Sermon Video

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Jesus Presented at the Temple

(click for audio)
Luke 2:21-40
26/12/2010

In this message Associate Pastor Chris Carrie explores the story of Jesus' presentation at the Temple from Luke's Gospel.  This story contains some great insights and challenges for us as we consider what it might have been like for Simeon and Anna to hear God's direction that the infant child with humble parents was actually the promised Messiah and Saviour of the World.

How do we receive God's guidance today?  Are we as willing as Simeon and Anna were to hear and respond to God when He speaks, even when it is contrary to our expectations?

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas Day Message 2010 - Peace on Earth



(click for Audio)

In this message Pastor Mike Birch explores the offer of "peace on earth" as announced by the angels to the shepherds outside Bethlehem.  Has peace actually resulted from the birth of Jesus, or does it remain an elusive fantasy?

Looking at the Christmas story itself contains the answer to these questions.  Jesus has in fact brought peace on earth to all who will receive it.  This peace is the result of Jesus' victory over sin on our behalf, for sin is the root cause of all conflict and turmoil.  Experiencing salvation through Jesus brings us inner peace now, peace to others through us and will one day translate to complete peace when Christ's perfect rule is made complete.  Up until that time peace is available to all on whom "God's favour rests", just as the angels declared.  God's offer of grace (His unmerited favour) is available to all who will receive Jesus as Saviour and Lord.  The message of Christmas truly is a message of Peace on Earth, but sadly not everyone will receive the message and be blessed by it.  Will you receive the message of Christmas this year?

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Greatness of Jesus


In Luke's account of Jesus' birth we read of a man named Augustus Caesar, a ruthless and ambitious man who rose to greatness, becoming the first Emperor of Rome and proclaimed to be a living God.  In contrast is Jesus, God made flesh, who put aside His greatness in order to become our servant.


Who is the Star of the Show?
(click title for audio)
Luke 2:1-7
19/12/2010

Introduction:
Who or what has centre stage in your life?
Who or what is your life all about?

In the play we have just seen there were a bunch of characters all competing for prominence in a story that should have been all about Jesus.

We’re going to spend a bit of time looking at some of the events surrounding the Christmas story and ask ourselves whether it’s possible that we too may have lost sight of the real star of Christmas.

In those days...
What days?

Our Dating system – Introducing Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Small)


Around 500 years after the birth of Christ Dionysus did a detailed study to try and work out exactly when Jesus was born.  He then used that as Year 1 in a new calendar, with every year afterward being known as Anno Domini – the year of our Lord.  The years before Christ’s birth were counted backward, and we know them as BC – Before Christ.

Despite his diligence Dionysus didn’t have all the information that we have available to us today, and he probably missed the actual date of Jesus’ birth by 4 to 6 years, but we’ll get to that later on.

At Luke’s time in history there wasn’t a globally recognised calendar.  The two most common ways of designating what year it was were:
·    The number of years since the founding of Rome
·    The number of years since some powerful person took office.

Luke uses the latter method and identifies the time in history by who the powerful people were at that place and time: Caesar Augustus and a guy named Quirinius.

...Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)

I want us to spend a couple of minutes getting to know these two powerful men.

1. Who was Caesar Augustus?

         Real name “Octavius/Octavian”
Great-nephew and heir of Julius Caesar
Not a particularly wealthy or powerful person by birth, but in Julius Caesar’s will was named as heir.

         Ambitious, ruthless, calculated & cunning
Being Caesar’s heir put him in a minefield of political intrigue, but he made a series of daring moves to increase his military power, until he was eventually the most powerful man in the known world.  His last real rivals were Marc Antony and Cleopatra, who both committed suicide facing defeat and capture.

         First Emperor of the Roman Empire
He used a mixture of diplomacy and military bullying to reform the Roman republic which had been torn apart by decades of civil war.  Octavian was the ruler who brought in the period of “Pax Romana”, the peace of Rome.

         Worshipped as a God (Given the title “Augustus”)
In 27 BC the Roman Senate awarded Octavian the title “Augustus”, which means “venerable” or “The Illustrious One”, and signifies his authority over humanity and even over nature.  The month of August is named after him (it used to be called “Sextilis”). 

In ancient Rome there was a practice of taking a census where all the male citizens had to report to a particular building in Rome and have their wealth assessed.  There were a number of other things that went on at this time, but the practice was discontinued during the many years of instability and war.

Under Augustus the practice was revived, and for the first time was spread to the provinces of Rome, not just Rome itself.

In what we now refer to as 8BC, Augustus commanded a census to be taken across the Roman Empire.  From his records we know that there were 4,233,000 citizens counted.  Not everyone in the Empire was a citizen, in fact it’s estimated that there were from 45 to 65 million people in the Roman Empire at that time.[1]

So does that give you a reasonable idea of how powerful Caesar Augustus was?  He was top dog in an empire of let’s say 50 million people, and he has one of the months of the year named in his honour.

2. Quirinius – say what?

Quirinius is a pretty notable historical character.  He was what the Romans called a “new man” – someone who was not born into the aristocracy but worked his way up from nothing.  He was a very capable military and political leader.

He was governor in Syria from 6-7 AD.  That’s where we run into problems!

Luke includes a little side note here for the benefit of his readers, so they’d be able to tell which census he is referring to: (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)

The problem is that the census referred to in verse 1 is the one Caesar commanded in 8BC.  We know that Caesar and King Herod were having a bit of a disagreement during that time so it was probably not until around 5 or 6BC that the census was actually carried out in Judea.  We know that it must have been done by 4BC, because that’s when Herod died.

We know that Luke was always very careful to provide good historical information and he was thorough in his research.  Not only that, we believe that the Spirit of God actually moved within him to make sure that what he wrote was trustworthy.

So what do we do about this apparent discrepancy?

There have been many good suggestions based on the archaeological information that we have available to us, but perhaps the most widely accepted view is to do with the word “first” that Luke uses here.

It’s all Greek to me!
protos – can mean “first” or “former”
Eg: Acts 1:1
“In my former book….”

It’s possible that a better rendering of the sentence is “This was the one before the census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

The census that took place in 6AD under Quirinius was perhaps the one that was best remembered in Israel because it created more of a fuss among the people.  This was to do with a change in the tax system which many Jews believed went against their religious convictions.  For that reason a guy named Judas of Galilee started a revolt which  was crushed by the Romans fairly quickly.  This would have happened around the area that Jesus was growing up when he was 10 years old.  So Luke in verse two wants to distinguish the former census from the latter.

But whether it’s to do with the particular Greek word used or whether Quirinius did oversee the first census as well on behalf of Caesar as some have suggested, what this demonstrates is that we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that Luke got this wrong.  We just need to admit that not everyone agrees on exactly what he meant!

We know that there was a census carried out in the next few years from 8BC, and we know there was a later one around 6AD.  Luke is trying to identify for us that it is the first one that he is describing in this story, but whether it’s because we don’t understand his grammar well enough or because we don’t know as much about Quirinius as Luke and the people of his time did, it’s become not-so-clear what he was saying.  God in His wisdom however made sure that we had enough information, supplied through Matthew’s gospel, to clarify this for us.

Why bother going into this?

I believe it’s important for you to know you can trust the bible, and this is one of those places that some people jump up and down and say “See, the Bible’s got it wrong!  These stories about Jesus are all made up!”

I hope that by bringing it up it won’t surprise you when someone else does, and that you will be confident enough to say “Yep, that’s a hard one to properly understand at first glance, but there are a lot of good scholars who believe that there’s no reason to think that the Bible is wrong here”.

