DEC 22 2024 | Shopping for Hope…Finding Faith S1E4 | Let It Be

Sea Change Church · DEC 22 2024 | Shopping for Hope...Finding Faith - S1E4: Let It Be
Luke 1:26-38
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

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 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 Soprch and a man and a man and a man I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill I have a no-nill ��jus ��jus ��jus Thank you.

Thank you. I think I'm getting better at it. I'm getting better at it. It started, the first couple Christmases were a little dicey. I'm not going to lie. Husband and wife, first time. You know, like, there's all this anticipation around being newlyweds and your first Christmases together. And not my best. I'm not going to lie. We kind of missed the mark to the point where we did a little bit for a while where we just do that thing where you just tell each other what you want.

You know, you're just like, just get me this. How many of you guys do that? You just say, hey, just get me this. Yeah, plenty of us, right? We're just like, just get me. We don't need a guess, right? But in the last couple years, we've gotten back to the mystery of it. It's just kind of more fun for us, the anticipation of the giving and receiving and not knowing.

And so we keep the receipt, you know what I'm saying? And but what we're going to see today is Jesus is history's most anticipated gift. And the question will be is, will we receive him? And when he shows up, how will we respond to him? And Mary, I think, is something to teach us in that regard. So let's dive in. If you have your Bibles to Luke 1, 26, and we're going to read 26 through 28.

And it says, 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, oh, favored one. The Lord is with you. Let's pause there. I want us to notice which angel it is that comes to Mary.

This is very interesting. You know, throughout the Bible, you read that, you know, angels appear throughout the text. But they're rarely named. And often when they are named, it's called the, they'll call the angel of the Lord. But Gabriel shows up just one time prior to this moment. And that's in Daniel chapter 9. And in Daniel chapter 9, the prophet Daniel, he's pleading and praying for his people.

Because his people have sinned. They've rebelled against God. They've been unrepentant. And as a result of their actions and their sin, it seems as if they're, they have impending war. Maybe, maybe they're going to be, they're going to be kicked out of their, their homeland and taken into exile. And so Daniel is pleading to God for his people. He says, although we have been unrepentant, although we do not deserve forgiveness, forgive us of our sins.

Restore your people. And then in verse 24, the angel Gabriel shows up in the midst of his prayers. And he says that, he says this. He says that there is a time coming where God is, and it should be on the screen, 9, 24 through 25. God will finish the transgression. He will put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince.

So the angel Gabriel essentially says yes to Daniel, that God is actually, there is a time where God is going to put an end to sin, atone for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, and that time will come with the coming of an anointed one, which is the same Hebrew word here for Messiah, or in Greek, Christ. And now just a little less than 500 years later, that same angel shows up to Mary and says, you will give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.

And that name Jesus, Yeshua, means the Lord saves. And that son who will save, he will also be the son of the most high God, and of his kingdom there will be no end, a.k.a. everlasting righteousness as promised in the book of Daniel. And so we see that this annunciation moment is a fulfillment of the promise made to Daniel about 500 years ago, and it's not the only one.

I included in your notes several passages that are fulfillments of promises that just take place in just our little passage in Luke. And so you can look at that in your notes. We won't have time to go through all that. We'll see some of it in this message, but there's lots of Old Testament prophecy and foreshadowing fulfilled here. And the point is, is that there is overwhelming biblical evidence that all of pre-incarnate history has been building toward the crescendo of Christmas, that is, the birth of Christ.

He is the long-hoped-for, long-expected Messiah, hope for humanity. And many of us enter this Christmas season looking, expecting to find hope, to find belonging, to find love, to find rest and peace. And if you enter into this season looking for those things, but you turn to anything but Jesus, you will come up short in this season. He is what this whole thing is about.

And anything else that we put our hope into is a poor substitute for the king that comes to us in a manger. And it's kind of like we went on a staff retreat a couple years back, and we all went to the zoo. Pastor Jim and his wife Linda helped set that up. We got to go to the zoo, and it's like, this is how you know we work at a church, like our staff retreat.

So it's just what a wholesome thing to all go do together. It's so sweet. And so we get to the zoo, and Kalina and I are walking in, and we're with Pastor Jim and his wife Linda. And the attendant, as we're coming in, says to us, he says, hey, if you go to the left, there's a little stage there. They're going to bring out a baby sloth. And my wife has a guttural response.

