So they picked me that preached it.
Now they did it. They they didn't pick me to
preach, but I do get the honour of welcoming our guest speaker.
According to his daughter, we are practically twins.
We look alike. And I'm pretty excited about
that because he's pretty handsome.
Dude. This guy, he was able to that
the associate or the California Southern Baptist Association
asked this guy to preach at the California Convention Pastors
Conference this past year. We are so lucky that we're able
to partner with him and his church plant.
Pastor Derek is one of my favorite people of all.
Pastor Derek. Come on up man.
Guys, this is my twin. We we look just alike.
Love you man. Love you too.
Thank you brother. Well, happy Lord's Day.
What you didn't tell you is at the California Southern Baptist
Convention where I had the opportunity and the privilege to
preach. They gave me 7 minutes and I did
it because they started playing some music so and they had me
preach on the Trinity for 7 minutes.
That's crazy. Come on now.
It's always an honor and a privilege to be before you to
present God's Word. So if you have your copy of
God's Word, go ahead and meet me.
In Luke chapter 1, we'll consider verses 26 through 38.
Pastor Mark earlier mentioned that you all have been able to
partner along with the church planner and provide financial
aid and assistance. And I'm that church planner that
he mentioned. So thank you all for partnering
with us. And we're getting going in
Northwest Pasadena. That's where we're looking to
plan a church and see what the Lord has in store when He's
going to do. So thank you all for your
faithful giving. Luke chapter 1, verses 26
through 38. If you're there, say I got it.
Need some more time? Say hello, I got you, I got you,
I got you. Week 2 of the Advent series that
you're in. Again, we'll start off by
reading the Word in its entirety and then we'll dive in.
Most important part of the sermon will take place at this
time, the reading of God's Word. So please be attentive.
Verse 26. In the sixth month, the Angel
Gabriel, he went from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the
House of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said greeting.
So favored one, the Lord is with you.
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern
what sort of greetings this might be.
And the Angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you
have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in
your womb, and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be a great, He will be great, and will be called the
Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to
him the throne of his Father David, and he will reign over
the House of Jacob Forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no
end. And Mary said to the Angel, How
will this be, since I am a virgin?
And the Angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will over shadow you.
Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of
God. And behold, your relative
Elizabeth and her old age has also conceived a son, and this
is the 6th month with her who is called barren for it.
Nothing will be impossible with God.
And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be
to me according to your word. And the Angel departed from her,
The grass Withers, the flowers fade with the word of our God
endures forever. Amen.
Let's pray, ask the Lord for
some help and dive in. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for another Lord's Day where we can gather as your people to
worship you and one Spirit. We praise you for the gift of
your Son, the Lord Jesus. We praise you for the fact that
although we were born separated, dead, and sin wanting nothing to
do with you, the true God of the Bible, you redeemed us.
Instead of sending wrath upon earth, you sent your Son on
earth through a virginal conception.
We praise you for this miraculous truth that has
transformed us. We praise You for this gospel
that makes us new. And we pray that we can hear the
gospel anew this morning and be refreshed by it.
The same old story. And if there's anyone here who
does not know you, is not in relationship with you through
your Son, we pray that you would do what you do best, which is
draw people unto yourself, make much of your son the Lord Jesus,
and regenerate and convert where it is needed.
We pray all these things by the power of the Spirit unto God the
Father in Jesus mighty name, Amen.
In the summer of 2016 my wife sat me down and she said she
wanted to show me a spoof video of a film called Captain America
Civil War. Now if you know me, you know I
love Marvel or I loved they kind of they didn't fall fell off
now. But I love Marvel movies, love
superhero movies, love movies in general.
So I thought she just wanted to offer some entertainment to me
and have me watch this spoof video.
She's right next to me on the couch as we watch it.
This is when we were still living in Houston.
Little did I know, at the end of the video, she had her own
prerecorded video, and at the end, it was her.
Surprisingly, with our first pregnancy, I figured I'd get
that response. Yeah, and that was our first
born Nariah. It was something that we had
been praying for and hoping for. And she thought that it would be
appropriate to provide a memorable experience for this
news. And that's what we get in the
text this morning. Now, as much as I love me some
Nariah and I do love me some Nariah, right?
