I had a friend, I guess he was
a friend, tell me one time that if you looked up ugly in the
dictionary, you'd see my picture. Well, I'm going to tell you this.
You look up the word preaching, and you'd see that message. That was so comforting. I love preaching. It comforts
me. I love preaching that shows me
my need. and points me to where that need
is met. Thank you. Thank you, Gabe. Thank
the Lord for you. Turn with me to the Gospel of
Luke chapter 1. We'll begin reading in verse
28. But Luke chapter 1, verse 28. The Scripture says, And the angel
came in unto her, speaking of Mary, and said, Hail, thou art
highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary. for thou hast found favor with
God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his
name Jesus. Verse 32, 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. And he shall
reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there
shall be no end. One of my choice of verses in
all the Scripture is found in Psalm 126 verse 3 that provides
a very simple gospel outline of five things. It says, the
Lord. It always begins with the Lord,
doesn't it? The Lord. Everything's of the Lord. He's
the first cause of everything, as we endeavored to tell you
last night. Secondly, half done. This work's
finished. Nothing for us to do. Nothing
for us to add to it. God the Father has accepted this
work. Great things. He's done great
things for us. Every child of God, I tell you
that. He's done great things for me. Put away my sin, is that
not a great thing? Only one who is great can do
great things. Our salvation is a great thing. He's done these great things
for us. Boy, that just gets sweeter,
doesn't it? He did this for me. He did this for His people, those
who believe and trust in Him. He's done great things for those.
who can do nothing for themselves. Wherefore, we are glad, and we
ought to be. He's done great things. We're
so great and glorious, so rich and plenteous, so full and free. Free. I like stuff that's free,
don't you? This is free. Free. This is glorious
salvation. We ought to be glad. Pleased. Happy. Delighted. Before I heard the Gospel, the
preaching that I heard all my life, described the Lord Jesus
as anything but great. He wanted to do something. He
was trying to do something. He needed my help to help Him. Do something for me? Well, I
couldn't help myself. I can't help Him. He needed me to lend Him my will
in order for Him to accomplish His will? That didn't even sound right
then. It definitely doesn't sound right now. You know, one of the most used
words today in our vocabulary is great. Isn't that great? Everything's
great. This is great. That's great. This one's great. That one's
not so great. How great is that? Great means
to be considerably above and beyond the average. We are great,
but the Lord is infinitely so. We're not great. He's done great things for us.
But that's what people think. We're great. The Lord is infinitely
so. To be great means to have an
ability, a quality, an eminence, so to speak, superiority, that
it's high above the norm. You know, everything's relative
to what we ourselves are. So if someone excels above what
we can do, we say they're great. But they're not. They're not.
But He is. The Lord Jesus is. God pronounced
from heaven through this angel, He shall be great. And He was
great. He was great. He's endlessly
great. As a noun, the word great indicates
that the one described is worthy of a specific consideration to
do something great is to have an advanced or superior ability. You know, there's really only
one that's great. When you trim all of it away, just one that's
great. In our text, we're told who it
is. In verse 28, the angel said to
Mary, Thou art highly favored. Do you know what highly favored
means? In this text, in the margin, it says graciously accepted. That's a great thing. To be graciously
accepted. We're saved by grace. Grace,
grace, marvelous grace. Mary found grace in the eyes
of the Lord just like Noah did. She didn't deserve it. Mary was
graciously accepted the same way every single chosen sinner
is. How were you saved? Well, I accepted
Jesus. No, no, you didn't accept anything. You were accepted in the Beloved.
salvations of grace. It's His grace. We've got nothing
to be proud of. We have nothing to brag about.
Absolutely nothing. Mary was chosen by God to give
birth to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, by the grace and
mercy of God. Now listen, Mary's not a deity.
