The reading today is from Luke 1, 26 through 38. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee called 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. And 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 he 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 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 is called Baron. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. This is the time of Advent and it's supposed to be a time of great cheer and it's really my favorite time of the year. I absolutely love this time of year. In fact, you can ask Joanne, I will play Advent music and Psalms all year long. It doesn't matter when. But even though it's a happy time of the year, one thing that I've noticed is that people argue. You may have noticed this too. And they argue about important things and they argue about things that are very, very unimportant. They argue about things like chores and politics and Bad calls that officials make at ballgames, and that's really worth arguing over, I'm telling you. And recipes for desserts, and you name it, people argue about it, and we even argue about the Bible. When we argue about the Bible, we may think, well, that's not a Christian thing to do. But in some cases, arguing about what the Bible says may be the most Christian thing you do. It may be one of the most loving things that you can do. There are arguments about the Bible that are needed to be had, not to win the argument. but to win the soul. And sometimes we argue over meanings of certain verses, and Christians are famous for arguing over different doctrines, and if those doctrines are essential doctrines, then we need to be engaged in essential arguments over those essential doctrines, and we need to be engaged in love over those doctrines. And if we refuse to prepare and to engage in the biblical argument, then can we really claim to love that person holding that error that is essential doctrine when we know they're wrong and that is a heresy, a damnable heresy? If we love someone who holds a heresy, then we should be glad to do the work to learn how to answer the heresy for their good and for the glory of God. And it's not loving to leave people unopposed and to leave people unhelped when they are in the path of the oncoming wrath of God which sweeps all heretics into the deep, dark, inescapable abyss forever. It's not real meaningful friendship to be just earthly friends. We have earthly friends, but do we really care about their souls? So often we'll get into a little discussion with someone about the Bible or some issue in the Bible, and it may be an essential issue. And what do we do? Because we're such nice people, in fact, we're I think sometimes we think we should be nicer than God would be, because God doesn't compromise. He doesn't back off on anything. But what do we do? Because we want to have earthly friends, we just agree to disagree, even on essential teachings of the Bible. And of course, we don't have the power to make anyone believe God's truth, but we do have the power to make it hard for people to ignore God's truth and not believe God's truth. And there are some huge things that many Christians are not skilled in explaining and helping others understand that come from God's Word. Things like the triunity, the trinity of God. It's big. It's huge. It's essential. But can you explain it? Have you possibly allowed yourself to be convinced that it can't be explained or it can't be defended, it can't be understood? Well then, you've been duped. Or the deity of Christ, a major truth. It's essential. Yet, some people think it's not my duty to go out and to try to demonstrate to someone who doesn't believe it through the biblical proof that Jesus is God. He's the God-man. Or the gospel, the gospel of Christ. You know, here, does it really have to be precise? Or can't I just invite Jesus into my heart and then I have hell insurance, right? No, please don't invite Jesus into your heart, it'll do you no good whatsoever. And we remember the Galatian curse, Galatians chapter 1, If any man preach any gospel other than that which I preach, let him be accursed. I say it again, even if an angel from heaven preach a gospel other than that which I preach. Let him be anathema. Let him be damned. Let him be anathema. And what about the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Muslims and I could go on. Is the day coming when God will just overlook those their distinctive doctrines that are contrary to the doctrines of the Bible, and he'll just say, oh, just come on in. I really didn't mean it after all. Just come on into heaven. And why does the church celebrate, especially at this time of the year, and recognize things such as the virgin birth of Christ? Is that a big deal? Why is it a big deal? Can't we just take it or leave it? Can't I believe it or not believe it? Isn't the only thing that believing it or not believing it affects is that little part of the Christmas story? I can put it in or I can leave it out. Is it really a big deal? Well, since it is Advent season, Christmas season, let's take that last example as one of the important essential Bible claims and let's give it a good look, a little better look. The virgin birth is a Christmas theme. And it is a foundational truth, a foundational Christian teaching. And it is the way God, it's God's method to accomplish salvation. And this is true for many reasons. The virgin birth of Christ was a decision made by the triune God in eternity past. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had a inter-Trinitarian covenant and this was decided. The virgin birth of Christ was an act that God promised he would make happen once. And he did that about, well now, 2,000 years ago. The virgin birth of Christ was an act that only God could perform. And it shows God's unique power. And since it happened once, as promised, it'll never happen again. It gives honor to God. The virgin birth of Christ exempts Him from being born with original sin and guilt as a descendant of Adam. So it distinguishes Him from us who were born in the normal way as descendants of human fathers who have sinned, who bear sin, were born guilty before God. It also shows that God can prepare and use a woman, a simple woman, a humble woman like Mary, to play a spectacular but an essential part in God's saving of souls. So proving that God uses people. in His eternal plans. God has a plan, and He works out that plan, and He uses means. He not only ordains the end, but He ordains the means to the end. So the Bible history around the actual virgin birth is an essential doctrine from which we can learn extraordinarily rich truths. And as you look at the book of Luke, which you either have your Bible, I hope you open your Bible there, or you have your handout sheet that was in the bulletin, Luke draws our minds back to the promise of God as Savior, spoken way back through Gabriel to Daniel as a comfort to him in the world. And if you were attentive as Luke was being read, you realize that this is a great passage filled with wonder. and that it's a passage that we always associate with the Advent season, with Christmas. But think about the significance of this message of the angel to Mary for us today. And I want you to start by thinking about God's choice of using Gabriel as the messenger. This is just a simple, for us, incidental thing, but for God, we look at verse 26, and it tells us that in the sixth month, that is the sixth month of Elizabeth's expectancy, that Gabriel was sent to God to go to Galilee to go to Nazareth. And in verse 27, we're told that he was sent to this virgin, to this betrothed virgin. Now, just so you know, to be betrothed, had to wait not of the privileges of marriage, You're engaged. To be betrothed is a vow to make a vow. It's more than what we call being engaged. People get engaged and they walk away from engagements all the time. But in those days, families were involved, financial transactions took place, and it was a great sin. In fact, it could be a capital crime for the bride to not remain virgin during the betrothal, the engagement period. and Mary did remain a virgin in obedience to God's law. But back to Gabriel in verse 26, Gabriel means strong one, it means hero, it means angel prince, it means chief of angels, it's archangel. And when Gabriel spoke to Zacharias, Elizabeth's husband, back in the 19th verse, which unless you have your Bible open, you can't see, but it says, I am Gabriel, who stands, and notice he's not sitting in God's presence, he's standing in the presence of God, and he's ready to act at God's commands. He was sent to speak to you. He says, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. He was sent, this angel, this archangel, this strong man, this mighty prince of angels, was sent by a superior authority, meaning God sent him. And he was glad to go as God sent him. And he spoke glad tidings, he spoke specific words. And that, this being Gabriel, is a very significant thing because if you are familiar with the scriptures, you know that Luke is drawing our minds back to the message that Gabriel gave about 600 years earlier to Daniel. That's right, Gabriel has been faithfully serving God and standing in God's direct presence to faithfully serve God for at least the past 600 years, and who knows? He may have been standing there for thousands of years before that, but we have no biblical record of that, so I can't preach on that, and I wouldn't. But back in Daniel, Gabriel had been sent from God to answer a prayer that Daniel had prayed. And Daniel was praying that the children of Israel would be released from captivity in Babylon. They were in captivity because of their sin. And Daniel wanted to be released from the guilt of that sin, the punishment of that sin, the wrath of that sin. They wanted to be returned to the promised land. His deepest desire was that God would forgive the people their sin and restore them to God's favor. So 600 years earlier, 2600 years ago now, Gabriel went to take that message to Daniel for the people. And Gabriel told Daniel that God's answer to that prayer was coming and that it was going to be far more glorious than Daniel could have, no pun intended, conceived when he prayed that prayer. In fact, Gabriel told Daniel in Daniel 9 that God is going to be sending none other than the Messiah, the Deliverer. He's going to send Him into the world, and He's going to do it in an amazing way. So I think it's wonderful and amazing that God sent Gabriel to make the promise of Messiah known to Daniel, And now God sends Gabriel to tell Mary the good news that the promise made is a promise kept. Messiah who was promised to one day be coming is actually about to be here. The Messiah is coming into the world just as promised. He's going to take on humanity, just as promised. Through a virgin, just as promised. In Nazareth, just as promised. In Galilee, just as promised. God's faithful messenger, Gabriel, is here again because this time, the promise is also here. And Gabriel's message to Daniel, it was, you must wait a long time, but He's coming. But now, Gabriel's message to Mary is that in moments, think about this, in moments, you're going to be made pregnant. And you're going to be made pregnant with the Messiah, the Savior, the King. And in just moments, that Messiah, that Savior, that King is going to be growing in your womb, all in keeping with what was promised hundreds of years before. So you see, what's happening here is God is tying together His plan. He's showing that none of this is accidental. None of this is coincidental. None of this is deviating one iota from the plan which God had set before, set as His plan before the foundation of the world. And God is working His purpose out in the affairs of men. Well, I want you to also see here, in verse 28 and 30, that the significance of God dealing with Mary. In verse 28, it says, And having come, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. And in verse 30, Then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Now, You know, you've been told many times that God's favor is not earned or deserved. And that's true even about Mary. We think highly of Mary. She's blessed among women. But she didn't earn God's favor. She didn't merit God's favor. Gabriel says, Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. You have found favor with God. Meaning, be glad, Mary, because God has chosen you, not another, though He could have. God