Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

dear heavenly father we come to you this morning.

We have praised you we have worshipped you.

Just as the world.

Sad and silenced at night to hear the Angels Sing and Proclaim that you were born.

Lord we sit in silence now. to hear your word And Lord, we have no power to make anything happen.

I have no strength.

No power to change.

Anybody's Heart by Your Word to see anybody say by Your Word.

But our eyes are on you.

Our attention is on you.

Our focus is on you we sit in silence.

That we might hear your voice spoken through your work.

Let us be true to it.

Let us be accurate with it.

Let us be filled with your Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit.

Come upon us to hear to understand to know it more than ever before and a strengthened me to speak it.

According to your truth according to your word and in your power and we pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

I saw this morning.

We're going to take a break, of course from our study and John to look at the birth of Christ last year.

We we looked at the manger scene and we talked about why was it that Jesus was laid in a manger and what some of the symbolic significance of that was when The Good Shepherd and the bread of life came to Bethlehem the house of bread and was laid in the very place where the Sheep go to find food statement a statement of what his life would entail of what he came to do.

There's a lot more that could be set on that.

There's a lot more that could be said and what we're going to go through this morning, but we have hopefully I pray got many many Christmases together to go through these things this morning.

I want us to look at the announcement of Christ's birth in Luke chapter 1 verses 26 through 38 and I've title this Greetings.

Oh Grace one, the announcement of a child to be born is an absolutely beautiful thing.

It's a beautiful thing.

We always try to make a big deal of it when we have a child born in our family and making that announcement but the announcement of the birth of Christ is a miracle of unmatched beauty that is situated in the midst of common life.

a Jewish reader seeing this scene reading this text seeing what is taking place would drop his job in amazement that Gabriel passed over Judea and Jerusalem in the temple for an undesirable town in Galilee.

You would think that the mother of Christ would come from Noble stuck in Jerusalem.

Perhaps the daughter of a priest.

But God chose a poor girl in Nazareth.

No doubt in early teen giving her life situation too young to have made a name for herself yet her accomplished much to be recognized or known not a Jerusalem girl with nobility but a Nazareth girl from a halfway.

Stop Town between the port cities of sidon and tear.

full Travelers full of Gentiles full of drifters rather than coming to the temple Gabriel comes to the home of this poor girl betrothed to a poor man.

And what we see here is the greatest news news saturated saturated with Old Testament.

Hope and Promises fulfilled we can even we're going to see a lot of that this morning.

We can't even scratch the surface of it though.

Not in the time we have for a service.

And this news came to the poor and humble.

Antichrist birth nine months later the news came to poor and humble Shepherds a beautiful picture of who Christ came to serve humble people who cannot make it without him.

Cuz that's all we are regardless of our Earthly background regardless of our education or our social status.

Until we recognize our weakness and spiritual lack.

We have no part in the promises of Christ.

At least not the good ones.

So as we walked through this text the main point is this.

The birth of Christ reveals that he comes to the poor and humble to create a people who are fully submitted to following him.

So let me read with you Luke chapter 1 verses 26 through 38.

In the 6-month, that's a 6-month of Elizabeth's pregnancy carrying John the Baptist in the sixth month.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee names 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 favored one or literally in the Greek greetings also graced one with favor.

The Lord is with you.

But she was greatly troubled the saying and try to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

The angel said to her.

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

You have been graced with favor from God.

And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus meaning salvation.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord.

God will give 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 winds.

Mary said 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 there for the child will be called.

Holy the son of God.

And behold your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived the Sun and this is the 6-month with her who was called Barren for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said the whole on the servant of the Lord, let it be according to your word and the angel departed from her.

So as we walked through this text.

Point number one out of verses 26 through 30 is this Christ comes to the humble and lowly is a child of promise.

child of promise

verse 26 in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth.

So this is the sixth month of Elizabeth pregnancy carrying John the Baptist as the previous narrative text as shown and a verse 36 very clearly reveals and Gabriel serves as an angel of great faithfulness and great responsibility and he gives his credibility back in verse 19 does Zechariah saying what is announcing the the pregnancy of John the Baptist the birth of John the Baptist.

I am Gabriel.

I stand in the presence of God and some credibility and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you good news.

Is he being in and being aware of the presence of God leads us to be faithful because we see things in perspective.

If we don't value God's word and we don't value God's truth.

The real problem is a lack of being in the presence of God.

Because the more were in his presence if we love him the more we will value his work the more we will value his truth the more faithful we will stay to it and that's exactly what Gabriel did Gabriel has a proven track record already.

This is the Angel who appeared to Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 and spoke to him on behalf of God prophesying world events.

That would come any laid out a pattern of how the world would operate as the World rides in the labor pains have seen New Life bursting forth with God's Redemptive plan.

Laid out this pattern.

Is Kings of the earth exalt themselves against God?

And against God's people and persecute the Saints off and bring some sort of abominable desolation.

Amendments enemy becomes defeated this the pattern that we've seen throughout the intertestamental.

From the end from the time of Daniel up to this time in Christ.

The pattern is picked up in Revelation been this enemies defeated God brings Deliverance.

We see this pattern historically it's taken place over the last few hundred years since Daniel.

When the prophecy of Daniel leading up to Christ the people have been oppressed they were heavily persecuted by the Greeks and anticus epiphanies had desecrated the temple slaughtering a pig on the altar in desecrating God's temple with an abominable desolation.

And God brought Deliverance.

He took him down the people ended up winning back the religious freedom the story of Hanukkah.

But now they lived under Roman rule.

Where they have some freedom in Rome, but it was far from ideal as a weary Isreal waited for their savior.

Saint Gabriel shows up to bring a message.

We see reliability and significance as to how God is going to carry out his Plan of Salvation for his people.

That's something that we can see with the aerial view.

We have looking at this scripture verse 27.

We can anticipate this becomes sent from God to a city called Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of David and the virgin's name was Mary.

So the message comes to a virgin woman in Nazareth is betrothed to Joseph which is a legally-binding engagement the required a divorce to break off and then we often hear that being engaged was like being married at that time.

But how does that work?

And I want us to take a moment and dig a Little Deeper here so that we're not satisfied just a surface level of this so that we know for ourselves so that we're not just Taking what we've heard over and over again, but we're actually understanding this.

Because I want us to see to truly understand this text and understand the situation that Mary and Joseph were in I want us to better understand the birth of Christ and Abby a more well-informed church so that we're growing because the more we understand these things clearly we develop the capacity to know Christ better and more intimately.

So here's how the first century Jewish betrothal would work is how it happened.