She's not to be worshipped. She was a sinner just like you
and I. She had no say in this matter. She was chosen of God
for a specific purpose. Mary was nothing but an instrument
used of God. A chosen vessel that God used
to bring Christ into the world. Nothing more. And here in verse
31, God the Father through His messenger, the angel, reveals
to Mary that she'd bring forth a son and that he would be called
Jesus. Now listen to me. Mary's not
the mother of God. Never has been. She's a woman
that God made a mother, but she's not His mother. She's not the
mother of God. Mary's not a Savior. She doesn't
have anything to do with the salvation of sinners. But look
here in verse 22, the angel of the Lord adds, He shall be great
and shall be called the Son of the Highest. Mary's not His mother,
but God is His Father. He's the Son of the Highest.
And the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father
David. And He shall reign over the house
of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there shall
be no end. You know what? The Lord sure
sounds great to me. Sounds great. Mary's not great. Well, she doesn't even know what's
going on here. Friends, when it comes to God doing great things,
He doesn't need to run it by us. He doesn't need to ask us,
well, what do you think about that? Can you imagine the Lord
saying, David, what do you think about that? I don't even know how to come
in out of the rain most of the time. What advice can I give
God? He doesn't need our approval.
He doesn't need our cooperation in what He purposes to do. He's
great. Notice that in verse 32, we're
told that the Lord Jesus was David's son in the flesh. Now
this one who is great is David's son, but hear me, yet He is David's
Lord. He's David's Son and David's
Lord. And only one who is God, and
only one who is man, and only one who is great could be David's
Son and David's Lord. Isn't that amazing? After the flesh, He was David's
Son. But after the Spirit, He was
David's Lord. to the ordinary unenlightened
soul, in the Lord's day, and specifically in ours, the Lord
Jesus was anything but great. Why? Because He stooped from
heaven's glory to the womb of a woman, and in doing so, He
made Himself of no reputation. He who was great made Himself
of no reputation. taking the form of a servant.
He who was to be served became a servant. He was made in the
likeness of men. He who was God was made a man,
yet without sin. He's great. He is so great. Who thought one
to be great who was born in a barn? Who thought one to be great,
this King of Kings to be great with a manger as his crib? Who thought a carpenter, especially
from Nazareth, was a great man? Who thought that he was great
when he was persecuted, when he was rejected, and in the end
crucified? Did he seem great then? Who considered him great when
he had no place to lay his head? The Lord Jesus was homeless.
He who made the world and all things therein, a great carpenter,
didn't even make himself a home. How great did he seem when he
was accused of being a drunk, a winebibber, and having a devil. Why, he's got a devil. Did he
seem great then? How great was he when he was
tried and condemned and sentenced to death as the worst criminal
that ever lived. How great did one seem who was
hung in the middle, crucified in the middle of two well-known
thieves, criminals. How great did He appear when
His own people desired the release of another criminal over Him
at the Passover feast? Pilate said, But you have a custom
that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will you
therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? The
Scripture says, Then they all cried, all of them. I remember
a man telling me one time, he said, If I'd have been there
That day, I would have stopped them from crucifying. No, you
wouldn't. You'd have been right there shouting
with the rest of them, Crucify Him! The name Barabbas means Son of
the Father. He pictures us, the sinners,
that we are. We're sons and daughters of our
Father Adam, aren't we? Mark 15.7 tells us that Barabbas
had committed murder in the insurrection. Luke 23.25 tells us that Barabbas
was for sedition and murder cast into prison, but Pilate delivered
the Lord Jesus to their will. How do those, friends, how do
those who claim to have a free will justify this in their minds? Here we see the true nature of
man's free will. Apart from a divine intervention,
you and I will not come to Christ. The Scripture says that. You
will not come to me that you might have life. We'll choose the worst of the
worst, and most of the time that's ourselves or somebody just like
us. Over the spotless, perfect Son of God. Something wrong with
that. I don't want my will. You know
what I want? Mercy and grace and love and
forgiveness. That's what I want. That's what
I desire, as Gabe so ably told us. How great did the Lord Jesus
appear when He was scourged and beaten? Scripture says that His
visage didn't even resemble a man. They just beat Him and beat Him
and beat Him until He didn't even look like a man anymore.
