Luke 1:26-38 - The Impossible Promise
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Introduction:
Last week we discussed the persevering promise. We talked about how long Zechariah and Elizabeth awaited the birth of a son to them. This week we are going to learn about the impossible promise. I am sure that most of us know that it takes a mom and a dad to have a baby. We won’t go into details about that, but it is clear scientifically that both genders are required for the formation of offspring. Yet, today we are going to see an impossibility become a reality. God delivered on a miraculous birth last week with an older couple well beyond their childbearing years having a child. This birth was a pretty big deal. But it was something that we had seen before in Genesis with Abraham and Sarah. This week we will see a promise that seems even more impossible than that! We will see God create a baby in the womb supernaturally by the Holy Spirit. Join me as we learn more about the God of the impossible!
Prayer
Before we dive in, I want us to understand that Luke’s Gospel is so important to us today. We would not have this account or the last account that we saw regarding Gabriel revealing the birth of John the Baptist without his thorough research and the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Many accounts in the Gospels overlap, but there are certain accounts that are unique to each one. And these two are amazing examples of that.
As we get moving into this exciting section of Scripture we are going to see four different ways that we should be prepared for God to act. The first is...
I. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Send (26-27)
I. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Send (26-27)
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
Here we see that Gabriel is a pretty big deal when it comes to the Messiah coming to earth. He is sent on yet another mission possibly as shortly as 6 months later! We just saw him reveal the plan for the John the Baptist as the forerunner of Jesus Christ and reveal the miraculous way that he would be born to an aged couple. Now we see him being sent to a young lady named Mary.
The two women we see in this account and the preceeding account are actually relatives. We will see this in verse 36. Although Mary has her lineage traced from the tribe of Judah and down through the lineage of David (see Luke 3:23-38) while we are informed that Elizabeth is a Levite among the daughters of Aaron - there has been a marriage between two in their family to make them relatives. We are not told exactly how closely they are related, but we are told that they are.
And although many years separate the two in age, they both likely understand what it is like to have reproach. We saw Elizabeth facing reproach because she was barren in our last sermon. But it also clear that there is at least some reproach for Mary just because of where she is growing up. Nazareth isn’t exactly known as the place of honor among the the Israelites. In fact, we see Nathanael ask the following question in John 1:46 when told about Jesus:
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
We see that Nazareth was not exactly the Beverly Hills of Israel. And yet in this small town of low esteem, something amazing is about to be revealed.
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
In verse 27 we are given some more information regarding whom Gabriel was being sent to. We see the word virgin used twice to describe this young lady named Mary. Why does Luke find it so important to stress the virginity of Mary? Hold on for a couple of points and we will get to that. But we are told that this virgin is betrothed to a man named Joseph and that he was of the house of David.
Luke tips his hand a little early here by mentioning Joseph being of the house of David (as we already mentioned - Mary was also of the house of David as seen in Luke 3). This is an important fact because the Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah and the line of David. See the following two prophesies regarding this:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
Here we see God speaking this covenant to King David. And in Jeremiah 23:5 we see:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
We get a sense that something big is about to come. But what of this betrothal to Joseph that we see in Luke 1:27?
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
What we understand about betrothals is that they were much different than engagements that we see today. A betrothal was arranged by parents in which the son’s family would pay a bride price because the wife would eventually go and live in the area where the husband lived. There would be a period of around a year where the husband would work on finding or building a home suitable for their family. Afterward there would be a wedding feast followed by the two being officially married and consummating the marriage.
This betrothal was a big deal however. In order to break a betrothal, there would have to be an official divorce. The couple was understood to have a legally binding contract almost equivalent to marriage.
And if there was any unfaithfulness found during this year, it was treated as adultery and could be punishable by death. Continue to reflect on this as this account moves forward.
God is sending quite a message to Mary. As we will see soon, she is prepared to hear this message. Her life had been spent in a place where nothing big seemed to ever happen. And now there is angel being sent to her personally! But as we will see by her response later in this section - she was prepared to hear a message from the Lord in humility.
May we be prepared for what God sends to us brothers and sisters. It might not an angel of the Lord that comes and brings you a message. But God has something to speak to you through His Word and the Holy Spirit. He has places that He desires to send you. He has jobs for you to do that His Word says He prepared beforehand for you to walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). Your job is to be prepared for what He might send your way. Be in the Word and in prayer. Be in close relationship with your Savior. Be ready my friends.
Next we see...
Scripture References: Luke 3:23-38, John 1:46, 2 Samuel 7:12, Jeremiah 23:5, Ephesians 2:10
II. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Speak (28-30)
II. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Speak (28-30)
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Picture Mary here. She is likely a teenager and she lives in a town of low esteem and the angel Gabriel appears and calls her ‘O favored one.’ I can’t image how she must have felt at that moment! She hadn’t been favored her whole life on earth. She grew up in a town of low esteem. She was living under the insane and paranoid era of Herod the Great. Life probably didn’t seem like she was too favored at that moment.
