Any of you who know me realize that I am not much of a Marvel comic fan or a DC comic fan or I don't follow the franchises and the universes of all of these different comic book driven movies. But I was very interested and rather amused to hear that in Marvel's universe, there is a character called One Above All. one above all. I didn't know there was such a character within the Marvel universe, but I read about one of the comic books where the Fantastic Four, these four superheroes, are walking through this heavenly-like realm. and it's supposed to picture heaven and they walk through in search of this character called the one above all and they walk into a house in this realm and walk into a living room and what they find is a man drawing comics on a pad of paper. And the man, I don't know this, but I've read that the man resembles the person who is the creator of most of the Marvel comic books and all of their superheroes. And during the middle of their meeting, he takes a phone call from his collaborator. someone who he partners with in the running of this universe, this realm, as the one above all. And the creator, the human being who did this creation and who wrote these panels for this comic book, made the comment that, that's what my creations do. They find the humanity in God. Now I submit to you that that is a version of God that is very trite and small and way too close to the image of man, his creation. It's a powerless God. It is a God who needs someone to collaborate with. It is a God who creates something that looks exactly like him and has the same powers of him. And he creates his creation to show his limitedness in his creation. Now I want you to contrast that with this view of God. One of our neighbors has a three-year-old girl. I think she's three, right? And her mom came over yesterday and told Paige a story that they came out of their house one morning after a rainstorm, and there was a worm that was on the sidewalk dead. And she just matter-of-factly, with all the confidence in the world, said, Jesus could raise that worm from the dead. And they took the worm and put it over in the grass just in case Jesus decided to raise that worm from the dead. Now that is a pretty solid view of God, is it not? Someone who is other than her, someone who has all the power in the world at his disposal and can raise the dead to life. A three-year-old and a whole universe of cartoon characters, and the difference is stark. But before we get too judgmental, I want to ask you something this morning. The God that you worship every day, does he look like the Marvel God, or does he look like our little three-year-old neighbor's God? Is he a God who has all the power in the world, and as such, when he speaks, you listen and obey? Is he a God who does what he pleases, and he deserves your worship, and he deserves your obedience? Before you answer that, think of the other side of this equation. that there are times that you hear His word and say, but not today. There are times that you see what God has orchestrated in your life and you push against it as if He had nothing to do with it. Are there times that when you walk in your life, the God you worship seems to be more like the God that looks like you? And He should run the world like you would run the world. And He should make decisions like you would make decisions. And He would be limited in His power like you are limited in your power. Now, none of us are gonna admit to the latter, are they? But I submit to you that every one of us has walked in that life before. Every one of us has walked as if our God is not the one who raises the dead. Every one of us has lived at times as if we serve a God who is not the God who does as he pleases, who is not the God with all power. And that oftentimes is shown in our obedience to his word and our willingness to bend our hearts and minds to his word. We are seeing this contrast today between what we saw with Zachariah and Elizabeth, and the announcement of John the Baptist's birth, and now what we see today in our passage of Mary and Joseph, and the announcement of Jesus's birth. We are gonna see many similarities between those two accounts, but we're also gonna see many differences that separate John the Baptist and Jesus, and Luke is spending his entire book showing us who Jesus is. And he wants to show us that God is a God who keeps promises, and that there are all the promises of these Old Testament books that are fulfilled in their time. Remember the introduction that Luke brings. I want to retell you, Theophilus, about those things that have been fulfilled in our time, in the time that we live in. And so one of the things he does to start right from the beginning is tell us the backstory, if you will, of John the Baptist, the one who will come and proclaim and prepare the way, and for Jesus himself. And so we're gonna learn a lot this morning about Jesus himself, his eternal rule, his rightful reign on the throne of David, but we're also going to be challenged of how we respond to those grand and glorious truths. Are we going to be one like Mary? who says, let it be according to your word. And she has walked in a situation that I dare to say none of us has walked in. And it was the craziest situation you can imagine. And yet her heart is, God can raise the dead. Let it be as your word says applied to me. So let's keep our hearts and minds open this morning to the truth of the word about Jesus. and check our response of how we're going to respond to Jesus and how he orchestrates things in our lives. Turn to Luke 1, verse 26, and stand with me as I read our text today. Luke 1, 26. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, greetings favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and was pondering what kind of greeting this was. 