The Greatest Story Ever Told #3

The Greatest Story Ever Told4:

THE BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD

Luke 2:1-20

A few years ago, newscaster Andy Rooney responded to the charge that his profession only covered the negative side of everything. He imagined a newscast in which it was reported that planes took off and landed safely. In Florida, the orange crop was hit by another night of average weather. The oranges just hung in there and grew. In Detroit, Ford Motors announced that 174,000 Fords would not be recalled because they were all perfect. Andy Rooney’s point was that good news isn’t always appreciated unless it’s against the backdrop of bad news.

A wife said to her husband, “Shall we watch the six o’clock news and get indigestion or wait for the ten o’clock news and have insomnia?” One wag put it this way: “The evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’ – and then tell you why it isn’t.”

We live in a world filled with tragedy. If there is anything this hurting world desperately needs, it is good news. Not only the world in general, but individuals need good news because their lives are strewn with suffering and sorrow. The Christmas story as told by Luke offers not only good news, but the best news in the world.

However, 2 factors make it difficult for people to appreciate it.

1. The Christmas story is perhaps the most widely known story in history. As a result, many people, even Christians, shrug it off as not being especially exciting or relevant to the problems they are facing.

2. Many people do not realize what terrible straits they are in regarding their standing before God and their eternal destiny. So when they read the familiar story that a Savior has been born in the city of Bethlehem, they yawn and say, “That’s nice. What’s for dinner?” Not seeing their desperate need for salvation, they fail to appreciate the fact that this story is the best news in all of history.

The best news in the world is that a Savior was born for you, who is Christ the Lord.

In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a survey in which 70% of Americans believe that other religions other than Christianity could lead to eternal life. Nearly half said that atheist would also go to heaven and those with no faith would go there also. If that opinion is true, then the story of the birth of Jesus may warm your heart and make you feel good.  But it won’t be the best news in the world, news that you cannot live without.

However, if the Bible is correct in stating that all people have sinned and apart from Christ they are under God’s condemnation, then the news that the Savior has been born is more than just nice! It is the best news in the world and it is absolutely crucial!

The telling of the Christmas story can be such a familiar and common experience that we miss the significance of it. With the annual repetitions the familiarity of the story of the shepherds can cause us to take it for granted, to overlook just how amazing this incident is. So this year I want to challenge you to see it again for the first time. Who does God announce the birth of his son to? Too whom would you expect the announcement to go? We could see how God might choose to announce the birth of Christ to Herod the king. We could see how he would want to announce the birth in a splendid ceremony in the Temple led by the High Priest. But we have trouble understanding why he would choose a ragtag band of shepherds.

The only invitation from God to anyone to come and visit Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus is to a group of shepherds. At best the shepherds were common, ordinary folks. They were not the socially elite. Most likely these shepherds were tending their sheep just outside of Bethlehem and the sheep they were tending were probably sheep being prepared for the temple sacrifices. They were the last people that you’d expect God to take notice of. It is ironic if these sheep were sheep being prepared for the temple. While the sheep for the temple were to be without fault, there were plenty of faults with the shepherds. They were not a group held in high esteem. The sheep may have been destined for the temple but the shepherds would never have been allowed to go to the temple because they were considered unclean.

In the story of God’s announcement to the shepherds are some very important truths…truths that tell us why this was the best news in the world.

Body

I.                   EVERYONE IS IMPORTANT TO GOD.

Have you ever wondered why the story does not say, “Now there were in the same region scribes and Pharisees, keeping watch over their scrolls and religious rituals?” Or “There were kings and princes keeping watch over their treasures at the palace.” God chose to reveal the birth of the Savior to simple shepherds who were going about their duties.

Why the shepherds? That God chose simple shepherds to be the first to know of the birth of the Savior is even stranger by human standards because in Israel, shepherding was a lowly task. Shepherds had not been schooled in the law and thus they were considered ignorant. Their work made them ceremonially unclean. According to one Jewish paper, shepherds were not trustworthy enough to be used as witnesses. According to another, help was not to be offered to shepherds and heathen. So why did God choose the shepherds as the first ones to receive the angels’ revelation concerning the Messiah’s birth?

THE GOOD NEWS IS FOR ALL PEOPLE, NOT JUST THE ELITE. God puts His cookies on the bottom shelf. Because of that, the sophisticated and scholarly sometimes miss the truth of it. They’re looking too high; it’s beneath them to stoop to the lowest shelf, and so they miss what God offers freely to all.

As Paul told the Corinthians, “Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God.” (1 Cor. 1:26-29)

If the gospel were some complicated philosophy that required years of graduate study and a high I.Q. to grasp, then those who attained it would boast of their intelligence. If the gospel required sums of money or high social standing to attain, there would be no hope for the poor and lowly. But the beauty of the gospel is that even an uneducated, illiterate tribal man in the jungle can understand that he is a sinner and that Jesus Christ is God’s Savior, and by God’s grace, he can believe and be saved.

I believe that God chose the shepherds because he wanted to show that His love is available to all. He is not a respecter of persons, he does not show more respect to kings than he does to hourly wage earners.
You may think; “If God is even aware that I exist, He probably doesn’t have a very favorable opinion of me!”
Deep down a lot people may feel like that. But no matter how insignificant you may think you are God knows you and you are important to Him.

I think God chose the shepherd as the first to receive the good news because THE GOOD NEWS INVOLVED THE SACRIFICE OF THE LAMB OF GOD. As I mentioned, it is likely that the very sheep these men where tending in the fields that night were being prepared for slaughter at the Passover in Jerusalem. So it is symbolic that the shepherds who were watching the Passover lambs would be invited to Bethlehem to view the Lamb of God who would be slain for sinners.

The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), eternal separation from God. A holy God cannot accept sinners in His presence unless their sin has been paid for. In His love for us, God provided the very penalty His justice demanded. God sent His own Son, born sinless through the miracle of the virgin birth, to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. If you trust in Him as your sin-bearer, God transfers your guilt to Him and His perfect righteousness to you.

