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Text: Luke 1:26-38 | WHEN GOD SHAKES THINGS UP
ME
INTRODUCTION: HOW DO I STRUGGLE WITH THIS?
My kids have found a show that they enjoy watching because it is interactive called “You vs Wild”
The guy gets into various situations and then you are giving the opportunity to choose what to do next.
It’s kind of like the old create your own adventure books.
Jayce will be going through, but if he makes the wrong choice he can just push the back button and make the correct choice.
Don’t you wish life worked that way?
I wish I could get a glimpse around the corner to what is coming and then come back and make the right decision every time.
But unfortunately that isn’t how life works.
So often in life I find myself feeling like my whole life is being shaken up and turned upside down to the point I can’t even tell which way is up.
WE
EXPLANATION: HOW DO WE ALL STRUGGLE WITH THIS?
Maybe you’ve been there.
Your life has become nothing but chaos and you feel stuck!
When God shakes up your life
When you get that unexpected phone call.
When you find yourself in the middle of a family situation you never expected
When you can’t figure out which way is up and your whole life is shaken up
What is your reaction?
Because this morning here in Luke 1 we can find an example of what to do when God shakes things up.
GOD
EXPLANATION: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS?
Joseph and Mary were betrothed to be married.
Betrothing was something similar to being engaged, however it was far more binding.
It usually lasted a year.
It could only be broken by divorce and the man and woman were called “husband” and “wife” even before the marriage took place.
If unfaithfulness was found on the part of the bride, the punishment was death.
It was the commitment of marriage without the physical consummation of the marriage.
Thus we find the Bible tells us she was a virgin.
It’s very possible she was only in her teens when these verses in Luke 1 took place.
You can imagine the excitement that Mary must have been feeling as she was approaching her marriage ceremony.
She was no doubt like all young ladies who dreamed of their big day.
As we see later in Scripture the wedding was often a multi-day ordeal
We find when Jesus was at the wedding in Cana where He turned the water into wine, the feast had already been going on for multiple days.
Maybe Mary was picking out her colors.
She was putting together the invite list.
She was making sure everything was going to be perfect for her and Joseph’s “big day”
Now we can assume that their wedding wouldn’t have been to the level as the one Jesus would one day attend.
Because neither Joseph or Mary came from money.
We find that after Jesus’s birth, when they came to offer a sacrifice in Luke 2:24
And according to Leviticus 12:8
The only reason someone would bring such an offering was if they didn’t have the finances to afford a little lamb.
Mary would even go on in her worship and praise to God to say about herself in Luke 1:48
She considered herself poor and of little importance.
This mindset no doubt came not just from her lack of wealth materially, but also from where she was from.
According to v.26, she lived in a little town called Nazareth.
Nazareth was just a small town that had a population of somewhere around 200-500 people
The people of Nazareth were despised by Judah because of their contact with the Gentiles.
There was nothing about Mary’s life that would have pointed to her being the chosen one of God.
She was a poor teenage girl, with big hopes, but had grown up in the wrong part of the country.
There was nothing leading up to this day that pointed to this being a life changing day.
But on this day everything would change for Mary.
Because on this day the angel of the Lord appeared to her with a message that would turn her world upside down.
V.28-29, I love the exchange when the angel first shows up.
Mary is troubled by his saying of v.28
I can’t help but wonder if he thought, “If you’re having a hard time believing what I just said, hold on to your seat!”
V.30-33, The angel begins to reveal God’s plan
For 400 years since the completion of the writing of Nehemiah in the OT, there had been no prophecy.
There had been no Scriptures being written.
God had gone silent in furthering the revelation of His Truth and Plan.
But in just a few moments, in one interaction, the greatest story that would ever be told was set in action.
The countdown to the coming Messiah had begun!
Mary you are expecting!
V.34, Mary responds in the most rational way that can be expected.
“Um… That’s not possible.
I’ve never been in a physical relationship.”
“I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”
She had been through biology 101 and she understood how these things happened, and what the angel was telling her was impossible!
And she wasn’t the first one to find herself at the edge of the impossible.
Moses at the edge of the Red Sea
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego staring into the fiery furnace
Joshua preparing to overtake Jericho
God had brought each of them right to the edge of the impossible, because He was going to reach down and change the course of history.
And for Mary, God had placed her right at the edge of impossible in her life, because He was about to change everything.
V.35-37, Gabriel gives the details
Gabriel unfolds God’s plan for Mary.
For the first and only time in all of history, God reached down and created a child in the womb of a woman that wouldn’t have the seed of man.
The echos all the way from Genesis 3 ring down through the centuries
This was a child unlike any to ever be born before or since.
This child would be called the Son of God: Jesus
A name that is above every name
A name that would separate and divide until the end of time.
A name that is powerful
It was this Jesus that would live a sinless life
It was this Jesus that would give his life on the cross to pay for the sins of the world
It was this Jesus that would rise again the third day
It was this Jesus that would ascend to heaven with the promise that He will return
It was this Jesus Who will one day call His bride, the church to heaven with Him.
It was this Jesus Who will reign for eternity.
And it was this Jesus Who Gabriel told Mary, that she would bear this child.
And in case she struggled to believe him, he gives proof of the power of God in Mary’s cousin Elizabeth who is too old to have children, but God has given her a baby.
Because, with God, the impossible is possible.
V.38, Now we’ve come to the moment of Mary’s reaction.
How would Mary respond to the promise of this Christmas child that was to be born?
She could have responded with doubt
Prove it
She could have responded with questions
How is this all going to work?
But instead we see an example of a powerful response when God shakes things up.
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