Alright, so our text is Luke
chapter 1. This concerns the announcement
of the advent of Christ. That's what it's typically called,
and the word advent means Christ's coming. While I was just looking
up to make sure I had that word right, I actually found out that
it is this Sunday, four Sundays before Christmas, that usually
people begin to celebrate the advent of Christ. Now, I don't
typically follow those things. I don't usually pay attention
to them. It just happened that way. But
I also noticed in myself a certain reluctance as I came to the passage. And that's because of just what
man-made religion has done. And it turns us off of certain
portions of scripture, and certainly this is a passage that can feel
familiar to some, and maybe some don't like to or care to necessarily
be here, but our God has given it to us, and it is given to
us, the people of God. Of all people, we should be most
joyful wherever we are in the scripture because it speaks of
Christ and we love him who first loved us and so this is where
the Lord has brought us here this morning in our study of
Luke and there's three things that I found to be of great comfort
to me in this passage that I want to share with you this morning.
The first is that Christ's conception is of God. God has done this
and not man. And the second thing is what
we see in the testimony of Gabriel concerning Mary. What is that
to me? Is there anything for me who
hopes in Christ? Can I see anything in this? And
the third thing is the testimony of the greatness of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. And so these three things are
given to the Church. Luke, by the Spirit, by the leading
of the Spirit, has recorded these things for your comfort, for
your understanding to know that this Jesus of Nazareth is the
Christ. He is the promised Son of God. He is the promised Son whom the
Father has sent to save His people from their sins. He is triumphant. We need a Savior, and Christ
is that Savior. And there is no other salvation
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Hear
ye Him. Hear Christ. So, first of all,
what our Lord is showing us is that all scripture is given by
God. It is the breath of God which
He has given to us to know Him. And in order to know Him, He
declares to us Christ, because Christ reveals the Father to
His people. This is how we know God. It's
through Jesus Christ. He leads us unto the Father.
He declares the Father. No man hath known the Father
save the Son, and He to whom the Son reveals Him. And so the
son reveals the father to us. Now, men in their desire, sometimes
short-lived and sometimes long, man's desire to know God causes
him in haste to pick up this word. And he picks it up and
reads it as though it's a how-to manual, how to get myself saved,
how to know God. And he approaches this word in
sin without faith. He's looking to what God is telling
him to do to save himself. And what that means is he's missing
the one of whom this word testifies. except God by grace and mercy
show him that what he's saying here is you and I, we can't save
ourselves, but God has provided salvation in his son. And so
this word, all of it, every page that you flip, every verse you
read, it speaks of Christ. It's showing us something of
our need of Christ and it testifies of Him. It speaks to Him to direct
our hearts to Christ. We may not always see it in the
text, but He's there. He is there and it's to teach
us. Lord, I cannot save myself. I'm
the sinner. You are the true and living God
and you've provided salvation. Lord, show me. Show me your grace. Show me your salvation. and the
one who he's going to testify to you, the one whom he will
show you, is Jesus Christ whom he sent. He is the son of promise. And so don't push Christ out
of the way. Don't be quick to push him out
of the way. He's called the stumbling stone in scriptures for a reason,
because that's exactly what men do. They took the chief cornerstone,
the capstone, The one whom the father sent, they took him and
they put him aside. They set him aside and put him
out of the way. So that, and that's why men stumble
over him. Men stumble over him. Now, from
the beginning of scripture, our Lord has been telling us, repeatedly,
over and over, I'm speaking of my son. That's what he's testifying
here to us in scripture. And therefore, when we see this
announcement by the angel here to Mary, we're to understand
that what we see here is this is a fulfillment of the promises
of God made to us throughout the Old Testament. Just like
we saw this morning, where we saw the, well, I'll show you
this morning. We're gonna look at a few scriptures,
so I don't wanna get ahead. of myself, but the Lord here,
this announcement by the angel to Mary, is the fulfillment. He's speaking of the fulfillment
of whom the Father promised to send to his people to save us
from their sins. So first of all, this Jesus,
this Jesus of Nazareth, is the promised seed of woman. He's
the promised seed of woman. On that day in the garden, when
Adam and Eve sinned and fell in their sin, they sinned against
God, our God gave us, his church, this promise. Now this promise,
I'm going to quote it. I'm going to read it from Genesis
3.15. Now he's speaking to the serpent, but it's spoken in our
hearing. Adam and Eve were standing right
there, just like Sarah stood in the door of the tent and heard
that promise. So this word, this promise is
spoken for our hearing, for our learning, for our comfort. Genesis
3.15, the Lord said to the serpent, I will put enmity between the
serpent and the woman. I'm going to put enmity between
you and the woman. And that woman there is a picture
of the church. I'm going to put enmity between
you and my church, my people, and between the serpent's seed
and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. And so this conception of the
child Jesus in Mary's womb is the fulfillment of that promised
seed, that seed of woman. This is the promise fulfilled.