I got 2 twins. I got Pastor Mark and Nariah,
that's my other twin. This announcement vastly
eclipses the announcement that I received on the summer of 2020
2016. Again, Crystal and I had been
hoping and praying for about a month or so, and the Lord
provided. However, this pregnancy was
promised back in Genesis 3 when the Lord God uttered to a fallen
people that the seed of the woman will crush the seed of the
serpent. Now just place yourself in the
shoes or sandals of the Israelites, right?
For hundreds and hundreds of years they faced opposition,
persecution by these Gentile Pagan nations, whether it be
Babylon or the Persians and the Medes or the Greeks and the
Romans. They are being stepped upon and
they're waiting for their Savior to finally rescue them.
And Mary gets the announcement. The time is now, so we have a
memorable announcement about the coming of our King, the
incarnation, God the Son becoming a human being.
So this morning, as again, as we continue the Advent series,
we'll consider the virgin birth, or more precisely the virgin
conception and it's important importance in Christianity.
So we'll look at some basics this morning.
Again, I'll just be reminding you of the age-old gospel.
Last week, Pastor Daniel preached the first 25 verses of
Luke chapter 1, and it was the story of the Angel Gabriel
visiting Elizabeth and or it's not Elizabeth Zachariah, excuse
me, Zechariah, and giving him this news that your wife who has
advanced in years will give birth.
Well, if you noticed in our text this morning, there are some
similarities or some parallels with the story that you read
last week. For instance, we have Gabriel,
the Angel. He appears, then you have a
seemingly impossible pregnancy announced, and then there's a
promise about a child's future. And then we have a response to
the Angel. But what I want you to notice is
that there's an escalation of elements in our passage.
This morning there was news of a seemingly impossible pregnancy
given to Zachariah. However, his wife was advanced
in years. Mary is literally a virgin who
has not had any sexual relations.
So this is miraculous. On another level, there's a
promise about the child's future with John the forerunner, which
is very important. He's fulfilling prophecy.
But with Jesus, he's the king, in which his Kingdom will have
no end. You've noticed the response last
week, as was a response of doubt or cynicism.
This week, Mary responds with faith.
So it's It's almost as if the narrative itself is accentuating
the depth and the matchlessness of what's taking place with this
birth, the birth of the Messiah. Now let's examine the virginal
conception. It seems as if Luke wants us to
zoom our lens in on this very issue.
Consider verse 27 right to a virgin betrothed to a man whose
name was Joseph to the House of David, and the virgin's name was
Mary. That repetition is is on
purpose. And then verse 34 and and Mary
said to the Mary said to the Angel, how will this be since I
am a virgin? So I'm going to start off with
this question for you to ponder in your mind quickly.
Is the doctrine of the virginal conception a tier one essential
issue? If you know me, you know, I like
this idea of a theological triage, right where you go into
the hospital, go into the ER. They have to determine what's
more important than who they're going to treat first.
If you treat someone who has a headache like someone who has a
gunshot wound, that's medical malpractice.
Someone's going to die. Well, we as Christians have a
theological triage. We have first tier issues, which
if you remove these first tier doctrines, then the gospel
crumbles. We have second tier issues, not
as important, but still nevertheless important.
And it may even cause us to fellowship in different
churches, like the mode of baptism.
And then you have tertiary issues.
Where would you place the virginal conception and the
virgin of birth? Is it a Tier 1 issue?
If we remove it, does the gospel crumble?
Or is it just a Tier 2 issue? Is it something that we can
agree to disagree on and yet still fellowship with one
another? Well, Rob Bell, if you're
familiar with that name, suggests that it would be no big
deal if we found out that Jesus had an earthly father named
Larry. His words, His words, not mine.
According to Bail, this wouldn't be catastrophic to the Christian
faith. A person could still love God
and be a genuine, authentic Christian without believing in
the virginal conception. Based on how I framed it, you
probably wouldn't be surprised to say I disagree emphatically.
The virgin conception is absolutely a tier one gospel
issue. And that's what I'll be here to
argue. And for centuries this is been
widely understood as an essential doctrine within many
churches. Jay Greshamation concluded that
there could be no doubt that at the close of the 2nd century,
the virgin birth of Christ was regarded an absolutely essential
part of the Christian belief by the Christian Church and all
parts of the known world. Now, that's not scripture, so
it's not authoritative, as the church can get things wrong, and
the church has gotten things wrong even for a long time.
