DEC 21 2025 | From the Cradle to the Cross S1E4 | From Promise to Presence

Sea Change Church · From the Cradle to the Cross · "From Promise to Presence" Pastor Harry Wilson · December 21, 2025
Luke 1:26-38
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Luke chapter one, verses 26 through 38, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betroth, 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, oh favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the same 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.

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. 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 the word of the Lord. Well, good morning Church. It's good to be with you today.

My name is Harry and I am the family pastor on staff. And yeah, excited to be continuing our Christmas series together. It is almost Christmas and I'm super excited. And, uh, this has nothing to do with the sermon, but I thought the men in here would enjoy this really quick 'cause I, I, I read three studies this week that showed that poorly wrapped presents are actually more well received than well wrapped s because they lower the expectation of what's in the box.

Three different studies come where my men at. We're like, yeah. All right. So look, we're bringing good news at this church on Sunday morning. Um, yeah, I read that this weekend was highly encouraged 'cause I I wrapped my wife's presence with duct tape. So, uh, we're continuing in this series and today we're in this passage about the Annunciation. It's a famous passage, a really important passage in our Bibles, uh, where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and he delivers the news that she is to bear a son and that son will be the savior of the world.

And as I was, um, thinking about this passage this week, I was reminded of a time where my wife and I, who she's a children's director, she was the woman in that video, very cute gal, uh, that I married. And, and she, uh, we were on a date night. And, uh, we like to splurge a little bit on a date night. I'm a really good husband, you know. And so we go out to, we go out to in and out. Um, anything on the menu, anything on the menu free game.

She's, she's a vegetarian, so it's not really anything on the menu. It's like fries and grilled cheese. She loves it. And um, so we go to Inn Out and we're sitting inside the restaurant. Um, 'cause it's date night, we're not gonna eat in the car, right? We're not animals. It's date night. Uh, so we're in the, we're in the restaurant dining. And these two middle school boys come up to our table who I've never met before, and they look right at my wife and they say to her, finna give a snap.

And we kind of look at each other, we look confused. We're like, sorry, can you come again? And they say, finna give a snap. And kind of like Mary in our passage we're, we're disturbed and wondering what kind of greeting this might be and trying to understand. And so we ask 'em to repeat themselves again. We say, sorry, can one more time go finna give a snap. And then all of a sudden my like, youth pastor brain clicked back in from all those years of being around kids and I realized they were saying, finna get the snap, which is middle school boy translation for we want to get your Snapchat.

And if you don't know Snapchat, yeah, these middle school boys are hitting on my wife. If you're not, if you're not sure, Snapchat is a social media account, uh, that I think mostly teenagers use, uh, to send each other selfies and photos, and the photos disappear. It's like the worst idea for teens. And yet they were asking for my Snapchat. And so I told him, you know, finna get the slap. You know, I'm a I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

I didn't say that. Uh, we kindly, uh, denied the request. And the only way I was able to discern what kind of greeting this would be was I had to really carefully over and over listen to their words. And in our passage today, Mary gets this surprising greeting. And Gabriel says a lot of stuff in this passage. And the only way for us to truly understand the depth of what Gabriel is getting at is we have to carefully listen to his words as well as the other clues in the passage.

And when we do this, passage starts to come to life as it's rich with Old Testament prophecy, motifs and deep theology that's important to our faith. So with that, let's dive in. And, uh, we are gonna read verses 26 through 34. Again, it says, in the six 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. And behold, you'll conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great. He 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? So first, uh, it's important to note what angel comes to Mary, which angel, and we're told it's the angel Gabriel. And that's really important. In fact, there's only two angels that are actually given names in the entire Bible.

It's Gabriel and anyone else know the other one? Wanna shout it out. Was it Michael? Michael? Yeah. You just increased your ocean view in heaven for getting that right. That's right. You kind of hope heaven is all ocean view, right? It's like, should be all on the coast, but yeah. Yeah. It's, it's Michael. These are, these are the only two angels given names in the Bible. And Gabriel in this passage shows up and he shows up to three different people in our whole bibles.

He shows up to Daniel, Zacharia and Mary. Those are the three people. And every time Gabriel shows up, he, it's about the Messiah. He's got the Messiah and the gospel on his lips. Every time he shows up, when he shows up to Mary, it's this annunciation about the Messiah. He shows up to Zacharia and it's about John the Baptist who will pave the way from the Messiah. And when he shows up to Daniel, he shows up to Daniel in Daniel chapter nine.

And Daniel is in the midst of praying for his people. He's pleading that God would forgive people of their sin, even though his people have been wicked. They've been unrepentant, they're deserving of punishment. They's pleading for his people. Lord, please forgive our people. And in the midst of that prayer, Gabriel shows up in Daniel nine. And in 9 24 through 25, he says that God has decreed a time to quote, finish the transgression, put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity to bring an everlasting righteousness and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince.

