A Surprising Announcement Series

“A Surprising Announcement”

Series: Beginnings of a Legacy

December 13, 2009

If you’re a regular church attendee, then you know that the giving of “Announcements” is a regular part of most church services. It can also be the funniest part of the service, because mistakes can be made. With that in mind, I want to give you a sampling of “Church Bulletin Announcement Bloopers” that could get you into a lot of trouble! These are actual bulletin announcements…

• Bertha Belch, (a missionary from Africa) will be speaking tonight at Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

• The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water". The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus"

• Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She’s also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.

• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24th in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

• At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

• “Weight Watchers” will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

• Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High."

This morning we’re going to look at another kind of announcement… a God Announcement. Unlike our announcements, God doesn’t make any mistakes and He doesn’t make any bloopers… but nonetheless, His announcements CAN still get you into a lot of trouble. Just ask Mary and Joseph! Last week we looked at the news of Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s perspective, but this week we’re going to look at it from Mary’s point of view. As we do that, I want to share with you “4 Facts About God’s Messages”, that are still relevant to today…

But 1st of all, let’s read about God’s announcement to Mary in Luke 1:26-38…READ You know, a lot of times when we read the bible we get the idea that what happened to the people we read about could never happen to me! After all, we rationalize… “They’re special people living in a special time. Their experiences could never be repeated in my life!”

In fact, we’ve conditioned ourselves to read the bible in terms of OUR experience, instead of in the terms of the experience of the people we’re reading about. For example, If we don’t hear God speak to us in special ways… then we assume that He just doesn’t do that anymore! If that’s the way you read your bible… then no wonder you’re bored with it! It’s become some kind of moralistic life guide… when what God meant for it to be is a way to hear His voice and respond to His voice in a life changing way!

Well, as we read about Mary this morning, I want you to see the story we’re going to read about as not just some kind of nice story, or some distant encounter with God… I want you to see it as something that can actually happen to you! Mary received a visitation from one of God’s angels who had a special message for her. I want you walking away from here this morning realizing that God (the same God that spoke to Mary) has a special message for you too! So, the 1st FACT that you should know about God’s messages is simply this…

1. God still SENDS messages.

In case you didn’t know it or realize it… God is still in the business of making announcements and sending messages to people today. In otherwords, God is alive and well… He’s still talking…He hasn’t gone into hiding… and He’s attempting to communicate with me and you.

Now you might have had a hard time convincing the average Jew about that back in Jesus’ day. Because for all intents and purposes it seemed like God had gone silent on them. See, what you need to understand is that God’s people hadn’t seen or heard from God (or one of His angels) in more than 400 years! For 400 years there’d been no revelation from the Lord, no prophets, no miracles. They hadn’t heard as much as a ‘peep’ out of God. And some were even wondering if He even existed! Sounds kind of like today huh? Because most people haven’t heard from God in a personal way, they wrongly assume that He never existed in the 1st place… and if He did, well, it looks like He packed up His bags and moved away! If that’s you… then like Mary… you’re in for a big surprise!