However, if Christians of every ilk in every place have
professed this doctrine, we should be hesitant to view it as
inconsequential. It wasn't until roughly a
century ago that influential theologians began to doubt
whether or not this was actually true.
They claimed that it was the stuff of fairy tales and
superstition, and that intelligent modern folk would
never accept a story about a virginal conception or a virgin
birth. So their thinking was, if
Christianity is to flourish in the scientific era, we must
scrap these ideas of myth. And that's how we get the birth
of theological liberalism, and that is theological liberalism.
And that's what it always does. That's how it works, and that's
how the devil works. It looks out at the culture, it
surveys the landscape, and it says, how can we modify or alter
the message of the gospel or the message of Christianity so that
it could be more palatable to the masses?
And that's why today there are so many quote UN quote,
Christians who are denying A biblical sexual ethic.
This is the birth of theological liberalism.
This is where it came from. And you know, interestingly
enough, they would argue that they had good reasoning or
motive behind it. We want this was in Germany.
We want Germans to become Christians.
We don't want them to reject the gospel.
Let's so let's modify it so that they would accept it.
The problem is they're accepting a gospel that cannot save and
you're giving them a God that doesn't look like the God of the
Bible, the God that they want created in their image.
So I'm arguing this morning for the that the virgin conception,
that the virgin birth is essential.
And I'm going to argue with three points and then give two
applications. That's how I messaged this
morning. So three points, why the
virginal conception is important and essential in Christianity,
why we should celebrate it, and then two applications.
And that's it #1 the virgin birth fulfills Old Testament
prophecy. We'll start here.
The virgin birth fulfills Old Testament prophecy.
You all probably knew I was going here.
Isaiah 714 Yahweh speaking to Ahaz says this.
Therefore Yahweh himself will give you a sign speaking through
the prophet Isaiah. Behold, the virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel,
which means God with us. Now you have some who object to
this as biblical proof of the prophesied virgin birth because
there are two different Hebrew words for virgin, and they would
argue that the technical word for virgin is not being employed
here, rather another word that can simply mean a young woman of
marital age. While it's true there are two
different Hebrew words being used, and the word that's
employed here has a wider semantic range, there are no
explicit references in the Old Testament where this term
doesn't mean virgin as you and I understand it, but more
importantly in the Septuagint, which is just the Greek version
of the Old Testament. So in this, the Greek word that
we find here in Luke chapter 1 is the word that's employed in
Isaiah 714 and the Greek version which tells us it indicates that
the Israelites understood this prophecy to be a actual virgin,
not just a young woman of marital age, but a virgin who
has not had relations as you and I would understand this.
And if we just use logic, by the way, if you look at verse 34,
based on her question, Mary said to the Angel, how will this be
since I am a virgin? The question itself assumes that
this is something miraculous that God is doing.
So the first reason this is essential is because it is
prophesied and God is not a liar #1 #2 it's three.
Like I said, three points. I'll be honest with you all the
points won't be that short. Just in case you were.
I don't want to get your hopes up, you know.
Second point, I saw somebody said, darn.
Second point, the virgin birth assures A spotless savior.
The virgin birth assures A spotless savior.
Now, this is closely associated with the Third Point we'll
consider this morning, but I think it's distinct enough for
it to be separate. So we need a savior King who's
untouched by the curse of depravity that was brought about
by Adam, sinned, and that's passed down to all of his
descendants. In case you're unfamiliar with
what happened in the garden when human beings first sinned, Paul
summarized it like this in Romans 512.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and
death through sin, and notice what he says here.
And so death spread to all men because all sinned.
Now Adam was our federal head, meaning he represented us.
When Adam made the decision, he represented all of us, and we
are now feeling the aftershock or the effects of his decision.
But I also think Paul is teaching something else in this
text that everyone who was born through natural means since Adam
and Eve in some way, shape or form mysteriously existed in
Adam. So when Adam sinned, it's not as
if we can make the argument now. If that was me, I would have
done the right thing. Because we all, I think what
Paul is getting at when he says so death spread to all men
because all sinned. I don't think he's saying all
men sin, but rather all sinned when Adam sinned.
So in some mysterious way, we made the choice, along with
Adam, to rebel against our God. One of my favorite preachers,
John Piper, says it like this. The problem with the human race
is not that everybody does various kinds of sins.
