The King is Born

Scripture Reading

Will you turn over in your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 1? Luke chapter 1. We're going to take a break from Mark 13 in our series there for this week and next week. We'll pick back up at the beginning of the year, but we're going to have two topical sermons. And so this morning we're going to look at Luke chapter 1. We'll begin at verse 26. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles in front of you, you'll find that on page 903. Luke chapter 1, beginning at verse 26. Brothers and sisters, this is God's perfect Word.

Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give 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." Then Mary said to the angel, "'How can this be, since I do not know a man?' And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore, also the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month of her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, Behold the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Lord, we come to your word this morning and it is a familiar passage. Lord, we pray that that might not make our hearts dull to the power and the truth of what we learn here today. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit might work in our hearts in such a way that we would see this passage, know its truth, and we pray that it would impact our lives. Please help us, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sermon

When we come to a familiar passage, we come to an ancient story. We come to something that's probably not a surprise to you that I would preach something around this time. Because there is nothing better than to stop and to remember who our Lord Jesus Christ is. And so this morning we come to our passage, and I pray that this is not just another Christmassy type sermon that just, you know, well, they just, we could have just turned on the Hallmark Channel.

I pray that you see the gravity of what the angel promises to Mary here, and how Jesus fulfills every single thing that the angel says. So we're going to work through the story together. And first, we need to see the angel's first announcement. Now in the sixth month, what is this sixth month? It's her sister here, her cousin, Elizabeth. She's six months pregnant now. So in the sixth month of, as you put there, Elizabeth's pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.

Why does Luke, this is one of these interesting, peculiar things, right? The first thing we're going to do, just so you know, get oriented, we're just going to work through the passage, and then we're going to ask ourselves different questions about people who deny these passages, and then what does it mean for us? So that's just a kind of general structure. But I have a question here. Why do you think that Luke has to say, it's kind of like, okay, the angel Gabriel, he enters into the story, and then he has to go to a region, and then he has to go to a tiny city. I was on Facebook the other day, I shouldn't spend too much time there, I try not to. But there was this little meme, it had a picture of a downtown midwestern little town.

And it said on the caption, if this is the type of town you were raised in, you have to tell everybody else the nearest city. Because nobody knows where your town is. And I thought, well, that's true. When I went to India, I had to say, OK, where in the world do people know? I'm from somewhere near Chicago. No, I'm nowhere near Chicago. But that was the closest pinpoint. But somebody will say, well, yeah, I know where I was.

You might say, well, where's, well, I'm like, Des Moines capital here, you know, a place that none of us could spell very well. Des Moines over here and Quad Cities over here, we're kind of down there. You can't, you have to, that's what the Lord is doing here.

Luke isn't writing to Jewish people, he's writing to Gentile people. And he has to tell them, the angel Gabriel, he went to a little tiny rural village that probably just had a couple hundred people living in it. He didn't go to the city. He didn't go to the capital in Jerusalem. He didn't go to the temple. He didn't go to a priest's family. No, that was Zachariah and Elizabeth. No, the more important story that happens is now he goes to a rural town.

And he gives a message to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And we're going to pick up on this word here, virgin. This is the word parthenos. Some people will deny that this actually means a virgin, but that, indeed, we're going to find later that's exactly what this means. They want to say, well, this just means a young woman, and they're trying to explain away the supernatural origin of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But I'm going to encourage you to stick along with the story, and you're going to find Mary sure understands herself as a virgin. But she's betrothed. This means that Joseph has already entered into a legal agreement with Mary's parents. He's already paid the dowry. He's paid the bride price. They've signed the dotted line. They're going to get married.

In Jewish culture, what happened is you got engaged and there was a one year about waiting period. where legally you were married but you weren't actually living together yet. And then the big ceremony would happen. You would have the big wedding where all the feasts and festivities would happen and then the bride would enter into the groom's home. But they're not at that stage yet. They're only betrothed. She's betrothed to Joseph of the house of David. Now, if you don't know the Old Testament very well, you might scratch your head.

