Sermon for Followers Mission and Church at the Mission - Nothing is Impossible With God Luke 1:26-38
It’s a beautiful thing to join together today in worship and in the presence of Jesus, who is the centre of our praise and adoration.
Who we worship today is the exalted King, the Risen Saviour, the one the ancient prophets called The Everlasting Father.
And, since today is the start of Advent, that time in the Christian Calendar when we begin to hope for the coming of Jesus, when we reenact in our hearts the nativity, today we consider Jesus before He was born. Before He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, who existed for all time, Who was in the beginning with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
We consider the experience of a young girl named Mary, through Whom the Saviour of the World was to be born.
I was not raised with any knowledge of the gospel, or of the nativity as it is called.
It was not a part of my childhood at all. So it was with fresh eyes that I first learned of the Incarnation, God coming to us in the flesh, at the age of 17.
The story remains fresh to me to this day for 2 reasons.
It is a story, a history that abounds with hope and promise and joy; and it is a story that collided with the story of my youth - which was one of despair, hopelessness and meaninglessness.
I will never forget when my story of hopelessness and meaninglessness collided with the gospel of God’s grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
At some level I live everyday with the memory of that collision, and I’m glad for it.
What happens to us when God’s story of hope and joy in Christ, when the gospel smashes into our personal stories, be they stories of a relatively happy life, or a life of pain, of emptiness, of longing, of addiction, of prision, of ruin.
Well, for Mary, we’ve just had read to us the beginnings of what happened to her, when it was still only a promise, albeit given miraculously through an angel of God. Mary is a young girl - perhaps 13 or 14 years old.
She lives in what we now call Israel, in a little backwater town in Galilee called Nazareth.
Mary is concerned with the things that any girl her age is concerned with: The welfare of her family, the struggle of her family under the oppressive rule of Rome.
She is pledged to be married to a young man named Joseph, who is descended from King David.
So she is beginning to think about things that in our culture and time, don’t happen for another 10 years ago or so. She’s thinking of having her own family, her own children.
And to this young girl an angel appears. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had the appearance of an angel in your life.
I haven’t, to my knowledge, although I may have entertained angels and been unaware of it. Hebrews 13:2 shows us this is possible, as it encourages us in our generosity to those we don’t know:
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2
But an angel appears to Mary, and it appears she knows this is an angel from God.
This was not a regular occurrence for her, so at the least we can appreciate that her relatively small, familiar world was jolted by the appearance of this messenger from God.
She may have been inclined to be afraid, but the words of the angel were intended to bring her her comfort: The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Her response? “Well, hello there angel. I’m glad you showed up! It’s about time someone recognized my goodness, my gifts!”
No. No. That wasn’t her response at all. It was quite different. She was GREATLY TROUBLED at his comforting words. Why?
This was an angelic visitation. If it doesn’t move us, if it doesn’t jolt us, perhaps there’s something not quite right with us.
Anyhow, Mary is greatly troubled, thoroughly shaken actually, at what might be behind a greeting like that. The angel tries to calm her down and assures her: “Do not be afraid, Mary”.
You’ve got nothing to fear, dear Mary. “You have found favour with God”. That word, ‘favour’, in the Greek it is CHARIS.
It means grace, that which gives joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm. ‘Mary, you have encountered the loving-kindness of God”, is what the angel tells her.
And this favour Mary has found with God...it will transform her life forever. Nothing will ever be the same for Mary. Whatever she had imagined up until that point for her life...it was all going to change.
The next words from the angel described how her life would change: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end”.
Mary hears these words for the first time, and I wonder how many times she had to recount them to herself before they sunk in. Mary was to bear a son. That’s not so unusual.
But she was not yet married, and she had not been with a man. She knew enough to know how babies are made. So she asks: “How will this happen?”
Notice, she doesn’t protest, she doesn’t complain. This situation is way out of the ordinary, and she simply asks: “How?”
And then those ominous words flow from the lips of the angel: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God’.
Just stop and try to put yourself in Mary’s shoes for a moment. ‘Mary, you will miraculously become pregnant with the Son of the Most High. The Son of God.
This baby will be given the throne of the greatest king known to Israel, and his reign will be eternal’. Think of the implications: Mary, you will give birth to the most important human to ever live. This human will be The Son of God”.
I think the angel Gabriel understands how hard it would be for Mary to absorb these words. And so, kindly, the angel points to evidence elsewhere of the miraculous within Mary’s own extended family.