Behind all of our depravity, behind all of our guilt, behind
all of our personal sinning, there is this mysterious
connection or union with Adam, our Father, who sinned, and we
being in him in some mysterious way, also sinned and died and
are condemned. So then every human father has
produced a son or a daughter with a sinful nature.
In other words, sinners begets sinners.
So if Joseph was the real father of the Lord Jesus, or if, as Rob
Bell would suggest, Mary was sleeping around and they came up
with this with this story to hot to cover that up.
And there was her. His father was someone named
Larry. If that was the case, Jesus
would have inherited the same sinful nature that you and I
have. And that is not inconsequential
because a Sinner can't stand in the place of other sinners.
Imagine the hubris like, like you're in a courtroom where
murderer is on trial and someone's valiantly steps in and
says, I'll stand in their place. But it's like Jeffrey Dahmer,
like another murderer. And it's like, no, you have to
pay for your crimes. How are you going to step in
someone else's place when the same way we need a
substitutionary sacrifice that is sinless, who has no sins to
pay for, and it's the virginal conception that makes that
possible. To make this point even more
clear, without a sinless Savior, there be no righteousness to be
imputed on your account. I want you to just think about
this. Contemplate for a moment you
need more than just forgiveness to get into heaven to be made
right with God. I don't know if you ever
consider that. I want to give you a quick
example I thought of. Imagine you're at the airport
and you're at your gate. You're trying to get into your
to your to make your flight. And the person who beeps you in,
I don't know what they're called, but you know the person
who beeps in your boarding pass. Let's say you get into it with
them, get into a huge argument and they say, well, I'm not
going to let you on this plane because of how you're acting.
And then, you know, you cool off, although you ruffle the
feathers, there's some reconciliation.
You apologize and they genuinely accept your apology, said, OK,
I'll let you in. I believe you're the contrition
that you're offering up. I believe that it's authentic.
Boom. But then you say, I don't have a
boarding pass. I lost my boarding pass.
They say, well, I do genuinely forgive you, but without a
boarding pass, you cannot get on this plane and I cannot make an
exception. Our boarding pass into heaven or
to be made right with God is perfection, righteousness.
We need a righteous, A righteous robe of life to cover us to be
in the presence of God. So the question is, how do we
obtain not just forgiveness? So we want to ask that question.
We don't want to just ask how can I be forgiven by God,
although that is an important question.
We also want to ask, how can I possess the righteousness,
righteousness required to for me to be made right with the holy
God. I'll give you the answer.
It's for you to live sinlessly. That's how.
It's one way. Never break the law, any of
them, not even once. Word, thought or deed.
You do that, you got a righteousness and you can stand
before God. I got a problem.
None of you can do that. None of you have done that.
None of you will do that. You need someone else to do it
on your behalf. It's not just the death of
Christ that's offered up to us. That's why Jesus didn't, you
know, Notice He didn't come as a baby and then just die as a
baby. Why he had to live a life of
righteousness. That's why the author of Hebrews
says he learned obedience to a life of submission to the
Father. So now at the end of his life,
30 plus years, 33 ish, he has a righteousness to offer all those
who respond to the gospel message with repentance and
faith. So the answer is a sinless
Savior offering himself as a substitute for punishment, and
subsequently he offers up his robe of righteousness to his
people. Hopefully you're getting that
the virgin birth is essential to Christianity.
But to that point, who can be perfectly righteous and sinless
except for God alone? Which gets us to our Third
Point. The virgin birth demonstrates
that Jesus was truly human and truly divine.
The virgin birth demonstrates that Jesus was truly human and
truly divine. In theology, this is called the
hypostatic union. The fact that Jesus is 100% God,
100% man, Fully God, fully man. Not 5050.
He was God and he took on the nature of humanity.
Now I already dressed why our Savior had to be spotless, but I
want to ask another genuine question.
Now, I believe I've posed this question here before and I like
posing it because I think it brings up our understanding of
the gospel or like thereof. If someone were to ask you
rhetorical, don't answer out loud.
But if someone were to ask you if the devil could be redeemed,
if he was genuinely sorry, if he truly repented, I wonder what
your answer would be. Because if it's yes, that shows
either you just haven't thought through it enough or you don't
truly understand the gospel. Because as we just talked about,
you're not right with God simply because you OfferUp an apology
that he accepts. That's not the gospel.