could have found favor with someone else, because nobody was deserving. God didn't say, okay, let's look at all the women of the earth. There's one that's really, really, really special. She's above all the rest. She's significantly different. She's worthy of me. giving her grace. And you see, that's a contradiction in itself. God could have chosen anyone, but He chose this one and not another, though He could have, to be His servant in this event. And God is with you, and He is giving you, He is gifting you, and He is preparing you to be used in a big, big way for a very normal event. God is preparing you, Mary, to be used in a big, big way for a very normal event. Now, this normal event is begun in a very abnormal way. But millions of other women had given birth before. Mary's mother had given her birth. Elizabeth was pregnant and was going to give birth, and her mother had given her birth. Joseph's mother, whom Mary was engaged to, had given birth, and probably Mary knew other women who were pregnant and were going to give birth. So the giving of the birth is not the deal. It's not the big deal. Nothing is unusual about that. If Mary had not been the chosen instrument of these purposes, she would have probably never been known today. So it wasn't the gestation and the delivery that is the big deal. It is the conception and the conception of the mighty baby Jesus Christ that is the big deal. Look back at Luke 1, 31. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. And then verses 34 and 35. 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." You see, it's the conception and then the greatness of the one Mary would deliver, meaning Jesus. That's the big deal here. We're talking today about the conception. The virgin birth through Mary is not about Mary. It's about God's power to choose someone to have His way. and to prove His power and to prove His salvation. But it is a fact that God is acting and ruling here differently than normal, than what we would call the laws of nature. Now, I want to be careful here and I want you to hear this because some people may ask, How can miracles like the virgin birth be possible since they violate the laws of nature? Well, what are the laws of nature? Are the laws of nature separate from the laws of God? Aren't the laws of nature also under God's control? And isn't God Himself personally, actively sustaining everything that happens, every law of nature that takes place, every obedience to any what we would call law of nature? You see, they're also God's laws. And the laws of nature, the common things we see, they're simply descriptions of how God normally acts, how He has created the universe to run according to what we think of as running normally. Sometimes we even think wrongly that it's running by itself. Sometimes we think that it's running apart from God. Sometimes we think the universe is sustaining itself apart from God. But God is not limited by... None of that's true. He's sustaining everything that's being sustained. And God is not limited by normal laws that are available to us. He is perfectly free to act in ways that transcend the normal walls. We call these occasional, direct, and unusual acts of God miracles. Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary abnormally for us, but nothing is abnormal for God if he, whatever's in keeping with his will. He was born of her. just as any other child. But Jesus is the only person ever to be born of a virgin. And by doing it this way, God broke every rule of human ability. He exceeded all human ability. He eclipsed every human method. And this miracle, it puts us in tension to either believe Him at His Word and act like it, Think about that. Believe Him at His Word and act like it and be heaven-bound or not believe God at His Word and be tied faithlessly to suppress His Word and look to other means and other ways that we could probably prove in our laboratories and act as though God can't or hasn't done what He promised to do and faithlessly we would be held bound. But Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith it is not hard to please God. Without faith it is, you know the word, impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. R.C. Sproul says, if we do not hold to the virgin birth, though the Bible asserts it, then we have compromised the authority of the Bible and there is, in principle, no reason why we should hold to any of its other teachings. Rejecting the virgin birth has implications reaching far beyond the doctrine itself. Implications indeed. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, who was his father? There is no answer that will leave the gospel intact. It's amazing. The virgin birth explains how Christ could be both God and man. The virgin birth explains how Jesus was without sin and that the entire work of salvation is God's glorious act. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, He had a human father and was born with a sin nature and could not be pure Himself, perfectly pure and guiltless. Jesus would not be acceptable as a substitute for us if He had been born bearing the weight of personal guilt of original sin. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, then the Bible teaches a lie. But God did not lie. And Luke reminds us of the necessity of faith. Notice again that Gabriel told Mary that she was going to have a child, and what was Mary's response? You know, she didn't respond with a, not me, or no way, or are you kidding? That's impossible. I went to college. I had biology. I know that this can't happen. Are you kidding me, Gabriel? No. She simply asked a normal question. Verse 34, Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I do not know a man? She was putting two and two together. She was baffled by this, but she didn't lack faith. And I want you to see here that Luke is reminding us that there are mysteries in the Christian life. There are mysteries in the Christian faith that we believe for the highest reason there is to believe it. And that is because God said so. There is no higher reason to believe anything than that God says so. And Mary says to the angel, how can this be? I'm a virgin. And she is satisfied with the answer she gets. And the answer is not an