Her cousin Elizabeth in her very old age, well beyond the age of being able to become pregnant and carry a baby to full term, well beyond the youthful strength and vigour required to accomplish such a feat.
Her cousin Elizabeth is also to have a child in her old age. She’s well along, into her 6th month.
But the next words that fall from the mouth of the angel are perhaps the most important.
How is this possible? How can these things EVER happen, these not-close-to-likely, not in the realm of possibility predictions?
The angel says: “No word from God will ever fail. Another translation says: With God, all things are possible. Nothing is impossible with God”.
Let me ask you: do you believe in a God Whose Word will never fail? Do you trust a God for Whom all things are possible?
I mentioned earlier that the gospel of Jesus collided with my atheism at the age of 17.
My world was shaken to its core when I started to understand what people only ever come to understand when God reveals it, and we stop fighting it.
It’s always a combination of God revealing Himself, and then our role is to look with open hearts and open eyes at what God is revealing.
Romans 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.
When the gospel came up against my world and my worldview, it was like a meteor hitting a pebble [hand illustration].
My little pebble - my belief system at the time, rooted in unbelief, rooted in a self-centred worldview, didn’t stand a chance against the sheer beauty and kindness and power of Jesus.
It takes some time before we grasp all the implications of the gospel - perhaps we never do fully. Yes, that’s true. It takes time to let the good news in. Why?
Because the good news of God has got to take captive everything about us. It has to infiltrate our thinking, our attitudes, all of our beliefs - not only about God, but also about ourselves.
As it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5: “...We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ...”
The Message paraphrase is helpful here. It says that we need to tear “down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.
Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity”. Amen? Amen!
So the explanation the angel gives to Mary as to how all these things are to come about - how the birth of the Son of God is to happen - the explanation is that ‘nothing is impossible with God’.
I want to suggest, if it isn’t obvious, that we need to be joyful and expectant about this truth…
But we also need to be wise and we need to be mature in our approach to understand this reality about God.
I want to suggest that for you and for me, there are 3 things we need to grasp about this statement, that ‘nothing is impossible with God’.
The first is probably the most obvious, but is worth mentioning. God’s first and primary focus is His Kingdom. It is that the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the source of salvation, be spread throughout all the earth.
It is that His justice and goodness prevail in the affairs of humanity.
He calls us to believe in His Son Jesus Christ, and He states explicitly in Micah 6:8 what He requires of His people: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”.
God’s will for us is to be committed to His purposes, so we truly and joyfully function as His agents in the world, particularly as His ministers of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18).
That’s all of us, not just ordained people.
Every believer here in this room has this calling and this responsibility.
It should be obvious from that first point that when we talk about nothing being impossible with God, we are not talking about me asking for that new baby grand piano I’d love to have or a Stradivarius violin.
It’s not about getting a Lexus or a Jag. It’s actually not about me, at all. It’s about God.
And when I’m committed to doing God’s will, then my desires and the things I ask for will be about the things that are on His heart.
Prayers and decisions become easier when your will to please God outweighs your will to please yourself.
So we can dispense with notions about this being a self-serving Scripture passage, ‘All things are poss. with God
Secondly, what God is interested in, the prayers that God wants to answer will always suit and be conformed to His love.
This is one of the reasons that many of our prayers are answered generally in- line with how we pray them. But this is also the reason that prayers don’t get answered the way we wish for at times.
9 years ago my brother Craig was dying of cancer. He had cancer of the tongue that we thought had been dealt with years earlier by radiation therapy.
The cancer spread throughout his body, poking holes in his lungs and just metastasizing everywhere. I prayed and prayed that he might be healed.
I’d heard of others who had been healed by God of cancer. I’d witnessed healings and God had used me as a vessel to bring His healing to others.
I prayed with passion and I prayed for my brother’s healing, and I prayed that God’s will would be done.
Well, God answered my prayers for Craig’s healing, but not in the way I wanted.
Craig and I were both raised atheists.
When I became a Christian, Craig had become the spokesman for my family, trying to get me to understand that the gospel was false and trying to rescue me from what my unbelieving family thought was a terribly wrong path, the path of following Jesus.
To make a long story short, Craig investigated and researched and low and behold, he gave his life to Christ.
Then he lived as a Christian, as a transformed man, as a father and friend and discipler to many, with mountains of joy and purpose for 23 years.
