The Light of Christmas

Luke 1:26–38 NIV

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Introduction: https://skitguys.com/videos/the-reason-for-the-season-a-christmastime-rhyme

20 - God Gave Us His Word.

Mary says: According to Your Word.

vs. 37 the Angel literally says, “For every Word will not be impossible with God.”

Here was the Promise:

“1. The promise of continuity for David’s lineage (Psa 89:5, 30, 37; 2 Sam 7:12). - vs. 32

2. The promise of the Lord’sperpetual faithfulness and mercy (Psa 89:5, 25, 29; 2 Sam 7:15), in spite of his discipline of David’s son (Psa 89:31–33; 2 Sam 7:14). - There is no Davidic King on the throne at the time.

3. The promise of a unique father-son relationship (Psa 89:27–28; 2 Sam 7:14). - vs. 35

4. The promise of an eternal throne for David (Psa 89:5, 30, 37; 2 Sam 7:13, 16). - vs. 33

(Mark L. Strauss, “Messiah,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016], Logos).

1. God’s promises for Israel from her past set the tone for the future arrival of his Anointed One. While it is fair to say that God would anoint kings and leaders for tasks and leadership, none could have been referred to as God’s Messiah or Christ. This title was reserved for God’s coming Savior and Redeemer. In this season, we are invited to stop and consider what it means that in Jesus we have a Savior, Redeemer, and King to lead, guide, and direct our lives.

So throughout the entire O.T. God was giving His Word, and...

21 - Jesus’ Birth is God Fulfilling His Word.

1 - There is some emphasis on Naming Jesus, God directs Mary to name the child Jesus. “In popular etymology, ‘Jesus’ means ‘Yahweh saves’ (cf. Matt 1:21).

2 Second is the emphasis on the “The ‘greatness’ of Jesus - Son of the Most High, be called Holy - We might think of greatness in terms of conquest - the GOAT - But here as we that greatness will be manifest by Jesus’ death on the cross - his servant hood to save people from their sins, but then his conquest of death itself.

3 Hendriksen and Kistemaker write, “Not only will Mary have a son, and not only will this son be great, even the Son of the Most High, to whom God will give the throne of his father David, but thirdly, the rule of this Jesus will last forever: he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end. It should be unnecessary to state that according to our Lord’s own explanation it is not an earthly or political kingdom that is in view here, but rather the kingdom or rule of grace and truth established in the hearts and lives of all those who have the God of Jacob as their refuge (Ps. 46:7, 11). See Luke 17:21; John 6:15; 18:36, 37; Acts 1:6–8. In the words of the apostle Paul this kingdom is one of ‘righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”’ (Rom. 14:17). Its ultimate outward manifestation will be ‘the new heaven and earth’ and all the blessings that go with this gloriously renewed universe” (Hendriksen and Kistemaker, Luke, 87).

So Jesus will fulfill his word to save, to establish God’s Kingdom, and that this Kingdom will be forever, but it will be done through the impossible. The virgin birth. Why is this important.

“The doctrinal importance of the virgin birth is seen in at least three areas.

1. It shows that salvation ultimately must come from the Lord…The virgin birth of Christ is an unmistakable reminder that salvation can never come through human effort, but must be the work of God himself…

2. The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person…God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary’s womb by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit…

3. The virgin birth also makes possible Christ’s true humanity without inherited sin…Luke 1:35 connects this conception of by the Holy Spirit with the holiness or moral purity of Christ, and reflection on that fact allows us to understand that through the absence of a human father, Jesus was not fully descended from Adam, and that this break in the line of descent was the method God used to bring it about that Jesus was fully human yet did not share inherited sin from Adam,” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 529-530).

How can we respond to God’s gift of Jesus?

22 - Trusting God at His Word.

1. We need a Savior. Anything short of a Savior will not work in Christianity. Here is a good story explaining how people hunger for a Savior: “One day a Hindu philosopher visited a women’s school of village evangelism and asked if he might lecture [the] women on Hinduism. [He was] granted permission, and returned with two others. All sat on mats round [the] floor, and [the] Hindu pundit gave [an] interesting talk on God, ending with a transcendent Being so far away and unapproachable, and man in the depths of such abysmal ignorance and degradation, that they were left gasping for breath. When he suddenly stopped, the women cried out, ‘But go on, go on, you can’t stop there.’ ‘Our religion stops there,’ he replied” (The London Churchman (1950), quoted in John Stott, “Salvation,” The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott, ed. Mark Meynell [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018], Logos).

For Many in our culture their religion stops there. It has no room for a God, who loves us so much that he emptied himself to come so near us as to be born as a baby like us, to take on humanity like us, to grow in wisdom and stature like us, and to live among us.

Quotes:

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Thomas Jefferson

If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical. – Dan Brown

I am one of those Christians who does not believe in the virgin birth, nor in the star of Bethlehem, nor in the journeys of the wisemen, nor in the shepherds coming to the manger, as facts of history. – Marcus Borg

1. We need a Savior. Anything short of a Savior will not work in Christianity. Here is a good story explaining how people hunger for a Savior: “One day a Hindu philosopher visited a women’s school of village evangelism and asked if he might lecture [the] women on Hinduism. [He was] granted permission, and returned with two others. All sat on mats round [the] floor, and [the] Hindu pundit gave [an] interesting talk on God, ending with a transcendent Being so far away and unapproachable, and man in the depths of such abysmal ignorance and degradation, that they were left gasping for breath. When he suddenly stopped, the women cried out, ‘But go on, go on, you can’t stop there.’ ‘Our religion stops there,’ he replied” (The London Churchman (1950), quoted in John Stott, “Salvation,” The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott, ed. Mark Meynell [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018], Logos).

In the face of these doubters, this story is being presented to us not as myth, but as historical testimony from Mary. The confirmation of which is also the miraculous birth of John the Baptist. And the claim that no Word of God is impossible for him to accomplish.

We know John existed, and we Know Jesus existed, and we know Jesus died on the cross, and we as followers of Christ are convinced that Jesus rose from the Dead not just on the belief of belief, but on the historical evidence as well. Jesus’ resurrection is confirmation that he is no ordinary human. Jesus’ conception explains how that is.

Youth/Children: What does it matter to me that Jesus was born from the virgin, Mary? – It Means you Matter to God, every aspect of you. – He took on life, being a child, teenager, adult, struggles, joys, he of all people understands you.

Growing in Jesus: How does it have an impact on my relationship with Jesus? – That by having a relationship with him – he is your connection to God – God/Man

Close/Centered in Jesus: How does the Incarnation and Life of Jesus a model for us to share the Good News with Others? It means that we share the good news by being in relationship with others.

Conclusion: