October 17 Sermon: Nothing Will Be Impossible with God
Think on these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Luke 1:26-38:
1. How does the announcement of Jesus' arrival compare to the excitement and anticipation of announcing the arrival of a child in our lives today? What makes Jesus' arrival the most anticipated child in history?
2. What can we learn from Mary's response to the angel's message, where she humbly accepts God's plan despite the seemingly impossible circumstances? How can we apply this attitude of submission to our own lives?
3. In your commentary, you mentioned that nothing is impossible with God, emphasizing God's ability to overcome obstacles and fulfill His promises. How does this message of God's power and grace resonate with our understanding of salvation and our role as servants of the Lord?
Transcript:
In the course of our lives there is rarely a bigger announcement that we get to make than the arrival of a child. Some of the best videos on the internet are of people telling their parents they are going to be grandparents. The best ones have the grandma to be not understanding the message and then when the light turns on joy overflows. Some of you may have had an experience similar to this. The announcement of a child is often held back because you don’t want people to know too early on. Often one of the parents to be is struggling with having to wait and they want to tell just one or two or seventeen people but they have to wait. They have to hold it in but usually the anticipation is worth it. It is even more exciting when the a couple has been hoping for a child for a long time and it just hasn’t happened. The news that they are finally going to be parents is cause for great joy.
As we come to the announcement of Jesus this morning in the gospel of Luke we see that finally the most anticipated child in history is finally going to arrive. He was promised all the way back in Genesis 3 when our first parents fell into sin and the pages of holy scripture follow the path to his arrival. Finally, the messiah, the one who will crush the head of the serpent, is going to arrive.
Before we break down our points to help us navigate the text this morning, I just want to comment that I am excited for us to be in the early part of Luke. We are extremely familiar with this story but usually we are looking at these texts in the context of the Christmas season. Over the next few weeks we are blessed with the opportunity to consider the story of the arrival of Jesus devoid of concerns about preparing Christmas meals and wondering whether a gift will arrive on time to be under the tree. We have the wonderful opportunity to think about the fulfillment of the prophetic promise of the messiah apart from the natural sentimentality that comes with the holiday season. And a few weeks after we are done with the Christmas story we will be back to it for Christmas services and hopefully able to have come to it with a new understanding of the significance of what we celebrate during the Christmas season.
And so we come to the story in Luke this morning and we’ll spell out our points before we begin our journey into the text this morning.
The first thing we see is that Mary finds favor before God. An angel comes to make an announcement to Mary that God’s hand is upon her. We get no indication in the text that Mary is super extra righteous and so God selected her for this role. What we find is that God is bestowing this upon her by his grace.
Secondly, we see that she is going to bear a child. This is no ordinary child. He has a special name. He will be called by very unique titles and he is connected to two of the biggest names in the entire Old Testament. This is no ordinary child. He will be a king who will reign over a kingdom that will have no end.
Finally, we see that this is not like any other births in scripture. Just last week saw news of a miraculous birth with John being born to Elizabeth and Zechariah but she was aged and had been trying to conceive for years. You find multiple examples of children being born to women who are barren in the Bible but none of them are more barren than Mary for she is a virgin. This conception and birth of Jesus is miraculous and only the sovereign Lord of all of creation could accomplish it.
And so, we begin the next stretch of our journey through the gospel of Luke as we look at verses 26-30 of chapter one and find our first point that Mary finds favor with God.
Luke 1:26–30
ESV
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent 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, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Here we see that the angel Gabriel is once again on the move. He’s is the message delivery business here in the first part of Luke and thankfully it’s good news. Last week he spoke to Zechariah and this week we find he is delivering an announcement to Mary.
We find out some important details here about the life of the woman that he is visiting. She is from Nazareth in Galilee. She is not from a big city here. Nazareth is out of the way and not much of a place to think of. She isn’t royalty and we don’t find out that she is of some sort of importance. We also learn that she is betrothed. Now, at some point you’ve probably heard this described as being similar to what we would call being engaged. While there is some truth to that, there is an arrangement to be married, being betrothed is much more than an engagement. To get rid of one of our standard engagements basically one party only needs to state that it’s over. There is no legal arrangement and you just call it off if you want to. A betrothal required a divorce. The couple was essentially married but the union had not yet been consummated and they did not live together. Regardless of those two missing elements of a marriage it was binding.
