The Grace of Jesus' Birth
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship: Luke 1:68-69 // Prayer
Call to Worship: Luke 1:68-69 // Prayer
Adoration: Father, you have visited and redeemed us. Your power is on display not only in the vast reaches of the universe you effortlessly spoke into existence, but in the tiny zygote that you planted in the virgin’s womb by your Spirit—your Son, given for our salvation.
Confession: Yet though we know your salvation, our hearts are still so backwards. Even this week, we have failed to trust you, to worship you, to obey you, to give you the central place in our loves, thoughts, actions, schedules. And we have failed to fully love those you’ve placed in our lives. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.
Thanksgiving: But though our sins soar up to heaven, yet your grace towers far above them. In your tender mercy, through the cross of Jesus, you have forgiven us. And though we sat in darkness, you have taken us by the hand, and promised to guide our feet to the way of peace.
Supplication: Father, may we then walk in the way of peace, by your Spirit’s power. And this morning, we ask for our deacons/deaconesses/treasurer/secretary: as they serve us, please sustain them with your gospel, and fill them with wisdom and love for their responsibilities // for Hope Fellowship of Hillsboro: may the gospel of your love compel them to love you and one another, and may the power of your Spirit among them bring praise in their gatherings and a joyful witness to their neighbors; and may they and we and all your people have hearts that wait eagerly for your appearing // for the secret congregation in the UAE: through everything that buffets them, please hold them up, and prove your gospel true through the fruit of holiness in their lives // in the US, we ask that you would end abortion: we ask for those involved, that they might hear your gospel and believe, and so be cleansed from their bloodguiltiness; we ask for laws to protect the innocent unborn // as we turn to Your Word… fill us with wonder at the virgin birth of our Savior.
Family Matters
Family Matters
Christmas Eve services: invitation--11 am service, 6:30 pm carol sing
Sign cards for our shut ins
Benediction
Benediction
Now may the God for whom you wait, lift you up out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire and set your feet upon a rock, and may He place you in the shadow of His wings until the storms of destruction pass by. Amen.
From various Scriptures.
Sermon
Sermon
Read: Luke 1:26-38
Intro
Intro
Every month, when we recite the Apostle’s Creed together, we say that we believe in Jesus Christ, “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” And in the very few words used to carefully craft that creed—84 words—10 were spent on the virgin birth. Why? Out of all the important truth in our faith, why did the early church give it such weight?
And sometimes, as modern Christians, we have the opposite reaction—we don’t know what to do with it. It’s awkward for us. I mean, if you’ve learned about the birds and the bees, you know it doesn’t actually work that way… or so the thinking goes. So we tend to treat it as an “awkward Bible truth.” Either we hope that no one asks us why we believe that, or, we stick out our necks and defend it… but we don’t have any use for it beyond that.
But Brothers and sisters, when you read this passage in Luke, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Luke wants us to see the virgin birth as something glorious—something that lifts our eyes up to God, and displays the largeness of his grace. But it can be difficult to see exactly what that is, or why. The story is so familiar to us, and the concept of the virgin birth has become tangled in unhelpful controversies in the past couple of centuries.
But as we walk through Luke’s account this morning, we’ll see that God’s people have received nothing less than Divine Redemption through the virgin birth of the Son.
And we’ll see this first in God’s favor to give us his Son,
And second in God’s power to bring about such a birth
God’s Redeeming Favor
God’s Redeeming Favor
**So first, God’s favor**
This all begins with an angel from God, Gabriel, seeking out a virgin from a backwater town of Nazareth in the least important part of Israel—Galilee. This virgin’s name is Mary, and she’s betrothed to Joseph. That basically means that they were legally married, but had not come together physically. So, Mary was still a virgin.
And in verse 28, the angel greets her like this: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
What does that mean? Why did he call her, “Favored One”?
The idea of favor here is very similar to the idea of grace: “Mary, Lord has singled you out to receive his favor. You are about to receive an astounding grace from God.”