And we come to the word that we saw when Zechariah saw Gabriel - troubled. The word troubled is the same word we saw with Zechariah - however this Greek word here has the prefix -di which means two or double. Hence she was greatly troubled or greatly disturbed or doubly disturbed or troubled! Zechariah was fearful and disturbed - but Mary, being a young teenager, was even moreso!
Again we see Gabriel use the phrase ‘do not be afraid.’ Like we saw with Zechariah as well, Gabriel knows the immediate impact of his presence and dispels fear with encouragement and kind words.
Gabriel uses this word favor again and lets her know that she has found favor with God. The Greek word for favor here is charin (kah-rin or ha-rin) which is a variant of the same word we see for grace. You see, Mary was not more special than everyone else. Contrary to the false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, Mary was a sinner.
We must not miss the fact that she was righteous as well. We don’t want to swing the pendulum so far from the Roman Catholic Church that we miss the fact that Luke does highlight Mary’s obedience, her thoughtfulness, and her worship. We will see much of this in Luke 1:46-56 as we see Mary’s Song of Praise - also called Mary’s Magnificat.
But we also can’t miss Romans 3:23:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and Romans 3:10
as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
In fact, Jesus said this exact same thing on earth while Mary was still living in Luke 18:19
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is the dispenser of God’s grace (Pope Pius X, Leo XIII). The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the dispenser of grace. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is a mediator between God and man and even goes beyond that in the following quote:
“there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God” (Pope Pius X, Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum)
My friends this is blasphemous. There is only one mediator between man and God and that is Christ Jesus.
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
May we avoid Mariolatry - or idolatry of Mary - and may we worship Christ in Spirit and in truth. We praise God for Mary and see that she was a righteous woman. But may we never disrespect Christ by exalting Mary.
But we can learn a lot from these few verses here. Mary is hearing a message from the Lord. She has been sent an angel and now he is speaking to her.
We are blessed with hearing from God as well. We hear from Him in His Word. He has given us the inerrant Word of God for us to hear His voice and know His plan for us. We should be prepared for God to speak to us as we study His Word. Nothing is impossible for God.
No, we should not read the Word of God as some puzzle to solve to figure out what His plan is for us.
But as we seek to learn more and more about God - His qualities, His will, His actions - we will be able to discern more clearly what His will is for our lives. The closer we get to God through prayer and reading His Word and walking in the Spirit - the more clearly we will hear His ‘still small voice’ through His Word (1 Kings 19:11-12).
Next we see that...
Scripture References: Luke 1:46-56, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:10, Luke 18:19, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Kings 19:11-12
III. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Save (31-33)
III. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Save (31-33)
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Now comes the message. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. So far - nothing out of the ordinary in this account yet - until you see verse 35 that we will get to in a few moments! But verse 32 takes it to a whole different level. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give to Him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Let’s break down these prophecies for a few moments:
1. He shall be called Jesus
Luke does not expound upon the meaning of this name like Matthew does in his Gospel.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The name Jesus directly means “Yahweh saves” or “the Lord is salvation.”
Next we see that…
2. He is Son of the Most High
Most High is also another name for God the Father (Acts 7:48 and Mark 5:7).
And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
In essence He will be called the Son of God and He is the Son of God. Going along with this is the statement right before this which says that Jesus will be great. This is allusion that Jesus is, in fact, God made flesh. See Deuteronomy 10:17:
Deuteronomy 10:17 (ESV)
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
Next...
3. He will be given the throne of His father David
See Matthew’s account where he lays out this truth.
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
We also mentioned the very fact that the Messiah would come of the line of David from the tribe of Judah as we looked at 2 Samuel 7:12 and Jeremiah 23:5 in our first point of the sermon. Here we see God fulfilling these prophecies of old.
He will also…
4. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and His Kingdom will never end
There are many cross-references that we could go through regarding the promised Messiah who was to come and reign over Israel - or the house of Jacob. If you recall, Jacob was renamed Israel in the book of Genesis after he wrestled with God.
A couple of references regarding Christ’s forever reign are Daniel 2:44:
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
and Micah 4:7
and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.
This is where we see the already and the not yet as we have mentioned before. The kingdom of God has come with Jesus Christ. But it has not been fully realized and will not be fully ralized until the Day of the Lord that discussed in 1 Thessalonians a few weeks ago. Jesus Christ is supremely sovereign even now as I speak. Yet, He has allowed the forces of evil to have their time until the end. He restrains evil often - and we should praise Him that things are not worse than they are brothers and sisters! But one day He will reign with absolute force and all praise and all honor and all glory will be given to the Lion of Judah. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11)!
What a group of prophecies! I cannot imagine Mary’s awe regarding what was being said about this child that she would bear. Her people had been praying for a Savior for centuries and now He was coming!
