How many of you know what you're getting for Christmas? Come on, come on. Okay. It may already be wrapped and under the tree, but you know what you are getting. And you know what you're getting not through the old fashioned art of shaking the package and sensing its weight and its dimensions. A certain daughter of mine whose initials are Lauren, has an uncanny ability to figure out what is in any Christmas present with her name on it. Her ability to figure out what is in a package, no matter how tricky the wrapping job is, has bedeviled her younger sister, Meredith, for years. I'm pretty sure, my wife, I think, can confirm this, I'm pretty sure that once upon a time at Christmas, we actually wrapped up a brick. to see if she could figure out what was in the package. And she did. No, most of us know what is waiting under the tree or will be waiting under the tree because we picked it out. And I'm not saying that we asked for a sweater or a toolbox. No, we went on Amazon and we picked out the very item that we wanted right down to the brand and the model number. How many of you have Amazon wish lists? Oh, so maybe the rest of you don't know this. I don't believe this. Come on, how many of you have Amazon wish lists? Okay, I have one little hand over here. One, three, two, three. Okay, let me tell the rest of you. There's this thing called Amazon, you can buy stuff there. And they'll deliver it right to your door. And what's even nicer is they have these things called Amazon Wishlist. So if you want something for Christmas, you put it on the list. And people buy it for you. I don't know how Amazon gets them to do that. But you put it on the wishlist and they buy it for you. Some people are saying that must be too good to be true. Anyhow, that's how it works. You know, when I was a kid, Christmas was all about the anticipation. Now it's about the investigation. The investigation of all of the features that are listed on Amazon, every last detail of what we might want is out there before we put it on the wish list. Now if you stop and think about it, God has placed a gift under your tree for every one of us here. You won't find it listed on Amazon, but even without Amazon, we can still investigate the gift. God himself gave us a list of its features. In fact, the features were revealed years before the gift ever became available. The angel Gabriel revealed them to Mary. We find the description of this gift right here in Luke chapter one. Read with me, Luke one, beginning in verse 26. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, behold, the maid servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. The two outstanding features of this gift that I'm going to talk about this morning are found in verses 30 through 35. These features have been reviewed millions of times. You know, people review all of these products that you find out there on Amazon. Some of them have been reviewed thousands of times. Well, this product, this gift of God has been reviewed millions of times, but this morning, I'm going to add my review. Two outstanding features of this gift. First of all, this gift was born of a virgin. Second, this gift was born to be king. Born of a virgin, born to be king. The first highly unusual and valuable feature of this gift that I will review, born of a virgin. Notice that twice in verse 27, We read that Mary was a virgin at the time she gave birth to Jesus, the gift of God. Now, the word that's translated virgin in the original language literally means virgin, just the same as our English word. I want to make very clear, sometimes you hear people say, oh, that just means a maiden. That just means somebody who was unmarried. No, the word indicates a female who has never had sex. Now, although Luke does not explicitly here refer to the prophecy in Isaiah 7 and verse 14, it is probable that he had that in mind when he wrote verse 27. He assures us in that verse that Jesus' birth fulfills the words of Isaiah. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. 700 years before his birth, God prophesied that Jesus would be born to a virgin. And Luke here verifies this truth about Jesus. But even more convincing than Luke's use of the word virgin in verse 27 is Mary's response to Gabriel when he promises that she's going to conceive and bear a son. Notice verse 34, how can this be? Since I do not know a man, now she's not talking about the fact that she doesn't know any males. She's betrothed at this point to Joseph. The word no here is used in the sense of our English carnal knowledge. Mary is saying here that she's never been intimate with a man. So how can she possibly conceive a child? Now I want to make clear, Mary's not ignorant of basic biology. She's betrothed at this point, and that's much more serious than what we call engagement today. The only way to break a betrothal in that day was through a regular divorce. And she understood that headed toward that married state, in that state of betrothal, if she was not a virgin on her wedding day, there would be trouble. Some might think that Mary is nothing but an ignorant peasant farm girl, but if so, she is a farm girl. She understands basic biology, and she knows that it's impossible for her to conceive a child. And she figures that the angel needs to know that. Maybe he's got the wrong number. In his answer to her question, Gabriel explains how Mary will conceive. He explains what we might call the virgin conception. Gabriel uses two parallel phrases here to explain how Mary will conceive the baby Jesus even while she remains a virgin. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Now those two phrases are parallel. The Holy Spirit and the power of the highest both refer to the same person, to the third member of the Trinity. Mary's conception will be the work of the Holy Spirit. From the very first verses of the Bible, the Holy Spirit has always been associated with giving life. Genesis 1-2, the Spirit brooded upon the waters as God began his creative activity. We go to the book of 1 Peter and 1 Peter teaches us that it was the Holy Spirit who caused the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who gave him renewed life, physical life after his death. Jesus, in John chapter three, as he talked with Nicodemus, assured him that those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will come to have new life by what means. He said, the Spirit blows like a wind. It's through the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. And so it is the office, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to give life, and that's what happened in the conception of Jesus. The Holy Spirit created the new human life that sprang forth in Mary's womb. So do away with any crude ideas that you might have or you might have heard about God the Father having relations with Mary the Mother and through some kind of physical act conceiving Jesus the Son. That is the kind of idea that was rampant in the religions of the ancients, but it is completely contrary to the story of Jesus' birth in the Bible. The Holy Spirit is Spirit. He has no physical body. And the verbs that are used here in verse 35, will come upon you, will overshadow you. Those phrases are never, ever used in the Bible to refer to a sexual relationship. So I say again, remove any crude idea that you have like that from your mind. By his creative power, the Holy Spirit caused new human life to be conceived in Mary's womb without any physical act involved. Now, three times I have indicated that the Holy Spirit conceived human life in Mary's womb. And that distinction is very important. God the Son, the divine nature, the divine person called God the Son did not come into being when Mary conceived. God the Son had existed from eternity past. So the life that the Holy Spirit gave within Mary's womb was a human body and a human nature and the Holy Spirit somehow connected that human nature and that divine nature in one person. Jesus. Now how that human nature and that divine nature interact in that one person? If you can explain that, you will become a famous theologian. Because I could preach a series on that and we would all be still as ignorant as when we began. All I can say is that Jesus is the God man, 100% God. 100% man, and it was the work of the Holy Spirit that brought about that union. Now, as Gabriel concludes his message to Mary in verse 35, he offers an extended explanation of this gift, if you will. You know, if you go on Amazon, one of the nice things about Amazon is is they often have spec sheets, they have specifications. So if you're buying a piece of furniture, say, you wanna know exactly how big it is, you can find the specs. Sometimes they're not easy to find, but you can find the specs and you can know exactly how big this is, how tall it is, how wide it is, how deep it is, all of the specs, everything about it. Well, there's a sense in which, in verse 35 here, Gabriel gives us the specifications of this gift. Therefore also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Mary's miraculous child will have three characteristics, three specifications, if you will. First of all, it's obvious from all that Gabriel has said to this point that this child will be human. who is to be born of Mary. Now, I want you to step back from this story and think about this for a minute. Again, you know, this is one of those things, many of us, we've heard the Christmas story since we were very, very little. But think about it for a minute. When God the Father determined to send his only begotten son to take human flesh so that he could redeem mankind. There were so many ways that he could have done that. I mean, just think what a George Lucas or a Steven Spielberg could do with this plot element. God could have beamed the God-man down from heaven to earth on a flash of light. Beam me down, study. God could literally have created Jesus from the dust of the ground like He did Adam. After all, Jesus was the second Adam. God could have sent Jesus, let your mind soar a little bit out there into the galaxies, could have sent Him from another planet, from another galaxy, the extraterrestrial. But I believe that God chose to bring Jesus into the world through the womb of Mary by means of her birth canal, nursed at her breast to convince us as no other act could that Jesus is truly human, just as human as you are. Just as human as I am. Born in a rude stable. oftentimes tired. He had to sleep. Think about that. He had to rest. At times he needed a vacation. He said to his disciples, come away with me. He got hungry. He got thirsty. All of that is of a piece. It's there in the scripture to assure us that Jesus was 100% human. The second characteristic, the second specification of this miraculous child is summed up in the words, holy one. The child conceived and born in this way is completely holy, that is completely set apart from sin, sinless. Now if Jesus had a normal, purely human birth, then He would have been a natural born sinner, like the rest of us. All human beings are born condemned to eternal death by their sin and really by Adam's sin. Romans 5.12 states, therefore just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, thus death spread to all men. Because all sin, every one of us has descended from Adam through normal human procreation, and that means that every one of us has inherited Adam's fallen, sinful nature from birth. We were already guilty sinners, already under the guilt of Adam's sin, and already sinners by nature. The birth of Jesus is the only birth in history. that did not follow that pattern. As Gabriel's message makes clear, Jesus did not have a human father, and so Jesus was born without inheriting the guilt and the sin nature from Adam. Because of His virgin conception, Jesus is the only human being ever born holy, without sin. And then the third characteristic of this miraculous child is summed up in the title, son of God. Gabriel's words in verse 35 are actually a repetition of what he already said in verse 32, when he said, this Jesus will be called the son of the highest. The one