And we find out that the one that she is betrothed to is of the house and lineage of David. This is significant because it is promised that the Messiah will be from the line of David. In Matthew we learn that Mary is from the line of David and here in Luke we read that the betrothed of Mary is of the line of David as well, but I’ve gotten ahead of myself in the story by giving up the plot of why the angel has visited Mary. Thankfully I don’t have to feel bad for not saying spoiler alert because we know the story. We revisit it every year and we know the names Mary and Joseph well and we also know their roles in the story of redemption.
And so we aren’t surprised at all by the angels statement because we’ve heard it before but we should it cause us to take notice. Gabriel, a messenger from almighty God, addresses this young virgin from a backwater region of Israel as favored one. That’s an important greeting and a substantial statement. She is favored by God and the Lord is with her. God has come to her and is placing his favor on her. We sometimes get the idea that God was sitting in the heavens and he is checking all of the women of the lineage of David and ticking off boxes and keeping track of their lives and looking for the best and greatest of women to be the one who carries the promised seed of the woman. We get no indication that God has found Mary to be the brightest and best of her generation or anything like that. The angel is visiting Mary because God has decided to show her favor. This is grace and it is because of God’s sovereign will not the merit of Mary.
And this greeting from Gabriel causes Mary to pause and wonder what it means. We don’t know exactly why she was greatly troubled at this greeting but perhaps she thought back through the history of the Old Testament and remembered someone who had found favor in the sight of God and she recalled what that meant for them. My mind immediately goes back to Noah. God found favor in Noah and he was given the task of building an ark of salvation to preserve the promise of God against his wrath. To have favor from God is a wonderful thing but it is likely not to be an easy path for the one God has set aside as his servant.
And we will find that this is truly no easy task for Mary either. But the angel reassures by telling her not to be afraid. Regardless of what is to come it is from God. His grace is upon her. His hand shall provide for her. While his favor does not mean life will be easy it does mean that he will be with her and he will not abandon her.
And so we have seen that Mary has received the favor of God by his grace and as we move on to our second point and look at verses 31 through 33 and we see the announcement of the coming child.
Luke 1:31–33
ESV
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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.”
The angel tells her that she will conceive in her womb and she will have a son whose name will be Jesus. This name means the Lord saves. The name that he is given tells us the purpose of his coming. He is going to save his people. And the saving is not going to be because of human will but it is going to be because of divine intervention. The Lord is going to save his people. It will not be armies or by some other human invention or endeavor. The Lord is going to save his people.
We also learn that he will be called something else. Son of the Most High. This is a substantial title. He is not an ordinary person. The Lord of the heaven and earth is the one that he is connected to. He is his Son. And we have to make sure we understand this means more than just he is liked by the Most High. The implication is that he is divine because he is the offspring of the Most High.
We also see that the Lord will give him the throne of his father, David. This is an extremely significant statement because we’ve seen that the Messiah is promised all the way back in the third chapter of Genesis. We have also seen how this promise has been narrowed. We saw that the promised seed of the woman would come through Seth and then we followed the promise through Noah’s son Shem. Then it narrows to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and eventually Judah. Later on in the Old Testament we find that the promise gets narrowed to David and that is what this statement is about. The promise is that the Messiah will be a king who will reign forever. The angel Gabriel is making sure we understand that this is absolutely the Messiah that is being promised.
At this time in history there was a high level of Messianic expectation. Doing the math from Daniels prediction of 70 weeks of years and then the arrival of the Messiah would have caused them to expect the messiah to come and save them from the Romans. It could be that many women of the era were hoping their child would be the one who would redeem Israel and now we have the promise being made to this woman in Nazareth in Galilee. The king is coming and his kingdom will have no end. This is a significant pronouncement and it is important that we get a sense of the impending nature of this pronouncement. This promise has been expected for a long time but now it is upon them. It has been something they hoped would come soon but now it is close and at hand because a child will be conceived and then the time will be here. Something hoped for through all of biblical history and now it will be here soon.
And as we move on to our final point we see that Mary is humbled by the news but there is a problem with this pronouncement. She is a virgin.
Luke 1:34–38
ESV
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 overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For 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.
This is a really good question and an obvious one. She knows how basic human reproduction works and if she is going to have a child in her womb there is an important factor that is missing. She has never known a man.