THE GOOD NEWS PROVIDED US WITH A GOOD SHEPHERD. God has always had a special place in His heart for shepherds. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds. King David was called from tending the sheep to shepherd Gods people. Jesus said of Himself, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

If you trust in Him as your Savior, He will become your Good Shepherd, who will care for you as no other can.

God revealed His Savior to these simple shepherds to show us that the good news is for common people. Everyone is important to God. Someone described it as “You don’t have to know Who’s Who to know What’s what.”

A King may miss the guiding star,

A Wise man’s foot may stumble,

For Bethlehem is very far,

From all except the humble.

II.                 GOD HAS WONDERFUL NEWS FOR ALL WHO BELIEVE. (vs. 10-14)

Note with me that the message that the angel brought from God spoke to their most immediate need when the angel said, “fear not.” The Bible says that they were “greatly afraid.” When the angelic messenger suddenly appeared the shepherds reacted in a normal human would they were terribly afraid.

They were sitting in darkness in a deserted place. That is enough to make you a bit jittery. They were watching their flocks because of the danger of robbers or wolves. So, they’re sitting there, kind of on edge, but also fighting drowsiness when suddenly the sky lights up like the noonday sun, and a man who had not been there seconds before was instantly standing before them, brilliant in his appearance. Instant terror!

You too may have a heart filled with fear this Christmas. Fear about, your health, your family, your job security, the economy, or the world conditions. But we need not fear, we have “good tiding of great joy” because the savior was born. Because scripture has been fulfilled. Because Christ is LORD over all.

It is good news because it brings joy. It brings joy because it deals with the most important issue of all, namely, where a person will spend eternity.

A number of years ago, a toddler fell down a narrow well. Her mother went looking for her as soon as she realized she was missing, and was horrified to hear her daughter’s voice coming from this deep, dark shaft. Fire fighters and other rescuers soon swarmed on the sight. News media arrived and for hours the attention of the nation was riveted on that field where desperate attempts were being made to rescue that little girl before it was too late.

That little girl didn’t need anyone to give her ideas on how to live a happy life. She was doomed if someone didn’t save her from certain death. The most important news that desperate mother could hear in that situation was, “The rescuers have reached your daughter and she has been saved!”

You could have walked up to that desperate mother as she anxiously awaited the outcome and told her, “I just heard on the evening news that it’s going to be sunny and warmer tomorrow.” Big deal! That is nice news, but it’s not important when your child is lost down a deep well. You could have reported to her that the economy is on an upswing. Wonderful, but very trivial compared to the only news that mattered to that mother. When someone is lost and within hours of death unless they are saved, the only news that matters is that a savior has come who can rescue that doomed person.

That’s why the good news that a Savior has been born who is the Christ is the best news in the world. It deals with the most important issue of all…where a person will spend eternity. Each person in this world is lost without the Savior. It is only a matter of time until they die without Christ and enter eternity under the judgment of a holy God. But in His mercy, God sent Jesus to save us from our sins. That is the most important news in the world!

Do you think angels would have come with such joy to announce the birth of a philosopher, a statesman, a warrior or a reformer? No, nothing could bring them over the walls of glory but the good news of a savior from sin, death and hell.

Jesus is Teacher, but He is so much more than that.

Jesus is the Great Physician, but He is so much more than that.

Jesus is prophet, priest and King, but so much more than any or all of these.

Christ is nothing to us until first of all He is our Savior. The world has had teachers, prophets, priests and Kings before but is still in sin. Jesus came to be Savior…to do something radical and drastic in your life…to do the greatest rescue job in history.

Once a man went into a certain restaurant and was very disappointed by the meal. The food was cold and poorly prepared. The restaurant was dirty. The table looked like the bus boy had not wiped it off, but only rearranged the grease. When the man complained about the food, the waitress was surly and the owner seemed not to care. Finally, the man left saying to the owner, “I will never eat again in this restaurant as long as I live.”

But a month later, the man passing by that restaurant saw a sign in the window and went in and enjoyed a wonderful meal.

The food was good, the restaurant clean. The floor was now cleaner than the table had been before. The waitress was prompt and had a pleasant disposition. The owner thanked him kindly for stopping in and said that if the man did not like anything about the restaurant to please let him know. He said the most important thing was the satisfaction of his customers. The man left assuring the owner that he would be back often.

What made the difference? It was the sign in the window. It said, “Open under new management.” Sometimes life is like that restaurant – unsatisfying, dirty, surly and unpleasant. Life under the domination of sin is like that, and what can make the difference? What can change all that? To open that life under new management. That was what Jesus said to Nicodemus. To be born again is to begin a life in Jesus Christ; a life under new management.

The sign to them is that they will find the Christ child lying in a manger. No other child was born in a cattle stable that night, no other child’s first resting place was a crude feeding trough designed to feed cattle.

Then there were many angels praising God and saying, vs.14.

There is a constant refrain of Christmas of “Peace on earth”, but every Christmas seems to mock that possibility more and more. There is animosity, hatred, violence, bloodshed and war all over the world. But the angels’ message is more than that.

The message is that peace is found by those who live for God’s pleasure. To the degree that we do not live for His pleasure, we will not have peace. We cannot have peace unless we live to please God. But when we do we not only have peace with God we also have the peace of God on our life.

III.               HOW YOU RESPOND TO THE INVITATION OF GOD MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE. (vs.15-16)

They could have doubted what they had been told. They could have said, “It can’t be like we were told. In fact why should we have been told at all? We better just forget about it.”
They could have ignored it. They could have any number of excuses that would keep them from checking out the story they had just heard.
They could have debated it. They could have sat down and analyzed what they should do. Could they afford to leave the sheep? What if something happened while they were gone? Talking, talking and more talking. Sometimes we actually talk ourselves out of responding in faith.
They could have rejected it. They could have said, “This is not for me! This sounds king of flaky to me.” We often reject what we think demands too much of us.
But the shepherds chose to believe. The belief of the shepherds in the message of the angel is shown in their words, they did not say, “Let us go and see if these things are true but “let us now go …and see this thing that has come to pass.”

They made the response of faith. They obviously believed the words of the angel or they would not have left their sheep and gone to Bethlehem to see for themselves what the Lord had revealed to them.

