Responding to God's Leadership

Luke 1:26-56

December 19, 2004

Last week we studied about how angels rejoice over one

sinner that repents.

Have you ever repented of your sins? Have you ever

accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? I

remember on a youth mission trip the group was at a

park at Indiana Dunes in northern Indiana, it was about

dusk and Robert Allen, former education director here,

asked, Has there ever come a time in your life when you

accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour? The twilight, the

atmosphere, even a storm brewing, was conducive to

spiritual introspective. If you have never repented,

when do you plan to do so?

Have the angels ever rejoiced over you? Will they ever

rejoice at your salvation?

I Peter 1:12 - "them which have preached the gospel unto

you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,

which things the angels desire to look into"

Today we study the miracle of the incarnation - when God,

the Spirit, became man, the flesh.

An angel is involved in the announcement of the plans for

this great event.

v. 26 - Here - the angel Gabriel is sent to start the process

that God planned from the beginning of the world.

See Rev. 13:8

Gabriel sent. Christ, the Sent of God! You/me are sent.

Whose side are you on? ch. 11:23

Nazareth, a city of Galilee, hidden in the hills. A rendez-

vous for the worst of people, a proverbial place out of

which no good thing be expected. John 1:46

Gal. 4:4-5 - "in the fulness of time" - First Baptist

Church Marquee.

Rev. 3:14 - Christ, "the Beginning of the creation of God"

A deeper interest should gather around Jesus coming into

the world to save mankind from their sins, than that of

the beginning of the material universe.

Genesis gives to us the account of the mysterious origin

of the material world - Luke gives us the account of the

mysterious origin of the new creation and the salvation

of man!

Galilee - Isaiah 9:2

vs. 27-28 - Warning against worshipping Mary - the Lord

Jesus is the one to be magnified - not Mary.

I would like to ask the women folk, if you had lived in that

generation, would you have qualified to be the mother of

the Son of God?

Isaiah 7:14

We are living in a very evil age - we count God's

commandment as nothing and commit fornication or adultery

as if eating a piece of bread or taking a sip of water. Mary is

the original madonna (a title of respect)- today you have a

cult star by the same name of which she is not worthy. It is

alarming when more young people know more about Madonna

than democracy.

v. 29 - Receive what is written - being assured that the same

power of the Highest by which the crucified Jesus

was raised from the tomb where He had lain for three

days, was able to overshadow the virgin of Nazereth,

was able to cause to be born of her "that holy thing"

which was called the Son of God!

Zacharias doubted - Mary wondered

v. 31 – “call His name Jesus” – The Salvation of Jehovah!

vs. 32-33 - "house of David" - a sure house - I Sam. 2:35

Isaiah 9:6-7

"He shall be called the Son of the Highest" - Wed. night

taking out garbage & looking at the starts.

A new king - an everlasting Monarch!

"the throne of his father David"

Yet unfulfilled - speaks of a restoration of Israel.

It has been 2000 years since Gabriel spoke of a

kingdom that would have no end!

1948 - Israel a nation! 1967 - Jerusalem regained!

Today the Jews are looking in all the wrong places -

It is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and Him Only!

The Jews have been kept distinct even though

intermingled with the nations of the world and today

are waiting His coming - Isaiah 66:8

v. 33 - the dignity and power that Christ shall attain -

its duration - "forever" - its extent - "no end"

v. 35 - In Christ we have the humanity and the Divinity

in one, each perfect and complete. What ever can be

said of man, it can be said of Christ (except sin),

what can be said of God can be said of Him.

"I and my Father are one"

Psalm 118:22-23 Matt. 21:42

"This is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes"

Reminds one of the opening words of Genesis at the

dawn of creation - "The Spirit moved (brooded) over

the face of the deep".

The Word was conceived in the womb of a woman,

not after the manner of men, but by the operation of

the Holy Ghost, whereby a virgin was, beyond the law

of nature, enabled to conceive, and that which was

conceived in her was originally and completely

sanctified!

Holiness is not a mere attainment, obedience to the

moral law - it is a new supernatural being - "born of

the Spirit" - "not born of blood, nor of the will of the

flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"

v. 37 - "with God nothing shall be impossible"

v. 38 - No demands made on Mary - just her consent.

Notice the attitude of Mary - "Behold the hand-maiden

of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word"

She accepts the sacrifice - she submitted herself of her

own free will to what she felt was the will & wish of God!

Her innocence was vindicated - Matt. 1:20

v. 39 - v. 24 - Moses was on the backside of the desert -

spent 40 yrs there.

Paul - Gal. 1:16-18

Quiet time - contrast the Great Commission

John the Baptist - v. 80

Elizabeth and Mary exude expressions of intense joy &

thankfulness, the deep awe and gratitude of their hearts.

Compare songs of Hannah and Deborah in OT

v. 41 - Goings on in the womb - and to think that

there are those who would euthanize it,

damage it, desecrate it.

The madness associated with censorship of expressions

of worship on government property - coming across town

Wed. night - the words of Psalm 36:2 came to me - "until

his iniquity be found to be hateful"

v. 43 - "my Lord" - the promised Messiah and the awful

Son of God.

v. 44 - Reiteration

v. 45 - A Belief! A Performance!

Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto

him for righteousness - Rom. 4:18-25

"Blessed is she that believed" - play off of womanhood.

What kind of person would forfeit their virginity?

Who would abort a child to compound that evil?

Mary - Gabriel Eve- the devil

I John 4:1

vs. 46-56 - Mary's Response - The Magnificat -

her praise - deep feelings of adoration, holy

joy, glad surprise. She asks nothing - just

breathes adoration & thankfulness!

Notice personal gladness & emotion, losing self in the

sense of unspeakable lovingkindness of God!

vs. 46-48 - "regardeth the low estate" - "He knoweth

our frame, He remembereth that we are dust"

Distant generations will not hear our name, but in the

remotest times we shall be dwelling and serving in

unimaginable JOY!

vs. 48-49 - "all generations" - making of a Christmas

card - Rev. 22:13 - "I am Alpha and Omega,

the beginning and the end, the first and the

last"

"generation to generation"

v. 50 - "generation to generation" - those who fear

God receive His mercy in every generation.

Psalm 22:27-31 - to the day - Rev. 22:17

vs. 49-50

Mary glorifies four attributes of God - His power, His

holiness, His Mercy and His faithfulness.

GOD IS THE SOURCE OF MARY'S JOY!

Surely in all the world's creation, His might had never

been shown as it was now about to be manifest in her!

In the Incarnation, God was sending real help to His

people. It was the crowning act of mercy, and the

fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham and his

seed. Mary thus began with God's holiness and passed

in review His power, His mercy, and finally His

faithfulness. All these are illustrated eminently

in the Incarnation.

vs. 51-53 - describes the Messiah's reversal of man's

conception of what is little and great as though

the unborn Babe had already done His mighty

& strange work in the world.

Sounds like the Sermon on the Mount preached

thirty years later!

God's holiness is shown in His providential inter-

positions, in His humbling the haughty, in His

scattering the cruel and the profane, in His raising

the lowly and the pure and the true.

Thus, He has been revealing His righteousness in

EVERY NATION & in EVERY AGE

vs. 54-56 - God has not forgotten His promise nor

His people!

The fidelity of God to His covenant with Israel!

v. 55 - The Lord's Faithfulness

"God manifest in the flesh" - I Tim. 3:12

John 1:14

We have no right to hope and no reason to expect,

that He will ever manifest Himself to us in more

attractive features than as we see Him in the Son

that was born on Christmas Day!

Hebrews 1:1-3