And so Gabriel says to Daniel that, Hey, your prayer's gonna come true. God's going to put an end to sin. He's going to atone for iniquity, and it's all gonna be coming, uh, with the anointed one, a prince. That word for anointed one in Hebrew is Messiah in Greek, it's Christ. And all of it's going to happen. And now that same angel Gabriel shows up to Mary A. Little less than 500 years later and says to Mary, the time has come, you're, you're to give birth to a son and you are to name him Jesus, the name Jesus is Yeshua.

And it actually means the Lord is salvation, or the Lord saves. So your son is going to be the promised Savior. And as Daniel says of his kingdom, there will be no end AKA, the everlasting righteousness that was promised to Daniel. And not only does this fulfill a promise to Daniel, it also fulfills a promise to David. I put in your notes an important promise in, in Samuel seven, 12 through 13, this was to David. And it says, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name and I'll establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And again, it's the coming of a king who will establish an everlasting kingdom. And there's more in this passage, I I put more in your notes that you can look at later if you want. Uh, but we don't have all time for it today. But my point is, is all of pre-incarnate history has been building toward the crescendo of Christmas. All of our Old Testaments, they're all building to this moment where Christ comes and then later they also build to his second coming.

But it's all about what the king is gonna do to rescue his people. And it is coming to fruition here through Mary. And so Gabriel shows up to Mary and he says, greetings oh, favored one. Which by the way, I would like to formally request that I, this is how I'd be greeted from now on. Wouldn't that be great? If you walk into church and you get Pastor Jim or someone go, greetings. Oh, favored one. You'd be, that would feel really nice, right?

She, but this is really important. He says, greetings oh, favored one. And that term favored one in Greek is eo. And it's only used one other time in the entire New Testament. And that's in Ephesians one, verse six, which describes all believers as har in Christ. He has har us in the beloved. It says, he's made us favored ones. So the favor that was proclaimed over Mary, because Christ dwelled in her womb now is proclaimed over all believers in whom Christ dwells.

You are his eo. If Christ dwells in you by his spirit, then he speaks the same title over you as was spoken over Mary. Thanks Pastor Adam. Welcome. Because now we're the place where Christ dwells. And so I think the question is, do you actually believe that? Do you really believe you are God's heart? You're his favorite one. As I was writing that this week, near the end of writing it, I realized I wasn't asking myself that question.

And as I asked myself that question, I realized, uh, no Often I don't often, I, this is not what I believe often I tend to think that God loves me. I think God looks at me and loves me and says, man, I really love Harry, but he's sure skating the line a good enough. And I tend to, I truly tend to feel that way most of the time in my, in my subconscious like, man, I love Harry, but he's right. He's always riding that line of just good enough.

And I, it was really encouraging for me to remember like, wait, hold on. I'm his har theo. I'm his favorite one. I'm his beloved. And if I really believe that, how might that change how I not only view myself, but how I act in this world? Because what we believe about ourselves really matters. And how God sees us. I was a senior in high school and I remember, uh, it was a, we had a wrestling tournament and uh, this was one of my last big matches of the year.

It was La Jolla High versus uc High. We did not like uc High. They were like our bitter rivals. And both teams were undefeated. And yeah, you're smiling 'cause you went to uc. Oh, you remember this. You keep your mouth shut. Um, James, I don't wanna talk to you right now, James. I love James. I love James. In case you're not sure we're great friends. Um, except on this day. But it was uc High versus La Jolla High. And, uh, both teams undefeated and, and winner would win, uh, the Western League championship.

I also was personally undefeated in my weight class. So if I won, I would win the Western League championship. And it was one of my last matches of the senior year. So I had a bunch of family and friends who'd come out to see me wrestle. And I was so nervous. And I remember I went, it was at uc High, I went to their bathroom and I was kind of trying to collect my thoughts, feeling the pressure of the moment. And my coach walks in and he says to me, Hey Harry, how you doing?

Like, how you feeling? And I told him like, coach, I'm so nervous. Like, I'm so nervous. And he looks to me, I will never forget what he said to me. He looked at me and said, Harry, do you really think there's anyone on that team who can beat you? Do you really believe there's anyone on that team who could beat you? And in my heart I was like, of course I'm pretty beatable. Like I I I I'm good at wrestling, but like, I'm not that good coach.

Like, yeah, someone could beat me, but to hear his words of encouragement, to know this man who I really looked up to my wrestling coach, like really looked up to him, I loved that man. Still to this day, I, I keep in touch with him. And so to hear his words of belief in me inspired this confidence in me. And so I went out to wrestle and it was one of the easiest matches I'd had all year. I won my match within 30 seconds.