To be honest with you, I was 22 years old before I understood this passage. Because, see, in my mind, I knew Bible stories. I knew David, right? Who's David? David's the one who kills Goliath. And I knew that story from the time I was, you know, a wee little boy. You know, David and his stones and his sling, and he kills Goliath.

And then when I first became a Christian and I was reading through my Bible for the first time, I must have looked like a total dope to my pastor. I walked up to him and I was like, Pastor Snap, did you know David became a king? And he was just like, how are you raised in the church and you don't know that David became a king? David became the king of Israel and God made promises to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 that God would establish David's throne. He would establish somebody to sit on his throne and that person would reign forever. They would be king with a crown on their heads forever. And the Jewish people waited for this. They thought maybe it was Solomon. And while he was a great king for a period of time, he wasn't the one, he died. Jeroboam wasn't the one, he died. Hezekiah wasn't the one, he died. Josiah wasn't the one, he died. Every single descendant of David died. And now we're generations past.

And now there's Joseph, a son of David, who is betrothed to a virgin whose name is Mary. And having come in, verse 28, the angel says to her something interesting. Rejoice! Rejoice. I hope that we are not actually the frozen chosen. Right? Did you know that that's what people call reformed people, Calvinistic people? Oh, you're just a frozen chosen.

No, if the angel Gabriel can announce rejoice to Mary because of the news he's bringing to her and we believe in this Jesus Christ, I pray that we are those who are also able to hear rejoice and we are able to rejoice unashamedly that these words are true.

And so he tells Mary, rejoice. And then he calls her something that really makes her scratch her head. Highly favored one. And if that was enough, he goes on. The angel Gabriel tells her, the Lord is with you. And then it's like, he keeps heaping on stuff. He says four different things. Highly favored one, the Lord is with you, and finally, blessed are you among women.

And Mary's She's kind of thrown off keel here. She doesn't have equilibrium. She's scratching her head, right? What's it say in verse 29? But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. This is not the normal way that you would expect an angel of God to appear and say something to you. In her mind, who is she? Is she just any other young woman doing her thing in a rural town in the backwoods of Galilee? How could she be the highly favored one of God? This is troubling to her, like what is going on here? And then Gabriel tells her in verse 30.

Now we tell her, typically, by the way, typically the angel tells this first. Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. Normally when an angel appears to someone, one of the first things they have to say is, do not be afraid. Because angels aren't like these cute little dreamsicle porcelain naked babies with wings up in heaven type things. No, angels are scary beings. One angel destroys over 125,000 Assyrians in one night. But just in case he might have the wrong address or he might, you know, be mixing her up with someone, he says her name.

Do not be afraid, Mary. For you have found favor with God. It's essentially repeating what he had said in verse 28. Rejoice, highly favored one. And now he says, for you have found favor with God. He's saying, no, I am talking to you, Mary. You are the one I'm speaking to. You need not be afraid. You need not be troubled about what I'm saying to you. I bring this message from God. And then he says something that's really going to blow her mind. This is the real announcement. Verse 31, And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

I don't know about yours. Mine is... This is a problem. I don't actually read this before I get up here. I just translate and then do my stuff, right? What's your... If you're using the pew Bibles, is it capital J, capital E, capital S, capital U, capital S? All caps? I've never noticed that before. This is just one of those weird things, right?

Because it's bringing a point, because Jesus' name means something. Yeshua. God will save us from our sins. He says, look, you're going to conceive in your womb, you're going to bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. And then Gabriel describes this boy Jesus that she's going to have. This Jesus will be great. How great is He going to be? Well, let me tell you how great He's going to be. And He will be called Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David.

You see, you can't understand the story of Jesus unless you understand that God's purpose from centuries and centuries past was that he was going to raise up a king to sit on David's throne forever. And that Mary is receiving that promise. That finally, the King was going to come. And notice verse 33. What's His kingdom going to be like? And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there will be no end.