How great was He then? How great did He seem then? Oh,
He was great! He didn't look great to those
who did it to Him, but He was great. Why? Because He did all
this for us. for worthless, undeserving wretches. Beaten, mocked, ridiculed, made
fun of. Well, He saved others, why don't
He save Himself? If He's the Son of God, why don't
you come down from the cross? You know why? Because I deserve
to be there. That's where I should have been.
How great did our Lord appear when He had a crown of thorns?
Now listen, they didn't gently place that crown of thorns on
His head. They shoved it down on His head. And those thorns,
have you ever been pricked by a thorn? It hurts. They shoved that down on His
head. Here, Mr. King, They treated Him like a great
sinner, but He was anything but. He knew no sin. He was made sin
for us. That we might be made the righteousness
of God. Don't you like that word made?
Isn't that a good word? Was the impression of the Lord
great when He was crucified between two thieves to die? How great
did our Lord appear when they put Him in a borrowed tomb? The
angel said, He shall be great. But who's ever been so vile and
poor as our Savior became? He identified Himself with us. That's what we are. But this Great One, was brought
into the dust of death and his name cast forth as evil. Because that's what we were,
evil. Evil. I declare to you, dear sinner,
that this very man who was despised and spat upon, there's nothing
more disrespectful to a man than to spit upon him. But now this
man, The great Lord Jesus Christ, He that has always been great, is on a much higher throne than
David's. And He's crowned and anointed
King of Kings. You see, He's above every king. He's the King of Kings. And He's
the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, of the little lords. He's great. Regardless of what this blind
world sees, our Lord Jesus rose from the lowest depths to the greatest heights to reign
throughout eternity. And we're going to be with Him.
Isn't that a great thing? That's a great thing. Peter and
the apostles testified, this Jesus hath God raised up whereof
we are all witnesses, He being by the right hand of God exalted. Our Lord Jesus told His disciples,
He said, I go to prepare a place for you, and you shall be with
me where I am. That's where we're headed. Oh,
there are brighter days ahead, I'm telling you that. But yet,
we experience that same greatness right now because of Him. Isn't
that great? That's great. You know, I was thinking about
this. Our Lord was great in the fact that He didn't seem great. We try to appear great when we're
not. We're just one maggot trying
to impress another is all we do. That's all it is. We want to impress and only digress
when we try. As I said, the Lord made Himself
of no reputation. No. None. He had no reputation. And we strive to have a good
reputation, don't we? Has there ever been one so great
as Him? Jesus Christ is God, our Savior. I remember one time,
I'll never forget this, I was talking to Brother Cody Groover,
And he was telling me, we were talking about the subject of
baptism, and you know, a lot of kids today, out of peer pressure,
they want to be baptized, and they just don't understand what
it represents. But Brother Cody said he had
a young Mexican girl come to him one time and say, Brother
Cody, I want to be baptized. And he said, well, honey, why
do you want to be baptized? And she said, because I have
seen that Jesus is God. Boy, the Lord done something
great for her. I didn't have to ask Brother
Cody what he did. I knew he baptized her. That's a good answer. Jesus
Christ is God. He's wonderfully unique. He's
the only one of His kind. There'll never be another. God
in the flesh came once. If I could sing forth Christ's
praises with the symphony of angels, I would fall so short
and fail to sing to the height of His greatness. So you and
I have got to just simply be content to touch the hem of the
garment of His greatness. And let me tell you, when you
do that, there is no higher place. at His feet. That's the highest
place that we can attain in this life. It's at His feet that we're
lifted to the highest. We fall and bow at Christ's feet
for our highest obtaining. And just as God put Moses in
the cleft of that rock, I think about that often. And it caused
him to see the Lord only His back part, because no man could
see His face and live. He couldn't see His great holiness
We just got to be content with that. But that's a great place
to be. It's a great thing to see, isn't
it? Christ in all His glory and greatness. It can't be described. We can't describe it. Like Paul,
if we were called up to the third heaven, we should come back with
nothing to say. For the words would be unspeakable
words. The angel said, He shall be great.