born of Mary will not only be 100% human, he will also be 100% God. the second member of the Trinity, God the Son, a complete human nature, a complete divine nature combined in one person. Now, why is it so important that Jesus have these three characteristics, these three specifications, that He be the sinless God, man, the sinless God, man. The value of this gift is found in these three specifications. If the gift of God were missing even one of these specifications, this gift would have little value for us. It's by having these three characteristics that Jesus, the gift of God, could be our Savior. And that's why Christmas is worth celebrating. Christmas is really about three truths. First of all, Jesus was truly man. And because Jesus was truly man, he could be a substitute for you and for me to bear the punishment for our sin. He could bear God's wrath on my sin. He could bear God's wrath on your sin because he was a human being, human for human. He took the hell that I deserved and that you deserve. Number two, Jesus was able to bear our sin when he died on the cross because he did not have to die in order to bear the punishment of his own sin because he was sinless. If Jesus had not been holy, if Jesus had not been sinless, then he could not have died in my place or your place. He would have had to have died for his own sin. And then in the third place, Jesus was deity. He was the infinite Son of God. Because you see, Jesus didn't just die for me, one for one. He died for all mankind. He died for all, every human being. And only God, only an infinite being could die that kind of a death. That would be the payment for all of our sin. That would be a substitute for you and for me and for every other person that we've ever known. So Jesus had to be. a human being. He had to be sinless. He had to be God. Only in that way could He be Savior. Christmas is about God doing what is necessary to save us from our sins. And so the first Christmas question is this, have you made Jesus your Savior? Have you trusted him to bear the punishment for all your sin, past, present, and future? That's why he was born. That's why he died. That's why he rose again. Now, after assuring Mary that she will conceive a son, even though she's a virgin, Gabriel turned in verses 32 and 33 to a second feature of this gift of God. He was born to be king, born to be king. Gabriel communicates three promises from God regarding the kingship of Jesus. Number one, the Lord will give him the throne of his father, David. Number two, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And number three, and of his kingdom, there will be no end. So let's look at those three promises separately. First of all, Gabriel promised the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. We might call this the legal aspect. of Jesus' kingship, the legal aspect. Now, first of all, you have to put yourself in the mind of an ancient Israelite. To an ancient Israelite, everything depended on genealogy, on who he is descended from. Now, that's a foreign concept to us as Americans. I mean, we've rejected all of that genealogy stuff, all the titles and all that. We don't care who you came from. We don't care if your dad is a duke or your mom is a scrub woman. It doesn't make any difference. That doesn't make any difference in the good old U.S. of A. We give everybody a fair shake here. Everybody is created equal. Not so if you were an ancient Israelite. was just the opposite. Everything depended on who you were descended from, the land that you lived on, the land from which you got your living, from which you got your food. That was all a matter of descent. That was all a matter of genealogy. Everyone, remember when the Israelites came back from captivity? Everybody had to prove their genealogy. That's why you have so many genealogies in the Bible. Don't you all love to read the genealogies in the Bible? Isn't that great? Well, one of the reasons those genealogies are there is to push home to us this point, that genealogy was something really important to an ancient Israelite. And this was all doubly true, triply true of the promised king of Israel. God had promised that there would always be a king to sit on the throne of David. God gave to David eternal promises. I won't ask you to turn, but listen as I read from 2 Samuel 7, the promises that God gave to David. Here's what he said, when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. and your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you." Your throne shall be established forever. God repeats it over and over. When God repeats something, you better listen. And this is why for centuries the Israelites longed and prayed for a king to sit on the throne of David, to deliver them from the Gentiles. They were looking to this promise. promise of a king to sit on the throne of David. But of course, if you were such a king, you had to prove your claim to the throne legally. And the only way to prove your claim to the throne of David legally was through your genealogy. Now, from a legal perspective, this is what Joseph is for. You know, isn't Joseph kind of the odd man out in the Christmas story? You know? He's there for, it seems like he's there for a little bit and then he's gone. We never hear from him again. So you need to understand, Joseph is there for a reason. Because legally, Jesus is Joseph's son. And I understand that Joseph wasn't actually biologically his father, but legally Joseph was his father. And Joseph was of the house and lineage of David. And this is why in Luke chapter three, we have the genealogy of Jesus, not traced back through Mary, but traced through Joseph back to David because it proves Jesus' legal claim to the throne of David. Gabriel makes a second promise. regarding the kingship of Jesus. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. We might call this the prophetic aspect of Jesus' kingship. The house of Jacob is just another way to talk about the nation of Israel. Gabriel's promise to Mary reflects scores of promises, scores of passages in the Old Testament that promise that Israel will be restored to her land and the promised king descended from David will reign over that nation restored to her land. Now, did Jesus fulfill that promise when he was here on earth 2,000 years ago? No, he did not. The nation ultimately rejected him. They never accepted him as their king. Their leaders were complicit in his crucifixion. But I'm here to assure you that these promises will ultimately be fulfilled, literally be fulfilled. You know, sometimes we sing the carol, O come, O come, Emmanuel, and rescue captive Israel, did you ever wonder what that means, why we sing that? That carol refers to this aspect of the Christmas story, to this promise made to Mary. Jesus is the promised king to restore Israel. Now we're New Testament believers. But we still look forward to this restoration. We look forward to the day when Jesus will return to earth, when he crushes his foes and he sets up a literal earthly political kingdom. And we're told in the book of Revelation that Jesus will reign on earth for a thousand years with Jerusalem as his capital. And it is for that return that we are commanded to pray. I can't get into all of this right now. We believe based on promises in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that Jesus will rapture away his church before he returns to earth to set up his kingdom. But whatever the exact timing of these events, this promised restoration of Israel, and Jesus' reign was promised by Gabriel before Jesus was born. And so someday, that prophetic aspect of Jesus' kingdom, kingship, will be a reality, and our hearts should cry out, even so, come Lord Jesus. And then the final promise of Jesus' kingship reads like this, of his kingdom there will be no end. I think this is the unlimited aspect of Jesus' kingship, the unlimited aspect. That word end has the idea of limit. There is no limit to Jesus' kingdom. See, I think that this promise, this final promise, is talking more about just than time, that Jesus' kingdom is going to be forever. I believe that it means that, but I believe that this has the idea that Jesus' kingdom is unlimited. And one of the ways that it's unlimited is we're waiting for Jesus to come back and to set up an earthly political kingdom, But that earthly political kingdom is not the limit of Jesus' kingdom. I'm here to tell you, Jesus is king right now. He's sitting at the right hand of God the Father. He is king. And if he isn't king anywhere else, he's king in my heart. And I trust that he's king in your heart. And there comes a day The Apostle Paul prophesied it in Philippians chapter 2, when everything will be put under Jesus' feet. without limit, not just human beings, not just you and me. Let me read you the words from Philippians chapter two. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth. What do you think that refers to? We're not having a second service today. There won't be any discussion. You can take that question home and think about it. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So in the first place, Christmas is about Jesus being our savior. In the second place, Christmas is about Jesus being our king. You know, it's interesting to me that nearly the only time that we sing of Jesus as King is at Christmas. Have you ever thought about that? Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King. Commodore unbended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the And so you have all these Christians, and I was actually noticing this as I was listening yesterday. I just quoted three, but there are just so many. We sang a couple this morning that talked about the fact that Christ will reign, that he is king. It's just everywhere in the Christmas carols we sing. But let me ask you, when was the last time you sang a hymn on any other Sunday than a Christmas Sunday or a December Sunday that talked about the fact that Jesus was king? See, here's what I think. I think we don't have a problem with Jesus being king as long as he's in the manger when he's king. I don't have a problem with Jesus being king if he's in the manger. He's not in the manger anymore. He died and he rose again and he ascended to the right hand of God the Father. He is king now. And so in the second place, Christmas is about the fact that Jesus is King. The second Christmas question is this, is Jesus your King? Is Jesus your Savior? Is Jesus your King? There's an old saying, you can't take Christ by halves. You can't have him as your savior if he's not your king. So I close with this question. Have you opened that gift that God put under your Christmas tree? Have you embraced it? You know, have you ever, did you ever give your children or one of your grandchildren a gift? And maybe this even happened to you. And when that child opened that gift, they just hugged the gift to themselves. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen a child do that? The gift that God has given you, have you embraced it? Is Jesus your Savior and is Jesus your King? Have you embraced the gift of God? Can you say today without hesitation, Lord Jesus, you are my Savior. I am trusting you 100% to bear all of my sin and forgive me. And Jesus, you are my King. I have put you on the throne of my heart. My life is in your hands. And you say both of those things today. Have you accepted the gift of God? Have you opened that gift and have you embraced that gift? Could I have ever had Bob pleased every eye closed? If you are uncertain at all in any way about whether you have received the gift of God. Would you do it today? Would you do it right now? Simple words, Lord Jesus, I want you to be my Savior. I want you to bear all of my sin, once and for all, and forgive me. And Lord Jesus, I want you to be my King. I put you on the throne of my heart. I put my life in your hands. Would you pray that prayer? If you're uncertain, make certain of it today. You deal with Jesus. He's there at the right hand of God the Father right now. Deal with Jesus and make certain if you're unsure.