Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Recap: If you were with us last Sunday morning, we preached a message entitled “Unexpected.”
We talked about how God, for 400 years was basically silent - And then he begins speaking.
He speaks to an old man and an old woman and tells them they are going to have a son.
He speaks to an unexpected couple, gives them an unexpected promise, and sends their son on an unexpected mission.
We remind ourselves not to get weary in the waiting and not to miss God because he often shows up where we do not expect him.
Opening Story/Illustration: Christmas is often a time of surprises.
I remember as a kid trying to figure out what my parents had gotten me.
I was a devious little kid - I figured out that my walkie talkies were the right frequency to pick up my parents cordless phone.
So I would turn on my walkie talkies and listen in to their conversations in hopes that I could get an idea of what they were getting me.
One year they really surprised me.
I had just started playing guitar about a year earlier and all I had was a pawn shop special and it was pretty bad.
My parents got this box and I opened it and there was a guitar tuner inside and it said I had to search the house for what plugged into it.
So I went on this hunt and I finally found a brand new Washburn guitar in my parents bathroom.
I was so surprised by this.
Transition to the Text: This is exactly what God does as we continue the story.
He continues surprising us.
We are too familiar with these stories.
We need to read them again with fresh eyes as if we are hearing them for the first time.
They are full of unexpected surprises.
The angel has shown up to an old man and an old woman, but now about 6months later he shows up to a young girl.
A teenage girl.
Text:
Transition to points: Let’s look at this story today continuing our theme of “unexpected.”
Points
An unexpected woman (Luke 1:26-27)
If you and I were picking out the woman to bear God’s son, we would probably have picked someone maybe a little older, with more life experience.
If you and I were picking out the woman to bear God’s son, we would probably have picked someone maybe a little older, with more life experience.
God Picks a girl who they tell us was no more than 15yrs old and likely closer to 13.
This was the normal age in her society for betrothal.
This was the normal age in her society for betrothal.
This young woman is pledge to be married to a man named Joseph
Marriage, in her culture, consisted of 2 stages - engagement followed by the marriage itself.
Engagement involved a formal agreement initiated by a father who was seeking a wife for his son.
The bride’s father would be paid for marrying his daughter because he was losing a helper within the family and the groom was gaining one.
After the price was paid, they would put together a written agreement or oath.
The groom was agree to it and the couple was engaged.
An engagement was legally binding and any sexual contact by the bride-to-be with another person was considered adultery.
Parties at this time were considered legally husband and wife.
Joseph, the man she is engaged to was probably about 20 years old.
God chooses to work through this young couple who are just starting out in life.
I don’t know about you, but I look back on my younger self quite often and ask - “What was I thinking?”
The older often look at the younger like they don’t have a clue about life - and the charge is sometimes warrented
Yet God chooses two young people who are just starting out to bring his son into the world.
We expect the mighty, but God picks the humble and the lowly.
This means that God can use you - when you’re faithful to him.
Your age, your experience or lack of it does not matter to God.
In the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, we see God using the old, in the Story of Mary and Joseph, we see God using the young.
In other words - It’s going to take all of us to bring his son to bear in the world!
What caught God’s attention was faithfulness!
Mary Catches this idea in her song of worship:
You see this idea carried out in
John hears about a Lion, but sees a slaughtered lamb
God has a way of using things we do not expect.
A major theme throughout the Bible is that God uses the people we don’t expect him to use.
Illustration: Growing up, one of my best friends in high school was a guy named Johnny Byrd.
He wasn’t the type of friend you would expect me to have.
I has a pastor’s kid and I never really got into much trouble.
Johnny was a genius.
When he was in elementary school the teachers tested him and wanted him to skip some grades, but his parents wouldn’t let him.
Johnny got really bored in school.
Johnny’s step dad ran a roofing company, so at an early age he started roofing with his step dad.
And this got him around some pretty unsavory characters.
He started using drugs.
Then he started dealing drugs.
By around 17 he’s been in and out of jail multiple times, in fights, dropped out of school, and basically on his way to prison.
In fact, the judge told him if he saw his face again, he was going to prison.
But then something happened.
Johnny went to church with is mom and he got saved.
A little country pentecostal church where they still wore dresses and long sleeves.
Johnny’s life changed.
Today he pastors a growing church - If you had looked at him in high school he was unlikely - But God has a way of using the unexpected people to do unexpected things.
An unexpected pregnancy (Luke 1:28-33)
One of the leaders in this movement was a young man from Canada, Charles Templeton, born in 1915.
He was generally acknowledged to be the most versatile of the new young evangelists.
Templeton soon rose to prominence, even surpassing another dynamic young preacher, Billy Graham.
In 1946, he was listed among those best used of God by the National Association of Evangelicals.4
An unexpected pregnancy
We expect God’s plan to be easy - but God’s plan is often messy and painful.
This angel comes to Mary and tells her that she is going to conceive and have a son.
This comes at an awkward time - She is not married, she is engaged.
If she had been married, at least the community would think it belonged to her husband.
If she hadn’t been engaged, at least she wouldn’t have had to tell her fiance she was pregnant.
An expected pregnancy is complicated - How much more an unexpected one.
We expect God’s plan to be easy - but God’s plan is often messy and painful.
When a woman gets pregnant, everything changes.
After the baby is born, life is never, ever the same again.
Illustration: Getting married is a life changer for sure - But nothing changes your life more than having kids.
Marriage is small potatoes compared to having Children.
Before kids you can go out, you can kind of do what you want to do.
Once you have children, everything changes.
Late nights, messy diapers, fits in the grocery store - a new human being that is 100 percent dependent on you 24/7.
Having kids changes you, it changes your spouse, it changes the way you think and the way you live in ways that are beautiful and incredible as well as complicated, messy, and painful.
We expect God’s plan to be easy - but God’s plan is often messy and painful.
God’s work often complicates our lives
Think about Mary as she has to tell her family that she’s pregnant.
What would they think?
Think about the conversation she has to have with Joseph.
Think about the stares and the ridicule as she starts to show.
Think about how the town thought of her and of Jesus even as he was growing up.
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