explanation of the mechanics of how this is going to occur in detail, but just the facts. of what she should expect. Verse 35, And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. She is learning this, hearing this for the first time, She probably was well-trained. In fact, next Sunday, I hope to prove to you that she was a well-trained young woman. She would have put two and two together, but she was hearing this on the fly. And I don't want to downplay that at all, but you know there's a sense in which Mary is not in any fundamentally different position than any of you as Christians. If you're a disciple of Christ, you're not in a real fundamentally different position. You need to understand that God can use you. He can do things that you can't do yourself. He can do things through you that you can't do yourselves. You can tell somebody the gospel and you can't convert them. But God can cause them to be born again. And God can attend your words of the gospel message. And God can transform that person. He can cause them to be born again. He can raise them from spiritual death. He can convert them and He can give them eternal life, which you can't do. Mary couldn't do any of this by herself. It was all of God. None of us know how. God does a lot of things that He does. You know, how did He create the universe? I know and I don't know. He spoke it into existence. In six days it all happened, it all took place. But that's all I know. But He did it, and I believe He did it. How did He inspire the writing and the preservation of the Scriptures? And how did He keep them from error over the centuries? I don't know. But He did. And none of us know a lot of things about God, about things He says He's done or going to do in the future, even with us. How is He going to reclaim our bodies from decay and rejoin them to our souls and give us everlasting life with Him in heaven forever? How is He going to comfort us when we can't be comforted by anyone but Him? What does it mean that He's going to come again for us? How and why? And amazing. You see, we have a supernatural religion that we need to start living as though God is with us, just as God was with Mary. And that God can do with us, and God can do through us, things like He did with Mary, not give another son, of course, but witnessing, and He can teach us, and He can give us truth in our minds, and He can cause us to have real love for Him, and He can move us to have a desire to worship Him with our whole hearts. And let me tell you, that is a work of God. It's not a work of man. You can't teach yourself to love to worship God. You've got to be transformed. You've got to be converted to begin to love, to worship God. You've got to be transformed to where the Bible's laws, the Ten Commandments, the... Be in church on the Lord's day, until that's precious to you. It's a work of God. It'll never happen if it depends on you. It's got to be God doing it in your own life. We live in a faith that is actually designed by an infinite God. And so there is, of necessity, going to be mystery because we are finite. He has power that he is displaying that we don't understand. And Mary's response, question, how can this be, is a reality that every believer knows. We have questions about God in our lives. So where does Mary place her faith in her future? Again, the answer is in verses 36, 37, and 38. Now, indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, this is Gabriel speaking, 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, there's not many things that are impossible. Right? With God, Nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. The angel Gabriel tells Mary that God has done a miracle with Elizabeth. He doesn't bring proof to Mary. She believes because the angel of God has spoken to her. You know, the angel Gabriel, he could have whisked her away over to where Elizabeth lived. He could have shown that Elizabeth was in her sixth month. By sixth month, you're showing pretty well. He could have shown her the bump in her stomach. This old woman who's conceived, he could have started trying to prove that he was telling the truth. But he didn't, and he didn't even have to. Why? Because Mary believed God's Word. She believed God's messenger. She believed God had His Word. And being godly and knowledgeable, she would have connected the dots from the Older Testament. She would have realized that what's going on here now is that Messiah, who we've been waiting for since Adam, Genesis 3.15, promised to Abraham, Genesis 12 through 17, David, 2 Samuel 7. And just as I have done all of these thousands of years, as people have done these thousands of years, now I am going to be the virgin mother. And let me tell you, Jesus is more than she could have imagined. He is the Son of God most high. And this happened because nothing is impossible with God. Her response, behold, which means take note. The maid servant, she's calling herself the female servant. And we need to get a little bit of this slavery mentality. In fact, we need to get a whole lot of this slavery mentality. I want to be the slave of God. I want to be the bond slave of God. And she declares herself to be the maidservant, the female slave of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Don't let it be to me according to my wishes. You realize when I start telling people that I'm pregnant, I'm going to be embarrassed. They know I'm not married. They're going to think I'm fornicated. They're going to think all kind of things about me. I'm going to have a bad reputation. This is going to come down hard on me. No, let it be to me according to your word. The angels word from God and the angel departed from her. There was no more to be done except for her to gestate and deliver the Son, the Son of God. So, do you believe the virgin birth? Do you believe that God is powerful enough to do marvelous things through Mary and also through you that He, anything He wants to do, do you believe that? Are you willing to be a slave? That means you have to say no to yourself and yes to your Lord. And how do you spell Lord? B-O-S-S, Lord. Are you willing to do that? Praise God, Mary was, and we have a Savior. Amen? Prepare yourselves, please, to receive the supper of the Lord.