Some people might yawn and say “Is it really that important?”, but I believe it is.  When we think about our faith, it’s vital to know that it isn’t a collection of fairy tales.  It’s not a bunch of stories that just teach good morals.  It’s not wishful thinking about life after death or anything like that. 

Our faith is based on the real revelation of a real God who really entered our world in order to reconcile us to Himself.

We live in a world which is increasingly saying that it’s OK to believe whatever you want to believe as long as it works for you.

I’m here to tell you either something is true or it isn’t.  Believing something with all your heart doesn’t help you if you’re believing a lie.  I want you to know that you can rely on the Bible to tell you the truth.  I want you to know that I won’t hide any information from you in order to make it easier for you to believe.  I will give you the truth, because I believe the Bible can stand up to any honest questions.

So now that we’ve got that out of the way, why was there a census happening anyway, and why did they have to travel all the way to Bethlehem?

Why Bethlehem?

There were two main reasons for this particular census.
1. Caesar Augustus loved to count his subjects!  He even made laws to encourage Roman citizens to have large families to grow the empire.  However this didn’t really affect non-citizens like Joseph and Mary.

2. Taxes!
We know from archaeological records that a large number of people from the area around Bethlehem migrated to Nazareth at around this time in history.  We don’t know why that was, but perhaps Joseph and Mary’s families were part of that migration.

Nevertheless in Old Testament law there was provision to make sure that traditional family lands stayed in the family.  Every 50 years the title would revert back to the original family line who inherited the land from their forefathers.  Joseph was descended from David, whose family owned land around Bethlehem.

The Romans taxed both land value and property inheritance, so Joseph would have needed to register as someone who either still owned property around Bethlehem or would inherit it when the title reverted back to his family at the next Jubilee year.

3 And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.[2]

What does Luke want us to know about the Birth of Jesus as he tells this part of the story?

1.  He wants to affirm that Jesus was born in Bethlehem just as the Old Testament prophesied.

2.  He wants to remind us that Jesus was of the line of David just as God promised

3.  He wants to point out that Joseph and Mary did not have any sexual intimacy prior to the birth of Jesus.

4.  He wants to point out the humble circumstances of Jesus’ entry into our world.  In contrast to the greatness of men like Caesar Augustus who could command millions to travel in order to put their names on a list and pay taxes for the upkeep of his empire, Jesus could not even displace His relatives from the guest room when the time came for his birth.

I find it pretty humorous that today most people in the world know of the month named after Augustus, but we count the years from Jesus Christ (granted, they got it a little wrong when they tried to work it out!)

Unlike so many politicians, generals, sports stars and celebrities who chase after greatness, Jesus hid His greatness.  Unlike Augustus, a man who aspired to be worshipped as a god, Jesus is God who aspired to be a servant to all.

Philippians 2:5-11
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

When we look back at history now, we see that Augustus was actually the pawn in God’s hand.

Was it a coincidence that after decades of civil war an emperor arose who brought peace and stability to the Roman world, just in time for Jesus to be born and for His followers to be able to travel throughout the world in relative safety?

Was it a coincidence that a census was called at just the right time to insure that Jesus was born in Bethlehem according to prophecy?

Augustus was a man who took the title of a god but was only ever a tool in God’s hands.  Don’t be intimidated or overawed by powerful people.  If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31)

Conclusion: Who’s the Real Star?
Jesus is the name that is above every name.
He occupies the highest place.
Is that true in your life?
Is He the star of the show to you?

As you put thought into celebrating Christmas, I hope you are putting thought into how you will celebrate Christ!

He was born humbly, lived humbly and died horribly – and this was all because of His love for you and I.

But praise God He did not stay dead, he rose again and now holds the place that He deserves.  One day everyone shall all see Him, bow before Him and acknowledge that He is Lord.  Until that day, those of us who know Him by faith live with that same attitude.  Jesus is Lord.  He is my King.  He is the Star of the Show to me.