And as we’ll see, this gift of grace is God the Son, become human for our salvation.
And the phrase, “The Lord is with you”—at the end of the angel’s greeting—this comes from the OT:
This is what the Angel of the Lord said to Gideon, to assure him that God would save Israel through him, from slavery to the Midianites
This is what a prophet told King Asa, to encourage him to lead Israel in a revival of true worship
And so the point of the angel’s greeting is this: “God has set his grace on you, Mary. And he is about to do something astounding through you, for the salvation of his people.”
But how does Mary respond?
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
Why is she troubled? Why doesn’t the greeting make sense to her?
Well… I suppose for starters we can give her a break—the experience of an angel giving such a bold announcement—that by itself was probably unnerving.
But the way that Luke has recorded Mary’s whole story points to something else also: Mary was troubled because she was wise enough to understand how bad things were. Why do I say that? Because later, when she’s rejoicing (and we’re going to look at her joy next week)—but when she’s rejoicing you can see that her joy comes from the fact that God has come to save her and her people, in spite of their poverty, humiliation, and hunger.
Mary was wise enough to understand the desperate situation of God’s people—which was really the desperate situation of all humanity—and therefore humanity’s desperate need for God’s grace.
Now, this particular story doesn’t have much to say about human sin. It is focused on the consequences of sin, and how God has promised to overcome those by his grace and power. But it is interesting to note: Mary doesn’t say, “Favor from God? Well, good. Cause it’s about time.”—There’s a background assumption here: people don’t deserve God’s favor. And so when he shows up and gives it, it’s startling.
Or, it should be.
You can imagine the response of a religious pharisee—a self-righteous person—ancient or modern: “I’m a favored one? I thought so. I always knew God needed me.”
Or the response of someone whose heart has been clouded about just how badly he needs God’s grace: “Oh hey. I’m favored by God? That’s cool I guess. But could you keep the explanation short, Gabriel? Cause I was scrolling my Instagram feed and you interrupted.”
Or maybe you have some sense of your personal need, but your pride prefers that God hold off his favor, until you’ve had a chance to fix yourself up. Then your pride can tolerate a little favor from God, because at least you’ve done something to earn it.
But a soul with the wisdom of Mary says, “Here I am, desperate. If I am to be saved, it must be by God’s favor alone.” And only that kind of faith can receive God’s salvation.
So what does the angel say to calm Mary’s heart? vs. 30:
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Here, again, is the emphasis on God’s favor. But it comes with the statement: “Do not be afraid.” This is also a phrase from the OT. And when God said this to his people, it was often because he was about to save them, in some miraculous way.
And so, in verse 31, the angel starts to explain this miraculous salvation:
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, the idea of an endless kingdom is startling and glorious, no matter who you are.
But this announcement is about a very specific Kingdom: the exact way that this announcement is worded is meant to call to mind for us a prophecy in Isaiah 7:14, written centuries earlier, which reads:
Isaiah 7:14 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
Notice: In that ancient prophecy in the book of Isaiah, the Messiah is named Immanuel, which means “God with Us”
In our passage, in verse 32, the Messiah is called, “Son of the Most High”
What’s the angel saying? “Mary: this promise of a divine Messiah is about to be fulfilled through your womb.”
Now, why would such a truth be a way to calm Mary’s heart?
This goes right back to the humiliation of God’s people. They were poor, oppressed, hungry—and Mary saw this, and apparently it was a weight on her heart. But how had they gotten into such a bad place?
Well, we don’t have time for a full explanation right now. But here’s the cliffnotes version: centuries before Mary, God had given his people a kingdom with a glorious line of kings. But the kings and the kingdom had failed—the hearts of the kings were infected with sin, just like the hearts of the people. And so the kings and the people walked away from God, and the kingdom was destroyed.
