a bunch of cameras in your face and a microphone saying,
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How do you feel right now? And you're like, I don't know what's going on. I mean, you might go, What did I win? Do you have the right house?
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Get off my lawn! I mean, it just kind of depends on your attitude on the day. So, she's startled by this sudden arrival, reasonably, and she's perplexed by what his greeting implies, but he doesn't leave it there, fortunately, and we go on.
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The angel, after comforting her and explaining this is good news of God's favor, now launches out into the third movement of the text, the message of virgin birth, verses 31 through 35, the section that probably takes up the majority of our time.
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She is indeed the one graced by God. Have you thought about this? I'm guessing that you have, but it just struck me new this week.
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The one graced by God. How many humans will live on this planet?
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How many women will live on this planet before the Lord comes back? We don't know.
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Is she one in 100 billion? Is she one in 200 billion? Is she one in a trillion?
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We don't know, but she is one out of all of the women who will ever live.
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Does this sound blessed? Does this sound unique? She's the one. The one selected to give birth to the king over all kings.
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The one? Yes. The one favored? Yes. The one graced by God? Absolutely.
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Three things are going to happen according to the messenger, and I think these things probably come at her pretty fast.
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A conception, a bearing, and a naming. A male baby will be implanted in her womb.
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She will bear him and give birth, and she will name him. And she will name him Jesus.
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Oh, the name is the sweetest name, and I don't mean precious in the sense of, Aw, isn't that a cute name?
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Jesus, little Jesus. Priceless, majestic, prophecy -filling.
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It means Yahweh saves. A pretty simple name that has profound and dramatic impact on what
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God is doing through this one. Yahweh is saving. Yahweh is rescuing. Yahweh is delivering.
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When God sent forth His Son, I just want to point this out. I think it's kind of funny. When He sent forth His Son, He didn't trust us to name
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Him. He was like, I've seen Bodie McBoatface. I know the kinds of names that you give to things.
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Did anybody know that? Apparently over in England, they had a brand new commissioned vessel for Her Majesty's Navy, and what they did was they put the name out to the population, and it literally was christened
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Bodie McBoatface. That's a real thing. Really, really. That's in the news. You can look it up.
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Look up Bodie McBoatface. We don't name things well. That's not in my notes, but I crack myself up sometimes.
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Yeah, so He named His own Son. He named His own Son. Gave Him a name, and He named
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Him Yahweh saves. I rescue.
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I deliver. I am the one who will grace you. And the messenger wants to make sure
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Mary has some understanding in advance of this amazing calling, so he declares five rapid fire descriptions of her promised
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Son. They actually come at her again. This is like fast. And this.
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And this. And He will be this. And He will be this. And He will be this. And what are the five things that He will be? He will be great.
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He will be called the Son of the Most High. God will give Him the throne of David. He will reign over God's people forever, and His kingdom will have no end.
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Five glorious realities of this one. He will be great, I mentioned in my introduction, is a funny understatement.
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As I said, language fails at the point of trying to describe the significance of Jesus Christ. No matter what words
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I use to describe His significance, I am underselling Him. No matter what
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I say, I am underselling Him. I am never giving you the full picture of His majesty, His glory,
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His mercy, His grace, His justice, His holiness, His kindness, His compassion, His worthiness.
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I have spent my life so far, and will continue as long as God gives me breath, preaching
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His glory and majesty over all things. And you could compile all of the good things
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I have ever said about Jesus my Lord, and they fall so short that you could nearly accuse me of testifying falsely.
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I have almost blasphemed Him in my praise, because it's never been enough.
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What is He worth, church? How do you express His glory, His majesty?
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When we meet Him, we will not say, I missed it by a little. I should have said just a little bit more.
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We will say, I bordered false testimony in all of my praise. O church, how we will wish we had testified of His glory more boldly.
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How we will wish we spoke of Him more joyously. How we will wish His name was on our lips more frequently.
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I believe that. He is called the Son of God, the Son of the
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Most High. Our Lord, our King, the Son of God. He is the one who is given the eternal throne
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God promised to a descendant of King David. Here's the one. He's arriving through you,
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Mary. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. The house of Jacob is Israel. Another way of saying
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God's people. It's important to follow the promises of God through the New Testament that arrives to us
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Gentiles, lest we get lost like many in the ancient New Testament church did into a Judaism that sees
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Jesus as something to add to the law rather than a fulfillment of the law. But He came to fulfill that old covenant.
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And the kingdom of Jesus will be eternal. You see, it both states that the
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King will be eternal, but His kingdom is eternal as well. A person could kind of remain a king forever, but knowing
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His kingdom is also eternal is important as well. He will be the eternal ruler over an eternal kingdom.
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This is a lot coming at a young lady. This is a lot for Mary to take in. But I don't doubt for a moment that she knew what the angel was talking about in these five declarations.
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I think that in this rapid fire, things that are being verbally pushed at her in this moment, she recognizes what's happening.
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She is singled out to bring forth the Messiah. No, she doesn't understand all the ins and outs of that, all the details.
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But what she does understand is that the Messiah is coming, and she's been selected. The King promised to Joseph's ancestor
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David. She knows He is coming through her. She gets the idea, and she believes the angel's message.
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But she asks what in the text is an imminently illogical question.
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And it's got me thinking this week. And I say it. I believe it. I believe what she asks is a fairly illogical question.
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Look at verse 34 to see the question that she asks. And Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin?
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Huh, strange question. I don't know if you've ever thought about how strange that question actually is. The angel tells her she's going to have a baby.
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And she asks, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And the reason this question is weird is simply because there is a quite natural way to assume the question to be answered.
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What ought she to assume? She's going to get married to Joseph and stop being a virgin. Baby. How many of you know that that's a weird question in this text?
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How is this going to happen? I'm a virgin. At this point, I could imagine the angel saying, did your parents have the talk with you ever?
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Do we need the birds and the bees discussion here? Because God didn't send me for that. That's not mine.
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But I'm left to assume that something, here's what I think is happening. Again, I'm off into, this is
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Don for a second. This is not necessarily commentaries or anything that I studied this week. But I think that this question had to have some hook.
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It had to have a reason. Why is she not immediately jumping to me and Joseph are going to have a baby?
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Joseph is of the line of King David. Why doesn't she go there? And I'm left to assume that something in the angel's delivery communicated to her an imminence, an immediacy to these events that precluded natural conception.
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The very fact she asked the question the way she asks it, makes me at least curious if the phrase you will conceive that you see in verse 31, you can look at it.
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The phrase you will conceive in verse 31 has a more immediate sense like you will soon conceive.
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Or you will conceive now. While she knows that her and Joseph are weeks, if not months out from their wedding night, this angel is giving her immediate news of something that is happening soon.
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So her question how comes from a place of concern for timing and propriety. Timing and propriety, like how is this going to go down?
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How is this going to happen? And the angel answered that this will be a unique work of the Holy Spirit in her womb.
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The Spirit will descend upon her and the Almighty will overshadow her. The terminology here honestly has always given me the jeebies until I studied it more in depth this week.
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I used to work with Muslims who would be crass in their accusations against us as Christians. When I tried to share the gospel with them on British university campuses back in the early 2000s when
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Lynn and I lived in England, they would always accuse us and they would say it in the most harsh and direct, sometimes up front and out loud way, accuse us of having a
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God who has sex with women. So these words, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the
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Most High will overshadow you, need to be understood for what they are and their beauty and the simplicity of what he's saying.
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The Holy Spirit would come upon Samson and he gained great strength. The Holy Spirit would come upon those in the upper room and they proclaimed the gospel in various languages.
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The Holy Spirit came upon Paul and he wrote much of the New Testament. We know that when the
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Holy Spirit comes upon a person there's a variety of manifestations, a variety of things that come about and in this case it will be a conception.
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But the word overshadowed is actually a really technical and amazing word. I didn't realize it until studying it this week but it's a really powerful word.
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This is the word used in Greek to convey the several times that the glory of the Lord would overshadow the mountain or come among his people in the
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Old Testament. It's the Greek word used to refer to that Old Testament concept. Or the glory of God descending over the tent of meeting when he would arrive to be among his people and Moses would go in and talk with him.
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This is the word used for the arrival of the glory of God visibly among his people, overshadowing.
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And this is the very word used for the arrival of this baby in the womb of Mary. God arriving to be among his people.
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John in his gospel says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And then he goes on in verse 14 of that first chapter of John to add, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the Son from the Father full of grace and truth.