That's what the Lord Jesus Christ is. He's great in every way. But let me just endeavor to give
you a few. First, He's great in the perfection
of His nature. He's divine and therefore unique.
He's the light of all light. The same light that God spoke
into existence in the creation of the world is the same light
that God sheds in these dark, void, formless hearts of ours. And He says like there is light.
He's very God of very God. He's equal with God. You know,
we say He's the Son of God. Well, that don't make Him less
than God. He's God the Son. God in three
persons. God the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit. All three equally God. Matter
of fact, Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. None greater than Him. None. He's God. He's God. He was in the beginning with
God. He's infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, inconceivable. He fills all things, but nothing
adds to Him. He's great beyond any perception
of greatness. For of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. He gets all the glory. We don't
get any. And the child of God doesn't
want any. He's before all things, and by Him all things consist.
And for the elect's sake, He who is God was made a man. We
call Him the God-man. Tell somebody you worship the
God-man, they'll look at you funny. He's 100% God and 100%
man, not half and half. He's all that God is, and He's
all that God created man to be. He's as truly God as if He was
not man, and He's completely and perfectly man as if He were
not God. Think of this wondrous and great
combination, God and man. Perfect man without spot or stain
or original sin. How great is one who's never
sinned? That's all we do is sin. We cannot not sin. But here's
one that's never sinned. He's great. He's great. He stands alone in greatness,
for in Him dwells all the fullness of God, as I said, bodily. Not some godly qualities. You know, men, we talk about
someone that we admire, and you say, he's got some really good
quality. Jesus Christ is the fullness
of God as a man. Not some godly quality, all of
them. All of them. The Lord Jesus is
great where all else is little. Christ is great while all else
is nothing. Our Lord Jesus stands alone in
greatness. Secondly, He's great in the grandeur
of His attributes and His offices. You need to pile up all his offices.
First, he's prophet, priest, and king. He's great. His name's wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
Only one who's great could have those names. Blessed and great
be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. He's great. He's infinite. He's self-existing.
He's without origin. Christ is immutable. He never
changes. If He loves me before the foundation
of the world, He loves me now, and He'll love me in the end,
because He's not a man that He should lie, or a son of man that
He should change His mind and repent. He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. He's all-sovereign. He's the
only one who can save whom He wills, when He wills, how He
wills. He's omniscient. He's all-knowing.
He knows everything. Nobody pulls the wool over His
eyes. No, sir. He's omnipresent. He's always and everywhere. Isn't He great? Have you ever
heard of such a great one as Him? Thirdly, our Lord Jesus is great
in the splendor of His achievements. His duty is never neglected. His name is what? Faithful and
true. He finished the work His Father
gave Him to do. He bore His people's sin upon
the cross. He paid all His people's sin,
and He paid it in full. I was going through some old
papers here a while back. getting rid of things, you know
how you let things sit around and you find something from 1970
and you think, I don't need that anymore. But I ran across a car
note with a bank that I had and I looked down at it and it was
stamped in red, paid in full. It was appropriate they stamped
it in red because friends, our sin debt is paid in full by the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means it's paid. Nobody going to come trying to
collect on that debt. No. Our Lord is great. He made an end of sin for His
elect. All past, all present, all future. Forever gone. Christ conquered
those who conquered us. And now, in Him, we're more than
conquerors. How? Through Him that loved us. And He's given gifts to men.
The gift of the Holy Spirit. Gifts to make us useful for God's
glory. Gifts that make us profitable
for the good of the church. As I said earlier, that message
that we heard, God gave him that message. God gave him that gift
and ability to deliver it, the same as He does your pastor,
the same as He does any man. We're not self-made men and women,
are we? No. Christ's merits cover every believer's
sin from head to toe with a perfect obedience to the law. A man told me not long ago, he
said, I'm pretty good on seven or eight out of the ten commandments. No, I've never kept the first
law because in order to keep God's law, it's got to be kept
perfectly. I can't do that. I can't do anything
good. There's nothing to do with good.
None means none, doesn't it? All means all, none means none.
