Call His Name Jesus
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
v. 31, call his name Jesus - He will bring salvation.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
v. 32, called the Son of the Most High
v. 35, will be called holy - the Son of God - He will be sinless
[CONTEXT] God sent Gabriel to announce to a priest named Zechariah that he would be the father of a great man of God named John who would be the forerunner of the Messiah, the forerunner of the Anointed One who would save God’s people from their sins.
[CIT] Then God sent Gabriel to announce to a virgin named Mary that she would be the mother of the greatest man of God - a man named Jesus who would be the Messiah, the Anointed, God in the flesh sent to save his people from their sins.
[PROP] As we study this passage, we will see Jesus and be left in awe as we see the wisdom and power of God in announcing to Mary the birth of her son and his, our Savior Jesus.
Mary (ma’-ry) = Bitterness; rebellious; obstinate; (root = trouble; sorrow; disobedience; rebellion). Greek form of Miriam = Their rebellion.
Jesus (je’-zus) = Jehovah is salvation; Jehova, my salvation; Savior. Greek form of Jehoshua.
Luke: Crossway Classic Commentaries The Angel’s Announcement to the Virgin Mary (1:26–33)
29. Greatly troubled. The Greek word here is very strong and intense and is used nowhere else in the New Testament.
Luke: Crossway Classic Commentaries The Virgin Mary’s Question to the Angel, and His Answer (1:34–38)
In a religion which really comes down from heaven, there will always be mysteries. Of such mysteries in Christianity, the Incarnation is one.
MAJOR IDEAS
MAJOR IDEAS
The Humility of Jesus’s Coming ().
The Humility of Jesus’s Coming ().
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
God sent his Son through unknown virgin from an obscure town. Nazareth was so obscure that it wasn’t mentioned in the OT. It was a town of less than 2,000 people in Jesus’s day and although it was located on road that led from one place to another, it was never thought of as a destination itself. As Nathanael said to Philip in ...
God sent his Son through unknown virgin from an obscure town. Nazareth was so obscure that it wasn’t mentioned in the OT. It was a town of less than 2,000 people in Jesus’s day and although it was located on road that led from one place to another, it was never thought of as a destination itself. As Nathanael said to Philip in ...
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
That’s were Gabriel delivered his message to Mary and where Jesus would spend the early part of his life (cf., ).
God surely could have done this some other way had he wanted. One preacher said, “It would have been great condescension (for Jesus) to come to earth as a king and reign. It was a miracle of mercy beyond our understanding (for Jesus) to come to earth as a poor man, to be despised and suffer and die,” (J. C. Ryle).
It is in fact humility that will mark everything about Jesus. He didn’t just preach to crowds, he welcomed children. He didn’t just debate religious leaders, he healed the untouchable (i.e., lepers) with a touch. He showed just as much interest in the spiritual wellbeing of a Samaritan woman at a well as he did a religious leader named Nicodemus who came to question him during the night (, ). He was the Son of Man come, not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many, ().
This humility began before birth. As says...
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
Ryle, J. C. (1997). Luke (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.There must be something to this humble beginning. It is in fact humility that will mark everything about Jesus.
There must be something to this humble beginning. It is in fact humility that will mark everything about Jesus.
Likewise, says...
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
[TS] Because of the humility of Jesus’s birth and the humility that marked his life and ministry, it’s almost ironic that he is described by Gabriel in such wonderful ways.
That brings us to the Greatness of Jesus, which Gabriel describes in vv. 31-33.
The Greatness of Jesus ().
The Greatness of Jesus ().
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.”
Even before Jesus is being carried in Mary’s womb, Gabriel says that he will be great.
Even before Jesus is being carried in Mary’s womb, Gabriel says that he will be great.
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is Savior.
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is Savior.
The name Jesus means “Jehovah is salvation” or “Jehovah, my salvation” or “Savior.” This is highlighted in where, after Joseph resolved to divorce Mary quietly, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said...
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is God.
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is God.
