Gabriel's Visit to Mary - Luke 1:26-38 (12.14.2025)

Good morning. Good morning. All right.

Our scripture reading today comes from the book of Luke, chapter 1, verses 26 through 38.

Luke 1:26–38

When I finish reading, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord,

and you can respond by saying, thanks be to God.

Okay. Chapter 1, verse 26.

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. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and he 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 Israel, I mean, 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. You can be seated.

All right. Well, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter one.

If you have one, or you can follow along, hopefully you got a handout or we'll have it on the screen.

So Luke chapter one in verse 26, and I'll pray for us one more time as you're finding your spot.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this morning. We do thank you again

for the Christmas story and that you did not leave us alone,

but that you came for us to rescue us.

So I pray that you would open our eyes today to see how glorious this truth is, how personal it is.

Lord, would you speak mightily through your word today in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. So last week we began a three-week series in the book of Luke,

and we're looking at the three angelic visitations that make up the Christmas

story, or that are in the Christmas story in Luke's account.

So last week, we were looking at the angel who visits Zechariah.

Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist. And so last week,

we saw Gabriel show up in the temple while Zechariah was doing his priestly

duties there, offering the incense.

And Gabriel delivers the news to him that, hey, you're going to have a miracle

child in your old age and your child is going to be the forerunner to the Messiah.

And this morning, we're looking at the second of these angelic visitations. Gabriel.

Visits Mary and tells her that she is going to become pregnant with the son of the most high God.

This is one of the most famous Christmas passages in all of the Bible.

So the first section of my sermon, we're just going to look at the surprising

nature of this announcement.

This reveals a turning point in human history.

Historically, the church has referred to this passage as the Annunciation or the Announcement.

And it's arguably the most important announcement in all of history,

revealing the mystery that had been hidden for generations and ages before,

that in order to save us, our sin,

God would become a man and live among us.

The second section of the sermon is going to focus on what all it is that we

learn about who this Savior is, Jesus.

We're gonna see who he is and why he is worthy of our adoration.

And then third, the third and final part of the sermon is gonna look at Mary's response.

Mary responds in an incredible way. She is an exemplar to us.

And so we're gonna learn from her response as we close.

So that's the sermon, announcement, adoration, and application.

First, let's look at the announcement.

Look at verses 26 and 27 with me. This sets the scene for us.

It's been six months since Gabriel was sent to Zechariah.

So 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. Now, we have to remember that what we are reading

is one piece of a large story.

The Bible is made up of 66 books.

66 books that tell all one big story. They're not 66 separated.

I mean, they tell different stories, but it's like a movie that you may be seeing

where the movie changes from one character to another and it's bouncing back

and forth and different characters.

It might fast forward in time and then come back to some characters that you learned about earlier.

And all of those scenes might tell, you know, little stories,

but it's really, you need all of the pieces together to understand the whole.

Well, the Bible is the same way. And the entire Bible is actually telling the

story of God redeeming us, that we,

God's creatures, have sinned against him, have rebelled against him,

have therefore separated ourselves from him, and he is working out a plan to restore us.

So the entire Bible is actually telling the story that is now coming to fruition

as we read this piece of the story. This is a turning point.

So throughout history, God has been foretelling that a Messiah,

a savior is coming and he will save his people.

And it's all been building to this announcement, but it doesn't happen the way

anyone would have expected.

That's partly what Luke, who wrote this account, wants us to see,

just how unexpected all of this is.

First of all, it happens in an unexpected place.

God sends Gabriel, this angelic messenger, to deliver the news.

And he's sent to this small, rural, unknown town called Nazareth in Galilee.

Nazareth was located in what's considered the most remote part of Israel,

in the northern parts of Israel.

It was near the cities of non-Jewish residents and was therefore called Nazareth

of the Gentiles in those days.

And God sends Gabriel here. You know, his first assignment to Zechariah likely

made sense to him as he heard where he was going.

Gabriel, you need to go to Jerusalem, the center of gravity for my people.

And not only Jerusalem, but you're going to go to the temple,

the center of worship in the center of gravity for my people.

It likely made sense to him.

And then he gets the second assignment. Now I want you to go to Nazareth.

And I just have to imagine that that surprised him.

He was sent to a very small town in the middle of nowhere.