And so this promise is reconfirmed to you. that look for redemption. You who look for redemption in
Israel, God is reconfirming His promise to you. And we saw that
reconfirmed in the promise to Abraham and again to Sarah. And it's speaking of Him in whom
all the families of the earth would be blessed. The Apostle
Paul tells us the interpretation of this promise. Galatians 3.16
To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And he saith
not unto seeds as of many, but as of one. and to thy seed which is Christ. And so Jesus of Nazareth is the
promised seed of woman. He's the one of whom the father
spoke there in the garden that should comfort our hearts to
deliver us from the enmity that was wrought in us when we fell
in sin and transgression against the Lord our God. He has come
to destroy the enemy. to deliver us from the dominion
and rule of sin, to deliver us from the justice of God, the
just wrath that we deserved, and to give us an expected end,
to give us eternal life and eternal inheritance in Him. And so this
is the Messiah, the one whom we call Christ. He's the Savior
of God given for the people. He says in Matthew 121 to Joseph,
he said, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins. This is what he accomplished.
Second, our Lord, by his prophets, told us how that Christ would
come into the world. There's many, many passages we
could look at that Christ fulfilled. And you could see that throughout.
But just for the moment, for today, I just want to say that
they told us how he would come into the world so that we would
know this is Christ. This is Christ. Matthew, quoting
from the prophet Isaiah. In Matthew 1.23, he said, behold,
A virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted
is God with us." And so here it is speaking of a virgin. A
virgin can't conceive a child in her womb without the seed
of man, but here God would create a holy thing. he would form a
holy thing in Mary's womb. It doesn't say a holy child or
a holy man, but it's a holy thing because this is the God-man.
This is God taking upon Him this flesh, being robed in this flesh
so that it's not something of man's doing but of God's doing. That's what He's emphasizing
to us. Our Lord came in the flesh being born of the seed of woman
who was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost. And God did this because
He couldn't be born of man's seed because man's seed is corrupt.
We all were in Adam when Adam sinned and he was defiled, ruined,
destroyed by sin. And all in him, all his seed
in him were corrupted, defiled, ruined. And so that every child
born of Adam is defiled, spiritually dead, ruined. We don't have spiritual
life. We need to be born again. That's
why Christ said, ye must be born again. You need a new birth because
you were born of that corrupt seed which cannot believe. that
does not know the true and living God, you must have a new birth
of that incorruptible seed which is Christ. We need to be born
of Christ's seed, the incorruptible seed. And so He is without sin
and He comes into the world made like unto His brethren in order
to save His brethren. His people. Our Lord tells us,
He speaks of this, the spirit of prophecy in Psalm 139. He
says it this way, verse 13 through 15, For thou hast possessed my
reins, my most inward thoughts, Lord, they're yours. You've given me your thoughts.
I'm formed of you. Thou has covered me in my mother's
womb. I will praise thee for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works and that
my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from
thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth. What this is teaching us is that
Christ bore our humility. The shame and the sorrow and
the suffering of what we are in this flesh because of sin
and our ruined state in Adam, Christ bore the likeness of that. He came in the weakness and in
the humility of flesh in order to suffer and die in the place
of His people, to bear that shame that was ours to bear. to bear
that death that was mine to bear for my sins, what I earned by
my wicked works and deeds and thoughts. Christ bore it in my
place and He bore it in the place of all His people. He took their
place. In order to, He bore that shame
and humility to give us life and to deliver us from the punishment
of sin. Paul summarizes it this way in
Hebrews 2, 16 and 17. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And so this,
brethren, is the testimony of Scripture. Christ is given to
deliver his people from their sins. It's to reveal Christ. And so what the angel is telling
Mary here isn't something to just be skipped over. It's good
news. It's good news that Christ has
come. Christ has come. The promised
seed of woman has come. God is fulfilling his word of
promise. He was not turned or moved from
it. When we look at what the angel says to Mary, this is our
second point here, he's speaking to her to prepare her for what
the Lord is going to work in her. And what the Lord is showing
us is that we, as the church, may appropriate these blessed
truths to us, that we may be comforted. These are not just
words only spoken to her. These words are a comfort to
you that believe, to you who are the church of God, who believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. These words are given to comfort
your heart, to encourage you, to give you joy and rejoicing
in what God has done. All right, so let's read verse
26, Luke 1, 26 through 28, and then we'll look at what these
words mean. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from
God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, espoused
to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the
virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her
and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with
thee. Blessed art thou among women. Now, Mary is unique She's a unique
individual here in that she was chosen of God to bear that promised
seed of woman. She was chosen of God to bear
the promised seed of woman. Of all the daughters of the house
of David there in Israel, God passed by every one of them and
chose Mary. He chose Mary for this, so that
she is the most favored, right? And for this purpose, she's favored
of the Lord for this purpose. She was exalted by the Lord for
this purpose. And that's what the name Mary
means. It can also be interpreted Miriam. Mary, Miriam, same word,
it means exalted. It means exalted. Now, as the
Church of God, though Mary alone was given this great honor, However,
we consider these words that the angel speaks to her, and
we're given to understand that these great and precious promises,
these words that comforted her heart, are words that comfort
our heart. These are words to comfort us,
us who are born of the seed of Christ. He's given these words
to his church, all right? And so this is to excite your
heart. It's to be rejoiced in what God
has done. So first, we'll just look at
a few of these things. First, Mary's name signifies
exalted. And you that believe God are
exalted of God. Like Mary, many of us are poor
and weak and base. We're nothing like the mighty
of this earth. And that's whom the Lord chooses
rather often. Not many mighty, not many wise,
not many noble are chosen but the weak and the lowly and the
sinful. You that have nothing to boast
in. And like Mary, God passed by all the great ones. He went
by the house of Caiaphas and the house of the high priests
and all the daughters there in their houses that were born to
them. And he came to little old Mary. little young Mary, out
there in a know-nothing town, podunk town, Galilee, named Nazareth. And that's the one that he came
and favored. And so it is with you, who are
you and who am I, that God should consider us, me, a sinner who
can give nothing to God. But God should pass by so many
who, in my estimation, will be much more worthy of his love
and blessings and spirit that He should do this for me. And
yet that is what God has done. He has chosen you, brethren,
unto salvation. He has given you His Spirit.
He has made His word effectual in your heart. To the glory and
praise of His name. Ephesians 1 verse 4 says that
it is according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him
in love, without blame before him in love. John tells us that
the reason why you love God is because he loved you first. You
didn't love him or choose him first and therefore God said,
oh, there's a good little person, I'll put my love and blessing
on them. No, you love him, you believe him, you call out to
him for grace and mercy because he first loved you. He did this
for you, for you. And so the reason you believe
is because God chose you unto this. All right, just like we
see with Mary there. So second thing we see is that
like Mary, all who believe Christ unto the saving of their souls.