[1] http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_demography#Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire
[2]All Scriptures from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Jesus' Birth Explained to Joseph


click title for audio (sorry no video this week)
Matthew 1:18-25
12/12/2010

Introduction

How would it have felt to be Joseph?  To be looking forward and working toward being married, only to find out that your fiancĆ© has become pregnant by someone else?

We’re going to spend a bit of time getting to know Joseph and learning some more about what God did in his life.  By doing this not only will we get to know the Christmas story better, but we will be better prepared for those times in our lives when we feel sinned against and we’re not sure how to respond.  It happens to all of us in different ways, and we can learn a lot from Joseph and a lot from God’s word this morning to help us with that.

The Story

18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Verse 18 summarizes for us what we already know from looking at Luke’s gospel last week.  Mary and Joseph were betrothed but God announced to Mary that she would have a child that would not be the result of a normal physical union but would be through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This has in fact come about, and it’s now been found out that Mary is pregnant.  We don’t know how it’s been found out.  Perhaps Mary went straight away to her parents or to Joseph and explained to them. 

Perhaps she’s kept her encounter with Gabriel to herself (how would you feel about telling your parents that God made you pregnant?) but is beginning to exhibit signs of pregnancy.

I want us to think for a moment about what this means for Joseph. 

He’s described in verse 19 as being a righteous man.  We can assume that as he and his parents looked for a suitable bride, they would have been looking for someone who would share Joseph’s commitment to live rightly, to live according to God’s laws.  We can assume that Mary’s parents and Mary herself also had this as a high priority in weighing up whether Joseph would be a suitable husband for Mary.

We need to understand this cultural aspect of how marriages were arranged.  The biggest issue was not “falling in love”, but a careful process whereby both sets of parents as well as the couple concerned evaluated the suitability of the man and woman for one another.

Anyone who has been married any length of time can tell you that feelings of attraction and the emotional rush of “falling in love” are terrific, but not enough to sustain a marriage.

The first thing that Carolyn found attractive in me was my eyes.  I won’t tell you what she said to her friend, because that would be weird, but she really liked my dark brown eyes!

But imagine if we got together at that point (which we didn’t) and Carolyn then discovered that I was selfish, chauvinistic, lazy and so on.  The value of my brown eyes wouldn’t last very long!  They wouldn’t keep our relationship going.

Our society places a huge emphasis on physical attraction and other qualities that actually don’t mean a lot for successful long term relationships.

When Joseph became betrothed to Mary he believed that he had found a virtuous woman.  He thought that he had found someone who was committed to what he was committed to – living according to the laws of God.

This thinking is reflected in the writings of the Apostle Paul, a fellow Jew, as he wrote about how we should evaluate potential partners – not just in marriage, but in life in general.

2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? [1]

This is a strong value for Jews – the idea of remaining separate in order to be holy was ingrained in their thinking.  That’s why Jews tried not to have too much contact with Gentiles – people who did not worship the true God.

I want you to remember though that Paul was a man who desperately loved unbelievers and did everything possible to reach them with the gospel.  He became all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some (1 Cor. 9:22). 

But with the wisdom God gave him he also recognised that you can’t tie people together when they are pulling in different directions.  You can’t be a full partner with someone who does not share your values.  You can’t follow God and at the same time travel a path with someone who is in rebellion against God.

Many Christians have found them in this situation, and we need to remember that the grace of God is always enough.  We’ve seen God do great things in families through one believing spouse/parent (see 1 Cor. 7:10-17).  However when given the choice God’s word is clear – do not choose to be unequally yoked.

That’s the dilemma that Joseph now faces.  It appears as though the woman he thought was going in the same direction as himself is actually a person who does not follow God’s laws.  As a righteous man Joseph could not see himself bound together with someone who did not share his values.

I want you to understand the great character that he shows here.  He’s been hurt.  He probably feels betrayed, deceived even humiliated – things no bloke wants to feel.