And it makes no sense in some ways, but when we think about the incarnation.

What is the incarnation?

It's God becoming flesh, becoming a human being and coming to us,

then it makes perfect sense that he would come to the place that's forgotten

or the place that's seemingly unimportant.

So he comes to a small town called Nazareth.

Excavations of the site of Nazareth suggest it was a small agricultural village,

maybe a couple hundred people at most.

So the announcement comes to an unexpected place. It also comes to an unexpected person.

Gabriel's sent to this young girl, Mary, most likely poor.

She's not married yet.

She's a virgin and she's being told that she's going to become pregnant as a virgin.

She is just as surprised as anyone else when she gets the news.

It says in verses 28 through 30, and he came to her and said,

greetings, oh favored one, the Lord is with you.

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.

She can hardly believe it. She's trying to discern what is this all about?

So it comes to an unexpected place. It comes to an unexpected person and it

comes at an unexpected time.

One of the things that likely took Zechariah and Mary off guard is the fact

that it had been 400 years since the last time the Lord had spoken.

400 years of silence, of waiting, the people of God waiting for news from God.

Just to put that into perspective, our own country has only existed for 250

years, 400 years of silence.

And so I think people have stopped expecting God to speak in their day.

And yet he does. He breaks the silence.

Finally, he comes in an unexpected way.

The fact that Mary, as a virgin, was going to conceive surprised her, shocked her.

But it was not a surprise to God.

In fact, 700 years before Jesus was born in Isaiah 7, verse 14, we get this prophecy.

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive

and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel.

So God is clearly speaking, but in very unexpected ways.

God, through Gabriel's message, is declaring that the long-awaited Messiah is coming.

Mary may or may not have been familiar with this prophecy.

One of the things that's an obvious lesson for us that we can take from the

unexpected nature of the way that this all happens is that God doesn't do things

the way we would do them if we were him.

And sometimes he does things the exact opposite of the ways that we would do them if we were him.

God's ways are truly not our ways. I remember it was two days ago was the 15

year anniversary of the day that the Lord spoke to Tiffany and I,

my wife and I, and told us to go to Vermont.

Very clearly spoke, told us to move to Vermont to plant a church.

And yesterday was the two-year anniversary of God speaking to us very clearly

again and calling us back home to Georgia to plant this church.

And in both cases, it was not at all what we expected God to do.

Not at all. In fact, the last thing we expected God to do.

And so as we sensed Him leading us, sensed Him calling us to do what we never

expected we would do, there was this mingling of fear and shock and excitement.

I think Luke intends for us to feel some of this amazement as we read about

God sending Gabriel to this poor young girl who is a virgin living in an obscure

small town and then giving her an assignment to bear his son, the savior of the world.

Here's one thing that you might take personally from this.

Perhaps if someone had told you a year ago that you'd be sitting here this morning

in this church, you would have laughed.

Or maybe if someone had told you six months ago that you'd actually be interested

in learning about who Jesus really is, you would have said they were crazy.

But you see, that's exactly how God works. He works in the most unexpected ways.

Maybe you look at your life and you think, I'm as surprised as anyone that I'm

interested in the Bible.

Well, that actually makes sense when you understand the way that God works.

He chooses the least likely of us and he moves and works in surprising ways.

So this should cause us to stand in awe of our great God who works in ways that

we would never dream of. And he is so much wiser than us.

So that's a look at the surprising nature of the announcement.

But now I want to look at what we can learn about Christ through what the angel

says. And it's meant to produce adoration in us.

Why is Jesus worthy of our adoration? The first thing I want to look at is the name he has given.

Verse 31 says, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you shall call his name Jesus.

Notice this is the name that he's given by God.

He is not given this name by Mary and Joseph, but God chooses it for him.

This is the Hebrew name Joshua, and it means the Lord is salvation.

His very name is a proclamation concerning the reason for his coming.

Matthew's account includes Gabriel coming to Joseph and explaining to Joseph what's happening.

And in that account, it says, you shall call his name Jesus for he will save

his people from their sins.

So his name points to the very reason for his coming, the reason that he was born to begin with.

Jesus came so that he could make a way for us to be forgiven.

He came to save us from our sins.

Who is this Jesus who came to save his people from their sins?