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 name his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom. But Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month for her who is called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. The grass withers and the flower falls. You may be seated. So in these verses we are shown four aspects of Gabriel's announcement concerning Jesus. Four aspects concerning Gabriel's announcement concerning Jesus. Now remember where we have come from. We started at the beginning of Luke just a few weeks ago, where Luke is undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among them. And he's writing to a man called Theophilus, the most excellent Theophilus. And he wants Theophilus to know the certainty about the things that he's been taught. So there's a polemic purpose, a teaching purpose to Luke. And he knows he's writing to Theophilus, but he's also writing to all of us. He's writing to all of us so that we may be sure of the things that we have been taught about Jesus and all of the Old Testament prophecies that are fulfilled in him. We immediately are brought into the beginning of the story of Jesus, starting with John the Baptist and the foretelling of his birth. And you remember that Zachariah, he responded with doubt. Not just a question, but a doubt that was strong. Zachariah should have believed, but what he asked was to know. Remember the wording that's used? He asked, how will I know? Because his wife was promised a baby and yet she was old, she was barren. How is this going to happen? How will I know? And the angel Gabriel rebuked him and said, you should have believed my word. I am Gabriel sent from God to give you this good news, the blessings of this good news. And then he gave him a sign, but the sign was not what he thought it would be. It was that he would be unable to speak, and I think later we'll find he's unable to hear as well, unable to speak until that his child is actually born. Elizabeth responds in a healthy way and says, this is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked upon me to take away my disgrace among men. And now we move immediately into the sixth month. Remember, Elizabeth stayed by herself, secluded for five months. So now we're in the sixth month, and the angel Gabriel is back at the Lord's business again. And the verse 26 tells us that he was sent from God. So the first aspect of the announcement is the recipient of Gabriel's announcement is Mary. And we find out several things about Mary. We find out that she's a virgin. We find out that she's betrothed to Joseph of the house of David. Those are the first things we find out. Look at verse 26. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel, this is the same angel that was sent to Zechariah in the temple. Remember, he was working and doing his service in the temple with the group of priests that he was assigned to, and he was the one that was chosen to offer the incense offering, and it was probably the highlight of his career, never to happen again. So he should have been heightened and ready to hear from God in the midst, but instead he was fearful of just the presence of Gabriel to the right of the altar. So this is the sixth month, and he's sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth. Now, I want you to notice the difference here. We have John the Baptist's birth being announced in Jerusalem on a day of worship, on the highest day of that priest's career in offering for the incense, with all the people doing as they should have done, been praying outside, waiting for him to exit and pronounce the Aaronic blessing upon them. And now we have Gabriel going to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, a city that has no reputation. If you remember when Philip went to Nathanael and said, listen, we have found the Messiah, and he's Jesus of Nazareth. And what was the response? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? It was just a given that nothing good comes out of Nazareth. So we move to a no-place town, or I'd rather say an everyplace town. Just a normal place with normal activity going on. No rock star place, no rock star people. It's in Galilee called Nazareth. But we learn in verse 27, there's more specificity here. He's sent to a virgin. Now look at how verse 27 is constructed. Virgin is the beginning and virgin is at the end with Joseph in the middle. So we're clearly, Luke is telling us to focus on this idea of Mary's state. Remember Elizabeth? When we met Elizabeth and Zechariah, there were a couple of verses dedicated to telling us that they were righteous and holy people. They were people that followed after the Lord. They were blameless before the Lord. They went into the story with a character that already had us predisposed that they were following the Lord to the best of their ability. And here, we have only one thing, that she's a virgin. To a virgin, Gabriel was sent, to a virgin betrothed to a man who was named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. So we meet Mary, we find out she's a virgin, and she's betrothed to Joseph. So in these days, betrothal was similar to our engagement, but also much different, the way we think of engagement today. It was a contractual agreement between the groom and the bride and their families, and the bride price was paid, and for about a year they were considered as if they were married. They were contractually obligated to each other, but their marriage had not been consummated yet. That would happen on the night their vows were exchanged. They would enter into the bedroom and they would consummate their marriage, and that's where they would become one flesh. So this is a time that if the wife was presented as not being a virgin still, then that contract would be broken. And it was considered, even at that day, a divorce because the contract would be broken. So we are expecting the normalcy of Mary being a virgin because she's betrothed. And we just have a normal picture of an everyday person. Now, Mary could be 13, 14, 15 years old here. This happened when they were young. So here is a youngster in the way we think of