Well, good morning, everyone. If you'd open your Bibles with me, the book of Luke chapter one is where our lesson will be from this morning. Luke chapter one. Before we begin, let's bow together in prayer. Our father, which art in heaven, holy and reverend, is your matchless, precious name.

Father, we have gathered here together today in the name of your son. Seeking to hear a word from the seeking to be enabled by life spirit to worship you in spirit and in truth. Father, I pray that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ would be exalted and magnified in our services this morning that he might be lifted up on high as he should and that we might be put in the dust as we should, and that we would be enabled to be able to worship at his feet.

Father, enable us to, by faith, see that the Lord Jesus Christ is great, that he is everything that we need. He's everything that you require. And Father, give us believing hearts. Give us an understanding mind that understands the things that are being taught heart that would believe them. Father, bless us for Christ's sake.

We pray how we desire that you would be pleased to show us your glory. And father, while we freely confess that we are the most blessed people on the face of the earth, we're still in his flesh of poor and a needy people. And we pray father that you would continue by your and grace to provide the things that we need in this life and father that you would especially reach your hand down and touch your people that are in times of great trial and trouble those who need you especially father at this time that you would comfort their hearts with your presence and father that you'd be pleased to to give them grace that's sufficient for as long as they're in the valley that you've called them to. Father that you'd heal and deliver as soon as it could be thy will. All these things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's for his sake and his glory we pray, amen.

Now I have a lesson this morning that I think is very important, very beneficial for us to hear. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will enable me to preach and teach this lesson so clearly that the Holy Spirit will show us how great the Lord Jesus Christ truly is so that we have no choice but to believe him, to trust him. I've titled the lesson, The Greatness of Jesus Christ. Our lesson begins in verse 32, where the angel tells Mary, and behold, I'm sorry, let's see, where am I?

Verse 32, he shall be great. That's where I took the title from, he shall be great. And you know, everything about the Lord Jesus Christ is great. You just look up in the concordance, you'll be, well, probably not surprised how many references there are to how great our savior is. David said in Psalm 77 verse 13, who is so great as our God?

The answer to that question is none. None is as great as he is. And all of his works are great. Everything he does is great. When it came time for God to create the heavens and the earth, he didn't create small lights, he created great lights. David said in Psalm 111 verse 12, the works of the Lord are great. All of them are great. They're sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.

And sometime this afternoon, if you want to read that Psalm, Psalm 111, you'll see how many times David mentions the works of the Lord. And then he mentions the work of the Lord. There's one of the Lord's works, the work that is the most glorious. It's his work of redemption. All of his works are great.

David said in Psalm 31 verse nine, The Lord is great in his goodness to us. Aren't you thankful his goodness is so great? His goodness is greater than our badness. His goodness to sinners is so great. His mercy is great, which it has to be to show mercy to great sinners. He's great in his power. He's great in his power to redeem great sinners. And he's great in his love. What great love wherewith he loved us. David said in Psalm 139 verse 17, even God's thoughts toward us are great. When he thinks on his, he said, I know the thoughts I have towards you. Those thoughts are great.

Christ is not just the shepherd of the sheep. He's the great shepherd of the sheep. I mean, I just go on and on and on and on and preach the rest of my life on the greatness of Jesus Christ. but I'll confine myself to 30 minutes and primarily what we see in our text here this morning. First, if you want to see the true greatness of Christ Jesus, we must see he's great in his humiliation. Look at verse 31. The angel told Mary, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus.

Now I love to think about this, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is God. He's not like God. He's not God decaffeinated. He is God. Isaiah told us, unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given. The son of God is given. And what's his name? The mighty God, the everlasting father.

Look at John chapter one. Here's his great condescension and his humiliation that God was made flesh. John 1 verse 1, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. The same as in the beginning with God and all things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made. Jesus Christ is God. And look down at verse 14.

And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. The son of God humiliated himself to become flesh. You think how far down the prince of glory had to descend to become an embryo in the womb of the virgin. Just a microscopic embryo. The heavens cannot contain him. But for that time, he was a microscopic embryo in the womb of the virgin. And Mary brought forth a son. He was a real son. He was made flesh. He was made with a human nature, yet without sin.

And not only did the son humiliate himself to become flesh, he humiliated himself further by dwelling among us. Dwelling among sinners, sinful men and women like you and me. You see his greatness and how far he stooped to save sinners like we are. He didn't send somebody else down to get us. He went down to the bottom of the barrel himself to get to redeem his people. Look at Philippians chapter two. Here Paul describes God, God the Son becoming flesh. It's the longest journey that ever has been made. Philippians 2 verse 6.

Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. It wasn't robbery for him to say he's equal with God because he is God. But he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. The son of God was made in the likeness of our sinful flesh. And when he came in the flesh, I mean, he would have had to condescend greatly to come as the son of a king, to be a prince who grew up in a palace, you know, with nannies and educators and all these things. But he didn't do that.

He stooped to come to earth as a poor man, as a working man. He learned a trade with his stepfather, Joseph. He worked in that wood shop. I'm sure his hands were calloused and rough from doing that work. And during his earthly ministry, he lived as a homeless man. He had no place to lay his head. The one who created the world, the cattle on a thousand hills belong to me, he said.

But he lived as a homeless man, just humiliated himself. He humiliated himself. to be made under his own law. The very one who with his finger wrote the Ten Commandments in tables of stone and gave them to Moses, put himself under his own law so that he could obey it for his people. And if all that wasn't enough, you think how he humiliated himself to be made sin for his people.

You and I have no idea the depths of that sorrow and suffering for the holy son of God to be made sin, to have his father turn his back on him, and to suffer at the hands of his creatures. His creatures who depend on him for life and breath were killing the son of God. He gave them the life and the breath and the strength to do it. And then life himself humiliated himself to die and lay in a tomb, a dead body, for three days. His greatness is seen in how far he came down to save sinners like you and me. Then number two, Jesus Christ is great in his person. There's none like him. He's both God and man. Verse 32 says, he shall be great, and he shall be called the son of the highest. In verse 35, the angel answered and said unto her, the holy ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee.

Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God. Now Mary's firstborn son is going to be called the son of God. He's going to be called the son of the highest because that's who he is. God only calls things as what they are. He is the son of God. He's the son of the highest, yet he's also Mary's son. He's the son of God and the son of man.

He is both God and man. Now he's not 50% God and 50% man to make up one person. He's 100% God. And he's 100% man. He's both. The math of that don't add up. But that's heavenly arithmetic. He's 100% God and 100% man. And I'm so thankful. Our Savior must be God. He must be God so that he's holy. so that he's righteous. He must be God so that he has the nature that will obey God's law for his people. He must be a man, but he also must be God. He must be God so that that man has perfect, sinless blood that will pay the sin debt of his people. He must have sinless blood to be able to cleanse his people from every spot and stain of sin. But he also has to be a man. He has to be a man with our nature so he can be our representative.

God can't be our representative. He doesn't have the same nature as we do. God can't be our substitute. He doesn't have the same nature as we do. That's why the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Those animals don't have the same nature that we do. They can be a picture, but they can't put away sin.

If Jesus Christ will put away sin, he must be a man so he can be our substitute to take our sin and suffer and die in our place. He has to be God to satisfy God, the sinless sacrifice. But he must be a man who can die. God can't die, but a man can. So he must be a man who can die to satisfy the law's demands. And the only person that fits that bill is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's so great in his uniqueness He's the only one able to save sinners because he's both God and man in one person. Then third, and I love this one, Jesus Christ is great in salvation. Great sinners need a great salvation, don't we?

The angel said he shall save his people from their sin. That's why he came. He didn't come to give us an example. He didn't come to be a martyr, to make people feel sorry for him. He came to save his people from their sin, to take their sin away from them as far as the east is from the west.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is so great in salvation. That's his name. You should call his name Jesus, the angel said. Well, Jesus is the New Testament name for the Old Testament named Joshua. And that name means Jehovah is salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't just provide salvation like it's some ambiguous thing. He is salvation. He is so great, he is salvation. And he saved his people through great suffering.

You know, the suffering, in his body, just his fleshly body, is really unimaginable. It's just unimaginable. He suffered more than anyone else who was ever crucified. Isaiah said that people were astonished at him. In Isaiah 52, verse 14, when they saw his suffering, they were astonished. His visage, Isaiah said, was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. They were astonished they never saw anybody have physical sufferings like that man on that middle cross. His fleshly sufferings are just unimaginable. I wish people would quit trying to depict it in pictures and movies, because we can't do it.

I mean, it's so awful. Every part of the Lord's body was suffering, beaten and bruised and bloody, every part of it. I mean, from head to toe, he was suffering. And his soul sufferings were even worse. I mean, his physical sufferings that we really can't even imagine, that's just the tip of the iceberg. His soul suffering was even worse. The suffering of his soul is so great.