She's like, and I was like, bless you. I don't know what. And so we're like, okay, clearly, like, we got to go see the baby sloth. And so we make our way to the stage, and we're waiting, you know, in great anticipation for the promise of the baby sloth. And someone comes arriving, carrying this carrying case, and they carefully bring out this old, raggedy, decrepit opossum.

And we're like, that is not the same as a baby sloth. You know what I'm saying? Like, I got elderly opossums digging through my garbage can in the alley. Like, that is not, that is a poor substitute for a baby sloth. And, and look, Jesus is the baby sloth of Christmas. You know what I'm saying? And anything else we turn to might as well be an old, decrepit, elderly opossum.

It's a poor substitute for Christ, right? Louis said, yeah, preach. So we don't want to, we don't want to miss, we don't want to miss Christ in this season. And the problem is, is that's actually pretty easy for us to do. Because if they missed him back then, right, when he was physically present with them, and there's, as it says, no room in the inn, and he's rejected by his hometown, rejected by his people, killed by his government.

If they missed him then, how easy is it for him 2,000 years later, for us, I mean, 2,000 years later, to miss him. Distracted by all the commercialism and busyness and expectations of the holiday. And so we need to make sure we prioritize refocusing and reflecting with our families on Christmas and on the truth of Christmas, which is Christ, right?

And the gift of Christ, not only back then and what he did then, which, amen, and also the gift he continues to be for us. Which my wife is way better at this than me. We were recently making all our Christmas morning plans. I love Christmas morning, and so I was planning, you know, we're going to wake up, and we're going to, we'll have our coffee, and we'll open presents with Jude, and we'll, maybe let's have some cinnamon rolls.

I love cinnamon rolls. And watch a Christmas movie, and my wife's like, yeah, and let's read the story of Jesus with Jude. And I was like, that's what I was going to say next. Like, right, I was, that's where I was going, for sure. And we need to make sure, it's easy to get swept up in it. And we need to make sure we stop and refocus, reflect on what it's all about, and then still engage joyfully in all the Christmas things.

Recently, we took Christmas photos. And I say we, I mean, my mother-in-law, Leslie, took some photos of Jude, and they should be on the screen. And nothing to do with the message at all, but I will take every opportunity I get to show off my boy. And does that just, it just, it just, that's the Christmas spirit right there, you know? That's so good.

And so now I want us to look in our text at how this gift of Jesus comes to us. Just the humility in the way he comes to us and how he shows up. This conception is going to happen in a town called Nazareth. And the only thing remarkable about Nazareth is how unremarkable it is. This is the very first time, chronologically, that Nazareth has ever been mentioned in the whole Bible.

So it's an unremarkable town. And then later the disciple Philip will say about it, well, can anything good come from Nazareth? Right, it's an obscure town with a bad reputation. And yet Jesus will always be associated with it as he is called Jesus of Nazareth. And then the mother he comes to, the exalted mother who will bear him, is a teenage country girl.

Of no social status, no wealth, no cultural significance. And yet this is who God comes to. And it may seem surprising to us, especially to them at the time where you would directly contrast the coming of a king with the coming of Caesar and all the politics of the day back then. And so it could seem surprising. But if we read our Bibles, we see this is what God always does.

God always chooses to exalt whom men belittle. So this is what he does, and I put in your notes, that the love of God shines brightest in the margins. We cannot be a people that ever forget the love of God for those in the margins. And so the angel Gabriel shows up to Mary, and he calls her favored one. You're the favored one. Which is fitting for Mary because her name in Hebrew is Miriam, which means exalted one.

And so he shows up with like wordplay on her name ready, and he says, greetings, favored one. And that term favored one in Greek, I put in your notes, is only used one other time in the entire New Testament. And it's in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6, which describes all believers as favored in Christ. So the favor that rested on Mary, who would soon carry Christ in her womb, now rests on all believers in whom Christ dwells.

So God looks at you, if you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, he looks at you and he calls you his favored one. I was saying last service, one of my, just one of the kindest men we have in our church, and a lot of kind men in our church. I'm low on the list, but his name is Norm. Norm is awesome, such a sweet guy, top five mustache in the church, just a really good dude.

And, ah, preach, I can't grow one. So I look up to every male with a mustache. I'm like, I want to be you when I grow up. And every time I greet Norm, he says, I'm like, hey, Norm, how you doing? He says, I'm blessed and highly favored. I'm like, man, I love that, man. That's so good. It's so good because it's true. And it's actually truer than whatever emotions I'm experiencing or whatever my circumstances are.