I just want you to soak this in for a moment, right? The Jewish people had been waiting for their Messiah, waiting for their King, waiting for the anointed one who would sit on David's throne for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And now, out in the backwoods, Gabriel appears to a young woman who is betrothed, not married, a virgin, and he says, you're going to have a son. You're going to call his name Jesus. He's going to have a throne that's never going to end. He's going to fulfill all of these promises. He is going to be the Holy One. He is going to sit over Jacob's house forever.

But there's a problem with this whole story, and Mary knows it quite well. What did she say in verse 34? It's almost like she's scratching her head while she says this to him, right? She says, Then Mary said to the angel, Buddy, there's a problem here.

How? How can it be? Since I don't know a man. Right? She's never slept with a man. She's never had marital intercourse with a man. She's never been intimate with a man in that way. So how is that going to happen, right? This doesn't make sense to her. To be honest, it shouldn't make sense to any of us. Didn't make sense to a lot of Jewish people either.

Right? Some anti-supernaturalists and some liberal theologians will try to say in the earlier part, well, see, she was just a young woman. She wasn't actually a virgin. But Mary's own words seem to prove the other fact. Like, uh, I don't know how this is going to happen, Gabriel. What do you mean? Mary certainly understood that this was a problem.

And the angel answers that problem. How is this going to get pulled off? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. That's how it's going to happen. It's not going to happen by what our confession calls ordinary generation. It's not going to happen in the ordinary way.

But the same manner, there's an echo here of Genesis chapter 1. Do you remember the Genesis story? When the Spirit hovered over the waters of the deep? That same creative power in which God used in Genesis chapter 1, where He spoke something out of nothing. In a similar way, He is going to make this happen, create this life. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore also, now notice what Gabriel calls this child, the Holy One. The Holy One is to be born. This is not going to be an ordinary child. It's going to be begotten. But as the Nicene Creed says, begotten but not made, He is going to be the Holy One. He is going to be the exact image and representation of God's being. He is going to be, if you want to see God eye to eye, if you want to know Him by His face, you go look at His Son, Jesus Christ. He is going to be the Holy One, who is to be born, will be called the Son of God.

You know, Mary's no dummy. Alright, that's fine you say this, but where's the proof? How do I know the things that you say are true, Gabriel, right? Let me just encourage you, even if you have some type of vision or something, even from an angel, don't just believe it right away. Actually, the book of Galatians will tell you that even if an angel preaches another gospel to you, let it be anathema, let it be cursed. Just because an angel says something to you doesn't mean it's true. But notice what he says in verse 36.

Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age. You can imagine her sitting there going, what? Elizabeth, she's like, She's past 60. She's past 70. You know, I love talking to old ladies about this, right? When I get them kind of in a moment of Bible study or in front of people or something, I'll just ask ladies in their 70s or 80s, I'll say, you know, they'll say, oh, I have some news.

And I'll go, you're pregnant. And they're like, no, no. And they start laughing. I'm like, well, now you know how Sarah felt. Right now, you know how Mary feels about Elizabeth. That type of stuff don't happen, boss. Well, yes, it does. Well, yes, it does. Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month of her who was called barren. Why?

Verse 37. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Nothing is impossible for God. And then Mary answers with a statement of faith. Verses 38. Then Mary said, behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. This is a statement of faith, right? She accepts this from Gabriel. She says, let it be to me according to your word. She trusts him in this matter. She says, OK, I believe this is from God. I'll receive it from God. And it shows her faith. Let it be according to your word. Behold, the maidservant of the Lord.

Now, I do need to warn you here. At this point, there are people, even today, in some so-called churches that will focus more on Mary than on the child promised to Mary. Some of you might look at me like I'm weird about this, but I'm dead serious. There are people right now who are hearing sermons around the world who are hearing a high Marian theology sermon and not a Jesus sermon.

Where they will talk about Mary blessing us. But Mary doesn't do the blessing here. Mary receives the blessing. where the Marian theology will be really high about who Mary is and her acceptance of this and her becoming Theotokos, the bearer of God Himself. And while we don't deny her title as God-bearer Theotokos, we do deny a high Marian idolatry.