And what did they see when they got to Bethlehem? Did they see a kingly child arrayed in royal robes in a golden cradle with servants attending Him? Did He and His mother have halos over

their heads? Not quite! They saw a common couple from Nazareth in a primitive stable with a normal-looking newborn baby. It wasn’t exactly the way you would expect God to bring His Anointed Savior into this world. But they viewed this baby with eyes of faith.

It is not enough to hear about Jesus. It is not enough to look into the manger and say, “Oh how nice. This touching scene gives me good feelings.” But the truth is that if Jesus was born in Bethlehem a thousand times and not within you, you will still be eternally lost. You can get all sentimental at Christmas, and have a warm fuzzy feeling but if Christ is not born into your heart, it is a mockery of the reason that he came.

IV.              WHAT YOU DO WITH THE GOOD NEWS IS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE. (vs.17-18, 20)

They made the response of proclamation. The shepherds didn’t stop to think about how people would respond. Some might have said with raised eyebrows, “You saw a bunch of angels and then went and saw a carpenter and his wife with a baby in a feeding trough and you think he’s the Messiah, huh? Right!” But that didn’t stop these men from telling the story. We should be telling the story also.

The first ones to be told this story were also the first ones to tell it. They told whoever would listen. Many years ago a Christian magazine told the story of an older, middle-aged lady who inherited over a million dollars unexpectedly. The news came as a total surprise to her. She didn’t know her relative was that wealthy. She was sitting at home alone knitting when the telegram came informing her of her inheritance. She was stunned. Then she ran to the telephone, dialed the operator and shouted, “Hello, operator! Get me anybody, just anybody!”

“I woke up Monday morning, walked out on the lawn
my eyes were barely open, and my mouth began to yawn
Picked up the daily paper, every single headline said,
That this ole world is full of trouble, and I wished I’d stayed in bed.
Sometimes the bad that’s goin’ on’s enough to bring you down.

“Turned on my television and began to flip on thru
all 100 channels, On Demand, and Pay per view
Not one message had a meaning that was good in any way
Just before I wrote the whole world off, I heard the Father say,
‘Don’t forget what I have promised, you can overcome it all!’

“Well my knees began to shake, and my heart began to beat,
and a funny new sensation worked its way into my feet
The Spirit of glad tidings came from somewhere deep inside,
And holdin’ back the flood was just like holdin’ back the tide.
I couldn’t help but circulate to everyone I know…

“I’ll spread this talk all over town about the peace and joy I’ve found in You…good news!
This story is about to break and blessed are the feet that take the Truth…good news!
I’m slippin’ on my gospel shoes…’Cause I’ve got good, good news!”
Words: Suzanne Jennings, performed by Gaither Vocal Band, 1999

They made the response of praise. Vs.20 When God has taken you from the darkness of your sin and by His grace revealed His Savior to your soul, your heart will be filled with praise and joy.

They made the response of endurance. They went back…when back where? Went back to sign a book contract and to appear on Christian TV shows? They went back to launch a ministry called “Shepherd’s Vision” and they became famous throughout the land? No. They went back to their sheep.

That’s kind of a letdown, isn’t it? After the great things they saw, they went back to the routine job they had been in before. They didn’t set up tours of Bethlehem. They didn’t put on seminars on how to have visions of angels. They went back to their jobs, but they went praising God for His abundant grace to them.

That is true for us each year, for the celebration of Christmas is a special time. But when the fun and excitement is over we have to return to our jobs and our responsibilities. But the shepherds returned so full of what had happened in their lives they could not keep themselves from sharing the good news with everyone they came into contact with.

CONCLUSION – A man traveled a great distance for an interview with a distinguished scholar. He was ushered into the man’s study where he said, “Doctor, I notice the walls of your study are lined with books from the ceiling to the floor. No doubt you have read them all. I know you have written many yourself. You have traveled extensively and doubtless had the privilege of conversing with some of the world’s wisest men. I’ve come a long way to ask you just one question. Tell me; of all you’ve learned, what is the one thing most worth knowing?”

Putting his hand on his guest’s shoulder, the scholar replied with emotion in his voice, “My dear sir, of all the things I have learned, only 2 are really worth knowing. The first is, I am a great sinner, and the second, Jesus Christ is a great Savior!”

If you know those 2 things personally, you know the best news in the world, that a Savior has been born for you who is Christ the Lord!

Idea from Steven J. Cole

Gary Harner, sermon, “Christ the Savior Is Born”

John Hamby, sermon, “Experiencing the Birth of Christ With the Shepherds”

The Greatest Story Ever Told #2

The Greatest Story Ever Told2:

A SEASON OF SURPRISES

Luke 1:26-38

Christmas is a season of surprises. In fact, Christmas and surprises are practically synonymous. Think about it – when in your life do you get so many surprises all at once? Many families sit down on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning and open surprise packages.

I’m sure practically everyone here has a story – a special pet you received one Christmas, or a piece of jewelry your husband or wife surprised you with, or some other unexpected gift. Most children ask for toys for Christmas, but last year one little girl in Bellingham, Mass. Received an unexpected surprise for Christmas – her father’s surprise return from Iraq.

Chuck Swindoll writes, “Surprises come in many forms and guises…some good, some borderline amazing, some awful, some tragic, and some hilarious. But there’s one thing we can usually say – surprises aren’t boring. Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await each one of us at unexpected and unpredictable junctures.”

The story of Christmas is one of great surprises. Here is one of the greatest surprises that ever were…the surprise that took place when an angel by the name of Gabriel appeared to a young teenager by the name of Mary.

Gabriel piled one surprise upon another in his comments to Mary and her response to him was equally surprising.

Body

I.                   THE SURPRISING MANNER OF HIS BIRTH.

    Verses 26-27 set the historical framework. They let us know that what is about to happen really happened…that this episode is not the figment of some writer’s imagination, or some kind of religious hallucination.

First there is the surprise of the MYSTERIOUS MESSENGER sent to announce the birth. God sent an angel. In the 6^th month of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy, Gabriel is on the move again!

