According To God's Word

Luke 1:26-38/Matthew 1:18-25

Today, we are going to look briefly at the accounts of 2 participants in the will of God in bringing the Son of God to earth, as a man.

This was going to be an amazing event in history, because of the nature of His birth, and the Person that it brings forth.....Jesus Christ/Fully God, Fully Man.

Some scholars believe that in order for this to happen, the participants of this birth must man and God.

Mary and The Holy Spirit.......It is not like any of us think, because we think so earthly, but Mary was a virgin even after giving birth to Christ.

God through His Spirit just made it happen, not the normal human way but supernaturally!

Jesus is God in a human body, humanly through the lineage of David he gains the right to rule the world.  And from the standpoint of deity, he gains the very essence of the nature of God by having been born without a human father through the agency of the Spirit of God himself.

The lineage is the rightful lineage and if that is all that there was to the birth of Jesus that is all He could ever be.

He could have never conquered death.  He could have never conquered sin.  He could have never conquered Satan and hell.  For that, he had to be God.  And so Jesus was the God-man, 100 percent deity, 100 percent humanity.

That is why Matthew 1 spilt into 2 parts, the human and the divine.

This would take participants that believed God, over and above, earthly ways.

Most people outside of the Holy order given by the angels, would of thought 1 or 2 ways about Mary and Joseph......

Mary and Joseph did not wait till their marriage.....

Or Mary has been stepping out on Joseph but he is not putting her away.

This was going to take great faith by these 2......

However, these are greats acts of courage and faith, I do want to make sure we understand and believe, that the key figure in all of this is Jesus the Christ the Son of The Living God!

Matter of fact, Joseph is not in any of the future ministry of Jesus, more than likely dying before that time.

Now as we look at our beginning text, we don’t know much about Mary except that she was Nazareth, cousins with Elisabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist....in the 6th month according to Matthew.

Mary was a little old simple girl up there in hayseed part of the country where everybody was a farmer and it wasn’t even Jerusalem.  It was kind of insignificant, and all of a sudden an angel, a great, glorious angel, not just any old angel, but Gabriel, Gabriel, the hero of Yahweh, Gabriel comes in and says, “Hail, Mary, highly favoured, blessed art thou among women.”

What a moment, the angel appearing is one thing, but being referred to as finding favor with God and blessed among women.

Highly favoured means “to bestow grace/kindness”

“Full of grace”......This portrays Mary as a recipient of God’s Grace not a giver of grace.

It could be understood that Gabriel left the presence of God to give these messages being that he done so to Zechariah earlier on in Luke’s acct.......Luke 1:19 “And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.”

Mary would also know about Gabriel appearing to Daniel in Daniel 8 & 9.

Gabriel coming from the presence of God Himself, to deliver His message to Mary, what a moment.....hard to understand for Mary!

As we read Gabriel’s message to Mary about Jesus.....

He will be great......

Gabriel also told Zechariah that about John the Baptist in Luke 1:15 “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.”

But there is a major difference......

It continues for Jesus.....

The major difference is the Jesus will be called the Son of the Highest and He will reign over Israel forever!

There will be no end to His Kingdom!

Later on, Zechariah prophecies about John the Baptist, his son.......calling him the “prophet of the Highest.”

He was made for this, given the spirit of Elijah to be a forerunner for Christ!

Now, let’s get back to Mary.......she didn’t quite understand how these events are going to take place, because none of the human things have happened that were supposed to happen to bring forth a child....

For with God nothing shall be impossible!

This would of put Mary in an extremely embarrassing and difficult position. Betrothed to Joseph, now becoming an unwed mother......

She would be accused of adultery....

A betrothal would be like marriage, if you was to call of the marriage during the betrothal period, you would have to be divorced.

The penalty for adultery during the betrothal period was the same as if they were married........death by stoning.

However, despite all of this she willingly submitted to the will of God!

Now let’s look at the angel’s visit to Joseph, while Mary was “found with child”......

Joseph was in a difficult position as well....he did not want Mary disgraced or stoned....

Joseph, a righteous man.......righteous meant he was also merciful!

In the phrase “a righteous man” meant that Joseph was a true believer in God, who had been declared righteous by his faith in God....he would of also been sincere and faithful to the Law of God.

To send her away would of been to divorce her according to the law, but privately as to not have her stoned.

The angel intervened into his thoughts by a dream.......

Go ahead and take Mary as your wife......the child she is carrying is from God....conceived by the Holy Spirit, not of man.

That Son will be called Jesus,........which actually means “Savior” ......Saving people from their sin!

Joseph immediately responded to the angelic visit, by doing as the angel said!

Mary and Joseph both were faithful to the angelic visits, not refusing........not wavering from their call!

We read those 2 accounts to get to this point....both Joseph and Mary, would know about a coming Messiah, even the dumb sheep herders knew of the promise.......Joseph and Mary would know prophecy........They knew that there was a promised Messiah and they wouldn’t believed anything that just come along without anything to back it up.

Paul uses hyperbole when speaking about someone coming and preaching another Gospel...

Galatians 1:8 “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Paul used the most absurd thing, an angel from Heaven, to explain if it is different than what we have already preached, what is backed up by OT prophecy..........than let that angel be accursed.

If an angel leaves the presence of God to deliver a message would not do this but if that message is different than what God has already spoken, it is not of God.

Hyperbole to explain that if it is different than what God has given don’t give it any credence!

Everything Mary and Joseph was told in these 2 accounts was backed by OT prophecy, everything God does is according to what He has already given us!

All of this was done that is might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord.........

24 times in the Gospel accounts does it speak,, that this was done that it might fulfill.......

Isaiah 7:14...........Isaiah 9:6-7..........They would of known this, all of Israel knew of this promise!

What was given to Joseph and Mary was hard for humans to believe and hard to understand......most things from God are.......but they responded by faith, they already had what God has promised! There is more in prophecy, but the prophecy was given In Matthew’s account just so you would know!

It is important to know God through His Word, to know what His Word says, so we can respond faithfully as Mary and Joseph did!

The most unusual thing backed up by prophets, some 700 years before the angels come to them! Gives me chills!