Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
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 conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him 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 Jacob’s descendants 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 on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] 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 unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Listening guide
“May your word to me be fulfilled.”(verse 38)
Who is this child? son of the Most High God; He will reign on the throne forever.
Whatever you want, I want, God.
Discussion questions
Sermon
I’ve got some presents for you today. I’d like to give you them.
I brought some trash. That’s for you.
I’ve got a chocolate bar.
I’ve got a broken toy
Give a game
I’ve got a book
Give a pandemic
Give a million dollar
Did you hear what Mary said about her present? She didn’t say “ewww” and she didn’t say “yay!” either. What did she say?
“May your word to me be fulfilled.”(verse 38) Do you know what those words mean? They mean, make it happen. Let’s do this. I want what you want, God.
God has just said to her, I’m going to give you a baby. She doesn’t say, really?. She doesn’t say, “um no”. She doesn’t say hooray. She says, if that’s what you want God, that’s what I want. I want what you want.
Did you see how much your response changed for each gift I gave? I could almost tell what I gave you by your response. If I gave you a bad gift, you were sad. When I gave you a boring gift, you were annoyed. f I gave you a great gift, you were glad. When I gave you an outrageous gift, you were ecstatic.
God told Mary, here is my gift to you. Her response tells us so much. This is how you respond if Jesus really is who the angel says he is.
That doesn’t work for Jesus. You can’t do that with Jesus.
The son of the Most High God. That means he is God. He is all powerful, almighty, all knowing, eternal,
He will reign on the throne forever. That means he is a king like
He is God in human flesh. There is no one else in the universe like him.
Some people say, I don’t have to respond to Jesus. I don’t have to do anything with Jesus. Because Mary lived a long time ago and she was religious like everyone else. It was easy for her but not for us. No one believes that stuff anymore. A man who is God? That doesn’t happen.
You have to see how hard it was for Mary to believe. When the angel comes to Mary and says a fancy “hello”, Mary was troubled. And not just a little troubled. Mary was greatly troubled.
Mary was even more confused when the angel told her she would have a baby. She said, how could this happen? She didn’t expect miracles to happen all over the place.
It’s easy to think, people who lived long ago were simple. They believed in God and supernatural things because they didn’t know how science and the world worked. That wasn’t the case at all. These things didn’t happen. Angels didn’t just start talking to people. Women did not have babies who didn’t have men in their lives.
You can’t say, thus isn’t going to make a difference because it’s an old fashioned story.
God is saying to you today, I am putting the most wonderful, beautiful, glorious, and even fun gift in your lap.
He is also saying, I’m putting the most powerful, the most mighty, the most magnificent force, the most terrifying, and the most destructive force in the whole world in your lap. You have to realize what I’m giving you and respond in the right way. I’d like to give us an example.
Train I thought it was from my grandpa raising my dad. We figured out this year that it was it was probably my great grandpa who bought it raising my grandpa. I immediately started treating it differently. I resolved right away to get a professional to take it apart and redo the electrical.
Does that kind of realization happen about Jesus?
There was a man who was at a conference one time listening to a woman speak.
The woman said, “If the distance between the Earth and the sun—ninety-three million miles—was no more than the thickness of a sheet of paper, then the distance from the Earth to the nearest star would be a stack of papers seventy feet high; the diameter of the Milky Way would be a stack of paper over three hundred miles high. Keep in mind that there are more galaxies in the universe than we can number. There are more, it seems, than dust specks in the air or grains of sand on the seashores. Now, if Jesus Christ holds all this together with just a word of his power (Hebrews 1:3)—is he the kind of person you ask into your life to be your assistant?”
That simple logic shattered my resistance to doing what Mary did. Yes, if he really is like that, how can I treat him as a assistant rather than as Supreme Lord? (Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas,
This child is the greatest gift. He is not the greatest gift because of all the nice things he will do for you, even though they are awesome. He is not the greatest gift because of the help he will give you when life is bad, even though that is great. He is the greatest gift simply because he is the greatest.
The one thing you can’t say or do, is nothing at all. You either say, no way. I don’t want anything to do with you Jesus. Or you say, I want all of you. Let’s do this. Whatever you want, I want.