I need to warn you that she is being used here. She is highly favored of God. Because who else in the entire universe ever gets this blessing? of carrying this child, but there is nothing in this text as we come to it that shows us that she is any different than any of you believing women here in the congregation. She trusts her Lord. She follows her King. She believes, and so we say with the angel Gabriel, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, right? She's a highly favored one. She is used by God for this special blessing, and we don't want to lower that. But we also don't want to put it to a place where some people will take into idolatry with Mary. The point here is the son who's going to sit on the king forever.

Now I need to warn you, I do this quite regularly, and I'm sure you might be tired of it, but I warn you quite regularly that there are people who don't believe this. There are plenty of people who don't believe this. But we really only have two different options. Either one, the virgin birth is true, or two, the church universally has accepted this all across the world, For hundreds of years, and they did so because it was an error. Because they just believed a lie. And it's not new. And we don't have to look very far.

We can go to John chapter 8. And even when Jesus was alive, I just want to read you this passage. Jesus is teaching in John chapter 8. And as he's teaching, the Jews said something against him. John chapter 8. I'll start reading at verse 39. And they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.

And then in verse 41, this is what the Jewish people said to Jesus' face. We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, God. What do you think that they meant when they said, we were not born of fornication? Oh, I'll tell you what they said. What they meant there was that we know that babies aren't born by the Holy Spirit, Mary.

We know that you and Joseph, you did the dirty before you got married, and now you just try to cover it up with a pious story. There's some immorality in the background behind, and this isn't actually true, you guys just made this up. That's what they're claiming to Jesus in John chapter 8.

But, I gotta tell you, there's somebody even in my own family, in my extended family, that wrote a book on his deconstruction. His deconstruction of his faith. And on the cover of that book is a picture of, it looks like a burned down, bombed out cathedral. And that's about what his faith has left. And in it, he goes after this very doctrine.

And he talks about how the whole Bible is nothing but myth and midrash. He doesn't understand what even midrash is, but anyways, and I'm not going to explain it to you here. But his whole point is, this is just made up stories that are just kind of keeping in the community. And they're not really real.

Jesus was born the same way that our children today are born. And I'll just let you know where his faith has taken him, it's a shipwreck in apostasy. Anybody who talks about deconstructing their faith, that's just a fancy way today of saying, let me tell you how I'm apostatizing. And there's a difference between detangling your faith, getting things that you need to work out because you need to get your theology straight, versus people who are just throwing everything off. And sadly, even somebody I'm not going to mention his name, but someone in my extended family has done this to his faith.

And this is one of the key things that I don't think this is true, he says. And he has to throw it out. This is just myth, he writes in his book, but I want you to think to yourself, is that how Luke understood this? That he was just creating a myth? Or he was just writing midrash.

I don't think so, because if we go to Luke chapter 1, and this is where I'm going to defend the historicity of this entire passage and book and the scriptures. Luke chapter 1, inasmuch as you have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word delivered them to us. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things which you were instructed." Do you notice what Luke is saying there? He's saying, I'm writing this to you as an orderly account.

I'm giving to you a history of eyewitness events. What happened? Let me ask you, how do you think Luke got the information for the virgin birth? Jesus is dead. Where was his source material? It's almost like maybe he went and talked to Mary herself. And he hears from her, herself, what the angel said to him, and he's not writing this as myth.

But some scholars believe that the entire book of Luke and Acts, it's kind of like volume 1 and volume 2, they're both written by Luke. Some scholars think that these two books were written as a brief to the court. That as Paul is about to go on trial in Rome, That these are the books that he's written to Theophilus to read so he might know exactly what the gospel is and how things occurred to this point. And so many people think when we read Luke and Acts, this is a legal document. An orderly eyewitness account where he's gone and he's arranged everything to show the truthfulness of the story of Jesus Christ.