Really, scripture doesn't even attempt to describe it, because we can't understand it. What we know is he made his soul an offering for sin. Now, if our sin would be put away, somebody's got to suffer hell. If the Lord is not merciful and gracious to us, if he does not give us the faith to trust the Lord Jesus Christ, every person in this room knows when we die, God's gonna send us to hell. Well, if we're gonna be saved from that, somebody's gotta suffer hell for us. And this is one of these things the human mind cannot comprehend, but I know it so. As our savior suffered on Calvary's tree, hell was in his soul. He was suffering hell in his soul.

The father, the one who loved the son, who loves the son from all of eternity, who loves his son with a perfect love and the son loves his father back the same way. That one who he, the son, has only ever known love and a smiling face and a scowling face plunge the sword of justice into the heart, into the soul of his fellow, into the heart of his son. And our savior suffered that willingly, knowing full well everything that he was going to suffer. And you know how he knew everything he was going to suffer?

Because he's the very one that determined before the foundation of the world this is what he'd suffer. And he wrote about it in the Old Testament. He moved the prophets to write about it in the Old Testament. And those men at the cross did everything precisely the way the Lord said they'd do it in the Old Testament. Just to show us they're carrying out his eternal will and purpose He suffered that willingly so He could save the likes of you and me.

That's a great salvation. And the suffering of that one man bought salvation, bought redemption, paid the redemption price for a number no man can number. Oh, that's a great salvation. The suffering of our Savior was so great It bought salvation lock, stock and barrel for the chief of sinners, for the chief of sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ is such a great savior. He saves to the uttermost.

He saves completely to the farthest ends of the earth, all that come unto God by him. Everyone that comes unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't care how many of them there are, I don't care how great their sin is, they're all saved to the uttermost because of great salvation purchased by a great savior. He is so great, his blood cleanses us from all sin. He doesn't just cleanse us from our sin up to this point and then we gotta keep ourselves clean from here on out. from all sin.

His blood cleanses us from original sin in Adam. That's where we all became guilty, in Adam. When Adam sinned, you and I sinned. When Adam became guilty, you and I became guilty. And the blood of Christ cleanses us from that original sin in Adam. His blood cleanses us from all the sin that we've ever committed. We're born into this world and we commit sin. We're born into this world speaking lies. That's what David said.

We sin so much, we don't even know all of our sin. It always just makes my skin crawl to hear about these places where you gotta get up in front of the whole rest of the congregation and they think you gotta confess all of your sins, every bad thing that you've ever done before the congregation in order to be saved. Number one, all that is is a way to make the self-righteous people feel better, sit out there and think, I haven't done that. If you think you haven't done that, you're lying to yourself. But besides that, I don't even know all the sin that I've committed. I've sinned so much, I don't even know all the sin. I can't confess all of my sin. The best that I can do is say, I'm a sinner. God, be merciful to me, thee, sinner. Everything that I do is sin.

And the blood of Christ cleanses us from all of that. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all the sin we think about. Even our thoughts. Even if we didn't do them, if you just think it, you're guilty of it. That's what the Lord said. And the blood of Christ cleanses us from all that sin. All of us have had, at the most inappropriate moment, Sinful thoughts just pop into our head. And we're shamed and we're just like, where did that come from?

I didn't mean to think that. The blood of Christ cleanses us from even that. All sin. Salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ is so great that if he died for you, you can expect him to take you to glory with him. We have a good hope through grace, Paul said.

And that word hope doesn't mean, well, I hope this happens. I mean, I don't know if it will. I don't know, but I just hope so. It'd be nice. Probably won't, but I hope so. That word hope doesn't mean that. It means an expectation. We have an expectation of redemption. because of God's grace, because Christ suffered for us. We have a good hope that when we die, being taken into glory, to be in the presence of our Savior forever, because of who died, because of what a great Savior he is. This great salvation gives us an expectation to receive everything that Almighty God has promised his people, because he's such a great Savior. The Lord Jesus is such a great Savior, it is impossible for you to be condemned if Christ died for you.

It's impossible. So that has to mean that this so-called Savior, this idol, this figment of man's imagination that people talk about, well Christ died for you, but now you've got to do something in order to make it effectual. Christ died for you, but if you don't do this, this, and this, why, you're gonna perish. And wouldn't that be a shame for Christ to shed his blood for you and waste it because you won't believe on him?