In order to understand who he is, we need to understand how he came into the world.

There are few things that would lead us to greater awe of Christ than to reflect

on the miracle of the virginal conception, which is what we read about in this passage.

If Christ were not born of a virgin, in other words, if he had come to the world

through the normal means of coming into the world at a human mother and a human

father, he could not have been the sacrifice for our sins.

It's that important.

In order for Christ's death to provide our forgiveness, certain conditions had to be met.

Look at verses 33 through 35. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since

I'm 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.

The virgin birth was necessary for Christ to remain holy.

It is because Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is holy,

the son of God. You see that in this passage.

Scripture teaches that our sin nature is inherited from Adam, the first man.

Because Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, rather than from

a human father's DNA, he was born without original sin.

And this is crucial for us to understand, for us to understand so that Christ

could have been the acceptable sacrifice for our sins. If he had inherited our

sin nature, he would not have been holy.

And his death, rather than being a payment, would have simply been the necessary consequence of sin.

But because he is holy, his death could count as payment for our sin.

The virgin birth was necessary for Christ to be holy, and the virgin birth was

necessary for Christ to be fully God.

If Joseph had been Jesus' biological father, then Jesus would not have been God.

But because Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, he is.

He is called the Son of God. And first century Jews understood that to be called

the son of God was to be called God, was to be equal with God.

It was when they saw that Jesus was, it was when the religious rulers saw that

Jesus was claiming to be the son of God, that they picked up stones to stone

him to death because they said he is making himself equal with God.

So the virgin birth was necessary for him to be fully God.

The virgin birth was also necessary for him to be fully man.

If Jesus had not had a human mother, then Jesus would not have been man.

But he did. And so he is truly man, truly God, and truly man.

We should stand in awe at the wisdom of God.

All of these things are necessary in order for his sacrifice to be acceptable for our sin.

The virgin conception means Jesus is fully God, fully man, and he is holy.

Without these three things, the cross would be emptied of its power.

He had to be man in order to suffer the penalty for human sin.

He had to be God in order for his suffering to have infinite merit.

And he had to be born sinless or he could not have paid the price for our sins.

What else can we learn from Gabriel's announcement? Look at verses 32 and 33.

He will be called 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.

Gabriel makes clear that Jesus is the great king that God promised to send a thousand years prior.

In a very, very important prophetic passage of scripture, from a thousand years

before Jesus's birth, God spoke to King David.

And he made this promise to him in 2 Samuel 7, 12 through 14.

When your days are fulfilled, he says to David, and you lie down with your fathers,

I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I

will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name.

I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.

So for a thousand years, God's people had been waiting for God to send a savior

king who would be the son of God and who would reign forever.

Jesus came to do just that. He came to build a house, a household literally for God's name.

He came to establish the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven on earth through

his message, through his life, through his death and burial and resurrection.

Jesus came to do as Colossians 1, 13 through 14 says, He has delivered us from

the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

It's an amazing verse. Everyone who turns to Christ in repentance and believes

in Him, puts their trust in Him, is transferred out of the domain of darkness,

the domain of darkness, the domain of Satan,

His rule, His reign, into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the beloved son

in whom we have forgiveness of sins.

All of this should lead us to adoration.

We have eyes to see and ears to hear. It would cause us to respond in worship.

Jesus wasn't just the savior of Jews either.

He came to save all nations, all peoples, everyone, anyone who would believe

in him would be reconciled to God.

And you see the glory of Christ, our savior, son of God, the king of kings,

the Lord of lords, whose kingdom will never end, the Holy One of God,

who is worthy of our worship and admiration.

That brings us to the final part of the sermon, and that's application.

So we've looked at the surprising nature of the announcement.

We've seen the reasons that this text gives us to adore Christ.

But what do we do with this now? Let's look at the response of Mary to the angel's message.

Verse 34, Mary says to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin?

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, 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 he departed from her.

Now, if you were here last week, you'll remember that Zechariah responded to the news.

They were going to have a miraculous child with a question as well.

His question was different though. He said, essentially, how will I know this

is actually going to happen? How will I know that your word is going to come true?

Basically, he wanted another sign besides the fact that God sent an angel to him.

So his response was disbelief and he was rebuked sharply by the angel.