things today. And in the middle of the verse, we find out that the person she was betrothed to, the man she was betrothed to, was named Joseph of the house of David. Now this is going to be a phrase that comes regularly four or five times over these first two or three chapters of Luke as all of the background is set with the birth announcements and the births and the childhood of Jesus and even into the genealogy in chapter three. This idea that Jesus is coming as the rightful heir to the throne of David. So we have this parentage set up here. We don't know what's happening yet, but since we just read the text, we know where we're heading. So we have Mary is the one who will conceive and Joseph is the father. And the emphasis is on the virginity of Mary, even at this early time. But we also know that she's favored by God. Look at verse 28. And coming in, this is the angel coming into their home, he said to her, greetings favored one, the Lord is with you. Just kind of like something happens every day after breakfast, right? An angel coming from God comes in and gives you greetings and says you're favored and the Lord is with you. And so Mary's first response is that she's perplexed. She's perplexed by this greeting. Look at verse 29. But she was very perplexed. This idea of perplexity carries the idea of being troubled or confused. And it's at the statement that was made, and she was pondering what kind of greeting this was. Now when Zacharias saw Gabriel, he saw Gabriel, didn't hear a word yet, and what was the first thing he did? He was doubting and he was fearful. He was very fearful. Mary ponders the greeting. It's almost as if the angel doesn't bother her at all. But the greeting, it's the greeting that perplexed her. Now, I'm sure that the angel was a stark reality for her on that day. But Luke tells us that, look at the text here, Luke says she was perplexed at this statement, favored one, the Lord is with you. So Gabriel comes to say, you are favored and God is with you. And he's going to develop this a little bit further, but Mary needs a response before he does. So she's not only perplexed by the greeting, but she's also reassured of God's favor in verse 30. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Now the next several verses are gonna tell us what that favor is, but just put yourself in Mary's position for a moment. She has an angel, Gabriel, standing in front of her in her kitchen or living room, their living area, wherever it is. And he greets her and says, she's favor. And now he explains it further to give her encouragement and said, you have found favor with God. So the God that is with you, you have found favor with. That's not something she would have heard every single day. It's not something she would have expected to hear. And the angel, as angels often do in the scriptures, their first response is, do not be afraid. So there is a fearfulness in her perplexity, in that troubledness, in that confused setting that she has. But the angel doesn't give her much chance to sit there, does he? We meet Mary and we know that she's a virgin. We know that she's betrothed to Joseph of the house of David, which will be more important as the text progresses. And we know that she's perplexed by the greeting and the angel wants to bring her comfort saying, don't be afraid. You have found favor with God and that the Lord is with you. The second aspect of his announcement is the central part of this text. The content of Gabriel's announcement is Jesus. And so we see three things at the beginning. Jesus will be the name of the Son you conceive and bear. Jesus will be great and called the Son of the Most High. And Jesus will reign eternally over his kingdom from David's throne. Begin in verse 31. Because the angel begins to flesh out the way that she has found favor with God. He says, and behold, so there's that marker, this is important, you need to pay attention to this, look at this, see this, see it for what I'm saying. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus." Already we're asking some questions. Mary's going to voice them in a few minutes, but the angel is just very clear at what's going to happen. And it's the same kind of thing that we see in other naming stories from the Old Testament, and also Zechariah and the commands to name his son John. And so the beginning gives her some clarity. The beginning of his announcement is, you will be conceiving this child, he will be a son, and his name shall be called Jesus. Now, Luke doesn't make a big deal about all the meanings of the names. In Matthew, we see that he is called Jesus because he'll save his people from his sins, because that's what his name means. That's what his name means. That's what Yeshua stands for. That's what Jesus stands for is Yahweh saves or Yahweh will save. But Luke's not bringing that to us at all. He doesn't tell us what it means like Matthew does. He just says, you will give him this name. And it's stated clearly And there's no argument from Mary. So Jesus will be the name of the son that you conceive and bear, but also he'll be great and called the son of the most high. Look at verse 31 or 32. And he will be great. Now, how was John described? You remember how John was described? Look back at your earlier in chapter one. Verse 15, and he will be great in the sight of the Lord. So there's a limitation to his greatness. His greatness will be in the sight of the Lord. But here in verse 32, there is no limitation. There's no limits on the greatness. He will be great. It's an intentional contrast between this child and the previous child that we learned about. Now just think of what you know of the life of Jesus. How will He be great? His greatness will come because He's the one who presents Himself without sin, but dies on the cross in place of people who have sin and are sin. So His greatness is not necessarily what we think about when we think greatness, unless we're thinking in a spiritual and biblical sense. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. Now this is very important for us to see. Later on when we see Zachariah's song, we'll see that Zachariah refers to John the Baptist as the prophet of the Most High. Verse 76 of this chapter, the prophet of the most high. So here's yet another contrast that we have. There are several contrasts that we have between John and Jesus, even as much as we have all the similarities. Just think of the similarities we've seen so far. We have a couple both needing a child. We have a promise that they will both have a child. We have the naming of that child. We have responses of the people spoken to. We have the angel responding back to them. We have the angel coming and going. There are many similarities in this. And just as Zachariah was expected to see the similarities to the Old Testament, remember that the same formula was given to Zachariah that was given to the Old Testament saints who were without children, and God came and promised them children. Especially with Abraham and Sarah, the same kind of language. Here we're seeing the direct contrast with Jesus and John. And Jesus is called the Son of the Most High. Now to say the Son of the Most High is to say what? This will be God, this will be the Son of God. The Most High is a description that only obtains to Yahweh in the Old Testament. So when the angel says that he will be Jesus, he will be the Son of the Most High, he's saying he's going to be the Son of God. Now I want you to see how the divinity and the humanity of God, of Jesus, are both demonstrated in this. All through this passage, we are seeing there is going to be a virgin who conceives and will bear a son. We see his humanity, but this son will be the son of the Most High, and we'll see other monikers for him as well. The constant reminder that this is something different. This is a work of God that has not been done before. This is the work of God that not only surprises Mary, but it surprises us. And if we've never read the story of Jesus, we're already glued to the screen, as it were. We're glued to the text to find out what on earth does this mean? He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. So now we see in this section of scripture why it's important that Mary is betrothed to Joseph, and he is from the house of, from the line of, from the lineage of David. And this is one of those promises made all through the Old Testament, is it not? We've already heard it read twice today from Psalm 89 and from Daniel chapter seven. I mean, just remind you that it goes all the way back even to Genesis chapter 49, when Jacob is blessing his sons and he blesses Judah. And part of the blessing is, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. So all the way back to the promise of Judah, from which Bethlehem comes. 2 Samuel, the promise of Solomon to come and follow David, but the language that's used in some of the verses clearly talks about someone greater than Solomon. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, this is God speaking to David in that covenant, I will raise up one of your seed after you who will come forth from your own body. And I will establish his kingdom and shall build a house for my name. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. and your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever, and your throne shall be established forever." What does God want David to know about the king that will sit on his throne? He's going to sit there and rule and reign forever. So we know in that Davidic covenant, we're not just talking about Solomon, the promise of Solomon to come in after David, we're talking about the one who will come and be the promised eternal king who sits on the throne. In the psalm we just heard read, these few verses, Psalm 89, I have found David my servant. With a holy oil I have anointed him, with whom my hand will be established. My arm also will strengthen him. My faithfulness and my loving kindness will be with him, and my name, his horn, will be exalted. In my name his horn will be exalted. I also shall make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, and my covenant shall be confirmed to him. So I will set up his seed to endure forever, and the throne as days of heaven. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and he's thrown as the sun before me. I shall establish forever like the moon, and the witness of the sky is faithful. Daniel chapter six, or chapter nine, verses six and seven. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this. And one other passage of many we could read, Ezekiel chapter 37. My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd, and they will walk in my righteousness and keep my statutes and do them. They will inhabit the land that I give to Jacob, my servant, which your fathers inhabited, and they will inhabit it, they and their sons and their sons' sons forever. And David, my servant, will be their prince, their ruler forever. Now, think of this, that in many of these passages, the promises of David ruling on the throne are happening in the exile and after the exile, when there is no ruler, there is no king ruling on David's throne, no human king. And yet that is the promise that comes back in the prophets over and over and over to bring hope that God will not vacate his promises. God is a God who makes promises, and if he makes them, he keeps them. And that's the way Mary is receiving all of this. And we'll see that next week when we get into what's called her magnificat, her magnifying of the Lord, that she is concerned about the fulfillment of these promises and she's waiting for and believing in them. And that's the contrast in the first several chapters of Luke, those who are waiting for the promises and those who are waiting not so well for these promises. So this is one who is going to sit on the throne because God will give him, this one Jesus, this one that will be conceived in your womb, he will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and there will be no end to his kingdom. So we started with Gabriel's words, then we went to all the Old Testament passages that describe that rule and reign of that king as being forever, and now Gabriel is saying it's being fulfilled. All of those being fulfilled in the one that will be conceived in your womb, that you will name Jesus. So this is bringing this long stretch of biblical theology and teaching us what about God? It's teaching us that he is faithful. and that God is faithful to his covenant promises to his people. This is what kept the Old Testament saints going. This is what kept them going through the silence of the last 400 years. Remember last week we talked about this being the time that God is breaking into 400 years of silence. He has been silent with his people. They've been going on day to day to day, morning after morning, nighttime after nighttime, waiting for their God to speak, waiting for a Messiah. There are those who are waiting faithfully, and there's those who are waiting not faithfully. This is the continuation of breaking into that silence and breaking in God does, amen? He breaks in with not only the reminder of the promise, but the promise of the fulfillment right here in the womb of a virgin. So Jesus will be the name of the son you conceive and bear. Jesus will be great and called the son of the most high. Jesus will reign eternally over his kingdom from David's throne. Well, then we have a couple of, we have a clarifying question and a clarifying answer. Mary asked the question in verse 34, but Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin? How will this be? Now notice the difference between her response and Zachariah's. Zachariah has been given hope. His wife is barren, and the angel comes and says, she's gonna have a child. And Zechariah doesn't believe the word. He says, how will I know? Give me a sign. He's just being asked to hope in what God has already done over and over in the Old Testament, right? He has come to barren women and said, you will have a child. And it's been done over and over. And the language that Gabriel used is similar to that Old Testament language. And yet he has trouble believing it. And he wants another sign other than the promise of the one who was sent from the throne of God with God's message. Mary asks a different kind of question, doesn't she? Mary's question is not, how will I know? But hers is just one of biology. How will this be? How will this be since I am a virgin or since I have known no man? Maybe your version says more literal translation. How is this going to be? Her question isn't one of doubt of God and what he can do. Her question is, how is this possible? There's only one way that I'm going to conceive a child, and I haven't been in that position yet before. How is this possible? It's a good question, don't you think? It's a good question. How is this possible? It's not a question of doubt. It's a question of wonder. because God's about to work a miracle. He's not just acting in the hope of Old Testament promises. He is working a miracle to fulfill those Old Testament promises. So Mary's question isn't received the same way as Zachariah's question, is it? Zachariah got a rebuke from Gabriel. He says, you should have believed what I said, but you didn't. And so that sign that was given was a temporary limitation on his ability to speak. But he responds to Mary completely differently because she's asked a completely different question. It's not a question full of doubt. It's a question of wonder. So the clarifying answer is the power of the most high, the Holy Spirit will do this. Look at verse 35. The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So Gabriel says, listen, it's not the way you think it's going to happen. It's not going to happen the way it normally happens, the way the birds and the bees have always happened for humans. It's not going to happen that way. This is going to be different. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The same word used in Acts 1-8, when the Spirit will come upon the disciples to make them witnesses in all of the places that Jesus is about to send his disciples. This is a movement of the Spirit to come upon her and to overshadow her. And look at who's overshadowing. It's the power of the Most High who will overshadow her. So this is the miraculous combination of events of the Father and the Spirit in producing the incarnate Son. Right here is what is being promised. And it is the Most High who will overshadow her. And so I would think Mary probably still has some questions, don't you? But it's a straightforward answer. You ask a good question. You ask a good question when you say, how will this be? So I'm going to answer it and tell you, this is how it will be. This is a miracle. We talk often about the virgin birth. It's probably more accurate to talk about the virgin conception and the birth that follows from that virgin conception. And there have been many false things taught about that virgin birth throughout the years. But we do know that Mary will go on to have future children according to the scriptures. We do know that Mary now is being promised that she will be overshadowed by God himself and that this is the way this baby will be born. Now this is important for us to know in our theology. It's important for us to know that Mary is betrothed to one from the house of David, so there's that connection. But there is not the connection to the line of sin that is passed down from Adam to generation to generation to generation, which is always taught as being the pass through the sperm of the male. That is all bypassed here so that the one who is born will be holy. The one who is born will not be born tied up in sin like every single human being is ever born, who is born into sin because of the sin of Adam. So this is telling us that God himself will be born as a man, but he will not be born as every other man. He's going to be conceived