And this is the same basic problem as your own sin, whatever it might be: selfishness, pornography, gossip…
But since that point, God’s people had mostly lived in poverty and oppression. But God had also given them prophets, who promised: “God is going to renew that line of kings, but he’s going to do in such a way that it won’t fail again, and everything that was evil and broken about that kingdom will be healed, forgiven, and restored. And God himself will come to live among us.”
And that is a promise which belonged not only to them, but also to us—to anyone who turns to Jesus for redemption.
And so when the angel said,
Luke 1:32–33 “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.”
…he was saying to Mary, “God is about redeem his people to a better kingdom than they ever had, with a Divine King, and he’s going to do that through your own womb.”
So then, the startling favor of God was about to fall on Mary, and through her, on all of God’s people. They were about to receive Divine redemption through the birth of God’s Son.
God’s Redeeming Power
God’s Redeeming Power
**But there was a problem**
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Again, Mary is wise: she recognizes the impossibility of the situation. She is a virgin. She is unable, by any natural means, to bear a child.
And Mary’s situation—her helplessness—reflects the larger helplessness of God’s people:
In the OT, God’s people were actually described as a woman unable to give birth to salvation—for example, in Isaiah 26:18, Israel says:
we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
Israel was unable to give birth to salvation—because of their sin and their powerlessness
But it was precisely the impossibility of the situation that made it perfect!
Maybe you struggle with the idea of the virgin birth. And if you do, it’s OK to say that. It’s OK to ask questions and wrestle with doubts as a believer. And so you might say, “I really struggle with this because—well—a virgin giving birth is biologically impossible!”
And so you look at this, and it’s a problem for you. Maybe this will be helpful: have you ever considered that maybe the impossibility of the virgin birth is the whole point?
How does Luke say that the impossible was made possible? Verse 35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”—in other words, the power of God.
The power which brought the universe into existence with a mere word.
In any other situation, God’s power would be hidden beneath natural processes. But here, it becomes undeniable—in the virgin birth, the saving power of God is put on display.
But what does God’s power accomplish, in this case?
The angel continues in verse 35, “therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”
So, the power of God caused not merely a miraculous conception—but also, an unspeakable mystery: through the work of the Holy Spirit the Divine Son took on human nature, becoming a fetus in the womb of Mary.
As the poet John Donne wrote: “Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.”
Behold, the power of God: in this silent miracle in backwater Bethlehem, in the womb of a teenage peasant, what did God do? He shattered the line of despair which closed off people from his presence: he himself entered creation as one of us.
And so, far from an embarrassing tale, the virgin birth is a glorious display of God’s unstoppable power to save.
Now, to bolster Mary’s faith, the angel adds some news:
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.”
This is the same thing, just in a slightly different form: a child for a woman who was far too old to have kids—and who was never able to have any—a child, where a child should be biologically impossible.
So, we’ve already seen that, by God’s power, God the Son became one of us, for our salvation.
But here, with Elisabeth, we see God’s power bringing life, where before their was none. Life to the barren womb.
And I think this speaks to the pain of those who have endured the bitterness of the barren womb. It does not remove the pain or heal the wound in this life. But it does speak a promise: God is a God who brings life out of death—and so, the suffering of your barrenness, though bitter in this life, is preparing for you a weight of glory beyond measure in the life that is to come.
For, by God’s power, we have received divine redemption through the virgin birth of the Messiah, and by that same power, he will bring us safely home to that glory.
Conclusion: Responding in Faith
Conclusion: Responding in Faith
Now, verse 38 gives us Mary’s reaction to all of this:
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.
What is that?
Faith and obedience
And this is the only rightful response to the announcement of God’s saving power: to trust in his promise of salvation in Jesus, and to humbly obey him.
And so, every month, when we recite the Apostle’s Creed together, and we say that we believe in Jesus Christ, “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,” what should we think? In faith, along with the church of all ages, we should delight that God chose such a birth for the entrance of our Redeemer into the world. Why? Because we have received nothing less than Divine Redemption through the virgin birth of the Son.