Mary's response comes in two stages. First, a question, then glad acceptance.

Mary's question to the angel isn't unbelief, but it's what theologians have

referred to as faith-seeking understanding.

She believes Gabriel, but her question is very practical in nature.

She wants to understand how she will conceive since she is a virgin.

Gabriel is happy to help her understand.

This faith-seeking understanding is what all of us are called to.

We believe with childlike trust, but there are glorious mysteries of the faith

and deep spiritual realities that we will spend a lifetime searching out.

God has designed it to be so, and he is pleased with faith-seeking understanding.

That's the first part of Mary's response.

Now let's look at the second stage of her response. In verse 38,

Behold, I'm the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

Mary's response is such an incredible example to us.

It is obvious from this passage that Mary has just learned that she is a recipient of God's grace.

You have found favor with the Lord, right? Right.

She is not a source of grace, as the church has erroneously taught in some places.

Not a source of grace or a dispenser of grace, but an unworthy recipient of grace like all of us.

And she stands in awe of it.

Put yourself in Mary's shoes. As she's hearing this, okay, okay, I'm favored.

The Lord is with me. and then she's being told that she's going to become pregnant

as a virgin, as an unmarried virgin, put yourself in her shoes.

I think she probably immediately understood that her reputation was going to

be ruined, that no one would believe where this child came from.

And there are hints in scripture that tell us that this reputation stuck with

her for the rest of her life.

And so while it's going to be wonderful that God has looked upon her with grace

and favor, has shown her favor and chosen her to be the literal vessel of the Lord.

At the same time, this is a hard assignment. She is being asked to do something very difficult.

And as she ponders all of this, she counts the cost and she says,

I want to serve the Lord in this way.

Let it be to me according to your word.

Friends, that's what real saving faith looks like. It looks like trusting and

yielding to the will of God.

If you've believed the lie that you can just pray a prayer and then somehow God owes you.

That's not saving faith. Saving faith looks like what Mary does here.

First, she says, I believe, but I don't fully understand all of this. Help me understand.

Second, she says, essentially, I'm honored that God would want me to be a part

of what he's doing, a part of his story.

And I want to serve the Lord, servant of the Lord.

And then third, I'm accepting whatever this means for my life because I trust him.

That's what saving faith looks like. It looks like surrender.

It looks like submission to the will of God. If Christ is worthy of our worship,

and he is, he is worthy of our trust and submission.

Maybe this is all new to you and it's overwhelming, but deep down you believe that this is true.

You believe that Jesus really is the son of God, that he came to us through

the miracle of the virgin birth so that he could ultimately pay the price for

our sins against a holy God by dying on the cross.

You believe that he was raised from the dead on the third day because death

can have no claim on a sinless man.

You believe that he has come to establish his kingdom among men that everyone

who believes in him is transferred out of the domain of Satan and into the rule

of God in the kingdom of the son.

If you believe that, then Gabriel's words to Mary in verse 30 apply to you as well.

Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God.

It might feel scary to entrust your life to the plan of God,

but I assure you it will be worth it. Do not be afraid.

You might feel unworthy of His love like Mary did, but it's not about you being worthy.

It's about Him showing you favor because Jesus has purchased your forgiveness.

Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God.

Now it's up to you. That's the message. That's the message that Mary received with faith.

That's the message to you this morning as well, that Jesus, the Son of God,

has come to us to save us from our sins.

Will you trust him? If you will, then you can say with Mary,

I am the servant of the Lord.

Here is my life. Use it as you see fit.

Trust you. If you do, and just as Christ came physically to the womb of Mary

because of her faith, spiritually, Christ will come to live inside you.

His spirit will fill you with the life and power of God, and you will begin

the miraculous process of being transformed more and more to look like the Son. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, this is wonderful news, glorious news that you have come to dwell with man,

that you sent your son to become one of us, to live the perfect life,

the life that we could never live, and then to die the death that he didn't deserve,

but that we deserve in order to make payment for our sin and rebellion against to you.

And then that this same Christ did not stay dead, but death had no claim on him.

And he was raised from the dead on the third day, offering life,

eternal life to all who would believe in him and the hope of resurrection on the last day.

Oh Lord, we give you thanks and praise this morning. In Jesus name. Amen.