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The phrase dwelt among us means tabernacled among us.
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Pitched his tent among us. Here in this unique creation of Jesus in the womb of Mary, we find
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Jesus Christ conceived by the power of God and not by the agency of men.
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The bringing forth of the Messiah is the work of God. His idea, his execution, his arrival, his timing, his choice of mother, his choice of father, his choice of ethnicity, his choice of method, his choice of purpose, the ultimate purpose to die a sacrificial death for you and me.
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And Jesus will be called holy because of this unique arrival. He will be holy in a way that no born man can ever be declared holy.
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Holy as in without a sin nature, born of a woman. In Adam, it tells us in Romans, in Adam all sinned.
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In Adam death came into the world. Jesus was not born of man. And you might say to me,
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Don, are you saying we get our sin nature from our dads? And I would say yes. In some quite specifically
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God ordained way, yes. Is it carried to us in our DNA? Is that what that extra chromosome is about?
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Absolutely not. I don't think so. I think it comes through responsibility and headship and representative authority that Adam had.
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Like our leader sinning in us as a nation paying the price. But it is more than mere metaphorical guilt we are born with.
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It is literal. It is a literal guilt that rests on all.
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And that guilt came to us through our being born of a sin -cursed man. Jesus was not born of a sin -cursed man.
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God knows what he's doing. She understands the assignment. And she is told that she will give birth to the eternal king through a virgin birth.
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She doesn't ask for a sign like Zechariah did. And so she's given one. I love that.
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I love that. Zechariah says, Give me a sign. How am I going to trust you, angel? How am
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I going to know you're telling the truth? And God says, Well, I'll give you a sign. You want a sign? You're going to not be able to speak for the next nine months.
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She doesn't even ask for a sign. And God says, Okay, I'll give you one. The sign is an unasked for grace in verses 36 and 37.
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The angel tells her of the pregnancy of her aging relative, Elizabeth. And this serves as a sign to Mary to remember that nothing, it says right in the text, nothing is impossible with God.
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This comfort doesn't mean that Mary was doubting it. I don't believe that she's doubting it. But I see it as a gracious concession to this young lady who has just been told some incredible and hard -to -believe news.
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How many of you are just kind of like, This would be hard news. This would be difficult. She's going to have a baby.
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And despite many women down through the centuries who have said, I just don't know how that happened, she's being honest.
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She doesn't know exactly how it happened. But lastly, we come to the fifth movement of the text, her response, the response of a willing servant, verse 38.
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Her response is beautiful. Look, she says, I am God's servant. Let this all happen like Wesley's as you wish.
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She is willing to face, some of you got that, but not many. She is willing to face this task with humility and worship.
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Certainly, you women in the room can imagine hundreds of questions you might have in this moment.
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How many of you have just raised your hand, ladies, if you might have a couple questions at this point? Like a couple of things that you're just kind of like,
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I'd like to know this. But she has heard enough to know that God has chosen her. She doesn't know the heartache she's signing up for.
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She probably has an inkling of the accusations and shame and disgrace that are coming for her.
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But she echoes here the future words of her yet to be born son who will say, not my will, but yours be done.
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Well, there are two phrases here at the end of this that I want to use, kind of dovetail some application to.
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Two phrases I want to capture in this declaration of the birth of our Savior. First, the words of the angel in verse 30 by way of application.
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The angel says to Mary, you have found favor with God. While this is a specific statement to Mary about God's unique calling on her life,
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I want to point out that these words are the best words ever. That's the best phrase. You have found favor with God.
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How many of you know that if that comes at you, that's good news. You have found favor with God. And let me just ask, have you found favor in His eyes?
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Have you found favor with God? Have you found grace with God?
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Not earned it, not deserved it, but found it. Like stumbling upon it.
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Like a person who is minding their own business, walking along a field and stub their toe on a treasure chest filled with gold.
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Like a man in a pawn shop finding the world's largest pearl marked 5 .99 on sale today.
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Like a son who finds his father eager to welcome him back home after a long season away squandering the family wealth on wild living.
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Have you found His grace? Salvation is something we find, not something we create, not something we earn, not something with some assembly required, batteries not included, but it comes to us in full working order.
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How did you first find it? How did you first stumble upon His grace?
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Where were you? I was in the basement of the First Baptist Church in Middleville, Michigan after an AWANA program, and I found it.
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And it could be also equally said, He found me, right? But a good assignment this week in preparing for your many interactions with unsaved family and friends over the coming couple of months is to write down the way that you found
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His favor. Rehearse it and look for opportunities to share it with others and express gratitude and thanks to God even as you write it down and you put it down in writing and it forces you to think it through and as you type that out, think, have
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I given God thanks for this? That I was minding my own business and He broke in with His favor and kindness.
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Mary found favor with God, startling, shockingly, in the middle of her everyday common life.
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Boom, one in a trillion. And if you've been found by God's favor, then turn in your hearts and minds to consider your response like Mary.
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Would it be like Mary in verse 38 where here's the second quote, the second means of application here, let it be to me according to Your Word.
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Mary is a young woman of exemplary faith and trust, probably in a bit of shock at this point that we encounter her in the text, probably left this conversation with a few questions she wished she had asked.
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Any of you feel that way after your doctor's appointment? Why didn't I ask? Why didn't I ask?
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Write it down beforehand. She wasn't given a warning, but ready to serve
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God and to be used by Him in any way He would see fit. Are you willing to be used by God?
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I think the greatest thing that can happen in our life is that God would use us as a tool for His purposes.
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Do you think of your life in that way? Am I useful to the King? If not, if you're not thinking of your life in terms of its usefulness to Him, would you consider open -handedly offering your life to be used by God for His purposes even this week?
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That doesn't mean that you're going to have to up and move to Africa. Some might, but it's an open -handedness about our lives and saying,
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God, what do you desire for me in today, in this day, in this moment, in this week, in this month?
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It means that you might be called to consider how you spend your time, how we spend our time, how much Netflix is enough
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Netflix, how much involvement you have in your community, how much sports for your kids.
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Oh, my goodness, that's a sacred cow. How much you testify to God's goodness in your life, in your workplace.
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How bold are you? How risky are you in sharing your faith with others? We're all gifted in different ways, but we are all useful to our
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Lord and are to be useful to our Lord. Are you available and eager for opportunities to serve
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Him this week? Can you say along with Mary, let it be done to me according to Your Word?
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As we come to communion this morning, the tables are open to anyone who has found grace, found grace in God's eyes through Jesus Christ who
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He sent to die for us. Is Jesus your Lord? Is Jesus your Savior? Are you living out peace with others here in this church and in this gathering?
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If that defines your life, then please come to the tables to remember His sacrifice on the cross for us.
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This is the favor of God that He sent His Son into the world to rescue and to save us.
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So after you take the cracker and juice, you can take those back to your chair and eat and drink at your pace.
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I want you to consider what it means for you to surrender to the will of God in your life before you eat that cracker and take that juice.
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Is there anything that God would be pointing out to you where you need to submit to Him this morning?
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Mary received His gracious call and she responded in willing obedience. What needs to change in your life in order to live in accordance with His Word?
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You. I thank
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You first for the sending forth of Your Son. I thank You for the rescue that He is indeed great and He is
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Your Son and He has given the throne of His great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather
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David and He is the King over a never -ending kingdom.
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We look forward to the day when He comes back to usher that kingdom in and to defeat the nations of this world and defeat the rule and reign of authorities that are in opposition to Him and bring it all up into His glorious and beautiful recreation.
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Father, in the meantime, I ask that You would help us to be salt and light, to be useful to You, to actually see our lives in terms of not serving ourselves, not getting to a posh retirement on the links or at the beach or in the mountains.
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But Father, we would look at our lives that are given to us as a sowing of these lives and this time and these resources for Your glory, for Your majesty, for Your honor.
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Father, maybe there are some here today who have never received Your favor. They haven't yet crossed that line of allegiance to You.
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They have not yet identified the salvation and the treasure that is available in Christ. Father, today give them a boldness to come and talk with me or Dave or Mike, the elder on duty or even just somebody that they know here to hear how they could start a relationship with Jesus Christ as their
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Lord and Savior. But then for those of us that have been kicking it in Your kingdom for a while, Father, I pray that You would light a fire under us of passion and love and movement toward You, open -handedly coming to You and saying,
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Father, use me. Father, use me. Let that be the prayer on our lips as we take communion together now in Jesus' name.