And then God decided that it was time for Craig to experience complete and total healing, so God took him to be with him. Absent from the body and present with Christ.
God’s will is the expression of His love, and His love sometimes acts in ways we don’t understand.
But if we’re committed to Christ, if we are truly seeking His Kingdom, we will accept that His love leads Him to do things we don’t want Him to do.
A fundamental mark of spiritual maturity is understanding that ‘it’s not about you’, It’s about God.
May we grow in grace and understanding as we wrestle with this truth.
Mary, even at the tender young age she was, she understood this and submitted to the will of God, not in a fatalistic kind of way where we just think we’re powerless to do anything.
But in a willing way. In a malleable manner. With an appreciative attitude. Her response was: “I am the Lord’s servant. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”(v38).
She figured out, in that moment of stress, when the inconceivable was being asked of her - that she would bear God the Son - she figured out that her life’s purpose was to submit to and serve the living God.
Her life’s joy was to be found in being a vessel first for blessing God, and then for blessing other people.
Can we say that to God together: “Lord God, May Your Word to me be fulfilled” [repeat]
We can, by His grace, submit to God’s purposes and plans. We can do that when we understand ourselves to be agents of God - His agents of reconciliation. We are agents of God who are not about fulfilling our desires, but God’s desires.
And the funny thing is that in doing what God wants us to do, in seeking first His Kingdom, everything we need is added to us.
The absolute best way to get what we truly need is to be focussed on what God cares about and on doing what God wants us to do.
When we do that, we experience God’s absolute best for our lives, and this enables us, transforms us to be like Jesus.
To be like Jesus is to be our best selves, uncluttered by worry, by sin, by outside pressures. [Pause]
The third point is this: that all things are possible with God when they bring glory and honour to His name.
The name of Jesus is the name above all other names. “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.
If I want to bring glory and honour to my name...well there you’ve got a problem. Firstly, I’m a sinner saved by grace just like everyone here. Secondly, what’s the point? There is no benefit to doing that, in my name.
But...but if I want to bring glory and honour to the name of Jesus...there is no higher name. He is the sinless, spotless Saviour of the world.
Dr. S.M. Lockridge was the Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, San Diego CA from 1953 - 1993. He spoke of Jesus in a way I’ve never found an equal to. He said of Jesus Christ our Saviour:
“He’s enduringly strong,
He’s entirely sincere,
He’s eternally steadfast.
He’s immortally graceful.
He’s imperially powerful.
He’s impartially merciful.
He’s God’s Son.
“He’s a sinner’s savior.
He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented.
“He’s the loftiest idea in literature.
He’s the highest idea in philosophy. He’s the fundamental truth in theology.
“ He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried.
“He sympathizes and He saves.
He guards and He guides.
He heals the sick,
He cleans the lepers.
He forgives sinners,
He discharges debtors,
He delivers captives.
“He defends the feeble,
He blesses the young,
He serves the unfortunate,
He regards the aged,
He rewards the diligent,
He beautifies the meek.
Do you know Him?
“Well, my king is the king of knowledge,
He’s the well-spring of wisdom,
He’s the doorway of deliverance.
“He’s the pathway of peace,
He’s the roadway of righteousness, He’s the highway of holiness
He’s the gateway of glory.
“He’s the prince of princes,
He’s the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
“His life is matchless.
His goodness is limitless.
His mercy is everlasting.
His love never changes.
His word is enough.
His grace is sufficient.
His reign is righteous.
“His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
Well. I wish I could describe Him to you. But He’s indescribable. Yes.
“He’s incomprehensible.
He’s invincible,
He’s irresistible.
I’m trying to tell you, the Heavens cannot contain Him, let alone a man explain Him.
“You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hands. You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him.
“Well. The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him,
but they found out they couldn’t stop Him.
Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him.
Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him. That’s my king!” [Pause]
So may we abound in hope as we await the coming of the Christ our Risen King. May we trust in God for Whom all things are possible. This season in 2015, we await the day of birth of the Saviour of the world, which we celebrate on December 25.
In the bigger picture of Advent, we await the day when Jesus will return for a second time as He promised, in glory, to make all things right and to claim for Himself the redeemed of the Lord still alive at the time on this planet.
He loves us with an everlasting, perfect love. May we live lives of obedient love toward Him in return. Amen? Amen.