It wasn't against James, but uh, probably would've taken me longer. Huh? I'm not saying you would've won though. I won't admit that. Uh, anyway, but it was, it wasn't because of my, I'm not try to impress anyone with my high school wrestling prowess is a, that was a long time ago. But the words to really start to believe something different about myself that no, someone I loved and looked up to, looked at me and believed in me.

If we actually thought that God looks at us and he sees his beloved, he sees his favored one, he sees his eo, how might it encourage us? How might it increase our confidence? How might we be more bold to go and share the gospel and do the good works God set aside for us to do? How might we experience his love and comfort more if we could truly get this idea into our minds and into our bones that we are his favored ones?

And then in our passage, Mary asks a question, and I love this question 'cause she, she's literally standing in front of an angel, and angels in the Bible are known to be terrifying looking to human beings. Every time they show up, they say, Hey, don't be afraid. Gabriel does it to Mary this time as well. Don't be afraid. And Mary still has the boldness to get right to the practical. She hears everything. She's like, okay, but she still asks a question.

She says, how, how can this happen if I'm a virgin? And she still has this boldness to ask the question that's on her mind. And Gabriel begins to answer her question. And the reason I wanted to include that today is maybe there's someone in here who needs to hear that God is not afraid of your questions. In fact, I put in your notes that faith is not the absence of questions is the willingness to live in the tension between mystery and trust.

So bring your questions. Don't let your questions not get you out the door. Mm-hmm. Learn to live in the tension between mystery and trust. But bring your questions. Let's keep reading. Now, let's go to verses uh, 35 through 38 says, then 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'm the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her again. I think we see a really powerful Old Testament motif in this section where it tells us that the spirit of God is going to overshadow Mary, it's going to come upon her. And it should make us think of the Exodus story where the people of God have left Egypt, they're wandering in the desert, and they're being led by God's presence in this pillar of fire and cloud.

And then in Exodus chapter 40, we're told that the spirit of God, the, the, the, the cloud comes over or overshadows the tabernacle. And when it overshadows the tabernacle, it fills the tabernacle with the presence of God. And now in this story, we're told something similar is about to happen to Mary as the spirit of God is going to overshadow her, come upon her, and it literally fill her with God's presence in the form of baby Jesus.

So Mary now becomes the new tabernacle carrying God's presence. And, and later on we become the new tabernacle as we carry his presence through the Holy Spirit. But this moment's really important for our Christian doctrine. Uh, there's a, there's a fancy theological term called the Hippos Static Union. And I put in your notes that the annunciation reveals the hippos static union. Christ is fully God and fully man, divinity by the spirit, humanity by Mary.

This is the hypostatic union. Christ must be fully God, fully man. And the reason that's important is because we could not pay as human beings. We could not pay the price of our sin. We've sinned against a perfect and holy God, God as a righteous God will get rid of wickedness and sin and evil and it's an eternal price and we could not pay it. And so the Savior has to be fully God, but also to represent humanity. He has to be fully human, to be our representatives, our human representatives.

And so in this moment we see the hypostatic union. In fact, it actually tells us three times in this passage. It gives examples of three times of being him being divine and three times of his, of his father coming from human lineage. And it's just a really important thing for our theology. And now when you go to Christmas dinner, you'll sound so smart to say, to include in your Christmas prayers, Lord, thank you for the hippos static union.

And then all your in-laws and relatives will be so impressed. But that's really important for our, for our theology to understand. And then finally, Gabriel concludes by telling Mary that nothing will be impossible with God. She asks this question about how, how, how is this gonna happen since I'm a virgin? And I love Gabriel tells her, he says, it's already happening. You know, your cousin Elizabeth, you know how she's been barren.

She's never been able to have a child. You know how that's broken her heart? Guess what? She's six months pregnant, Mary. It's already, God is already doing the miraculous because nothing will be impossible with God. And maybe there's some of us here today who just need to reignite our hope in the impossible. Maybe you have something on your mind that says, well, you know, God can never fix that. God can never move that obstacle.

He can never heal that relationship. And I want to encourage you, I've had that thought several times with many different things in my life. And I'm still watching God answer prayers that I'd forgotten. I prayed just like, oh wow, I did pray for that. I've been longing for that. And I put it, I put it aside. 'cause I just started thinking, you know what, God's just not gonna do that. He can't, he can't move that hill.

And as I wait and as I long, I've seen God do things that I believed were impossible in my life. Mm-hmm. Honestly, I wouldn't plan on sharing this, but my, my marriage is one of those things. I grew up in a, in a family that experienced divorce and affairs and in pain and, and fighting and all these different things. And, and it's a generational thing in my family. And I net I really believed, I remember talking to my parents as a young boy and thought, dude, I'm not getting married.