The normal response to feelings like these is anger and retribution.  You want to get back at the person who has hurt you.  You want other people to know what a villain that person is.

But we see that Joseph did not want to punish Mary or see her disgraced, in fact he hoped to deal with the matter quietly.  What a great example.  When someone sins against you do you try to work out the matter quietly or do you go tell people about it, recruit people to your side, punish the one who has hurt you?  The Bible has a lot to say on this subject, but if I were to sum it up it would be in these two instructions: follow the law of love and keep the offense small.  Don’t let it spread and contaminate others unnecessarily.

Joseph was trying to do that.  He is the one who has been apparently sinned against, but he’s wrestling with a decision that will be in the best interests of Mary while at the same time keep his own life on track with God.

But then an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and addresses the issue on Joseph’s heart.  He’s afraid to be married to a woman that he has lost confidence in.  He’s possibly afraid that one infidelity may lead to another.  How is love going to grow without trust?  If Mary was prepared to disobey God and betray him before their marriage was completed, what sort of wife and mother will she turn out to be?

There’s another reason that Joseph may have been afraid to take Mary home as his wife.  At this stage Joseph has a reputation that is intact.  Mary has apparently done the wrong thing, but Joseph hasn’t.  He is the victim. 

If he takes Mary to be his wife, it would be like admitting that he was the father of the child, that they had not waited until they were married.  Why else would he accept responsibility for it? 

Joseph has a tough choice.  He can expose Mary to public disgrace, or he can marry her in which case they will both likely be disgraced.  Or he can call off the marriage as quietly as possible.  The word for divorce is literally “send away” or “release”.  Perhaps Joseph is thinking that Mary could go live with relatives.  Her pregnancy could be explained in a number of different ways.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Had Mary already tried to explain this to Joseph or to her family?  We don’t know.  But Joseph needed to hear it from God.

God in his grace gives Joseph the assurance that what is going on is in fact God’s plan and it’s a very special plan. 

First the angel reminds Joseph that he is a “son of David”, in other words a descendant of David.  As we saw last week, it is important for Jesus to have that legal status as well.  The thing to note here for Joseph is that he has a role in what God is doing.  It’s not just about Mary and the child she bears, it’s important that Joseph be the legal father so that Jesus inherits the royal lineage of David. 

Secondly the angel reassures Joseph of Mary’s faithfulness and her part in God’s plan.  She is a virgin, despite the fact that she is pregnant.  The baby she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Mary really is the person Joseph thought her to be.  She is someone who is committed to following God’s ways.  She is someone he can marry with confidence in her character.

Thirdly, the angel reveals the reason that this has all come about…

 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

The Jews were eagerly anticipating a Saviour, but this was not the sort of Saviour they had in mind.  They wanted political and religious freedom.  They wanted their country back.

Now God through the angel announces to Joseph that the Saviour has come, but it’s a very different type of salvation – it’s salvation from our sins.  It’s not oppression from without but the sin that is within that is humanity’s greatest problem.

I listened to a sermon during the week from a very popular international speaker, but his message of salvation seemed pretty different from the salvation that the angel announced to Joseph.

Jesus did not come to save you from being financially poor in this life.  He did not come to save you from being physically sick in this life.  He did not come to save you from being emotionally low in this life.  He did not come to save you from being relationally distressed in this life.

Don’t misunderstand me – I believe that Jesus blesses us in every area of life and sometimes we should pay a lot more attention and have a lot more faith in His love for us and His power to work in our lives as we do what He says.

But He came first and foremost to save us from our sins.  He came to reconcile us to God.  He came to take the punishment we deserve so we could inherit the blessing He deserves.  You don’t know Jesus if you don’t know that.  It’s no mistake that the people who had the hardest time accepting Jesus were the people who had the hardest time acknowledging their need to be saved from their sins.

So God through His angel communicates these things to Joseph, with the result that…

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

When we read Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus (which we will next week!) we discover that Luke says Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph.  However in Matthew we read that Joseph took Mary home as his wife before they travelled to Bethlehem.

The reason for this is quite simple.  In ancient Jewish culture (as in many cultures even today) a marriage was not considered complete until the bride and groom had been physically intimate.  Still today we refer to this as consummating (completing) the marriage.

As Matthew explains in verse 25, Joseph and Mary had not completed their marriage, and would not do so until sometime after the birth of Jesus.
It was certainly not usual for a man to take a wife home and not be intimate with her, but these were special circumstances.  Once again Joseph’s righteousness is demonstrated in self-control.

Going back to verse 22..
22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

I used to find this a bit odd – Joseph is told to name the baby “Jesus” (which he does in verse 25) and this apparently fulfils a prophecy that He will be called “Immanuel”!

In fact, the prophecy in Isaiah 7 is being fulfilled not in the name Jesus but in who Jesus is – God with us.  Jesus has been called by the name Immanuel through the centuries just as Isaiah predicted.  This is because of what Joseph was told in verse 20 and what the New Testament affirms in many other places – Jesus was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit.  It was something only an Almighty God could do.  God the Son, through whom the Universe was made, was somehow transformed – made flesh – inside Mary.  God became one of us.

Isn’t that amazing?  The One who created everything – the one who is vast beyond our understanding or imagination – changed to become a collection of a few cells with incredible DNA inside a young woman’s womb.  How is it possible?  We don’t know, it’s just part of the wonder of who God is and what He does.

Application:
What can we take away from this story that will change how we live?

  1. Remember and follow the example of Joseph, a righteous man.  We will be hurt, we will struggle to understand what God is doing at times, we will wrestle with tough decisions when there seems no good outcome to be found.  Follow the law of love, keep any offences small and when God reveals His will, don’t be afraid to do it.

  2. Remember the name “Jesus” and the explanation – for He will save His people from their sins.  Let Him change you from the inside out.  Remember that your greatest problem is not what others do or what circumstances you face, but the sin that is within you.  Confess your sins, He is faithful to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8-10).

  3. Remember the name “Immanuel”.  God is really with us.  He is God of the infinite and the infinitesimal.  Whatever is going on in your life He is aware and He cares.  Experience His presence in every part of your life, and you will discover the incredible difference He makes.


[1]All Scriptures from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Birth of Jesus Foretold to Mary


The story of Gabriel's visit to Mary teaches us a lot about the faithfulness of God in keeping His promises and the grace of God in using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. ; We take some time to explore some of the lesser-known details surrounding the birth of Christ to gain a fresh appreciation of the virgin birth and a fresh vision for our own part in the story of bringing God into the world.


Jesus’ Birth Foretold to Mary
Luke 1:26-38
5/12/2010


Introduction:
·         How would you feel if someone you had never seen before said to you: Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” ? [1]
·         What if this person went on to tell you that God had chosen you for a task that would change the course of history?
·         People say all kinds of things all the time – I’ve certainly heard all kinds of prophecies made about people that I haven’t necessarily taken too seriously, but this was coming from the angel Gabriel! 
·         What would it have been like for Mary to have received such a life-changing message from such a powerful angelic messenger?
·         What can we learn from this story about how God speaks to us and reveals His calling for our lives?

Getting to Know the Story:
26 In the sixth month,

  • Not June!  The sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.  

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
·         Gabriel is a very senior angel – in fact he is one of only two angels named in the Bible.  The other is Michael.  Michael is described as a warrior who leads the angelic host, Gabriel is described as bearing messages from God to people on Earth.  He did this for the prophet Daniel, for Zechariah and now for Mary. 
·         Look at what happened to Zechariah when he didn’t believe Gabriel’s message (1:18-20)
·         Gabriel’s first mission was to Zechariah, a priest serving in the Temple in Jerusalem.   There was no more fitting place on Earth for Gabriel to visit.  This mighty angel who stands in the presence of God in Heaven is sent to the one place on Earth where God’s presence is said to dwell. 
·         Now he is being sent to the backwoods village of Nazareth.  Nazareth is a little town in the region of Galilee, which the Jews in Jerusalem consider to be more of a Gentile region than a Jewish region.  Many of the pious Jews in Judea consider the Jews of Galilee to be ceremonially unclean because they are in constant contact with non-Jewish people.  It’s an unlikely place for the angel Gabriel to appear.
·         However not only did he go to an unlikely place, he went to an unlikely person – not a priest this time or a prophet, but….

 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary . 
  • Mary is a young lady who is nearly married.  The contracts are signed, the dowry has been paid and Joseph is building their house, getting ready to come and take her home to be his wife. 
  • We are told that Joseph, the man she is to marry, is a descendant of David.  That’s really important, because God had promised that a great king who would rule over an eternal kingdom would come from King David’s family tree.
Jeremiah 23:5-6
5     “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;  and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.
6     In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness.’[2]

  • Don’t you love O.T. prophecy?  Here we have Jeremiah, around 600 years before the birth of Jesus, prophesying that a descendant of David will reign as a righteous king, the saviour of His people.  Not only that but he will be called:
    YĆ¢hovah
    , tsidqenuw /ye·ho·vaw tsid·kay·noo/ - The Lord Our Righteousness.  What a great summary of who Jesus is: He is God, and He is our Righteousness.
  • There is an issue that threatened to mess all this up, however.  Many of the kings that followed in David’s royal line were ratbags!  One of these was named Jehoiachin, also known as Coniah or Jeconiah. 
Jeremiah chapter 22:28-30 (just a few sentences before the prophecy we just read)
28 Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!
30 This is what the Lord says:
“Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”

·         We know from Matthew’s gospel that Joseph was a descendant of Jeconiah.  Neither Joseph nor any of his sons could ever be the king promised in Jeremiah 23.  This is another reason why the virgin birth of Jesus is so important.  Legally, Jesus needed to be a descendant of King David through the line of his son Solomon to fulfil a prophecy made to David (2 Chron. 17:10-14).  Biologically, the line of succession from David and Solomon was cursed from the time of Jehoiachin so that no king could come from it.  Jesus inherited the legal status through Joseph, but was not tainted by the curse on the physical descendants that Joseph carried.
·         This is a really exciting point.  It shows that God will fulfil His promises no matter what we do to mess things up!  It looked like David’s descendants had blown any chance of God’s promises being fulfilled through their family line.  But God knew about what they would do before He made those promises to David, and God knew all that we would do when He made His promises to us.  Never let go of the promises of God to you!  What He promises, He will do.  He may discipline us, just as He disciplined Jehoiachin and his descendants, but He will always do as He has promised.
Let’s get back to the story of Mary!
  • As we read the stories with Mary and Joseph in the Bible we can see that they are people of great character; and I think we can assume that they are looking forward to starting a life together.  They probably have got a reasonable idea of what they are expecting their life to be like once they are married.  That’s all about to change for Mary.
28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
  •  I love those words: “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you”.  We are going to come back and talk about this phrase a bit later, because it is a lot more important than many people realise.  But let’s get on with the story!
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
  • So Mary is told that God’s favour is upon her and she has been chosen for a special task – a tremendous honour.  She will have a son who she must name Jesus – meaning “the Lord saves”. 
  • Jesus will be the fulfilment of the O.T. prophecies, some of which we have seen already:
    • He will be great
    • He will be called “Son of the Most High” – He will be acknowledged as God’s Son.
    • He will be a king of David’s line
    • He will reign forever
    • His kingdom will never end

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God.”