He actually says that Jesus will be called the Son of the Most High (v. 32), which is another name for God used throughout Scripture. Now, this is an astonishing claim, but it is equating Jesus with God. It is no doubt saying that Jesus is God.
This was a claimed that Jesus made as well. In Jesus said...
I and the Father are one.”
John 10“I and the Father are One.”
Likewise, in , Philip said to Jesus...
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
And Jesus replied...
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
John 14:
“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
It is beyond our comprehension, but God exists as One God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. All three Persons are completely God individually. (In other words, each Person in the Godhead doesn’t have 33.333333% divinity. Each Person of the Godhead is 100% divine. Each Person is 100% divine.) And yet, there are not three Gods but One God in three Persons.
All that to say that, when Gabriel says Jesus will be called the Son of the Most High, he is saying that Jesus is God. In v. 35, in fact, Gabriel says Jesus will be called the holy Son of God, because his Father will be God the Father who is holy.
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is King.
Gabriel says that Jesus will be great because he is King.
Luke is sure to include the detail in v. 27 that Joseph is of the house of David. Although Joseph wasn’t Jesus’s biological father, he would have been Jesus’s father in the eyes of most everyone else who didn’t know any better and weren’t going to believe anything else. In fact, after Jesus astonishes the people of his hometown with his wisdom and mighty works, they ask in ...
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
Luke included this detail about Joseph to prove that Jesus had a legal right to the throne of David.
This important because Gabriel said Jesus would be the fulfillment of God’s promise to David in , which says...
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. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
There are parts of that promise that applied to David’s son, Solomon, such as building God a house or temple. However, there are other parts of that promise that could not have been about Solomon. (E.g., Solomon’s throne was not established forever.) Gabriel said that Jesus’s kingdom would be. Again, says...
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Israel’s true Savior, God, and King was coming into the world through the womb of a virgin named Mary.
The Work of the Holy Spirit ().
The Work of the Holy Spirit ().
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 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.
Mary did not doubt what God promised. She was, however, genuinely confused about how she, a virgin, was going to have a baby. She was looking for a biological or natural answer to her question in v. 34. Gabriel, however, gave a supernatural answer. Look at again at what Gabriel says in v. 35a...
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.
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.
But even after hearing this explanation, if we were looking for a biological answer to Mary’s question, we might be tempted to ask, “What? What do you mean ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon (me);’ that ‘the power of the Most High will overshadow (me)’”?
Joseph didn’t receive a clearer explanation. In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph was simply told that Mary was with child “from the Holy Spirit,” ().
Likewise, we won’t receive a clearer answer than the supernatural one given to Mary in Luke 1:35. The renown Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle said Gabriel’s answer to Mary in v. 35 demands holy reverence rather than unprofitable speculation. That is surely correct. He also said...
J.C. Ryle on Mary being overshadowed by the power of the Most High (v. 35) - Holy reverence rather than unprofitable speculation
Luke: Crossway Classic Commentaries The Virgin Mary’s Question to the Angel, and His Answer (1:34–38)
In a religion which really comes down from heaven, there will always be mysteries. Of such mysteries in Christianity, the Incarnation is one.
But
What is not a mystery in this passage, however, is the prominent work of God the Holy Spirit and the creating power of God.
says that although Jesus offered himself physically on the cross, it was through the Holy Spirit that he offered himself without blemish to God.
says that the Holy Spirit living in us is the same Holy Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
The Holy Spirit had a prominent role in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Therefore, it should not surprise us then that the Spirit has a prominent role in his incarnation as well.
It also should not surprise us that Creator God has the power to create life in the womb of a virgin. If God made the world and everything in it (), including the first man and the first woman who had neither mother nor father, then surely creating the physical body of Jesus without the input of a biological father was no problem. That sort of thing may seem impossible for us, but nothing is impossible with God ().
Just in case Mary was having a hard time believing or understanding everything that Gabriel was saying to her, he offered to her the example of God’s power in Mary’s relative, Elizabeth. Gabriel said in vv. 36-37...
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.”
If God can bring forth a son for barren Elizabeth, then he can bring forth a son from the virgin Mary. Nothing is impossible with God.