This is crazy. Like, look at the, look at, look at the fruit of this. And you know, Kaleena and I are on eight years or whatever with a beautiful 2-year-old who's crazy and I love him so much and I wasn't planning on sharing that. But but that's just one of those things where you, like you, you start to see like, oh man, God does the things that you're like, no, he could never fix or heal that. Mm-hmm. So start to believe in God for the impossible as Mary does.

And then Mary responds, I love her response. She says this, she says, uh, I am the servant of the Lord. And that's a great response because we are told by Gabriel that she's a favored one. Gabriel says, you're the favored one. And Mary says, I'm a servant of the Lord. And I put in your notes that Mary embodies a profound juxtaposition as the Lord's favored one and simultaneously the Lord's servant. So in her position of favor and exaltation, Mary actually chooses service.

She chooses to serve the Lord and serve God's people by bearing the sun. And this is, this is really our position. Friends, we are God's heart. Theo, we're his favored ones, we're his exalted ones. And at the same time, we must keep in our minds that we are humble lowly servants of Christ Jesus. We are both those things. And sometimes the problem I think in, in Christianity or with us sometimes is we get caught up in one or the other.

We're like, oh man, I'm his favored one. And we start to just think of ourselves as highly or better than others and, and, and exalt ourselves. And we forget that, hold on, you're a servant. Or we get so caught up in service and just trying to earn God's love and help people, which is so beautiful and great, but we feel lowly. And so we're just trying to serve. And we forget that hey, you're also his favored one. We need to keep the, that paradox in our mind that we are both god's favored and servants of Christ Jesus.

And then Mary says, let it be to me according to your word. And this in, uh, this is known as Mary's Fiat, which in Latin means let it be. And it's a powerful response because this, this is really good news that Mary's hearing. I mean, it's really good news and it's full of a, like we talked about a ton of Old Testament weight and she understands a lot of it. We know that from the, from the magnifico that happens after this.

Oh, Mary's got a deep understanding of some of this. It's great news. But it comes at incredible risk to Mary personally. She is engaged to Joseph. And culturally at that time, an engagement was a legally binding agreement. And so if she would've been found pregnant outside of that agreement, she would've, she would've been accused of adultery. She's in an honor, shame culture that she would've been bringing shame not only on herself public disgrace and humiliation, but she also would've been bringing shame on her family.

She would probably lose the relationship with Joseph. I mean, this is at great risk to Mary. And yet Mary's response is, I'm a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me, according to your word, there are times in our faith where it should cost, it will cost us. We will have great risks at time in our faith. But can we encounter a fiat response that says, let it be to me according to your word. And I, I put as our main idea today, and it's, I think one of our main takeaways is this, is that true faith is found in a daily fiat response that in whatever we encounter as we follow God, we could say, I'm, I'm the servant of the Lord.

I let it be to me according to your word. But it's really hard to have a fiat response if you're not familiar with his word. So we also need to become a people steeped in the word of God so that when tragedy and hardship strikes in our life, we can remember 'cause we're steeped in the word that Jesus says, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I've overcome the world. And you'll be like, well, let it be to me according to your word.

Or if you sin and you fall short and you're so disappointed in yourself and you start to feel the shame fall over you. You remember that it says in Ephesians that we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. And you could say, well, well let it be to me according to your word. Or maybe you're in a season of waiting on God to move, waiting on God to, to move an obstacle or do something in your life. And you remember it says in Isaiah that those who wait on the Lord will rise up on wings like eagles.

They will walk and not grow weary. They shall run and not faint. And you'll say, well, let it be to me according to your word. Or if you feel unloved uncared for and alone, you remember that the promise to Israel in Jeremiah 31 is the promise also made to you when Jesus or when God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have continued my faithfulness to you. And you can say, well, let it be to me according to your word.

So maybe in this Christmas season, we can use Mary as our example to cultivate a daily fiat response To say, let it be to me according to your word. And when we do that, there is no telling how God might use us, what mountains he might use, move. And with that, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna respond and worship for a moment and we'll come up and close the service. Let's, uh, stand if you would Come the Lord for he known as worthy for he forever.

We'll, Hey, we want to encourage you. If you need prayer today, we want to invite you. Come up and we have a prayer team who would love to pray for you. If you wanna know more about our church or about the gospel, we got a next steps table in the back. And with that, we're so excited for Christmas Eve, as Pastor Adams said, come this Christmas Eve and bring a friend. And with that, I want to bless you. So just extend your hands for a blessing.

I just want you to believe right now you are God's heart. Teo, say it in your hearts. Believe that in your heart and your mind. Say it right now. I am the Lord's eo Hear that, believe that you're his favorite one Father God, I just bless this church, Lord, remind us of the truth that you have favored us. You favored us so much that you sought to bring your Son to die for our sins because you favor us and you want to bring us back to yourself.

So let us believe that truth this Christmas