It's a work of grace. Like Mary, he said, Mary, you
are highly favored. highly favored and if you have
a King James Version you can look at the the margin if it
has the margin there and that word means you're graciously
accepted. All that that are the Lord's
people are graciously accepted of them not on the basis of our
works but we are graciously accepted in spite of our works, we're
accepted for Christ's sake. It's of grace that we are received
of the Lord. And so that's what he means by
saying to you, you're highly favored. You're highly favored,
you that believe. It's a gracious work that he's
done for you. Third, the angel told her, the
Lord is with thee. What do you think that would
do? for your comfort and your peace, if an angel right now
said to you, the Lord is with thee, the Lord is with you, that
would be a great comfort, a great comfort, and yet God has sent
his messenger here this day to declare this blessed gospel word
to your hearing, to comfort you. You that believe the Lord is
with you. I can say that. You that trust
Him, the Lord is with you. Otherwise, how else would you
believe? You'd be a cast off. You'd be doing whatever you want
to do on this day and yet here you are. Because the Lord is
with thee. He's with thee. For by grace
are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God. And so, That gift declares to
us that the Lord is with you that believe him. It's a testimony.
Your faith is a testimony that the Lord is with you. And he
promises, who said that he promises, I'll never leave thee nor forsake
thee. I'll never leave you alone. I'll
never depart from you. I'm with you. I'm with you. And
we know this. He that kept who gave this promise
in the garden, he kept it to Abraham. He fulfilled it. He
brought it to pass just like he said. And in spite of what
Abraham and Sarah did in their unbelief, God still brought it
to pass. And we are given all these scriptures
of the prophets and the Psalms testifying of God's promise to
save his people. And here it is, it's fulfilled. He's fulfilled his promise in
bringing his son just as he said, just as he said he would do. And so, and the Lord, you know,
Mary's not the only one. You might say, well, how can
you say that to us? He's talking to Mary. Well, no.
These words are to all his church. He said to Gideon, he said, the
Lord is with thee, thou man of valor. The Lord is with thee.
And so he speaks that to all his people. The Lord is with
you. in Christ, in Christ Jesus. And we know this because He's
stirred up your hearts. He's delivered you from the dominion
of sin. He's given you faith, which is
fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not trusting your own works,
not doing religion and practicing things to save yourself. No,
you know that salvation is the gift of God. I need His salvation
in Christ. He's done this. And so the Lord
says this word, to encourage you. Lean into His word. Hear
His word. Believe Him. Trust Him. Walk
in faith, believing the Lord that He is your God. Trust Him,
because nothing is impossible with the Lord. Lay your cares,
cast your cares upon Him, He says, for He careth for you.
That thing which you think is impossible of God to do, cast
it before Him. Trust Him. It may not be revealed
exactly as you think it should be revealed, but you'll know.
You'll see what God has done. You'll see his mighty work. Fourth,
Mary's blessed of God. The angel said, blessed art thou
among women. And this is what the Lord does
for his people. He blesses his people in Christ. He blesses us. And so she was
carrying Christ in her womb. Well, you that believe carry
that seed of Christ in your belly, in your womb. That new man of
faith is wrought in you. It's of the Lord. As newborn
babes, we carry the word of His grace. We carry the hope of the
believer. We have faith, hope, you love
Christ. because he's wrought this life
in you. He's born this in you. It's not
of man. It's of God. And so we confess
we are greatly blessed of the Lord. Ephesians 1 3 tells us
that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. That's where God blesses his
people and outside of Christ. There's no blessings in Christ
are every spiritual blessing of God. It's all in Christ fifth
Marries of the royal lineage of David that's the lineage that
Christ was to be born of the seed of David and and so even
though She's not sitting dressed in fine clothes and and in palaces. She's a poor young woman sitting
in the town of Nazareth, and yet she's of royal birth. Well,
that's what the Lord has done for every one of us in adopting
us into his family by Jesus Christ. We are born of royal blood. It says in Revelation 1, 5, and
6, Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten
of the dead, the prince of the kings of the earth unto him that
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath
made us kings and priests unto God and his father to him be
glory and dominion forever and ever and so brethren you that
believe Christ are royal born your kings and priests unto God.