And the angel lets her know how this will be achieved. The Holy Spirit is going to do the work. Again, we see that this is an act of God and not something done by the will of man. This Jesus is not going to be born because a husband wills to have a child but instead because God ordains it to come to pass. This is completely and fully on God.
The only details we have on how this going to happen is that the power of the Most High will overshadow her. While we struggle to understand this miracle this is nothing for the sovereign of all creation who spoke the universe into existence. This is nothing for a God who parted the Red Sea and caused the wall of Jericho to fall down. A God who does wondrous things is doing a wondrous thing to bring salvation to his people. And this miraculous birth causes the child to be set apart and holy and the Son of God. He is special. He is the promised one. And as I’ve mentioned in the past God ordains this to come to pass to reflect other stories in the line to the child of the promise. So many times the hold up in the line to the messiah has been barren. There is tension and we are wondering will the child ever be born and every time God is able to overcome the barrenness and provide a child. Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel all had this as a part of their story. The world would have seen them as cursed but God in his mercy was using it to show his glory and because of his work in their lives they are now called blessed. We get here to Luke and we have seen the story of Elizabeth being barren and now we have the story again but in a new way. Mary is not barren and has been seeking out a child that won’t come. Instead, her womb is barren because she is a virgin and just as God has overcome the barren wombs of the great women of the faith in the past he is overcoming the obstacles before Mary conceiving in this story.
And as evidence of the miraculous works that God can do we have Gabriel telling Mary about her relative Elizabeth conceiving at an old age. And the angel uses this news of Elizabeth conceiving as proof that nothing will be impossible with God. To save his people God can overcome every obstacle because he is God. We often look at this as a statement that we can do anything. We can pursue our dreams and God will help us but that is not what this verse is about. It is about the Lord of heaven and earth radically rescuing a people for himself by the means that he ordains. God saves his people and they will know that it is because of nothing that he has done. It is impossible that Isaac will be born to Sarah in her advanced years but God makes it happen. It is impossible for God to flood the whole world and have the one survive in an ark of salvation but God does just that. It is impossible for the Hebrew people to be released from slavery in Egypt but God uses the plagues to accomplish it. It is unthinkable that while the Hebrew people are fleeing Egypt that they would be able to escape through the Red Sea on dry land but they did. It is unthinkable that God could rescue a sinner like me and give me eternal life but through the work of this child that is promised he did just that. Our salvation by grace through faith would be impossible except nothing is impossible with God.
And after this promise is made we see the most amazing response from Mary.
Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.
What a response. Our modern minds would probably respond with a comment about how we had other plans. You know Joseph and I were going to get married. We were going to save up and get a house and have 2 point 5 kids and save up for retirement. But Mary understands that she has been blessed by God and that his sovereign will is the most important thing. The savior is coming and he will do his perfect will through her and so she responds that she is his servant and wants the will of the Lord to be done according to his word.
This is an amazing example for us. She is responding in gratitude to the word of the Lord. She realizes the grace and favor that she has received from the Lord and so she acknowledges that she is the Lord’s servant.
And this is where I want to land as our point of application for today as we step away from this place this week to be God’s servant in a lost and dying world.
We are not going to be visited by an angel and God is not going to give us a specific word of how he is going to use us but he has given us a very clear pronouncement of his grace in his word. We have been saved by his grace. Though we look at our sin and perhaps think it would be impossible for us to be saved, nothing is impossible with God. We confessed in our call to confession this morning just how depraved we are. We have not loved the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and we have a natural tendency to hate God and our neighbor. Yet, he rescued us by his grace. God the Son took on human flesh for us. Being conceived in the womb of Mary he was born, lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died to bear the wrath of God for our sin, and rose again to ensure our own resurrection. This all seems impossible but the good news is sisters and brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ, this was accomplished for you and for your salvation. Nothing is impossible with God.
And so our natural response to this amazing news of God’s grace should reflect that which we see from Mary this morning. Behold, we are servants of the Lord. Let it be to us according to your word. May we depart from here this morning emboldened to be his servants in the world. May the good news that we have been saved by grace through faith be on our lips and may we serve God for his grace shown to us in Christ and may we believe the word of God as it has been proclaimed to us that we might trust in the glorious salvation we have in Christ. Amen.