The gospel is that God has become one of us outside of sin
and has become our sacrifice on our behalf.
So for the devil or the demons to be redeemed, God would have
to become an Angel and die as an Angel to redeem angels.
But the gospel says this to angels.
Your fate was sealed when you sinned.
You're done. All the you know, the the Satan
and his demons, one sin, they cannot be made right with him
ever again. Just think about that anytime
you think that your sin is not that serious.
Righteous angels, Paul calls the elect angels.
They're right with God, not because of grace, but because
they're sinless. They did what remember I said
like the way you can have a righteousness and be in his
presence is if you fulfill the law, you never sin.
Well, these angels, they have this, and This is why I think
the authors of the New Testament talk about the angels looking
into the church because we're experiencing something they
never will, which is grace. Experientially, they have no
idea what that's like. So the angels are just peeping
like that. I'm like.
What is this? Hear about it, hear the prophets
preaching. Peeping just means, you know,
they're checking it out and they're reading the scriptures
like this. This idea of grace, it just
seems so rich. I'll never experience it ever.
But God has created the people in his image whom he desires to
be in a relationship with, whom he loves, so that when they sin
and sin and sin and sin over and over again, there's grace that's
offered. This is impossible without the
virgin birth and our God becoming a man.
So he's fully God, the Lord Jesus.
There's never been a time where he didn't exist.
Another Tier 1 issue. So although he was born of a
human, if he had been born like any other human through the
union of a man and woman, we would question his full
divinity. So in theology, this is called
again the incarnation, God taking on human flesh.
And we'll take a little bit of time to consider that at the
end, but let's just reread verse 35 to see how our Lord's birth
was different. And the Angel answered her.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will over shadow you. Therefore, the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God. 1st.
I just want you to see that. I think it's neat that we see
the full Godhead in verse 35, the Triune God.
We see the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in verse 35 in that
text. And if you read the Bible,
you'll find that there are various monumental moments in
the Scriptures where the Triune God shows up, right?
Creation. We have the Father, we have the
Spirit hovering over the waters of the deep, and then we have
the Son, the Word, the Lagos baptism where it's like the
recreation that Jesus is bringing.
We have the Father offering up an affirming word to the Son,
and we have the Holy Spirit coming down Great Commission.
There are so many texts that we can look at where the full
Triune God is on display. Ephesians 1, verses 3 through
14. We see the Father electing, we
see the Son redeeming. We see the Spirit stealing us.
So in this text, that's just a side note, we see the Triune God
working out our salvation. 2nd it's important to note that
Gabriel is not saying that God will impregnate Mary as some,
you know, Muslims would slanderously say about
believers. You know that's a blasphemous
thought. That's not what he's saying to
come upon. Brings to mind what we find in
Genesis 1/2 as I just mentioned with a spirit hovered over the
face of the deep in creation. So it's what Jesus is quoted
saying in Hebrews 10/5 when he says sacrifice, sacrifices and
offerings you have not desired, but a body you've prepared for
me. So by the power of the Holy
Spirit and the will of God the Father, a body for God the Son
was prepared in which Mary would bring forth.
And because Jesus is God, he can supply the salvation to his
people that no man can. So hopefully with all this you
grasp the beauty and the importance of the virgin birth.
Perhaps you know someone who categorizes Christianity as a
myth, as a fable, as a fairy tale due to the supernatural
elements that we find, particularly the virgin birth.
And perhaps you're here and you would be one who categorizes
Christianity as a fairy tale. I still remember an undergrad,
my sociology class, one of my professors, my sociology
professor, she asked the class in a very mocking tone, like,
and this guy came out of nowhere.
We weren't even talking about this, but she said, is it
possible for a woman to give birth without having, you know,
a sexual intercourse? Does that even make sense?
You know? And in the class erupted with
laughter and she was mocking Christianity.
But what I think she missed was verse 37.
If she had read verse 37, perhaps she would understand
that this is not as far fetched as you may think.
What does verse 37 says? For nothing will be impossible
with God. I like what the BD said.
He's a pastor in DC. He said the moment you admit the
existence of God, you must deny the impossible.
That's good, right? He said the moment you admit the
existence of God, you must deny the impossible.
I'm like man, you have a problem with the virgin birth.