Sixth, Mary was a virgin and so she did nothing according
to the nature of man. It wasn't according to the nature
of man to obtain this child. It's a miracle. It's a miracle
of God's grace and so you're God. has delivered you from the
filth and the stain of sin. Your righteousness is wrought
in you by Christ. The righteousness that you're
clothed in is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done this because you
are unspotted, unstained, and without sin in the world in Christ,
in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he's done. Paul
describes the church saying, I am jealous over you with godly
jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. And that's why I speak to you
this morning of Christ. He's our blessing. He's our comfort. He's all our hope. And so don't
be turned away from that blessed gospel. You're a spouse to one
husband. Peter telling us, for as much
as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, the tradition of dead letter religion. No, you've heard
the gospel. You've been redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the
world, but was manifest in these last times for you. It reminds
me of that hymn we sung, 509, there, of Immanuel's end, the
bride eyes not her garment. And it reminds us of, was it
Revelation 21, I think, where the bride comes down out of heaven,
clothed in that righteous garment which was made for her, fashioned
for her, put upon her by the Lord Jesus Christ. And she's
unspotted and precious and holy in his sight for Christ's sake,
for Christ's sake. The comfort that believers receive
from being blessed of God and appropriating these blessed words
spoken to Mary that we hear them, that we enter in to what the
Lord is saying. It's not some distant thing,
but it's relevant to us. The Lord's speaking to you that
believe Him. Well, He also tells us of Christ,
the greatness of your Savior. I think of him often as the mighty
champion of his people. And you can picture David going
out there to face this mighty giant Goliath. And there's little
David without armor, and yet he takes down that mighty warrior
that was too strong, that was impossible for us to defeat and
overthrow. David was that mighty champion.
Well, Christ is the mighty champion, the hero of his people. He's
great, brethren. He is great. And the Lord is
declaring to you the greatness of our Savior, the greatness
of the Lord, so that we say in Psalm 62, 6 through 8, He only
is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. You don't need to turn and run
away. You're not on shaky ground. You're not standing on sand.
You're standing on the rock, which is Christ. You're standing
before a holy God on the rock, fixed on the rock, which is Christ. Not trusting your own righteousness
and vain dead works. You're trusting Christ, who is
faithful and who has accomplished our redemption by his own righteousness. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, ye
people. Pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge for us. And so this strong salvation
by Jesus Christ, the promise of God being declared to Mary,
is declared to you. It's made known to you. He's
making you know to comfort your heart just as he said to Mary,
be comforted. I'm here for good, is what he's
saying. Don't be afraid. I've come here
with a message to comfort you, to tell you the good news, to
give you peace of what God has done for his people in Christ. So look at Luke 1, 31 and 32.
And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of his Father, David our Lord Jesus
Christ is truly great and that the truest sense of the word
he is Great you and I may boast and brag about something we've
done and and and think we're something but Christ really is
great He did not fail. He cannot fail everything the
scriptures spoke of concerning him. He has fulfilled it He's
fulfilled accomplished everything verse 33 And he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be
no end. And that's why you that trust
him, your days shall never end. Your inheritance in Christ before
the Father shall never end. You have it forever in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He came being born of the woman,
under the law, fulfilling every jot and every tittle, in order
to be that faithful Lamb of God for his people, sacrificed for
his people. And so he's glorious, brethren. As the hymn writer said, a wonderful
Savior is Jesus my Lord. A wonderful Savior to me, he
hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock. Where rivers of pleasure
I see. He's done it all. He's the wonderful
Savior. So all these promises that are
spoken of here by Gabriel to Mary, these promises are confirmed
to you in the Lord Jesus Christ. be comforted, rejoice in what
he's done. He's accomplished everything.
And so going forward, whenever we hear of the announcement of
Christ's birth, of his conception, his birth, his coming, rejoice. It should be rejoicing for us
because he's done this. He's brought to pass that word
spoken all the way back there about 6,000 years ago of what
he said in the garden, that he's promised to save his people.
Believe. I believe him. Trust him. Believe
him. And thou shalt be saved. You
will not be ashamed. Amen. Amen.