I’m sure the appearance of the angel Gabriel shocked Mary beyond belief. The annunciation has been the subject of many great artists. Go to any museum and you’ll find famous artists who have tried to capture the essence of that amazing moment when Mary encountered Gabriel. What is fascinating is the way they tried to capture what Mary must have felt at the angelic appearance by the look on her face. Some show Mary sitting gracefully reading a book. Others show her drawing water from a well and still others have her seated on what looks like a throne as the “mother of God”. The facial expressions range from mild boredom to wild-eyed amazement.

Also notice the angel was sent to a SURPRISING PLACE…Nazareth, a town in Galilee. God didn’t send Gabriel to a famous city like Rome or Jerusalem or some other capital city of the day. Instead, surprisingly, God sent the angel to a tiny, out of the way small village known as Nazareth in Galilee. Jerusalem was known as “the city of the great King”. Nazareth was the low spot of Galilee. It was on the highway route on which Roman soldiers and Greek merchants traveled and spent the night. Nazareth was a hotbed of corruption.

Nathanael understood what the place was like when in discovering this was Jesus’ hometown, in shock he said, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” I love the way Eugene Peterson put it in The Message, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding!”

In our Lord’s day, Nazareth was a small village of perhaps 300 people. Today, it is a city of 70,000. In biblical times, it was a Jewish village; today, it is the largest Arab city within Israel. Nazareth is situated on steep hillsides, about halfway between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Excavations have uncovered an ancient winepress from biblical times and a set of terraces that indicate the residents of Nazareth were primarily farmers.

God chose the lowly over the proud and mighty of his day. One of the great delusions in our world today is that wealth, power and status is what life is all about. Why? I believe it’s because of the delusion people who possess those things are under. They think that because they have wealth, power and status they are somehow in control of their lives. The truth is God looks on the heart, not the outward man – not the things man looks upon. God values the heart…who we are, not what we possess. That’s part of the meaning behind Jesus being born to a nobody in a lowly manger in a stable in a tiny village in Palestine.

A feed trough for a bed and a cow shed for a nursery! Nothing lovely and special about it. Have you ever wondered why Jesus faced such special circumstances? Perhaps it was because He wanted to identify with the poorest of the poor while He was here on earth. He certainly always had compassion and love for the poor. He Himself was born to a poor family and grew up amongst the poor class of society. God incarnate…God in the flesh…placed in a manger of hay! What a surprise nursery!

So under the surprising manner of his birth we not only have the unusual messenger, and the surprising choice of a location for the Messiah to hail from, but we also see the SURPRISING NATURE OF HIS BIRTH – miraculous! 1:26-27

Talk about surprising! There is no nobility or royalty here. What do we know about Mary?

·         She was a teenager. Most Jewish girls of that time would get married anywhere from 13 years old to 16 years old. If you got to the ripe old age of 16 without being betrothed or married, you were an “old maid”!

·         She was poor. We know this by the offering Joseph and Mary gave in the temple when they came to dedicate Jesus. Luke 2:24 said they gave a pair of doves or young pigeons. That is what the poor gave.

·         She was a devout believer in God. Later in 1:46-55 she quotes about 11 verses from the Old Testament. Also she was a virgin. She had kept herself pure. That is mentioned twice.

·         She was engaged to be married to Joseph. Between the pledge and the actual wedding feast was a period usually lasting 6 months to a year. During that period, the couple was considered to be married and was called husband and wife, but they did not live together or have marital relations.

·         She had no idea what was about to happen. Mary is completely in the dark, without a clue that her life is about to be changed forever.

We don’t know what Mary was doing. Perhaps she was in the midst of going about her daily routines and making wedding plans. Like brides-to-be everywhere, perhaps she could hardly think of anything but their wedding – the guest list, the decorations, the food, the music and her dress. This was the most exciting time of her life. Perhaps she was thinking, “What kind of husband will Joseph be? What kind of house will we have? When will our first child come along?” Then God interrupted her life and invited her to be a part of His plan to save the world.

It is right at this point that God enters the scene. He is about to ask an unknown teenage girl to take part in something so shocking that it is almost unbelievable. What God asks Mary to do will change her life – and the course of history forever.

Gone are the happy dreams of a beautiful wedding; gone are the days of sweet anticipation; gone are the carefully thought out plans for the wedding feast. She will be married, but not before rumors spread through the countryside. There will be a wedding feast, but not the way she planned. It will all happen, but not the way she expected.

Mary is the only person who was present, both at the birth of Christ and at His crucifixion. Mary was the woman who saw Jesus come into the world as her son and leave the world as her Savior. No wonder more little girls are named after Mary than any other woman in the world.

There are many misconceptions about Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to worship Mary. Nowhere does it say to pray to Mary. Nowhere does it say she was perfect or sinless. Nowhere does it say she is a co-redeemer.

What is so special about Mary is…she was so unspecial. God took an ordinary, run of the mill, teenage, peasant girl and used her in an unbelievably extraordinary way.

Why did God do it this way? Why do we find Jesus born not only to lowly circumstances but also to scandalous circumstances? Maybe to demonstrate the full humanity of Jesus. Maybe to show there is no situation God can’t appreciate and handle. “God with us” means exactly that – that God has taken on our human condition. God became a part of the human family – warts and all.

But I believe mostly it is because God is God. God can’t be explained and often it doesn’t make sense to us. The surprising manner of His birth is there for a reason…to show us that only God could do what God did. Mary is a model of faith for us in every way, but the real hero is God. God is the One who brought life out of nothingness. God is the One who brought redemption where redemption was needed. And that shouldn’t surprise us at all – but it does.

II.                 THE SURPRISING MESSAGE ACCOMPANYING HIS BIRTH.

Gabriel, the mighty angel, comes with words that are so grand and magnanimous that they are suited to an appearance before royalty more than to a peasant girl from Nazareth. 1:28

GREETINGS or HAIL is a formalized greeting wishing one well. It is not uncommon in the New Testament. But calling her “highly favored” is powerful praise. God Himself will dwell in her womb. The Creator will come into His own world through her. By this grace, Mary is special and blessed, but the point is we are all just as full of grace as Mary was.