This is not myth. And nor is it anti-theological. But it is anti-naturalistic. I'm not asking you to suspend your logic here. You know how babies are made. You're not dummies in this congregation. But the question is, if you believe in a God who can create all things out of nothing, If you are the type of Christians who believe Psalm 139 is true, that God knit us together in our mother's womb, then we ought to be able to be the same logical Christians who are able to say God is able to make a virgin conceive a child. It is not illogical, but it is anti-naturalistic.

See, the world around us of secular naturalism wants to tell you that what you see, what you feel, what you hear, Those things are real and that's all you can trust and there's nothing else beyond that. And we're saying, yeah, yeah, we're... No, I believe that this actually happened. I believe that this is real and this is why it's an article of faith.

Do you believe the virgin birth? Do you believe that God sent a second Adam? We had a first Adam. Luke chapter 3 tells us that Jesus was a descendant of Adam. He was fully man. But do you believe that he was the one who was born of unnatural generation? Not of ordinary birth. That he was conceived in a miraculous way that he might be to us a second chance. That he would keep the laws of God perfectly. That he would be given to us as a present as a grace, as a hope for eternity. So what does this mean for us? Well, it means that Jesus was truly born a full human. Right? Jesus wasn't a phantom. He wasn't a figment of imagination. He wasn't a ghost. Actually, when his disciples thought after his resurrection he was a ghost, he said, you know what ghosts don't do? Ghosts don't eat breakfast. Let's have some fish, boys. Jesus had a body. Put your finger here. Put your hand here. Mary really carried Him in her arms. But number two, we also need to know that Jesus was born fully God. He has an eternal reign, and He is the Holy One.

Now, how those two go together, again, I don't know. This is the mystery of the Christian faith. There's three legitimate mysteries of the Christian faith. One, the Trinity. I can talk to you about the Trinity until I'm blue in the face, but I will never understand the Trinity fully. Two is a hypostatic union.

How is Jesus both fully God and fully man? I don't know. I'll ask Jesus when I meet him. But there's only one person who's ever had that, and that's Jesus. So I don't know. And number three is how are we united to Jesus? How is Jesus in me and I'm in Jesus? I don't understand that one fully either. There's three legitimate mysteries in the Christian faith and those are the three. But Jesus is fully man here. He's also fully God.

Number three thing this means for us is that Jesus was born a king. Right? The story of the three magi tell us that. Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? And here in Luke chapter 1, it is Jesus who is given the reign of David to sit over the house of Jacob.

And that means, number 4, Jesus is our King now. Because Jesus did not just die on that cross, but our King rose again from the grave and He ascended up into heaven. And what did He do when He went to heaven? He sat down at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and there He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords today. Fifthly, that means that Jesus, if these words are true, that means that Jesus will always be our King.

We are in the already, but not yet. We already know that Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but brothers and sisters, I gotta tell you, the best has yet to come. Because our King's going to return and He is going to reign as we sang in Psalm 98 with justice and equity. And sixthly, this means for us also that Jesus is the fulfillment of all these Old Testament promises. In Jesus, all the Old Testament promises find their yes and their amen. And lastly, seventh, Jesus makes a way for us to be a part of His kingdom today. Today I need to ask you, how do you become a citizen of Jesus' kingdom? Do you become a citizen of Jesus' kingdom? If He's the King and you want to be in His kingdom, how do you become a citizen of Jesus' kingdom? Do you do enough good works? Do you go get a sword and go slay the enemy? What do you do? You believe what His name says. He does and He is.

Yeshua, Yah saves us from our sins. The Lord Himself will save us from our sins. The Lord Himself, if we believe, or if we confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, believe in our hearts that God raised Him up from the dead, we will be saved. Do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary? lived a perfect life, was tried, suffered, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, was buried but rose again on the third day, ascended up into heaven, and there he remains, but will come again someday to judge the living and the dead. This is what this passage introduces for us this morning. Because we have a King, we have hope, and we can have assurance that these things are true and our King lives today.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we pray that the nations would bow to you. We pray that we would bow to you. We thank you that you have given us our Savior, our King, Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray that you would please let us follow after you as our King. We thank you for these true words And we pray that you might let us believe them even until our dying breaths. In Jesus's name.