His blood has washed away every believer to be whiter than snow,
as Gabe said. His righteousness has made us
to be accepted in Him. You didn't accept Jesus, He accepted
you, and He only accepts you in Christ. His merits has for the believer
turned hell into heaven. Disease into health. Disobedience
to perfect obedience. The perfect obedience of the
Lord Jesus lifted us up from the dunghill. You know what a
dunghill is? Well, if not, see me after the
service. And He's made us. He's made us
and He's set us among the princes of His making. Prince David. That's got a nice ring to it,
doesn't it? That's what I am in Christ. He's great beyond measure. The
Lord Jesus is great in the number of those that He saved. You know,
when all the elect of God throughout all time are gathered together,
it's going to be a great number. So great that it can't be numbered. No man can number it. Election. I love election. Election doesn't mean that God
has only chosen a handful and condemned a multitude to hell. I don't know why it is that those
who hate the election of God think that those who believe
it and love it think that God somehow loves to send people
to hell. Our God Himself said, I have
no pleasure in the death of the wicked. that the wicked should
turn from their ways and live. Turn ye, turn ye. This is God
talking. From your evil ways, why will
you die? And he says, O house of Israel.
Some say, well, that's because God there is only talking to
the chosen Israel. Well, Paul said, for they are
not all Israel, which are Israel. For he is not a Jew which is
one outwardly, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the
letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Romans 2, 28
and 29. Elections never shut anybody
out of heaven. Men's unbelief, men's obstinance,
and men's unwillingness to bow to Christ is what does that.
The election of God assures that a multitude, a multitude are going to be saved. And the Lord told Abraham just
that. He said, but as many as the stars
of heaven shall the elect of God be. He said, is the single
grains of sand that are on the seashore not going to be enough
to mark the number that God saves? Election and predestination doesn't
knock or lock anyone out. It makes it certain for some. And in the end, throughout all
time, it's going to be a great number. Whosoever is thirsty can drink from Christ's fountain
of living water. Are you thirsty? That's the question. If I can do nothing to be saved,
I love this. I love this. If I can do nothing
to be saved, and I can. Christ saved me. He did all the
work for me. Then I can do nothing to be lost.
If Christ saved me, I'm forever saved. His work's finished. It's
been eternally accepted by God. It can never be taken away from
me. Salvation is not a man. Salvation is of the Lord. Someone
asked Brother Mahan years and years ago. He said, oh, so you're
one of those selected ones. You're one of those that, you
know, once saved, always saved. And Brother Henry said, well,
it all depends on who saved you. If you saved yourself, you've
got reason to be concerned. But if God saved you, everything's
going to be alright. Yeah, I'm once saved, always
saved, but God saved me. And He's the only one that can
save. How great is that? Isn't that great? That's great,
Kelly. In the estimation of His people,
the Lord is great. The believer's estimation of
Christ can never fully express our overwhelming love, our overwhelming
appreciation, our overwhelming thankfulness to Him. He has redeemed
our souls with His blood. I could never repay God for that. He paid the debt I didn't know.
I can't pay Him back. He's not only great, but eternally
great. Who can look at the sun? You
know, they always tell you, don't look at the sun, you'll go blind.
But who could, if you could look at the sun, who could look at
the sun and not see something of its limited power? You could
feel the power of it. You could feel the heat from
it. And I love what Gabe said last
night about Christ's glory. The sun, S-O-N, of glory and
greatness outshines that of the sun, S-U-N, for He's the one
that created it. You know why? Because He's great. He's great. And then the sixth
thing and the last thing, how great is the salvation of the
Lord. It's the greatest thing of all.