Those things are real and they're important. But the truer thing about me is that I am blessed and highly favored. I'm blessed and highly favored. I'm a favored one if I'm a vessel of the sun. It's who I am. And we need to not forget that about ourselves. Now let's go ahead and let's keep reading. Let's go to verses 29 through 34. So picking up in 29.

It says, 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 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? So in the previous section we spoke about, we spoke about a promise fulfilled to Daniel. And now very clear in this section is a promise fulfilled to David.

Right? That David, if you remember in 2 Samuel, David wants to build King David a house for the Lord. And the Lord says to him in 2 Samuel 7, 12-13, 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 will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And now the angel Gabriel tells Mary that her boy is going to take the throne of David.

And he will have an everlasting kingdom. And once again we see that God keeps his promises. And Mary has an interesting response to the whole situation. I mean her first initial response, understandable, when Gabriel shows up, it says that she's troubled and trying to discern what kind of greeting this is. Which is probably because she's a 13 to 16-year-old girl, probably at home by herself.

And an angelic being shows up in her house and says, Greetings. You are highly favored. Sweet. Like what do you do with that? What does that mean? And then he tells her, it gets wilder. You're going to have a son. And he will be a king. And he will be a savior. And I love that Mary gets right to the practical. She gets right to the practical. She goes, well, listen, Gabriel, I don't know the sex ed courses they have in heaven.

Or if your angelic parents did that birds and the bees talk. But down here, like something needs to happen for that to go down. And we just, and I'm a virgin. How is this possible? She asks. And the virginity of Mary is a sign, according to Isaiah 714. It says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel, which we know means God with us.

So this is a sign of the Messiah. The virginity of Mary. And it's also an important feature of the mission of the Messiah. Because we say all the time in church and in Orthodox theology that Jesus is fully human and also fully God. And that's really important for our theology. And it happens here in the virgin conception. This is important because Jesus has to be fully God in order to accomplish the mission of salvation.

In Genesis chapter 1, when God created humankind, he said, let us make God in our image. We were supposed to be the image of God. The imago Dei. God's divine representation on earth. And we fail that. We fall short of the glory of God, as it says in Romans 3. And so God sends himself, his son, to be the true imago Dei. To be God incarnate. And he lives a perfect life.

And he goes to the cross and he takes on all my sin. And he is punished for it and he dies. And then he resurrects from the dead. That's God stuff. He has to be fully God in order to do those things. So it's really important that Joseph isn't his father. Right? But it's also important that he's born of the woman. Because he has to also be my human representative.

He goes and he lives a perfect life on my behalf as my representative. He goes to the cross and he dies and punishes for my sin on my behalf as my representative. And when he defeats death, he secures the promise of my resurrection as my representative. So it's important he must be fully God. Fully man. And it takes place here in this virgin conception.

It's not something we can compromise in this story. And we're going to take it a step further with this moment. And to do that, we need to keep reading. So let's go to 35 through 38. It says, And Mary said, So one more piece of theology around the virgin conception. And I think, you know, I recently graduated seminary. Hold your applause. Hold your applause.

And I had a professor in seminary who, he said that, look, he was a theology professor. And maybe he was kind of burnt by it. But he had said, look, people don't want to hear theology. This is not what people want in church. They don't want to hear theology. They want practical tips. And they want to be encouraged. But they don't want a lot of theology.

To which I respond, I don't care. Because good theology informs good practice. And I think it's inspirational for us as it exalts God. And so one more thing about this conception that we see. If you think back to Genesis chapter 1 before everything. In your Bibles it says that the earth was formless and void. And then the spirit of God comes and he hovers over the waters.

And then he speaks and he says, let there be light. And life is created. Now, in Mary's womb, she's a virgin. It is formless and void. And the angel tells her that the spirit of God is going to come upon her. Is going to overshadow her. And then life in her womb will be created. And that life will be called the light of the world. See, this whole story.

This whole story is dripping with all of this Old Testament motif. And it's bigger than just a cute nativity scene. This is the promises and hopes of God fulfilled from the beginning of time. And then Gabriel concludes by telling Mary that nothing is impossible with God. And maybe you need to hear that in this season. Maybe you need to reignite your hope this season.

That nothing is impossible with God. God can do the impossible. You can trust him. He knows what you need. And any time I doubt that, I look back on my life when I doubt that God has been moving and working and I'm struggling. When I look back and I start to think about my life or even generations before me. When you have kids, you start to think about all the generational stuff.