  • There are many people who mock the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus.  We don’t have time today to examine every argument that is raised against it, as interesting and important as that is. 
  • When it comes down to it, this passage makes it very clear that Jesus was conceived through the power of God put into effect by the Holy Spirit.  It doesn’t come down to different interpretations of one or two ancient Greek words, it’s a clear and important aspect of the story which is consistently affirmed throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
  • The Messiah had to be born of a virgin in order to fulfil prophecy and in order to fulfil all of the functions that He performed for us.  He needed to be both human and divine.  Without His humanity, He could not be our substitute or identify with our struggles.  Without His divinity, He could not remain sinless nor be the revelation of God to us.  Jesus is the One who brings God and humanity together.  There has never been nor will ever be anyone like Him.
  • Given the daunting task of bringing this Jesus into the world notice Mary’s response:

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

  • Understand what a huge issue this was for Mary.  To be found to be pregnant while betrothed to a man was to risk the death penalty.  At the very least it meant that she would forfeit her chance to marry, which was pretty much the only thing that a young lady could hope for.  Who would provide for her and her child?  Her husband-to-be would surely divorce her or demand her death.  Her parents would disown her.  Where could she go?
  • Keeping all of the disastrous consequences of this pregnancy in mind, let’s read on in Luke 1:39-56
  • Mary has no idea of what the road ahead looks like, but she trusts that God will fulfil His promises and that her child will be the Messiah.  She believes that future generations will call her blessed because of the privilege that she – a humble girl from the backblocks of Galilee – has had in being the mother of the Christ.  It’s very likely going to be a tough road – it would turn out to be tougher in many ways than she could yet suspect – yet she was willing to take it because her confidence was in the Lord.
  • What an inspiring example Mary is to us of trust in God and willingness to obey despite the cost involved.  We might think that these characteristics could be among the reasons that God considered her to be worthy of His favour.  I mentioned that we would return to that idea, because it’s a very important issue that we need to understand.  Gabriel told Mary that she was “highly favoured” and that she had “found favour with God”.
  • We often think that these words mean that Mary was someone who had somehow earned great favour with God.  It really just means that she was someone God had chosen to be the recipient of great grace.   This idea is made very clear in the only other place this particular Greek word is used in the New Testament:

    Ephesians 1:3-6
    Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.   For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love  he  predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—  to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 

  • I love the fact that the free gift of grace that Gabriel tells Mary she has received from God is just like the free gift of grace that we have all received through her obedience.

  • Just as God chose Mary to be the mother of Christ, He has chosen us to be His children.  He chose us before the creation of the world, not on the basis of what we have done or will do, but on the basis of faith in Christ.  That alone is what qualifies us.  If grace could be earned it would be cheapened.  God’s grace is far richer and more glorious than any of us could deserve on our own merits.  Rather the Bible teaches us that our adoption into God’s family says nothing about us and everything about God.
  • Mary is a wonderful, noble character who should be appreciated and seen as a great role model for us.  However she did not deserve to be the mother of Jesus any more than you or I deserve to be saved by Him.  The favour that God bestowed upon her to bear Jesus was a gift given by grace alone.
  • God’s gift to Mary could not be earned, but it did come at a price.  Mary’s life would be forever changed.  It would be greatly blessed – a fact that she rejoiced in – but there would be a price to pay.  There was the risk of being cast out and rejected.  There was the pain of seeing her son rejected and killed.
  • In the same way God’s gift of grace to us is full of blessing, and comes at a price.  We risk rejection.  We risk suffering.  We must die to our own ambitions and desires.  If you claim to have accepted God’s gift but have not counted the cost, you need to think about that today. 
  • Don’t cheapen the grace of God by thinking you can earn it.
  • Don’t cheapen the grace of God by thinking that there is no price to pay in receiving it.
  • But in the midst of the acknowledging the cost, be like Mary and praise God as the Mighty One who has done great things for us, the One who will bring us through, the One who will always keep His promises no matter how much we mess up, no matter how insignificant we think we must be.


[1]All Scriptures unless otherwise noted taken from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Je 23:5-6). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.