We are now only a few short weeks from Christmas. I pray as we prepare for Christmas, 3 short weeks from now, we remember what the name Jesus means. The Lord is salvation and Yahweh saves. May we remember that our God came for us. He came to earth as a baby and lived the life we could not live. And He did all of this to glorify His Father and save us. How wonderful and great is our God!
And now to our final point...
Scripture References: Matthew 1:21, Acts 7:48, Mark 5:7, Deuteronomy 10:17, Matthew 1:1, Daniel 2:44, Micah 4:7, Philippians 2:10-11
IV. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Secure (34-38)
IV. Because Nothing is Impossible with God… We Should Be Prepared for God to Secure (34-38)
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Now comes a curve-ball. Mary asks how will this be since she is a virgin. How can an unmarried woman who has known no man have a baby? I think that is a legitimate question!
Many read this in English though and feel like Zechariah got a raw deal when he asked Gabriel a question. We will see Gabriel in a moment explain how this is going to happen and not scold Mary for asking a question. Yet Zechariah is disciplined by being mute for quite some time!
The Greek reveals a little more to us as we study further. Although English translations use the word ‘how’ for both Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question - there is actually a difference here in the Greek.
Zechariah in verse 18:
How - kata (kah-tah) ti (tee)
Shall I Know - ginōskō (yee-no-sko)
This - houtos (oo-tose)
Mary in verse 34:
How - Pos (pose)
Will This - houtos (oo-tose)
Be - eimi (ee-me)
As you can see, there is a difference in the original Greek between these two questions. Zechariah asks with doubt. How can he know this to be true? Mary asks a practical question that does not drip with doubt. She asks how will this be. Her question assumes that it will happen but asks how it will practically happen since she is a virgin. And Gabriel answers her question as follows:
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
Here we see that it will not be a natural childbirth. This will not be a child given to her after marrying Joseph. This will be a child created in her womb by God through the Holy Spirit. Talk about supernatural. Talk about impossible. It is interesting that the idea of a virgin birth had never occured in pagan mythology up to this pointe. No historical records show anything like this. This wasn’t even something that man had even imagined to be possible.
It is important to understand the term overshadow here as well. Some in our twisted world have tried to make this seem immoral.
This Greek word is episkiazō (epi-ski-ahz-o) and is used to express the glory of the Lord coming upon man. It never has an immoral or sexual connotation. We see Luke use this same term during the Transfiguration of Jesus:
As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.
This term has to do with the glory of the Lord coming down upon man. And here we see that God will come with creative glory and fashion a baby in Mary’s womb supernaturally. This child will be directly created by God. He will be made fully man but also fully God. He will have no sin nature because He will be the Son of God. Yet he will also be born of woman and be fully man.
The virgin birth is of utmost importance in Christianity. Luke could not have been more clear for us to know that Mary was a virgin. He has used the term twice in verse 27, a similar term stating that she has not known a man in verse 34, and now specifically how this baby will come to reside in her womb in verse 35.
You see, the virgin birth is extremely important to Christianity. Jesus must be fully man and fully God in order to be our Savior.
Jesus must be fully man because:
He must be able to die a sacrificial death (without being fully man He could not have died).
He must be able to sympathize, intercede, and mediate for us.
Jesus must be fully God because:
He must be able to bear the wrath of God and suffer on our behalf. No regular man could do this for us.
He must be able to secure eternal life for us. He must have power over life and death to do this.
If we remove one of these from Him - He is not able to save the world and intercede for us. These two understandings are pivotal for our faith. Jesus Christ was and is and will always be fully God and fully man. He is one Person with two natures. And this is extremely important for us to always remember.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Gabriel also informs Mary that there has been another miracle recently as well! Elizabeth - her relative is also pregnant and in her sixth month. I will close in a moment talking about the end of verse 37. This God of supernatural promises as we saw with Elizabeth just gave a seemingly impossible promise.
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Mary’s response is the response we all should have when the call of God comes to us. Behold I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.
Our response should be humble like this as well. She doesn’t complain about what people might think or what trouble might happen to her. As we mentioned earlier - she doesn’t ask about how God is going to keep her from getting stoned from a possible alleged accusation of adultery. She doesn’t talk logistics with Gabriel and continue to question the minute details. She doesn’t ask about how God is going to mend any relationship troubles with her and Joseph once he finds out she is pregnant.
Instead, she trusts in faith that God will do what He said He would do. She trusts that she will be protected by God through all of this. She trusts that God will keep her secure and secure this blessing for her. She leaves the details up to God and does only what she is called to do - be obedient.
Scripture References: Luke 9:34
Conclusion:
As we come to a close, I want to read verse 37 again:
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
My friends, do you believe that today? Do you believe that nothing is impossible with God? Do you believe that God can supernaturally create a baby in a mother’s womb with no earthly father involved? Do you believe that God can take a sinner and make them clean and save his or her soul? Do you believe that God can deliver you from the bondage of addiction or sin?
Brothers and sisters - nothing is impossible with God. Trust in God in everything. He is faithful and always keeps His promises - even the seemingly impossible ones.