in a different way so that his life is a life of perfection. And he continues in that perfection without sin through his entire life. All of that is what this verse is setting up for us to understand. So that as Luke continues to tell us about Jesus. And as Luke continues to tell us that he is on his road and on the way to the cross, as he continues to tell us that, we are learning that his perfections start because God the Father overshadowed Mary and caused the conception of this child. So the clarifying question brings the clarifying answer. And for that reason, the rest of the answer, verse 35, The holy child shall be called the Son of God. So there is discrepancy over whether it's the holy child or the child will be called holy, but you can see the connection between the Holy Spirit overshadowing and the child then being holy because of the nature of the conception. And he shall be called the Son of God because he is the Son of the Most High. That word is parallel with the Son of the Most High in verse 32. So we see this clear and concise picture of the eternal God taking the form of man in the incarnation by this Holy Spirit over the Most High and the power of the Holy Spirit. And notice that that's what our attention is drawn to. the power of the Most High. Now it's amazing if you go through and you look at the works of God, even when we think of the Great Commission, when we're told in Matthew that we are to go into all the world and we are to make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit and teach them to keep all that I've commanded to you, how is that verse preceded? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. And if he has all authority on heaven and earth, Jesus does, what does he have? He has all the power to exercise all authority. So the great commission that sends us out is based on the power of God. And here we have Jesus, the one coming, being brought to us in a way that the power of God alone is what carries this out. The third aspect of Gabriel's announcement The recipient of Gabriel's announcement is Mary. The content of Gabriel's announcement is Jesus. The reassuring sign of Gabriel's announcement is Elizabeth. Look at verse 36. Now Mary doesn't ask for a sign, but God is gracious through Gabriel to give her a sign. And behold, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month of her who was called barren. So God is at work here. And he gives the reason that that is possible to encourage her that God can do anything in verse 37, for nothing will be impossible with God. Very similar to the response to Abraham when Sarah's around the corner and she laughs. And the angel says, why Sarah laughed at this? Is there anything too difficult for God? It's the same kind of promise given in Job 42.2 and Jeremiah 32.17. This is the God who can do what he pleases when he pleases at any time. This is the God who acts according to his will. He acts according to his character. Now, don't ask me things like, well, can God do an evil? Because he can't do an evil thing, because when God can do anything he desires to do, it's always in accordance with his character. He will never desire to do anything that's not in accordance with his character. So here, this is the power to do something that's never been done before. This is the power to do something in a virgin, from an everyplace kind of town, and to bring all the promises of the Old Testament of the Messiah. Just think of all the times we examined the messianic promises from Isaiah. All the times we saw those promises and were hopeful, with the Old Testament saints, we're hopeful for the time that Jesus would come. Luke is about the demonstration that those promises are fulfilled and they are fulfilled in Christ. And there's nothing impossible with God. Now this is what we start turning here to a more direct application for us. Does your prayer life reflect that? That there's nothing impossible for God? Does your prayer life or benediction is going to be from Ephesians and the passage that contains that God is one who can do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think? Is that what your prayer life is like? Is that what your expectations of God working are like? That He can do anything, and He is doing anything. I read one quotation from one theologian that said, anything that God has done in the past, He can do today. Anything that God has done in any time in history, He can do to you. Anything that God has done, He can carry out now because His character never changes. Do we evangelize? Do we approach our discipleship? Do we raise our children? Do we walk out into the world as if we think that God can do anything? Nothing will be impossible for God. I think of people who have prayed for years and years and years for the salvation of one person. And they keep praying. Why? Because God is the God of salvation and nothing is impossible with God. Are you prone to just say, well, I've prayed before. I don't know that God's ever gonna save that person. God desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And it is their disbelief that stops him from that. And he's the God who overcomes that through his spirit. Do we pray that way? Andrew Murray once said, beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what he can do. Now this is where it hits the road for many of us, isn't it? We tend to pray according to what we want instead of what he wants. Now, the goal is that our prayers match His desires, right? That we are praying according to His will and He conforms our desires to His desires so that we are used by Him in miraculous ways because He is the God who can do anything. And this is what's brought to Mary to encourage you, to encourage her. You can just picture the angel saying, in his own mind, I'm not trying to get in the angel's mind, I don't know, the scripture doesn't tell us, but God knowing her heart, giving her encouragement that, I know this sounds crazy. but I'm gonna do this. And I can do