Why is Mary (and us) so favored? It’s because of the next words of the angel to assure us of His help in this: THE LORD IS WITH YOU. Christmas means we believe that God is not some uncaring, far off, and distant God. He cares about you. He loves you and He knows when you’re going through difficult times.

Sometimes we feel all alone like when we stand at the grave of a loved one. Sometimes you stand for the Lord at your work place and you may stand alone, but God is with you. It will give you courage. A woman in Sweden was injured as she rushed to catch a streetcar. She stumbled in front of the moving car and was caught beneath it. The police sent for a crane to lift the car off her. While waiting for the crane, a crowd of people gathered. One man pushed through the crowd, crawled beneath the car and said to her, “Take my hand.” As she took his hand, she felt warmth and courage. This calmed her and prevented her from going into shock. After the crane arrived and the woman was released, she said, “I never thought an outstretched hand could mean so much to me.”

The wonder and glory of Christmas is that God stretched out His hand to a sinful world and said, “Don’t be afraid. You can find favor if you will come to Me.”

 Mary doesn’t know what to make of this. Mary, who would have thought of herself as a nobody, is suddenly confronted by an angel who tells her that she is someone special. Mary is greatly troubled or confused by this. Gabriel counters with the words, “Do not be afraid, Mary”.

Notice the points of Gabriel’s announcement.

1.      Mary will become pregnant.

2.      Mary will give birth to a son.

3.      The child must be given the name “Jesus”.

4.      The child will become a great person.

5.      His title will be “Son of the Most High”. That means the Son of God. That must have been overwhelming to Mary.

6.      He will inherit the “throne of His father David” and will reign over the house of Jacob forever. In other words, He will be the long anticipated Messiah!

7.      Finally, His kingdom will never end.

Mary’s head must have been spinning by this time though I’m sure she didn’t take the time to examine in detail all 7 points of the angel’s announcement. It was the first one that had to do with her, “You will be with child…”

1:34 What the angel announced was supernatural. It was a miracle. The response can be either:

1.      Miracles just don’t happen, so prove it to me, as Zechariah had responded to the angel’s announcement in the temple. That would be the response of unbelief.  Or,

2.      Wow! That’s amazing! How will it happen since the normal means of pregnancy isn’t available because I’m not intimate with a man? That is the response of wonder and faith.

I’m sure Mary had a thousand other questions. “What about Joseph? What about my parents and friends?” But she focused on how the Lord was going to do this.

1:35-37 The angel answers Mary’s questions. THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL COME UPON YOU, not in a sexual way, but in the way the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost. The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s coming is “…SO THE HOLY ONE TO BE BORN WILL BE CALLED THE SON OF GOD.”  There is the surprise of the incarnation – the divine becoming joined with the human.

Mary is human, but her child, conceived by the Holy Spirit, is holy in the same sense that God Himself is holy. There are 2 important truths held in tension here.

1.      It was necessary for the Savior of the World to be born of a woman so that He would be of the same nature as those whom He came to save.

2.      It was also important that He should be holy and sinless.

Here in 1:35, Gabriel is making clear the glorious fact that both of these requirements are fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He is fully man, yet fully God. As C.S. Lewis said, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God. “

Then the angel lets Mary in on a family secret. Elizabeth, way beyond menopause, was pregnant. Then he concludes in verse 37. It is a refrain often repeated in Scripture.

·         “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14)

·         “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” (Numbers 11:23)

·         “Nothing is too hard for you.” (Jeremiah 32:17, 27)

·         “Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of Hosts?” (Zech. 8:6)

·         “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matt. 19:26)

Part of the surprise of the Christmas story is the surprising manner of His birth and the surprising message surrounding His birth.

III.              MARY’S SURPRISING RESPONSE.

Mary could have responded in many ways.

·         She could have walked away without a word.

·         She could have started to scream unhappily.

·         She could have responded, “No way!”

·         She could have decided that she was delusional and started long-term counseling.

·         She could have tried to negotiate. “How about we wait for this baby to come AFTER Joseph and I get married?”

I find it interesting to note that Mary does not doubt the angel’s word, even though it must have sounded incredible. She believed what the angel said. Her only question had to do with how it would happen.

1:38 In essence, she said, “All right. I’m willing to do my part.” That’s real faith. That’s believing the impossible. That’s trusting God even when the facts argue against it.

Mary faced a host of potential problems in agreeing to this.

There was the potential loss of her family. Can you imagine her mother and father trying to get this whole thing sorted out when Mary explained she was pregnant? “And who did this to you?”

There was the potential loss of her dreams. The traditional wedding ceremony included the bride to sit in front of her father’s house parts of 3 days dressed in white to signify her virginity. Do you think Mary went through this? Would she have sat there, with child, dressed in white protesting that she actually was pure?

There was the potential loss of Joseph and even her life. For a betrothed woman to bear a child out of wedlock to someone not her husband could potentially result in stoning. But Mary let go of everything to obey God.

The entire course of human history was determined by this answer Mary gave. Frederick Buechner wrote this about the angel Gabriel as he encounters Mary.

“She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But he had been entrusted with a message to her and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. He only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of a girl.”

In his book, there’s a sketch of Gabriel with his hands behind his back with his fingers crossed.

She answers, “I am the Lord’s servant.” After all is said and done, after we have explored all the possibilities, we still must decide: “Am I servant or master? Is my allegiance to the Lord or to my own desires? Will I obey and make way for this King? Or will I take the easy way that avoids difficulty and pain?” To her everlasting credit, Mary’s response of faith is what our response must be: I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

Her answer establishes 2 things:

·         She recognizes she is the property of God.

·         She answers that she is available. She said, “Yes” to the impossible. She said, “Yes” to the plan of God.

Did her heart skip a beat when she said, “Yes”? You bet it did – but she said it. Mary believed God and with a single-minded, unwavering commitment, she was available. With her head tilted high, her hands trembling just a bit, wide-eyed, nervous, questioning but not afraid, wondering but not terrified, unsure but not uncertain…when the angel said, “Nothing is impossible with God”, Mary took a deep breath and said “May it be to me as you have said.” And with those words, Christmas came to the world.

Friend, are you available to God this Christmas? Are you ready to say, “Yes” to Him? Or are you holding back? Don’t be afraid to make yourself available to Him – your life will never be the same!