[TS] That brings us to the readiness of Mary.
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Luke: Crossway Classic Commentaries The Virgin Mary’s Question to the Angel, and His Answer (1:34–38)
Did Jesus die to make atonement for our sins? (See Hebrews 9:14.) Did he rise again for our justification? (See 1 Peter 3:18.)
The Readiness of Mary ().
The Readiness of Mary ().
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.
Even though Elizabeth’s pregnancy would be proof of the truthfulness of Gabriel’s message, v. 38 is still an incredible statement of Mary’s ready obedience to the Lord. We might even wonder how she was so ready to obey the Lord in such an unusual situation.
Some would say that Mary was so ready to obey the Lord because she was so devout. That seems likely, because it doesn’t seem likely that God would choose a rebellious woman to bring the Son of God into the world.
However, what we know for certain is that Mary was favored or graced. When Gabriel came to greet her, he said in v. 28...
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
That word “favored” is really just another form of the word “grace” used throughout the NT to describe the unmerited kindness of God in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Mary was not, has never been, and never will be a dispenser of grace. She was, however, a recipient of God’s grace and that grace made her ready to obey even in such an unusual situation.
But grace wasn’t the only thing that made Mary ready to obey. Gabriel also greeted Mary with a promise in v. 28...
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
As Mary later reflected on Gabriel’s words to her, these words no doubt became very precious to her. From her community’s perspective she was going to be unwed and pregnant, which meant they would look at her as immoral. Even so, the Lord was with her. She was betrothed or legally pledged to Joseph who would likely conclude that she was an adulterous. Even so, the Lord was with her. Her own immediate family would be embarrassed by her pregnancy and perhaps they too would shun her. Even so, the Lord was with her.
Obedience wasn’t easy, but Mary was ready to obey because of God’s grace and God’s presence.
[Illus] In the OT book of Judges, there is the story of Gideon. He was beating out wheat in a winepress in order to hide the wheat from the Midianites. As he beat out the wheat we can imagine Gideon mumbling under his breath, “I love to beat those Midianites and stick them in a winepress! That’s what I’d like to do!”
Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor,” (). Immediately begins to complain saying in ...
And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The response from the Lord was, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do I not send you?” ().
But then Gideon cites the difficulty that he will have in obeying this command from the Lord. In he said...
And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
The Lord answers these difficulties with one promise: “I will be with you.” says...
And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
You can read the rest of the story in Judges 6ff, but suffice it to say that Gideon does strike down the Midianites in obedience to God’s command.
It wasn’t easy to obey, but he did it because God was with him.
The same would be true for Mary as she carried the Savior who was coming into the world to strike down Satan, sin, and death.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Is God with you this morning? Have you been graced?
Are you ready to submit yourself to the word of God as the Lord’s servant?
You can’t experience the presence of God without the grace of God and the only way to experience that grace is through faith in Jesus Christ.
Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor,” (). Immediately begins to complain saying in ...
Jesus was indeed sent to save his people from their sins. Do you belong to his people? You might say, “Well, no. I’m not apart of his people, because I’m not Jewish. I’m not a descendent of Abraham.” But the Bible says that the true people of God are those who believe God and have their belief counted to them as righteousness just as Abraham did (; ).
And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Do you belong to his people? You might say, “Well, no. I’m not apart of his people, because I’m not Jewish. I’m not a descendent of Abraham.” But the Bible says that the true people of God are those who believe God and have their belief counted to them as righteousness just as Abraham did (; ).
We might wonder how or why God counts us as righteous just by believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead to make us right with God. But the answer is the grace and power of God.
Why would God save us? Because he is gracious!
How could God save us? Because nothing is impossible with him!
If you already know Jesus, live a life marked by humility and ready obedience knowing this, that this same Jesus born of a virgin, humbled to the point of death, even death on a cross, is now exalted and bestowed with a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, ().
If you don’t know Jesus, I’d love to talk with you more about following him either now as we respond to God’s word or after the service.
He is the Word made flesh revealed in the word of God. Do you know him?