I mean just read Genesis 1, God spoke all things into existence
so surely he can cause miraculous events such as a
virginal conception. Moving to the application here
again said there'd be two applications.
One is do you believe this? Do you believe that with God
nothing is impossible? Do you believe it within your
local church? Look at, you know, 3 contexts or
instances, your local church, your own family, and just your
individual life. Pastor Mark earlier talked about
all that the Lord has been doing within this church the past
year, this past year or the past couple of years.
Many of you wouldn't have guessed that the Lord would have
done that or could have done that.
My question is, now that you've seen it or even prior to seeing
it, do you believe that he can continue to do miraculous things
within your local church? And if so, if you carry this
disposition, how does this impact the way or how does this
impact your approach to the local church, your local church?
How does it impact the way you financially give expecting God
to move in ways that you would never imagine?
How does it affect affect the way that you pray for the Lord's
work within your local church? How does it impact the way you
serve your local church? And that's not to say there will
always be the same harvest. I think that's an unrealistic
expectation, right? But we should be faithful in and
out of season. There will be some days where
3000 are saved in one day, but that didn't look like that every
every chapter in the book Acts. So that's that's not what I'm
saying. But the question is, do you
believe that it's possible that God has the power to do so even
if he chooses not to? But do you approach church life
in that way is my question. So it's a question of faith.
Do you believe that it's possible for the gospel to go
forth from this church to transform communities and
regenerate hearts all around you?
And what would it look like if you actually believe that?
How would that change the way that you serve or you approach
your local church? Do you believe that nothing is
impossible with God, with your family, with your spouse, with
your kids, with your parents, with your siblings?
Perhaps you're here, parents, and you're praying for the
salvation of your kids or praying for some type of freedom
from addiction and things are looking bleak.
Have you stopped to consider that you're praying to a God who
made a virgin birth possible? What's a broken marriage to Him?
What's an addiction to Him? What's a financial hardship to
Him when we have a God who makes the impossible possible?
God is able to work all these situations that seem on the
surface impossible for his glory and for your good because he's a
miracle working God to do you believe it when you pray again,
this isn't a believe it enough and it'll happen.
Consider the Lord Jesus in the garden.
He says, Lord, you could cause this cup to pass from me.
It's not as if he doubted the Father's ability, but
nevertheless, nevertheless, he prayed humbly saying, if you
choose for me to receive it, which he did, you will be done.
So we pray both humbly, knowing God is the one in in control,
right? And we can't demand his hand to
move the way we want it, but we also pray with great faith and
expectation. That is the the line that we
thread and even again, teenagers here, perhaps you're praying for
lost parents. Continue to pray.
When I was a when I was 16, I believe 16 or 17, I was a member
of a local church and the pastor said, think of 1 unbeliever in
your life who's even hostile to the things of God and begin to
pray for that person one time every single day.
I thought of a guy who I knew I was just in class with him and
he mocked Christianity, mocked Jesus, he mocked God began to
pray for him every and I'm sure I missed days.
So I'm not going to make it seem like I pray for him every day,
but I did pray for him consistently.
And four years later when we turned 20, God saved him, right?
Because there's a belief knowing that God can break down a hard
heart. That's something only He can do.
Do you believe that, brethren and cistern?
James 16 says this? But let him ask in faith with no
doubting. For the one who doubts is like a
wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
So again, this is not us praying thinking we can control the hand
of God, but us praying knowing that He has the power to answer
our prayers and the affirmative. And on the individual level,
perhaps you're dealing with a certain sin struggle that you
feel you'll never be free from. Maybe it's an addiction that
you've dealt with since it was introduced to you as a kid.
With you it's impossible to gain freedom, but with God, nothing
is impossible. Verse 37.
So that's number one. Second application this morning.
Consider the vessel chosen for this great task of birthing the
Messiah. Little old Mary from Nazareth.
Have you ever felt like your life was too small or too
insignificant for God to even notice you or to see you or care
for you? Perhaps Mary thought that way.
It wouldn't make sense for her to think that way as she's
living in Nazareth. Notice in verse 26 the scene
switches 6 month and the 6th month.
The Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named.
Nazareth. Nazareth was a non place.
It wasn't mentioned in the Old Testament and Josephus's
writings or any rabbinical writings.
No one was taking vacations to Nazareth.