anything because nothing is impossible for me. And that is brought as encouragement to her. And even the sign, I've already done this in Elizabeth, and notice the difference. Elizabeth is bringing a barren womb to bring a child. This is a virgin conception. Something's never been done before. And he's asking Mary to believe that. Well, this fourth aspects of Gabriel's announcement is, Mary's response, and her response to Gabriel's announcement is submission. Look at that last verse. And Mary said, behold, the slave of the Lord, speaking of herself, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. The wildest situation in the world has just been said, this is going to happen to you. And there's no doubt. There's no hesitation. She says, according to your word. Now, it's Gabriel's word, but who does Gabriel speak for? He was sent from God, the very first part of our very first verse that we have. So when she says, according to your word, it takes us right back to the beginning and ties it together. The Gabriel's word is God's word, and it's meant for her encouragement. Now consider, consider, you might be thinking, well, of course, it's crazy enough, it's radical enough. Of course it has to come from God, and I'm not gonna have any choice in it anyway. But think of what it's going to cost her. Because if she is going to conceive, what's her husband gonna say? What's her betrothed one going to say? Because he knows how the birds and the bees work, and he knows that they have not been together. They have not known each other. What is he gonna say? What is the community going to say? How is she going to be treated? How is she going to be treated by other people when this gets out? What is Joseph gonna do? Now we know the stories from the other gospel of when the angel comes to talk to Joseph and what Joseph is told to do, but think of Mary right here who doesn't know that. And she knows all Joseph has to do is say, she's pregnant, we weren't together, stone her. It may not have happened that much in that day, but that still was the law. And she doesn't say, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. What about, what am I gonna tell Joseph? What are the neighbors gonna say? You know that woman three doors down. You know what she's like. She doesn't say any of that. She says, I am your slave. Let it be according to your word with no hesitation. Now think about your life for a minute. Think about the twist and the turns in your life. whether that be health issues, death in your family, struggles, loss of jobs, changes in your jobs, kids moving away. I mean, just fill up the bucket with all the things that in your mind, if you were the one drawing the cartoon, you wouldn't have made that panel in that cartoon. You would have done something different. We all have those. And if you haven't had them much, guess what'll happen tomorrow? Tomorrow, something like that could happen to you. What's our response? Our knee-jerk response is to complain about that. And when we complain about something that we don't like, what are we actually saying? God, I would have done that different and I don't like what you've done. I would have drawn a different panel next in my cartoon. Because that's what it boils down to if we're gonna argue against what is happening. And so I would submit to you that those who are, notice Mary's really the first disciple of Jesus that we see, right? She learns about Jesus in this miraculous, mind-blowing way, and she says, whatever your word is, that's what I wanna do because I'm your slave. And see, if we respond like that in those confusing times in our lives, the times when we have sickness and death and loss and change and income loss, it doesn't matter what it is, anything that we wouldn't have set up for ourselves that we would have done different. And most of the times we're planning different, aren't we? We're not planning for that. So when God steps in with the miraculous, and let me tell you, every time your path twists, it's miraculous. Because it is the God who created the universe organizing your steps into His plan. Every single time. Even if it's something that you say, I don't have the tools to deal with that. Hallelujah, His strength is made perfect in your weakness. I don't even know how I'm going to bear that kind of sorrow. Great, I will bear it for you, God says. I know what sorrow is like. So when we're looking at our lives, what is our first response? I think what Luke wants us to know is shape your first response here out of this text. No matter what is brought to you, take a step back, even if it's brought onto you by evil, even if it's brought directly by evil of somebody else, even if it's brought just by sin in the world, take a step back and say, talk to yourself about what you know. And you say, I know that my God is sovereign. Nothing in the universe happens without His organizing it. I know that I am His child and He loves me. He has shown me favor, just like Mary has favor. He's shown me favor through His Son. I know that. I know that God is faithful to do according to His will. He is working out His plan every day. He is summing all things up in Jesus, as Ephesians 1 said. He is advancing His kingdom. And I'm supposed to pray for the advancement of His kingdom here on earth. I know all of these things. And I know that if God has sovereignly done this, he has a plan in this. So I am your slave, be as you will." What would happen if every single time a twist in our path happens, that's the way we respond first? How much heartache would we spare ourselves? Now, I'm not saying you're not going to be sad or sorrowful over loss or death or any of these things. It's not a magic pill to make everything rose-colored glasses, is it? It is a way to walk through it to the glory of God and say, He's in charge of this, not me. I'm sure that there's part of Mary that would have said, boy, that all sounds great, but can I think about this for a little bit? Can I, is there anybody else that you'd like to think about? You know, there's that other girl down there, she lives on the next street over. Maybe she'd be better off at this than me. She didn't think any of those things. But she was counting the cost. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans, sending us people with claims and petitions. It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and so urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God's, quote, crooked yet straight path. That's the way we look at our terms and twist, isn't it? It looks crooked to me, but if God's in charge, it's straight, it is righteous. So we have faith that God is working in that way because this is the way God has revealed himself in scripture. And so Mary exhibiting in that faith, it's not belief without proof. It's belief without reservation. It's faith in action without reservation. And that's what we should take away from Mary's response. Now why is that the case? Why can we do that? Because this promise of Jesus that she is going, that the power of the Most High and the Holy Spirit overcoming her, This is the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament for the Messiah, and Jesus is the one who will come and deliver his people from their sins. Mary knows this. We'll see this in the Magnificat next week, but Mary knows this because she says, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior. Now, there are some traditions that say that Mary was sinless in her own life. Well, if she was sinless, why did she need a Savior? She was not sinless. She needed the Savior and she had the favor of God resting upon her. And so it's the promise of Jesus. It is the promise of Jesus who comes as the rightful heir to the throne of David, the one who will reign forever, the one whose reign will be marked by peace, the one whose reign will be marked by salvation for his people, the one whose reign will be eternal, the one who will bring us into the new heaven and new earth because of his work and not our work. That's why Mary can rest. That's why you and I can rest. We don't have to be the person who sits and draws our next panel of our life, because we know that we are safe in the hands of God, who is drawing not only that panel, but he knows every panel that's going to come yet. And he's moving you in that direction toward that kind of joy and bliss in your faithful discipleship. Now, sometimes this takes what we might say is blindness, but all it takes is the faith of a true believer. You see, if we look at our situation and think, well, God can't be in that, or if we look at our situation and say, well, I must have caused that in some other way, that can't be God's plan, or something like that, we're still looking at our life and telling God that he did things wrong. And we're analyzing it based on our wisdom, our knowledge, our power, and our understanding of the future. I read this week about a mathematician who started studying in a class, and he walked into a class late one day, and he saw two problems that were up on the board. And he thought they were homework problems, so he wrote those two problems down and went home and started working on them. Well, in reality, they were two problems of examples that had never been solved before in the mathematical community. All these smart people had tried to solve them, and they never could. They were considered unsolvable formulas. But he didn't hear that part of the lecture. So he went home, and a few weeks later, he had solved them both. And his professor came in to him and said, you've solved these problems on your own. Nobody's ever been able to do that. And you know what his response was? Well, if I would have known they were never solved by anybody else, I probably would have never tried to do them. He would have just written them off and said, well, if the smart people can't do it, neither can I. This is what faith looks like for us. We're not looking at our life and trying to figure out each step before we get there on what's going to happen. We're looking at our life and saying, this is a sovereign gift from God. I'm not trying to solve it beforehand. I don't have to know anything except that God's in charge of that. And I don't need to do anything except be faithful to my God and how he speaks, I will follow. What he says, I will obey because I am his slave. We serve a God who raises the dead, not just draws panels of stick figures that look like him. And that God is worthy of our obedience. Father, we are grateful to you for the truth of your word, the depth and power of your word to us. We are grateful that this picture that we have of Mary and what you accomplished in her life, the favor that you put upon her, the picture of her obedience, the picture of her faithfulness, even in the face of all the questions that might be asked of her. We are grateful for this example to encourage us to trust this one, to trust this Jesus who is sitting on the throne of God. We are faithful. We want to be faithful, Father, to the one who came and lived and died so that we might have life. And I pray, Father, right now, that if there are those within the sound of my voice who have not yet come to that saving faith, who are still trying to write their own panels of the next stage of their life, who are still trying to ordain their own God, that they want to serve the God that they would create and they would envision, that you would overcome them right now, that you would overcome them with your spirit, draw them to yourself. and that you would grant them repentance and faith so they might turn from their sin and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. For this is the one who you have sent. You have sent as the miraculous fulfillment of the Old Testament, both man and God, to live a perfect life and die a perfect death that we might have life. So save those that you will today, Father. Bring them to your son, Jesus. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.