And I think back to really very clear generational sin in my family that seems like it's been passed down. And I won't go into it. I'll talk to my counselor about it. But it's very clear to me. And then I think about my own sin and all the ways I've fallen short. And all the lies I believed growing up. And I just think about all of this stuff. And then I look at how God has redeemed.

How God has healed. What he's gifted me with. How he's been merciful. How he's restored. How he's broken chains and shattered lies. And I'm like, God has done the impossible in my life. And I can believe that. And for some of us, the greatest impossibility is that God has changed your stubborn heart. Mine too. Mostly yours. But God, that's one of the greatest, that's one of our greatest miracles.

That God actually changes our heart. Makes us new. So if he can do that, yeah, he can open up the womb of an elderly barren woman. He can have the virgin conceive. He is God who does the impossible. And then let's look at Mary's response. Mary says this in response. She says first, I am the servant of the Lord. I'm the 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.

The angel Gabriel shows up and says, you're the favored one. And Mary says, I'm the servant of the Lord. We cannot lose the truth with both sides of that coin. We must believe that, yes, we are highly favored, heirs in Christ, and at the same time, humble servants and slaves of Christ Jesus, as Paul says, who have nothing to boast about but in the king.

Favored ones and servants. We don't want to lose sight of that. And then Mary says, she says this. She says, let it be to me according to your word. And this, in church history, is known as Mary's fiat, which in Latin means let it be done. And this is a very powerful response because Mary, although she's receiving really beautiful good news, it doesn't come without hardship.

It doesn't come without potential trial. Mary understands, she would get this as a woman in her culture, that she is now about to risk by saying let it be done. She's about to risk her soon-to-be marriage, right? She is living in an honor-shame culture that would be eager to heap on shame on her for being pregnant, out of wedlock, in what would have looked like an affair.

And many of the Jewish people would have thought she was worthy of death. And yet, she responds with a fiat response, saying let it be done according to your word. And I put in your notes that Mary's let it be is the slogan of a servant's heart. And, man, that needs to be. Man, if we can just progress towards servant's heart as we continue to follow Jesus and have fiat responses daily to God in our life, to say let it be done according to your word in however we encounter God.

And then when hardship comes and the unforeseen happens and tragedy strikes, we remember that Jesus said in this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. And you say, well, let it be to me as according to your word. And when you sin and you fall short and you become overwhelmed with frustration and the guilt and the shame of your sin, you remember that Paul says in Ephesians that we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

And you say, well, let it be to me according to your word. And when you're in a season of waiting on God to move, waiting on him to heal, waiting on him to act, you remember it says in Isaiah that those who wait on the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. And you say, well, let it be to me in according with your word.

And when you feel unloved, uncared for, and alone, you remember Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 31, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. And you say, well, let it be to me according to your word. You have continual, a fiat response to however we encounter God in this life. We offer to him our fiat response.

Amen. We are going to invite up the worship team to come up as we respond to God and worship. And there's also going to be, there's some practical takeaways here in your notes that I want to encourage you to go through and read through together with your family. And as we worship, let us offer this let it be response. Wherever you're at in this season to say, let it be to me.

And then I'll come up and close us in just a minute. Let's go ahead and stand. Praise the Father. Praise the Son. Praise the Father. Praise the Spirit. Praise the Spirit. Three in one. God of glory. Majesty. Praise forever to the King. Praise forever. Praise forever to the King. Praise forever. Praise forever to the King. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey, church, we want to invite you again to Christmas Eve, and we want to challenge you.

Man, don't miss Christ this season. Amen. And invite friends. And invite friends. We want, if you have three people on your heart and in your mind, three people that you would want to invite. Christmas Eve service is such a great opportunity for that, to hear the gospel preached. So invite three people that you would want to invite you again to Christmas Eve service.

And if you want prayer, I want to invite our prayer team forward. Prayer team will come up, and please come up for prayer. If you have more questions on getting involved in our church or anything, you want to hear more about Jesus, we have a next steps table in the back. With that, let me pray. Heavenly Father, God, we are so, we're humbled, and we're grateful, and we're thankful to both be favored by you and to be your servants, God.

And we pray, God, however you move in our life, teach us to have a fiat response, a let it be response. That, God, whatever your will is for your life, we would say, as Jesus says, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven in my life. Let it be to me according to your word. We pray, God, and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.