People were trying to get out of Nazareth.
People were passing through Nazareth.
As one author said, it was a shoddy, corrupt halfway stop
between 2 port cities and Gentiles and Roman soldiers
overran it. And This is why in John 1,
Nathaniel says, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
That's where the Messiah comes from.
I'm good. And yet it was Nazareth that the
Angel Gabriel visited the poor teenager.
From all indicators, life was not extraordinary, and yet you
see how the Lord uses her. Perhaps you're here and you're
dreaming of leaving Bakersfield, moving to New York and Miami, or
if you try to come to the North Pasadena, that's actually good.
That's from God. Sorry.
Now, there's nothing wrong with having those ambitions to to
leave and to move, as long as the motives are godly.
But I want you to the Lord has not forgotten about Bakersfield
as many people have. He doesn't view this city with
the same disdain that others others do.
And I would just encourage you to love the city that you're in.
God has called you here for a season or, you know, permanently
to serve. I remember living here and man,
Bakersfield would catch a lot of slugs, meaning people would talk
bad about Bakersfield, like all the time.
I'm like, Dad, I mean, I get it from, you know, people in the
world, but for Christians, this is your Nazareth.
This is where people are driving through and have forgotten
about. Do you view your Nazareth at
Bakersfield the way that God views it, or do you view it the
way the world around you views it?
Again, the norm is for the Lord to use ordinary folks outside of
the glitz and glam for Him to receive His glory from.
First Corinthians 2631 says this.
For consider your calling, brothers.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
Not many of you were powerful. Not many were of noble birth,
but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God chose what is loved and despised in the world, even
things that are not to bring nothing, things that are things
that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of
God. And because of him you're in
Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, so that it is
written, Let those who boast, boast in the Lord.
So God, he's into using the unlikely for his glory.
Love the city you're in, serve the city you're in for his
glory. Just want to close with just
thinking about the incarnation because that's Advent.
That's what Advent is about. That's what the Christmas is
about. It's all about us considering
God becoming a man. So I want to read a quote, and
I'm going to end with this, but let me say this.
Now consider Mary, who although this news that she receives may
cause her to be shamed by her family, divorced by Joseph, who
doesn't believe, who may not have believed her and just
become desolate, she accepts with faith, counting the cost of
what she may lose. And that's what it means to
positively respond to the gospel.
So if you're here this morning, you don't know the Lord.
Respond to the gospel by turning from your sin and placing faith
in the finished work of Jesus. This is the God that Christians
worship. I'm going to read this and close
with that closing prayer and imagine the great and glorious
Kingdom that is ruled by a strong and wealthy king.
This is from a book called The Man Christ Jesus.
The King has every privilege one can imagine and the finest of
everything money can buy. But one day while walking the
streets of his Kingdom, he takes notice of beggars and begins to
wonder what it would be like to live as a beggar.
So he decides to move out of his world palace and live on the
streets. He exchanges his fine clothes
for tattered and smelly garments, and every way he
could, he acquired the day-to-day life and limitations
of a beggar. Now having taken on the
restrictions of beggarly life when the king was hungry,
although he could have called for the royal chefs to bring him
a choice meal in order to live life as a beggar, he instead
learned what it's like to be hungry and to beg for food.
When he grew ill from disease, he could have consulted his
highly trained doctors, but he accepted the full life of a
beggar as he allowed himself to be sick with little if any help
for his illnesses. When mistreated by mean spirited
passerby's, instead of calling his rogue guard to defend him
and bring justice to bear against cruelty in order to live
as a beggar, he accepted with no retaliation the mistreatment and
insults foisted upon him. So while all the qualities of
his kingship were retained fully by this king become beggar, the
expression or manifestation of many of the rights and
privileges he had as king could not be made since he had chosen
to live life as a beggar. So we accepted the restriction
and limitation of the expression of his rights and prerogatives
as king. Although he is a king and hence
he continues to possess everything, as he's king now
he's also beggar. So he must accept the fact that
many of his kingly rights and prerogatives can no longer be
utilized or expressed. In other words, he's fully king
and fully beggar. That's what our God has done.
God, the One who created it all, limit willingly limited himself
to human flesh so that He can take our place on the cross.
Let's respond as believers in all, and if you don't know him,
through faith and repentance. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your gospel. We pray you change our hearts.
Do what only you can do.