Let’s not underestimate what it cost Mary to become available to God. Mary knew or would soon realize that saying yes to God meant misunderstanding and public shame. Gone was her pure reputation and with it her dream of a quiet, happy life in Nazareth. In the future, her life would at times be happy, but it would never again be quiet.

And Mary had no way of knowing how Joseph would respond. Would he blow his top and walk out on her? Would he humiliate her publicly? Would he dump her?

And these things were just the beginning. Mary could not know what the future would hold. Before it was over, she would experience heartache, opposition, slander, confusion, anguish, despair and loneliness. In the end, she would face the greatest pain a mother can endure when she would watch her son die on a cross.

When God said, “Are you available and willing to believe the impossible?” Mary said, “Yes, I am!” Without that, there would be no Christmas – and there would be no A.D.

It is still true that nothing is impossible with God. That is as true today as it was over 2,000 years ago. You have to make yourself available and follow Him or else the impossible will never happen in your life.

That’s the good news this Christmas. Some of you are carrying heavy burdens today. For some of you Christmas will be lonely this year. Some of you are facing a financial crisis that looks hopeless to you right now. Some of you are looking at a marriage that seems worse than impossible. Some of you are estranged from your own family members. Some of you have children who are far away from God. Some of you feel empty and far away from God yourselves.

The list goes on and on, but all these have one thing in common: They seem impossible to solve by any human means. And for the most part they are. Remember this: Christmas is all about surprising miracles.

What is it God wants from us? Total comprehension about the future before we will trust him? No. We don’t know what the future will hold. What does God want from you? The same thing He wanted from Mary. He wants you to be an available disciple.

Mary was saying, “You are my omnipotent God, therefore you are my Sovereign Lord, and therefore I am Your willing servant. Use me as You will.” Missionary Amy Carmichael once said, “When you are facing the impossible, you can count on the God of the impossible. You cannot bring a burden too heavy for God to lift or a problem too hard for Him to solve or a request too big for Him to answer. God does things no one else can do.”

Gary Harner, sermon, “A ‘Mary’ Christmas For All”

Steve Jackson, “Christmas – A Season of Surprises”

Brian Bill, “Misunderstanding Mary”

The Greatest Story Ever Told #2

The Greatest Story Ever Told2:

A SEASON OF SURPRISES

Luke 1:26-38

Christmas is a season of surprises. In fact, Christmas and surprises are practically synonymous. Think about it – when in your life do you get so many surprises all at once? Many families sit down on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning and open surprise packages.

I’m sure practically everyone here has a story – a special pet you received one Christmas, or a piece of jewelry your husband or wife surprised you with, or some other unexpected gift. Most children ask for toys for Christmas, but last year one little girl in Bellingham, Mass. Received an unexpected surprise for Christmas – her father’s surprise return from Iraq.

Chuck Swindoll writes, “Surprises come in many forms and guises…some good, some borderline amazing, some awful, some tragic, and some hilarious. But there’s one thing we can usually say – surprises aren’t boring. Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await each one of us at unexpected and unpredictable junctures.”

The story of Christmas is one of great surprises. Here is one of the greatest surprises that ever were…the surprise that took place when an angel by the name of Gabriel appeared to a young teenager by the name of Mary.

Gabriel piled one surprise upon another in his comments to Mary and her response to him was equally surprising.

Body

I.                   THE SURPRISING MANNER OF HIS BIRTH.

    Verses 26-27 set the historical framework. They let us know that what is about to happen really happened…that this episode is not the figment of some writer’s imagination, or some kind of religious hallucination.

First there is the surprise of the MYSTERIOUS MESSENGER sent to announce the birth. God sent an angel. In the 6^th month of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy, Gabriel is on the move again!

I’m sure the appearance of the angel Gabriel shocked Mary beyond belief. The annunciation has been the subject of many great artists. Go to any museum and you’ll find famous artists who have tried to capture the essence of that amazing moment when Mary encountered Gabriel. What is fascinating is the way they tried to capture what Mary must have felt at the angelic appearance by the look on her face. Some show Mary sitting gracefully reading a book. Others show her drawing water from a well and still others have her seated on what looks like a throne as the “mother of God”. The facial expressions range from mild boredom to wild-eyed amazement.

Also notice the angel was sent to a SURPRISING PLACE…Nazareth, a town in Galilee. God didn’t send Gabriel to a famous city like Rome or Jerusalem or some other capital city of the day. Instead, surprisingly, God sent the angel to a tiny, out of the way small village known as Nazareth in Galilee. Jerusalem was known as “the city of the great King”. Nazareth was the low spot of Galilee. It was on the highway route on which Roman soldiers and Greek merchants traveled and spent the night. Nazareth was a hotbed of corruption.

Nathanael understood what the place was like when in discovering this was Jesus’ hometown, in shock he said, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” I love the way Eugene Peterson put it in The Message, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding!”

In our Lord’s day, Nazareth was a small village of perhaps 300 people. Today, it is a city of 70,000. In biblical times, it was a Jewish village; today, it is the largest Arab city within Israel. Nazareth is situated on steep hillsides, about halfway between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Excavations have uncovered an ancient winepress from biblical times and a set of terraces that indicate the residents of Nazareth were primarily farmers.

God chose the lowly over the proud and mighty of his day. One of the great delusions in our world today is that wealth, power and status is what life is all about. Why? I believe it’s because of the delusion people who possess those things are under. They think that because they have wealth, power and status they are somehow in control of their lives. The truth is God looks on the heart, not the outward man – not the things man looks upon. God values the heart…who we are, not what we possess. That’s part of the meaning behind Jesus being born to a nobody in a lowly manger in a stable in a tiny village in Palestine.

A feed trough for a bed and a cow shed for a nursery! Nothing lovely and special about it. Have you ever wondered why Jesus faced such special circumstances? Perhaps it was because He wanted to identify with the poorest of the poor while He was here on earth. He certainly always had compassion and love for the poor. He Himself was born to a poor family and grew up amongst the poor class of society. God incarnate…God in the flesh…placed in a manger of hay! What a surprise nursery!