We need a great Deliverer for our great needs. Our needs are
great. We need a great Redeemer for
our sin is great. We are in great ruin. Our house
is ruined for we, like a foolish man, built it upon the sand. And the rain descended and the
floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and
it fell. It fell. And great was the fall
of it. Great was the fall of it. Any
contractor will tell you that a house is only as sound as its
foundation. If your foundation starts to
give way, everything else is coming down with it. It's all
going to fall. On Christ, On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. And it is. It is. We're covered with great
sin, but He who is great will make short order of great sin. He put away sin, how? By the
sacrifice of Himself. He who is great paid our great
sin debt. Unspeakable words. We give our
best stab at it, don't we, Gabe and Paul, Walter, Eric. We endeavor to the best of our
ability, but they're just unspeakable things. We can't explain it,
but we're responsible to preach it. You're responsible to believe
it. What a joy for great sinners
to know that Christ their Redeemer is great. We've got a great high
priest. He takes our sins before the
Father and He says, I paid for these. God says, paid in full. With the blood of Christ. What
a joy. He's so great that He's been
touched and still is with the filling of our infirmities. He's
so great that He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without
sin. How great is that? He's the chief
of great preparations. We have great property. He's
a great supplier. He has great love for His people.
We are greatly famished. He has great abundance of food. We require great rivers of living
water. We're parched. We're thirsting
to death. But Christ the smitten rock,
the great rock of salvation, has an endless supply of rivers
of living water. Man, He's great. Isn't He great? We have great needs. He has great
supplies and He has great preparations in Christ. We're certain to have
great peace, great joy, great rest, great victory, great fellowship,
great glory, because He is our great Lord. And because of His
greatness, to Him every knee is going to bow. Every tongue
is going to confess. One day the whole world is going
to bow at His feet. The world is going to acknowledge
Him The whole world is going to acknowledge Him one day as
their King. But for some, it's going to be
too late. He's Lord of all, but He's only
Father to some. The whole universe is going to
be filled with His glory. All the battle is the Lord's.
Our great enemies are not great to Him. Like the brother Utah, I've got
a great problem. It's sin. But He's going to deliver
us from our sin. Because He's great. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth, and His Son is exalted to sit with Him upon the throne
of His glory forever and ever. He's great! And in the end, all
are going to see His great exaltation, but as I said, for some, too
late. His love is great. His grace
is great. His mercy is great. His forgiveness is great. His
redemption is great. The angel said, He shall be great.
He came and He was great. He will forever remain great.
And I hope that when we hear that word, great, that we'll
remember who it is that's truly great. Quickly, and I'll finish, back
in our text in Luke 1, verse 30, in this message of the angel,
we have first a message of assurance. The angel said, fear not. There's
no reason for us to fear, not God's people. Fear not, Mary,
for thou hast found favor with God. Fear not, dear sinner, you've
found favor with God. There's no reason for us to fear.
That's the assurance that every believer has. We have great assurance
because of who it was that died for us. The Great One. Secondly, it's a message of promise.
In verse 31, we see that God sent forth His Son. The Old Testament
is all about He who was coming. The New Testament tells us that
He's come. The epistles tell us that He's coming again. And
this is God's promise. to us of the Great One. He shall
be great. He's always been great. He's
great now and He's going to always be that way. Thirdly, we've got
a command. Verse 31, Thou shalt call His
name Jesus. Jehovah. Joshua. Jehovah saves. That's what He
is. And every believer is proud to
say it. Salvation's of the Lord. Salvation's of the Great One. And then, fourthly and lastly,
this is a message of prophecy. Verse 32 and 33. He shall be
great. He shall be the Son of the Highest,
the Greatest. He'll sit on David's throne.
He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. Only one great
can do that. His kingdom shall have no end.
Only a great kingdom never ends. He shall reign over the house
of Jacob. His kingdom shall have no end.
Only a great King can reign and reign and reign and reign. He's
the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and He sure is great. So always remember, dear believer,
when things don't look or seem great, we have a great Savior
who does all things well. That word means great. He does
all things, not just well, but they're great. So you know, only God's people
can say everything's great. Only God's people can say, isn't
that great? Every time we hear the gospel,
isn't that great? Like the two men that left worship
service one day after hearing the Gospel, and one said, what
a great message, and the other said, what a great God. What
a great Savior. That's the difference. If you
only hear me, Gabe, Brother Paul, and these other men, that won't
get it done. You've got to hear from God. So how great is that? Oh Lord, my God. How great Thou
art. Thank you.