That's not a great Savior. That's a teeny tiny Savior. That is not a great Savior. If this so-called Savior died for you, and he can't save you, against your will, with your full consent, that he's not worth trusting, he's not worth hearing about. Salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ is so great, it's impossible for anyone for whom he died to be condemned. It's impossible.

Now look at Hebrews chapter two. You know, I told you I want to teach this lesson in such a way that we just can't miss how great Jesus Christ is and we'll believe on him. We'll believe on him. This is what the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 2 verse 3.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. If we neglect, if we refuse to believe so great salvation, great salvation that's in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have no other hope, none. But if you trust him, you cannot be condemned because he's such a great savior.

And then lastly, Jesus Christ is great in his kingly reign. Verse 32 back in our text says, 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. In all of his kingdom, there shall be no end. Christ our Savior rules over everything. And like brother Don Fortner used to say, you take that as far as you want. Jesus Christ our Savior is king over everything. And he's not a king like, well, something happens bad in his kingdom and nothing he can do about it. This king rules over everything.

He rules over the dust flying through the air. He rules over the temperature. He rules over even the thoughts of men. Not just our actions, but our thoughts. We think what we think because God put it in our head to think it. He rules over everything. There is nothing in this whole creation that can do anything except by His permission, except by His will. His rule is that absolute.

I'll tell you what that means. His rule over physical things, that salvation, His rule over physical things shows us that he also rules in the spiritual realm, because his kingdom, he told Pilate, is a spiritual kingdom. It's not an earthly kingdom. It's a spiritual kingdom. He rules in all things spiritual, so that salvation is up to his sovereign choice.

He's going to love Jacob and hate Esau just because he would, just because he would. It's up to his sovereign choice. Why are you here this morning? That's God's sovereign choice. He brought you here this morning. And if you're here and you trust Christ and you believe on him, why do you? Because he chose you first. You chose to be here this morning because you want to hear his gospel. You know why? It's because he chose you first. You love him, don't you? Oh, if you know Christ, if you have Any concept of how great he is, you love him. It's only because he loved you first.

See, it's all by his sovereign choice. And he is so great, he never does anything wrong. Everything he does is good and right, simply because he does it. Simply because he does it. And his sovereign rule, his sovereign rule is king over all. To the natural man, you're going to have a battle with him over this. Christ is king. He's king. If I don't be saved, it's up to his sovereign prerogative. It's up to him.

But the believer, when they hear that, that's such comfort and peace to my heart. If Christ my Savior is king over everything, then the salvation of his people is guaranteed, because he rules to ensure that everything he purchased for his people is applied to him. He suffered and died so that he rules, so that he has the power to answer his own prayer. Father, I will, that all those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. That's a guarantee to God's people, because Christ reigns to ensure it. He reigns to ensure his will is done. Jesus Christ is the only person who ever died and then lived to be the executor of his own will. Make sure his will is carried out. His kingdom is always secure. Then there's no fear. There's no reason to fear. There's no harm that can ever come to you inside God's kingdom.

He's the king that we have a relationship with. We bow to him. We worship him and he allows us to do it. He sits on his throne and he tells us in any time you can come before my throne to find grace to help in time of need. We have a relationship with him. He is so great. Now what's our reaction to that? What is our reaction?

He is this great, great Savior. What David said in Psalm 126, verse three, the Lord hath done great things. Since he's so great, everything he does is great, isn't it? He has done great things for us. We're of, we're glad. If you know Christ, if you believe him, you trust him, hearing how great he is, That makes you glad. Nothing will make your heart gladder than that.

Let's close reading Psalm 145. A few verses here, Psalm 145. Verse one. I will extol thee, my God, O King, and I will bless thy name forever and ever. Every day will I praise thee, and I'll praise thy name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. That's what I want our reaction to be. Oh, his greatness is unsearchable. And while with this tongue and these lips I can never give him the praise and ascribe to him the greatness that he really deserves.

Nobody can say truly how great the Lord Jesus Christ is, but tell you what, like David, every day I'm going to do it anyway. Every day I'm going to talk about how great our God is. I tell myself that when I'm alone in a study, to comfort my heart, to point me to Christ, to give me some confidence I don't know what to call it, vim and vigors, whatever word that is, to preach him, because he's so great. Oh, I hope God gives us the faith to trust him. All right. Well, I hope that'll be a blessing to you.