So under the surprising manner of his birth we not only have the unusual messenger, and the surprising choice of a location for the Messiah to hail from, but we also see the SURPRISING NATURE OF HIS BIRTH – miraculous! 1:26-27

Talk about surprising! There is no nobility or royalty here. What do we know about Mary?

·         She was a teenager. Most Jewish girls of that time would get married anywhere from 13 years old to 16 years old. If you got to the ripe old age of 16 without being betrothed or married, you were an “old maid”!

·         She was poor. We know this by the offering Joseph and Mary gave in the temple when they came to dedicate Jesus. Luke 2:24 said they gave a pair of doves or young pigeons. That is what the poor gave.

·         She was a devout believer in God. Later in 1:46-55 she quotes about 11 verses from the Old Testament. Also she was a virgin. She had kept herself pure. That is mentioned twice.

·         She was engaged to be married to Joseph. Between the pledge and the actual wedding feast was a period usually lasting 6 months to a year. During that period, the couple was considered to be married and was called husband and wife, but they did not live together or have marital relations.

·         She had no idea what was about to happen. Mary is completely in the dark, without a clue that her life is about to be changed forever.

We don’t know what Mary was doing. Perhaps she was in the midst of going about her daily routines and making wedding plans. Like brides-to-be everywhere, perhaps she could hardly think of anything but their wedding – the guest list, the decorations, the food, the music and her dress. This was the most exciting time of her life. Perhaps she was thinking, “What kind of husband will Joseph be? What kind of house will we have? When will our first child come along?” Then God interrupted her life and invited her to be a part of His plan to save the world.

It is right at this point that God enters the scene. He is about to ask an unknown teenage girl to take part in something so shocking that it is almost unbelievable. What God asks Mary to do will change her life – and the course of history forever.

Gone are the happy dreams of a beautiful wedding; gone are the days of sweet anticipation; gone are the carefully thought out plans for the wedding feast. She will be married, but not before rumors spread through the countryside. There will be a wedding feast, but not the way she planned. It will all happen, but not the way she expected.

Mary is the only person who was present, both at the birth of Christ and at His crucifixion. Mary was the woman who saw Jesus come into the world as her son and leave the world as her Savior. No wonder more little girls are named after Mary than any other woman in the world.

There are many misconceptions about Mary. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to worship Mary. Nowhere does it say to pray to Mary. Nowhere does it say she was perfect or sinless. Nowhere does it say she is a co-redeemer.

What is so special about Mary is…she was so unspecial. God took an ordinary, run of the mill, teenage, peasant girl and used her in an unbelievably extraordinary way.

Why did God do it this way? Why do we find Jesus born not only to lowly circumstances but also to scandalous circumstances? Maybe to demonstrate the full humanity of Jesus. Maybe to show there is no situation God can’t appreciate and handle. “God with us” means exactly that – that God has taken on our human condition. God became a part of the human family – warts and all.

But I believe mostly it is because God is God. God can’t be explained and often it doesn’t make sense to us. The surprising manner of His birth is there for a reason…to show us that only God could do what God did. Mary is a model of faith for us in every way, but the real hero is God. God is the One who brought life out of nothingness. God is the One who brought redemption where redemption was needed. And that shouldn’t surprise us at all – but it does.

II.                 THE SURPRISING MESSAGE ACCOMPANYING HIS BIRTH.

Gabriel, the mighty angel, comes with words that are so grand and magnanimous that they are suited to an appearance before royalty more than to a peasant girl from Nazareth. 1:28

GREETINGS or HAIL is a formalized greeting wishing one well. It is not uncommon in the New Testament. But calling her “highly favored” is powerful praise. God Himself will dwell in her womb. The Creator will come into His own world through her. By this grace, Mary is special and blessed, but the point is we are all just as full of grace as Mary was.

Why is Mary (and us) so favored? It’s because of the next words of the angel to assure us of His help in this: THE LORD IS WITH YOU. Christmas means we believe that God is not some uncaring, far off, and distant God. He cares about you. He loves you and He knows when you’re going through difficult times.

Sometimes we feel all alone like when we stand at the grave of a loved one. Sometimes you stand for the Lord at your work place and you may stand alone, but God is with you. It will give you courage. A woman in Sweden was injured as she rushed to catch a streetcar. She stumbled in front of the moving car and was caught beneath it. The police sent for a crane to lift the car off her. While waiting for the crane, a crowd of people gathered. One man pushed through the crowd, crawled beneath the car and said to her, “Take my hand.” As she took his hand, she felt warmth and courage. This calmed her and prevented her from going into shock. After the crane arrived and the woman was released, she said, “I never thought an outstretched hand could mean so much to me.”

The wonder and glory of Christmas is that God stretched out His hand to a sinful world and said, “Don’t be afraid. You can find favor if you will come to Me.”

 Mary doesn’t know what to make of this. Mary, who would have thought of herself as a nobody, is suddenly confronted by an angel who tells her that she is someone special. Mary is greatly troubled or confused by this. Gabriel counters with the words, “Do not be afraid, Mary”.

Notice the points of Gabriel’s announcement.

1.      Mary will become pregnant.

2.      Mary will give birth to a son.

3.      The child must be given the name “Jesus”.

4.      The child will become a great person.

5.      His title will be “Son of the Most High”. That means the Son of God. That must have been overwhelming to Mary.

6.      He will inherit the “throne of His father David” and will reign over the house of Jacob forever. In other words, He will be the long anticipated Messiah!

7.      Finally, His kingdom will never end.

Mary’s head must have been spinning by this time though I’m sure she didn’t take the time to examine in detail all 7 points of the angel’s announcement. It was the first one that had to do with her, “You will be with child…”

1:34 What the angel announced was supernatural. It was a miracle. The response can be either:

1.      Miracles just don’t happen, so prove it to me, as Zechariah had responded to the angel’s announcement in the temple. That would be the response of unbelief.  Or,

2.      Wow! That’s amazing! How will it happen since the normal means of pregnancy isn’t available because I’m not intimate with a man? That is the response of wonder and faith.

