Sermon Tone Analysis

Our Text is a Watershed Text In Christian Truth.

This is the foundation of an Essential Doctrine.

This is the first time we are introduced to Mary but more importantly Jesus.

It’s not man’s perspective we hear from, there’s no news anchor or special bulletin, there’s no special documentary to explain it, rather it’s heaven we hear from.

We hear from heaven and God speaks to men revealing to them the person of Jesus Christ.

The One Who God Favors

“favored one” - one who has recieved grace.

God’s Favor Is:

She was a sinner, she did not deserve God’s favor, she had not earned the right to be the “Mother of Jesus”, she was a part of those who were sinners, not righteous.

God’s favor:

is always to those who don’t deserve it;

simply because he decided it.

Is usually to those who are least likely to receive it

She was an Insignificant Person as far as we can tell.

A lowly woman, from a lowly town, unrecognized by the world, but singled out by the God of the universe!

God cares for even the most insignificant, the lowly.

It isn’t the high and lofty that God favors, it isn’t those who have prominence or prestige, it’s the insignificant.

God shows his preference, raising up the lowly, favoring those who are not esteemed by men.

Don’t make yourself out to be something, don’t seek to raise yourself and make yourself something, (acknowledge what you are, give it to Christ, and let him lift you up.

Some men can’t be saved, because they can’t get past this, they are hung up on making something of themselves of raising themselves up.

She was a woman

Not a person in authority or leadership (In a day when the role of women was undervalued)

God had a promise to keep, and he used Mary to keep it.

Mary’s Response to God’s Favor?

vs. 38 She responded in faith and submission to God’s will.

She presented herself as the Lord’s “slave”

She was saying, ‘If this is what God wants, then I will do it.’

The way we should respond to God’s favor.

The Identity of Jesus Revealed

This is the first time we are introduced to the man Jesus.

And it’s not

Gender reveal <Jesus revealed

Great men revealed< The Son of God revealed

You Will Have a Son

He Was Man (The Seed of the Woman)

He Will Be Great

-Son of the most high: (the Son of God)

He’s going to be divine.

The one unique son of God, he was the darling of heaven.

-He Will Be King

You Will Have a Son

He Was Man (The Seed of the Woman)

Not merely God, not merely man, but the God-man.

Uniquely, Jesus did not begin at his birth, he began he existence as a man at his birth!

Here we see God’s love again!

God shows his love for you.

When he should have condemned all mankind to eternal destruction, when the next thing revealed could have been/should have been a holy God descending from heaven on a white horse accompanied by the armies of heaven bringing down the full fury of God’s wrath, when that should have been what was seen, we instead see

The Manner of His Conception Foretold

A problem presented

Mary was a virgin, and only engaged.

You’d have to be blind not to get that from this text!

The Power of God Magnified

The Result of a Divine Operation

God will act upon you.

You will become pregnant without having sexual relations?

How, God!

Illustration: Men have advanced in knowledge to the point that we can artificially inseminate an egg.

We can, take the seed of a man and in a lab combine it with the seed of a woman, and then place that egg back in a woman.

This is a marvel of scientific achievement.

But no man can take just the egg of a woman, and make a Child.

Men

The Holy Spirit will come upon you!

God is going to do something to you!

Jesus’s conception was not the consequence of man’s initiative, or skill, it was God’s power exerted on her!

A New Creation

“Will Overshadow You”

This echoes from the phrase used in Creation.

hovering: or brooding, like a hen who broods over a nest of eggs to incubate them, the Spirit of God was “brooding” over the earth to bring about life.

That’s the image of the Spirit over Mary.

The Holy Spirit is going to overshadow you, he is going to exert creative energy on your womb causing it to become pregnant.

God will overrule nature and bring about a miracle.

A virgin will conceive!

Everything about his conception shows that he was no ordinary man.

Further Witness

“Elizabeth…has also conceived.”

This was a sign to further prove the truthfulness of the message:

FOR NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!

A Demonstration of God’s Power

Jesus’ birth was a demonstration of God’s power.

God magnifies his power!

He draws back his sleeve and flexes his muscle and shows his strength.

When he could have magnified his power in judgment, he instead chooses to magnify it in becoming like you and associating with you!

He identifies with you, to save you!

Let Us Wonder at This!

We are meant to wonder at this.

As majestic as the rising of the son, it pales in comparison to the rising of the Sunrise of God’s salvation.

The sunrise of God’s salvation rises on God’s people.

THE WONDER OF WONDERS AS RECORDED BY THE INSPIRATIONS

WORD & MUSIC BY CHARLES B. WYCUFF

VERSE 1

THE WONDER OF WONDERS AS SHE LOOKED ON HIS FACE

THAT THIS LITTLE BOY SPOKE THE WORLDS IN THEIR PLACE

THE STARS AND THE MOON, SHINNING BRIGHTLY ON THEM

THE EARTH AND THE SUN WERE CREATED BY HIM

VERSE2

THE WONDER OF WONDERS AS SHE HEARD HIS SMALL CRY

THAT THIS VOICE HAD THUNDERED ON MOUNT SINAI

THE HAND THAT SHE HELD SO TENDERLY

HAD MADE A DRY PATH THRU THE MIGHTY RED SEA

VERSE 3