I’m sure Mary had a thousand other questions. “What about Joseph? What about my parents and friends?” But she focused on how the Lord was going to do this.

1:35-37 The angel answers Mary’s questions. THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL COME UPON YOU, not in a sexual way, but in the way the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost. The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s coming is “…SO THE HOLY ONE TO BE BORN WILL BE CALLED THE SON OF GOD.”  There is the surprise of the incarnation – the divine becoming joined with the human.

Mary is human, but her child, conceived by the Holy Spirit, is holy in the same sense that God Himself is holy. There are 2 important truths held in tension here.

1.      It was necessary for the Savior of the World to be born of a woman so that He would be of the same nature as those whom He came to save.

2.      It was also important that He should be holy and sinless.

Here in 1:35, Gabriel is making clear the glorious fact that both of these requirements are fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He is fully man, yet fully God. As C.S. Lewis said, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God. “

Then the angel lets Mary in on a family secret. Elizabeth, way beyond menopause, was pregnant. Then he concludes in verse 37. It is a refrain often repeated in Scripture.

·         “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14)

·         “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” (Numbers 11:23)

·         “Nothing is too hard for you.” (Jeremiah 32:17, 27)

·         “Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of Hosts?” (Zech. 8:6)

·         “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matt. 19:26)

Part of the surprise of the Christmas story is the surprising manner of His birth and the surprising message surrounding His birth.

III.              MARY’S SURPRISING RESPONSE.

Mary could have responded in many ways.

·         She could have walked away without a word.

·         She could have started to scream unhappily.

·         She could have responded, “No way!”

·         She could have decided that she was delusional and started long-term counseling.

·         She could have tried to negotiate. “How about we wait for this baby to come AFTER Joseph and I get married?”

I find it interesting to note that Mary does not doubt the angel’s word, even though it must have sounded incredible. She believed what the angel said. Her only question had to do with how it would happen.

1:38 In essence, she said, “All right. I’m willing to do my part.” That’s real faith. That’s believing the impossible. That’s trusting God even when the facts argue against it.

Mary faced a host of potential problems in agreeing to this.

There was the potential loss of her family. Can you imagine her mother and father trying to get this whole thing sorted out when Mary explained she was pregnant? “And who did this to you?”

There was the potential loss of her dreams. The traditional wedding ceremony included the bride to sit in front of her father’s house parts of 3 days dressed in white to signify her virginity. Do you think Mary went through this? Would she have sat there, with child, dressed in white protesting that she actually was pure?

There was the potential loss of Joseph and even her life. For a betrothed woman to bear a child out of wedlock to someone not her husband could potentially result in stoning. But Mary let go of everything to obey God.

The entire course of human history was determined by this answer Mary gave. Frederick Buechner wrote this about the angel Gabriel as he encounters Mary.

“She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But he had been entrusted with a message to her and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. He only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of a girl.”

In his book, there’s a sketch of Gabriel with his hands behind his back with his fingers crossed.

She answers, “I am the Lord’s servant.” After all is said and done, after we have explored all the possibilities, we still must decide: “Am I servant or master? Is my allegiance to the Lord or to my own desires? Will I obey and make way for this King? Or will I take the easy way that avoids difficulty and pain?” To her everlasting credit, Mary’s response of faith is what our response must be: I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

Her answer establishes 2 things:

·         She recognizes she is the property of God.

·         She answers that she is available. She said, “Yes” to the impossible. She said, “Yes” to the plan of God.

Did her heart skip a beat when she said, “Yes”? You bet it did – but she said it. Mary believed God and with a single-minded, unwavering commitment, she was available. With her head tilted high, her hands trembling just a bit, wide-eyed, nervous, questioning but not afraid, wondering but not terrified, unsure but not uncertain…when the angel said, “Nothing is impossible with God”, Mary took a deep breath and said “May it be to me as you have said.” And with those words, Christmas came to the world.

Friend, are you available to God this Christmas? Are you ready to say, “Yes” to Him? Or are you holding back? Don’t be afraid to make yourself available to Him – your life will never be the same!

Let’s not underestimate what it cost Mary to become available to God. Mary knew or would soon realize that saying yes to God meant misunderstanding and public shame. Gone was her pure reputation and with it her dream of a quiet, happy life in Nazareth. In the future, her life would at times be happy, but it would never again be quiet.

And Mary had no way of knowing how Joseph would respond. Would he blow his top and walk out on her? Would he humiliate her publicly? Would he dump her?

And these things were just the beginning. Mary could not know what the future would hold. Before it was over, she would experience heartache, opposition, slander, confusion, anguish, despair and loneliness. In the end, she would face the greatest pain a mother can endure when she would watch her son die on a cross.

When God said, “Are you available and willing to believe the impossible?” Mary said, “Yes, I am!” Without that, there would be no Christmas – and there would be no A.D.

It is still true that nothing is impossible with God. That is as true today as it was over 2,000 years ago. You have to make yourself available and follow Him or else the impossible will never happen in your life.

That’s the good news this Christmas. Some of you are carrying heavy burdens today. For some of you Christmas will be lonely this year. Some of you are facing a financial crisis that looks hopeless to you right now. Some of you are looking at a marriage that seems worse than impossible. Some of you are estranged from your own family members. Some of you have children who are far away from God. Some of you feel empty and far away from God yourselves.

The list goes on and on, but all these have one thing in common: They seem impossible to solve by any human means. And for the most part they are. Remember this: Christmas is all about surprising miracles.

What is it God wants from us? Total comprehension about the future before we will trust him? No. We don’t know what the future will hold. What does God want from you? The same thing He wanted from Mary. He wants you to be an available disciple.

Mary was saying, “You are my omnipotent God, therefore you are my Sovereign Lord, and therefore I am Your willing servant. Use me as You will.” Missionary Amy Carmichael once said, “When you are facing the impossible, you can count on the God of the impossible. You cannot bring a burden too heavy for God to lift or a problem too hard for Him to solve or a request too big for Him to answer. God does things no one else can do.”

Gary Harner, sermon, “A ‘Mary’ Christmas For All”

Steve Jackson, “Christmas – A Season of Surprises”

Brian Bill, “Misunderstanding Mary”